My Resources & Referral Recommendations

What if I don’t have what you’re looking for? Check out the following:

• Not ready for line or copy edits yet but looking to talk out next steps with your work in progress or for other author help?

  Consider Author Coaching with Laura Johnson—coming soon.

• I get it; editing services aren’t cheap. Here’s a great resource:

  Check out the Beta Reader Course with Laura Johnson. She discusses how to get the most out of those betas and minimize editing costs as you draft and revise your novel.

• Need an editor with different rates, availability, editing bundles, or who offers developmental, proofreading and other types of edits I don’t?

  Consider one of these experienced editors:

  —> Stephany Araujo at Rim Productions Editing: https://www.rim.productions/editing

  —> Meghan Kleinschmidt at Literary Pearl Editing: https://literarypearlediting.com/

Self-Editing Resource

Want to get better at editing your own work?

Download Cleaning Up Your Novel (coming soon), a self-editing resource I’ve developed for free. This pdf contains my favorite tips and tricks for self-editing a novel. Self-editing is a powerful skill whether you need to do more of your own editing to save money or whether you want to clean up your novel more before handing it over to an editor or submitting it with a query.

Some may question, well, isn’t that an editor’s job? To edit for me? The simple answer is yes, but we also only to a point. An editor can only edit what we’ve been given; we do not write your book for you. The quality of manuscript an editor receives determines the level an editor can elevate it to. So you can receive a higher quality edit from a professional editor if you’ve spent some time already cleaning up the basics.

An analogy I present in the pdf to clarify this elevated editing phenomenon is to think of your manuscript like a messy room. If you hired a cleaner for a set number of hours, that cleaner would spend a chunk of the time picking up and trying to put things in order so that she can clean. However, the cleaner would have to do some guesswork on where and how you want things. The cleaner knows these things are out of place and need to be taken care of in order to have a presentable room, but there are some things she might not be able to do since she’s not the owner of the room. She will do her best and then get to the cleaning, but she may only be able to do a surface clean based on clutter and time constraints.

Now, let’s say you hire a cleaner for a room that you’ve already largely picked up and organized. The cleaner can fully see the vision of the room, understand where and how everything should fit and will be able to catch things out of place more easily. Additionally, that cleaner is going to be able to do a much better clean up job because she’s able to clean more efficiently and even deep clean. That room’s finished look is going to sparkle. Similarly, authors who figure out how to do some self-editing and improve their skills in that area can hand over a clearer, less cluttered manuscript to an editor who can polish your prose, truly making it sparkle.

So, I highly recommend you learn the art of self-editing, and I hope this resource serves as a great and practical starting point for you! If you’d like to remain in the loop regarding editing offerings and writing tips, please join my newsletter list!