Individual services

We can help you add polish to your written work, help you develop your ideas into full-length books, or help you evaluate your manuscript before you send it to a publisher or agent. The editorial staff of Ghostwords are all published writers (we have written fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, magazine articles, and essays) or experienced editors with real-world book or magazine experience. You can view samples of our work on our portfolio pages

A word about our rates: Our rates are based on submission of your work on disk, or as an email attachment, and assume that “one page” is two-hundred and fifty words. We are also happy to deal with paper, but be aware that in some cases this may raise the cost slightly.

   Mail us for submission instructions .

Caveat scriptor: We will do our best to make your work as good as it can be, but be aware that neither we, nor any other editorial service, can guarantee that your work will be published. We are not publishers and we are not literary agents.

Editorial services

a) Proofreading

If you are confident that your work is clear and well structured, that all it needs is a quick once-over by a professional editor to make sure that there are no errors of grammar or spelling, this is the level of editing you should choose.
Rate: $2 per page ($0.008 per word) $50 minimum

b) Copy editing

If you feel that you have included all the facts, and that your idea is good, but that your work may not be clearly presented, you should consider our copy editing service. In addition to editing for errors of spelling and grammar, we will bring your work up to professional levels of clarity, word choice, and sentence and paragraph structure.
Rate: $4 per page ($0.016 per word) $50 minimum

c) Substantive editing

Substantive editing is on the border between editing and ghostwriting, and involves major creative input from us. We won’t change your basic idea but we will do everything else required to make sure that that idea is clearly presented. This may involve a major reorganization of your work, but will stop short of a complete rewrite.
Rate: Varies with the complexity of the project. Work will be done on a quotation basis. ($50 minimum)

Ghostwriting

If you have an idea for a book – fiction or nonfiction (including technical material) – and want it published under your name, but are unable to write it fully yourself, Ghostwords is waiting to help you.

The extent of our contribution will vary from project to project. You may already have written most, or even all, of your book, in which case our job will consist mostly of rewriting. On the other hand, you may have just an outline or even just an idea, in which case our involvement will be much greater.

Not all ideas make good stories, and not all stories are salable. If we feel that publication is unlikely no matter how much we do, we will tell you so before we start.
Rate: By quotation

Manuscript evaluation

We’ve been through the mill with publishers and agents ourselves, and we can save you considerable time and grief by evaluating your story before you begin the process of looking for a publisher or agent. We will suggest ways of strengthening your work, and increasing its impact, and provide you with a detailed summary of our suggestions concerning plot, characterization, style, and structure.
Rate: $2 per page for the first 25 pages, $1 per page thereafter ($50 minimum)