Editing

We have worked on fiction editing and non-fiction editing for more than 15 years focusing on both British English and American English. Our editing feedback aims to be honest but not hurtful. We act as guides, pointing you in the right direction to be a better, more accomplished writer before you publish. However, if your book is a first draft, we suggest you spend some time self-editing before you submit. We will not take on books that in we feel require a complete rewrite. That is not generally the role of an editor. For rewrites, we would charge writing fees.

Preferred genres
Fiction: When it comes to fiction, we prefer to edit books from genres we actually enjoy reading in order to offer expertise appropriate to the type of book and category of work our authors have written. This means that if you are looking for a fantasy or science fiction editor, Logogog is not a good fit for you. Our preference is for commercial fiction, with a focus on literary fiction, thrillers, mysteries, historical novels, YA and romance.

Non-fiction: We have edited across the board – from sociology, to psychology, to chemistry, to business, to self-help. We have many years’ experience in academic editing, including textbooks and theses.

Genres we don’t edit: We do not edit poetry, short stories, screenplays, or inspirational, religious or political themes. We generally prefer not to edit something we can’t stand behind or be proud of once it’s in print. So that would exclude any hate speech or documents that promote inhumane practices or cruelty to animals.

Experience
Our director, Paula Marias, has worked in-house at magazines and in various large publishers including Macmillan, Van Schaik, Pan Macmillan and others. Our fortes are attention to detail and meeting deadlines as well as creativity when it comes to word choice and “firing” up your writing. All our editors are passionate readers, so that does give us context for all our editing.

Services
We offer a range of editing services, including: developmental editing, copyediting and proofreading. In order to begin work, we require a 50 percent payment on agreement of the project. The balance is payable before we deliver the edits to you. We accept payments in either South African Rand or in US$ via PayPal. We edit, write and proof in British and American English

Our rates are expressed here as a guide only; they can vary depending on the nature of the work, the time frame of the assignment, the degree of special expertise required, and other factors. The industry standard for a manuscript page, however, is 250 words. Please email us to query our availability. We do prefer a bit of notice.

All work must be submitted in electronic format.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING (also called substantive editing or structural editing)

Your work, whether it be a novel, article, book, blog or thesis is as far as you can take it alone. Once we have discussed your goals and target audience, we will review your work and give you advice and a review on the following:

• How to develop your work
• Flow
• Big picture
• Advice on how to rework the project to deliver quality content
• Overall structure and how to organise the content
• How to fill in blanks and remove repetition
• Clarity
• Deep fact checking
• Advice on characterisation, setting or anything else that needs work
• Partial rewriting
• Substantive changes
• Comments on the value of the content
• Tone/voice
• We will not rewrite your work, here our job is to appraise your writing and structure and advise you on how to improve it.