Please read this information carefully before contacting me. On this page, I explain the most important points of my terms and conditions.
This notice is effective as of July 26th, 2024.
Regarding Conflict of Interest
In offering consulting services, it is very important to me to avoid conflict of interest at all costs. For that reason, I have to set up parameters for how I choose my freelance clients. When a writer contacts me for consulting, I will first have to decide whether they would most benefit from an agent’s services or from editorial guidance. If your project is polished and professional enough to be a candidate for publication, I will not offer you consulting services and I will not take your money. I will instead recommend you begin your search for an agent or publisher. I cannot guarantee you will find representation as a result of this advice, nor will I contact agencies or publishers on your behalf. The latter is true for all of my services. You will hopefully have an agent relationship for the rest of your working life, I do not belong in that equation. The agent research process is very important work which you must do yourself.
If I find that you would benefit from consulting or editorial guidance, I will be happy to review a sample of your writing and discuss your needs.
Agreeing to Work Together
Once you submit your inquiry and your maximum 10 page sample, we will discuss your needs, my fee, and a proposed turnaround time. Provided we come to an agreement, I will offer you my standard Client Contract. The contract will be fully customized insofar as the scope of your project. It will also contain standard language about intellectual property, confidentiality, warranties and indemnities, etc. that pertains to all of my projects. Please note that by contacting me via the form on this website, you agree to accept the standard language of the Client Contract as-is. There will be no changes accommodated or accepted. I will need to receive the signature electronically via email, or whatever method we discuss, as well as a deposit of $600 or half of the quote I will provide, whichever is largest. The remaining portion of the fee, if applicable, is due upon receipt of the edit or consultation. Please see more about payment, below.
Editorial Services
All services are editorial in nature. This means that I will provide feedback to the best of my knowledge, experience, and ability about what revisions will make your manuscript stronger, better, and more competitive in the market. Once you receive feedback, the revision is up to you. Revision, rewriting, ghostwriting, or co-writing services are not included in any package and should not be expected. In some of my services I may propose sentence rewrites, punctuation changes, and other recommendations via tracked changes. It will be up to you to accept, modify, or reject these recommendations as they align with your vision for your project. At no point in the process will I step in and write or rewrite sentences or passages as you, except to demonstrate examples of how I may rephrase something. You will receive a manuscript with feedback, notes, and in some cases, tracked changes, but your revision efforts will still be required to make the most of the service.
Consultation Services
All consultation services will occur virtually over Microsoft Teams or Zoom and will last an agreed upon period of time. These consultation sessions can take a lecture-based style with a presentation or a discussion-based style which will assume you desire more collaboration. During these consultation sessions, I provide feedback and advice to the best of my knowledge, experience, and ability about what revisions will make your manuscript or your writing skills stronger, better, and more competitive in the market. Once our consultation has ended, the application of my advice and recommendations are up to you. It will be your responsibility to ensure all your questions and concerned are addressed to your satisfaction during the consultation. Follow-up will not be offered and additional meetings will come with an additional cost.
Submission and Project Return Instructions
Once we agree to work together, all submissions must be formatted with standard 1″ margins, double-spaced, with 12-point Times New Roman (or similar) font, and sent as Word .doc or .docx attachments. This does not include your initial submission to me–that can be copied and pasted into an email message or submitted via the contact form as a doc., docx., or PDF. If you do not know about formatting standards, there are many websites that can help. Submission will only be accepted via email or following my submission instructions into a Google Drive folder. If you are unable or unwilling to follow submission instructions, I am not responsible for any resulting delays to your project deadline.
Please assume that I will begin work as soon as you submit your materials. Resubmissions are accepted in select packages of up to 10% of your original submission. I will inform you if your chosen service makes you eligible for resubmission.
For all consulting and editorial work, feedback is done electronically. Notes are provided in a Word document, and line edits use Word’s Track Changes function. Please make sure you can transmit and receive files electronically and are capable of reading Track Changes comments in Microsoft Word or an equivalent program. I am happy to transmit the document as a PDF, which will show the margin notes if you are really having trouble. I’m afraid that I cannot help you with technical troubleshooting beyond this. Any issue that prevents you from transmitting manuscripts or receiving feedback is your responsibility to resolve.
If you would prefer to receive a printed version of your feedback, I can print and mail the document to you. You will be responsible for all applicable charges, including printing and shipping costs.
Your feedback will be returned via email or a Google Drive download link. This is not meant to be cloud storage for your files. You are responsible for downloading the files or transferring them to your own internal storage or cloud service immediately. You will have seven (7) days to download your files starting when I send the confirmation email that I have finished with your manuscript. After this seven day period, your files will be deleted. Your failure to retrieve your files will not be considered a delay or unreasonable withholding on my part, since I have made good-faith efforts to return your files.
Follow-Up and Revisions
A follow-up meeting to discuss my feedback and recommendations is included in most services. In the email I send to confirm your feedback is ready for you, I will inform you of the length of the meeting you’re entitled to, and offer options for scheduling your meeting. Email questions about the feedback and related topics are welcome at no additional charge, and included with every service except my consultations. The email exchange will continue until you are satisfied.
You are welcome to submit revisions of your work after you’ve applied my feedback. A follow-up submission of up to 20 pages or 10% of your original submission (whichever is more) is included in the cost of your package. Should you wish to resubmit more than 10% or wish to resubmit your manuscript in its entirety, I treat these as a separate editing project and invest time in doing another round of notes. As such, I charge three quarters of the original fee for the first revision read (or 25% off). If we originally contracted for a Full Manuscript Edit at a cost of $1,200, I will read the manuscript again and provide the same service for $900, for example. If you want me to read the project a third time, or beyond, the price remains the same. There are several exceptions: consultations and manuscript outlines. Consultation prices and outline workshop prices are not discounted for subsequent meetings, because the time investment on my part for these services remains the same.
I always enjoy seeing how projects evolve over time, but this is an optional service and you are under no obligation to rehire me after the original scope of our work is completed. I try to be fair and transparent in all of my dealings, and so I do not want the revision fee to come as a surprise. It is never my intention to nickel and dime my valuable clients.
Scheduling
Please note that travel or other activities can impact my schedule. Appointments for consulting and editorial work are booked weeks or months in advance, and you may be scheduled months ahead of the actual work. Sometimes rush reads are available at a 50% fee premium if you need turnaround within two weeks, or a 25% premium for turnaround within four weeks. Please let me know if you have any time constraints. Once we agree to work together, I will provide you with an accurate deadline. You are welcome to hire me months or years in advance, if you know about your writing goals ahead of time. All I need is an agreement and deposit in place, and then I will offer you priority placement on my calendar, whenever you want it.
Guarantee
Please note that I cannot guarantee that you will achieve publication or literary representation as a result of my services. As with any creative endeavor, there are factors that are simply out of my control. I do, however, believe that your writing will emerge stronger as a result of our work together, and I hope that you will gain a new understanding of the craft.
Payment Policy
For all services rendered, if your quote is $600 or less, I will require the full payment in advance. If your quote is more than $600, I will require a deposit of $600 or 50% of your quote, whichever is higher. I will need to receive payment or deposit before we begin our consulting or editorial relationship and the balance (if applicable) upon completion of the project. All prices quoted are in Canadian dollars. I accept e-transfer, bank wires, or PayPal. If the project submitted takes more or less time than discussed and codified in the Client Contract, your balance payment will be adjusted accordingly, and a refund will be issued, or an additional invoice will be necessary. The balance of the editing fee (if applicable) is due upon receipt of the service. This policy is non-negotiable.
Refunds
Due to the time-intensive and deeply personal nature of my services, I cannot offer refunds after I begin work on your project. The only exception is if I have not yet started the consultation, reading, or editing process. Under those circumstances only, I will happily refund your deposit via your original payment method within one week of receiving your written request. Otherwise, no refunds are offered under any circumstances. If you elect not to pay the second half of the editing fee after the feedback has been submitted, I will pursue official channels to recover payment up to and including legal action. This policy is non-negotiable.
Testimonials
After the conclusion of our work together, I may solicit a testimonial from you about my services. You are under no obligation to provide one. If you do, I reserve the right to edit it for clarity and length (without changing your meaning), publish it, and attribute your name first name and last initial on this website and in other marketing materials.
Privacy Notice
Your work is safe with me. Authors must mail out their work to agents, editors, newspapers and magazines in order to be published, and this is no different. Your personal information, like your e-mail address, name and other contact information you exchange with me over the course of our relationship is also safe. I will NEVER sell, trade, rent or otherwise abuse your personal information in any way. I reserve the right to send promotional emails or mailings to existing clients on rare occasions (once or twice a year). Please notify me via the “unsubscribe” link in any of my emails if you would like to remove your information from my marketing efforts.
If you are worried about copyright infringement or theft of your ideas, perhaps working with an independent editor or consultant is not right for you at this time. I can only assure you that I will never share, expose, disclose or otherwise use–in any fashion, public or private–any of the materials that you send to me without your written permission. The most successful relationships are built on trust and I require yours if we are to work together successfully.
Right to Refuse Service
I reserve the right to politely decline the chance to work on a manuscript if I don’t feel it is a good fit for me. This is a decision that I will make before engaging in a consulting or editorial relationship with you.