Let's Collaborate!
Fancy a hand with your tales, manuscripts, blog copy, advertising and promotional text, SEO copywriting, business communications or life stories? You’ve come to the right place! I will ensure that your work reads exactly the way you want it to from voice to tone. Spellcheck can do wonders, but it can’t do that.
I will use my personal touch and skill to ensure that your content is flawless and ready for the next step in its journey.
Website Perfection
From customers to competitors, typo’s and grammatical errors can put people off. The last thing you want is someone leaving your website because it doesn’t have that professional flair. Make sure people focus solely on the product or service you offer.
Whatever your website (as long as it’s in the UK), I will appraise the words and send you the corrections. It’s that easy!
My Website Perfection service is offered to any small business; whether you are a plasterer, painter, poet or a pet groomer I can proofread your site and make sure that everything is perfect.
Oddball Community
Mary – she has never told anyone this – has often had abnormally vivid dreams of reading. She has never told anyone because it seems such a homely occupation for the dream-world, where traditionally one rides naked or flies from steeples; but these dreams delight and frustrate her. The pages she sleep-reads are spellbinding narratives in which she is partially inserted: she half spectates, half participates. And in the morning she cannot recall a word of them. Jude Morgan – PassionMy favourite times during my three years at Chichester University were with the Creative Writing students and tutors. We workshopped each other’s poems, stories and plays, improving the pieces with reactions and suggestions in a collaborative way. I’d like to create a similar space in my Tale Chasers group for writers, readers and anyone else interested in stories and words.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I choose you?
By now I hope you have realised that you could indeed do with having someone find all those mistakes, and that I will do a good job for you in a friendly and efficient way. If you have found me because I’m a friend of your friend, ask them if they think I’d be able to help.
Where do you work?
Currently I am only offering my services to the UK.
Do you just work in English?
Yes, I only edit work that is written in British English.
How long have you been editing?
Since primary school when I asked why my teacher had written ‘shalln’t’ on the board, as opposed to ‘shan’t’… She told me I was wrong and then the next morning she apologised!
I killed typo’s in my 1980s IT training and in every office job I’ve had. In the last couple of years I edited two novels and realised I could work with other writers’ words around continuing my own stories.
How long will it take you to proofread my work?
Every website, manuscript or document is different.
Will you fix the errors on my website?
No, I will find the errors, and send you a file listing what is wrong and how it should look. You or the person who built your website will have to actually change the text.
How is proofreading different to editing?
They overlap but for me proofreading makes something right and editing makes it better.
Proofreading is the last stage before publishing your website, or flyer, or novel. I see it as a final check for mistakes of any kind – I look for inconsistencies, incorrect word usage (they’re, their, there), typographical errors and anything else that ‘looks wrong’.
Editing involves my helping you to get your document to that last stage – I will suggest other amendments like rewording anything that ‘seems clunky’, reordering scenes, spotting examples of ‘continuity errors’.
What will you work on?
As Chasing Tales gets going I expect to be proofreading small business or group websites to gather reviews. I will also be hoping for unusual jobs like helping an octagenarian friend by editing his memoirs, or polishing a collection of family history tales. In the future I’ll be looking for book proposals from speculative fiction authors.
What won't you work on?
I wouldn’t edit STEM textbooks as the technical content is out of my comfort zone – for now, at least. Big publishers have their own teams anyway – I see myself working with individuals on smaller projects, perhaps new writers who don’t want to use a vanity publisher.
I reserve the right to turn down any proposal I consider to be hateful – I simply don’t want to spend time at my desk reading stuff that makes me miserable about humanity!
What are your rates?
My first hour will cost you £20 and subsequent hours will be charged at £15. These rates are fixed until 1st August 2023further notice.
Can you proofread my college or university work?
That depends on your college or university, and your course – get in touch and we can discuss it.
What sort of books are you going to publish?
My favourite question! In an ideal world the first books I publish will be a linked group of maybe 5 novels from 5 new authors – perhaps connecting through a shared universe, or a Steampunk sensibility, or just the presence of magic!
This, like most things will come clearer to me in time!
I hope my Tale Chasers group is going to explore that with me.
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Free Consultation
If you are interested in finding out how I can help then please contact me for a free, no obligation quote or an informal chat.