editorial services
‘A good editor can mean the difference between your manuscript finding a publisher, or being relegated to the top shelf of your wardrobe. Darren Nash is one of the best.’
Glenda Larke, Ditmar and Aurealis Award-winning author
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you have just finished typing ‘THE END’ on your manuscript and the ink is not yet dry, now is not the time to send it to an editor. You should put the manuscript away for a while, forget about it for a week or two, and then return to it with fresh eyes, prepared to rewrite, restructure, move around and even entirely abandon significant portions of your work. This is normal, and most writers won’t need an editor to tell them how to do this; after even a week away from your manuscript, some issues will become obvious.
You should also make sure you’ve gone over the manuscript for blatant clichés, plot holes, inconsistencies, logical errors, etc. This is your hard-earned money you’re spending and you don’t want to be giving it to me just so I can tell you that Steve was a forty-year-old blond astronaut on page 17, but a twenty-three-year-old red-haired space marine on page 38.
Once you’ve gone as far as you can go with your own revisions, and you’re satisfied that it’s as good as you can make it without outside help, it’s time to get an experienced editorial eye on your manuscript.
I offer a variety of editorial services to help improve the quality of your work, specialising in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime & Thrillers and Humour. These services include:
Developmental edit
Structural & line editing
Manuscript report
Ideas Sounding Board
Please note: if you are submitting to a publisher or agent, my services are not guaranteed to secure you a deal. Commissioning editors acquire books, and agents take on authors, based on a wide variety of criteria, including – but not limited to – personal taste, balance of list, quality of writing, quality of storytelling and demands of the marketplace. I can’t help you anticipate these criteria and I can’t guarantee that your book will be taken on. What I can do is to work with you to get your manuscript in the best shape possible for submission and help you avoid the common mistakes that cause editors and agents to turn down the lion’s share of submissions.
a note on rates
Since every manuscript is different, every editorial job is unique; as a consequence, I do not have an ‘off-the-shelf’ rate. The scope of the task depends upon a number of factors including word count, type of edit, complexity of structure, likely time frame and your goal in engaging an editor.
For this reason I prefer to assess each job individually in order to determine an appropriate cost. The exception to this is the Sounding Board service.
N.B. All fees are quoted in and payable in Australian dollars.