EDITORIAL SERVICES

Editorial Services are the processes and procedures that a book goes through to become a polished and honed manuscript. There is no substitute for proofreading and editing, and unfortunately when an author proofs and edits his or her own book, typos and other editorial problems will still slip through. Even the best-selling authors of all time ALL had an editor review their work. If you put out a piece of unedited writing, will you expect your readers to respond well or even take your book seriously?

Dog Ear Publishing's Editorial Services are designed to help our authors' books become the best possible product they can be and communicate in the best possible way to the reader. All of our Editors are part of the Dog Ear team - and every one of them is a professional that works on "traditional" publishers' books. Publishers like McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Harper Collins, and Wiley all come to our Editors for editing.

Pre-Publishing Services:

Literary Critique - $250 Flat Fee

One of our Senior Editors reviews your manuscript. You receive feedback that enables you to update your work. You gain the confidence that your book rises to the quality standard of traditionally published works. This Editor builds an outline that analyzes your writing skills in several ways. Any criticism given is constructive. Our objective is the same as yours: Create the best possible manuscript.

Our Editor provides recommendations that tell you how much editing your manuscript requires. Does it need the attention of a proofreader, copyeditor or development editor? You may choose additional services which, when utilized, mark your work as truly professional.

The Editor feedback you receive from us is designed for inclusion in your manuscript. The suggested changes can help make you a better writer. Remember, Editors’ recommendations are based on Editors’ opinions and expertise. You may use or ignore what they tell you. We believe that every author’s work should reflect author ideas and decisions, not the decisions of our Editors. Control of content is yours. At Dog Ear Publishing, you, the author, always get the last word!

Standard Services

Dog Ear Publishing has for many years provided editorial services to most of the “traditional” publishing houses. There are certain “standard” editorial processes each and every book receives when we do this work for a publisher. These processes include proofreading, copyediting, and/or development editing. Copyediting is the single most important service because it makes or breaks every book’s editorial success.

Proofreader - This service provides a “nuts and bolts” check of your grammar. It is done by an experienced editor who corrects basic errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax as he or she works through your entire manuscript.

Service Timeline: 2-3 weeks
Cost: $0.015/word

Copy Editor - Proofreading is good. It catches basic mistakes. Most manuscripts, however, benefit from a Copy Editor who spends time on structure, flow and consistency. Our Editors work through manuscripts from start to finish, often reading each work in its entirety two or three times. They look for all of the items a Proofreading Editor seeks, but also address sentence structure, outline, word choice, flow, tense and consistency. Our Editors add queries and suggest basic structural changes. The objective is to improve readability. This is our most often-used editorial service.

Service Timeline: 2-3 weeks
Cost: $0.02/word

Literary Editor - Also known as a Production Editor, this service includes all of the tasks performed by the Copyeditor, but adds a VERY in-depth analysis of your storyline, character development, focus, and overall structure. If yours is a business or technical book, this Editor focuses on how well you have communicated your topic and the depth to which you have addressed issues and provided solutions. In a work of fiction or a non-fiction narrative, this Editor works on character development and consistency, stylistic methodologies, and storyline progression. “Traditional” publishers consider this service the most critical to produce an anticipated “best seller.”

Service Timeline: 2-3 weeks
Cost: $0.022/word

Premium Editorial Services

Development Editor - The Outline is where this edit most often begins. It progresses to a review of the developing work at all levels: Paragraph, chapter, and complete manuscript. Our service begins with a thorough review of the genre, target market, and specific topic. Development Editors have been called “writing coaches.” During the early phase of creating the manuscript, this Editor reviews changes with the Author and makes initial updates directly in the manuscript. The Author does a more thorough job of updating but frequent reviews by the Development Editor are ongoing.

The primary goal of this Editor is to ensure the needs of prospective readers are fully met. This requires an overview of complete content, organization of material, presentation of core concepts, and the development of supplemental content such as lists, charts, art, and other non-text elements.

Service Timeline: 4-6 weeks
Cost: $0.04/word

Ghostwriter - Quite often, authors have an idea, but find it difficult to produce complete content - biographies are often done by a ghostwriter. We provide a writer who helps an author fully develop his or her ideas and provides the "wordsmithing" required to get them on paper. Our writer takes your outline, combines it with extensive interview time, and produce a fully-developed First Draft manuscript. The First Draft is then provided to the author for review. This service also includes a Copyedit. This is a highly customized service for which cost and timeline must be calculated on an individual basis.

Service Timeline: Estimated upon consultation.
Cost: Estimated upon consultation - An initial Writing Sample is available for $199 (applied toward cost if purchased).

Post Production Services

This suite of services is typically performed by traditional publishers on the final "printer ready proofs":

Post Production Proofreader - After your text has been composed into book form, it needs to be thoroughly reviewed. No book’s design or layout are ever 100 percent perfect. A look at ANY traditionally-published book is proof of that. Traditional publishers try to get as close to perfect as possible, though. They have a “second set of eyes” review content once the manuscript is in book form. Our proofreader scours composed pages, looking for any editorial mistakes, bad line breaks, mis-formatted text, and incorrect design elements. Anything that makes your book less readable is sought and eliminated.

NOTE: A Proofread, Copyedit, Literary Edit, or Development Edit must have been applied to your book before we can perform this service.

Service Timeline: 1-2 weeks post-production
Cost: $0.009/word

Indexer - All non-fiction books benefit from an index. We create a full index of your book based on the topics contained in your text. Readers experience the true value of a book with a good index to help guide them.

Service Timeline: 2 weeks post production
Cost: $0.015/word

Book Cover Copywriting - Your book’s cover is its most important sales tool! It will either grab potential buyers… or, it won't. The words written on your book’s cover are the key to closing a sale. The text must be crystal clear. It must build a case for a reader to choose your book over another. It must deliver compelling reasons to open the book and read it. Our marketing experts provide complete development and writing services for your back cover copy, your author biography, and extended versions of both for our Web site.

Service Timeline: 2 weeks post-production
Cost: $99

To learn more about having Dog Ear Publishing as your self publishing company, visit our homepage - or call 1-866-823-9613.