A developmental edit is a high-level review of a manuscript's big-picture elements. It focuses on making the story fundamentally strong, and happens early in the editing process—before line or copyediting (grammar/style) and proofreading (final errors). 

Benefits:

• Ensures the foundation of the story is solid, tackling structure, logical consistency, believability, character development, saving time and effort in later, more detailed editing stages.

• Transforms a rough draft into a polished, publishable manuscript by strengthening its fundamental components. 

• Provides overall feedback to help authors shape their work.

Investment: $0.05/word

Line editing is a deep, sentence-level refinement of writing, and differs from broader developmental edits (plot and structure) or basic copyediting (grammar/spelling).

Benefits:

• Provides a detailed, line-by-line review of word choice, sentence structure, pacing, and voice to tighten wordiness, enhancing emotional resonance, and ensuring smooth transitions—making the writing stronger and more engaging for the reader. 

• Highlights areas where the writing can be stronger, helping authors become more aware of their writing habits and improve their craft.

• Eliminates Narrative Issues: Identifies and fixes errors in point of view, tense consistency, and "filtering" words that distance the reader from the action.

• Enhances Clarity and Readability: Addresses clunky sentence structures, vague descriptions, trims filler words, and redundant phrases to create a more concise and professional final product.  

Investment: $0.04/word

Copyediting focuses on (The "4 Cs") Correctness, Clarity, Consistency, Coherence/Flow, plus fact-checking, and ensures adherence to a specific style guide (like AP, Chicago, or a custom style guide made for your style of writing influenced by a region, culture, group, or industry-specific). Prepares the manuscript for the final step—formatting and proofreading.

Benefits:

• Builds Credibility and Ensures Professionalism: Professional, error-free writing signals competence and trustworthiness, enhancing brand integrity and the impact of your message. It aligns content with brand voice, core values, or industry standards.

• Factual Accuracy: It fact-checks names, dates, statistics, and claims for accuracy.

• Prevents Misunderstandings and Errors: Corrects spelling, punctuation, and grammar, clarifies ambiguous phrasing and word choices, catches inconsistencies, and logical gaps.

Investment: $0.03/word

Proofreading is the final check for errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, plus consistency in formatting to polish a document for publication, focusing on minor mistakes that distract readers.

Benefits:

• Improves Clarity & Readability: Eliminates typos, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies, ensuring your message is understood with ease.

• Ensures Consistency: Checks formatting issues: capitalization, fonts, spacing, headings, citations, and adherence to style guides, producing a uniform and professional look.

• Higher Acceptance Rates: Publishers and agents prefer polished work, making an edited manuscript more likely to pass initial screenings. With high volumes of submissions, a professionally edited manuscript stands out, while unedited or poorly edited work is often rejected immediately.

• Saves Time & Money: Catches mistakes early, preventing time-consuming and costly fixes after print, distribution, or publication.

Investment: $0.03/word

A manuscript assessment/critique offers a detailed Summary Report (Editorial Letter), providing overall feedback on the reading experience, strengths, and opportunities for improvement around plot holes, character arcs, story structure, pacing, theme, point of view (POV), dialogue, world-building, readability, and gives broad suggestions for revision. Perfect for writers who want guidance, not editing.

Benefits:

• Objective Perspective: Provides an unbiased, professional review of your work instead of relying on potentially skewed opinions from friends/family.

• Saves Time & Money: Fixes foundational issues before you spend on copyediting, preventing costly rewrites later. A more affordable way to get professional guidance compared to a full developmental edit, acting as a "taste" of editing.

• Increases Publication Odds: A stronger, clearer story is more attractive to agents and publishers.

• Clarifies Next Steps: Gives authors a roadmap for revisions, reducing uncertainty about what to do next. 

Investment: $0.02/word