How Much Will Your Editing Cost with Midnight Publishing?

One of the most important aspects when it comes to selecting your editor is to take into account the costs associated with the process. As a self-published author (or even an author working with a hybrid publishing house where a fee is paid upfront for the house’s services), the process of a book’s publication works “backwards” in a sense: you spend money in the beginning for editing, cover design, formatting and marketing, while retaining the rights to your book indefinitely and thus receiving full royalties for as long as the book is being sold.

(Side note for those unfamiliar or needing a refresher on the traditional publishing process: With a traditional contract, the rights to the book are sold to the publishing house, and the author receives what’s called an “advance.” It can vary in amount from a couple thousand dollars for a debut author to several million dollars for a bestselling author. The author does not pay for anything—not their cover, their editing, their marketing, etc. However, reports have been made by several highly successful traditionally published authors that they did invest personal funds in their own marketing campaigns. So it’s not necessarily an all-or-nothing strategy—self-published authors might invest more at first and reap the benefits consistently for much longer, whereas traditionally published authors might receive their one advance, not make any further royalties if their book doesn’t do exceedingly well, and may even consider investing additional money themselves for the marketing campaign. There are pros and cons to both sides, certainly, and studies have shown that the authors regularly making the most in their writing careers are hybrids: they have self-published titles and traditional titles.)

Now that we’ve provided a bit of the rundown regarding the differences in self-publishing versus traditional publishing when it comes to money spent and profits earned, let’s explore how and why Midnight Publishing might be the right editing service for you. We are a staff of award-winning writing and editing professionals who boast clients from all over our home state of Arizona as well as around the world. (Find some of our clients’ testimonials here!) We provide a wide range of editing services for our clients, and have worked with top self-published and traditionally published authors in Phoenix since our inception nearly a decade ago. Here are the three tiers of editing we provide at Midnight Publishing:

1. Proofreading

This is going to be a basic cleanup of grammatical errors, limited reformulating of clunky sentence structure, and following a strict style guide for publication to end with a publish-ready (or query ready if you’re sending to agents/publishers!) manuscript. Midnight Publishing’s fees begin at $0.025 a word; thus a 50,000-word manuscript would begin around $1,250.00 USD altogether.

2. Hybrid Copy Editing

This option is our most popular. It is a combination of copy editing (a higher level of proofreading that corrects spelling, grammar, syntax, tense change consistency) as well as highlighting any plot holes and/or inconsistencies in the storyline. Story flow is examined, and suggestions are made for strengthening the storyline, characters, world building, etc. if needed. Begins at $0.040 a word; thus a 50,000-word manuscript would begin around $2,000.00 USD altogether.

3. Comprehensive Developmental Editing

This option is for our clients who need significant rewriting and or analysis of the manuscript’s overall readability and storyline. With this level of editing, we address such questions as: Is the manuscript coherent? Who is the author’s audience? Are the ideas presented clearly? Does the material in Chapter 5 connect with what came before or after? We examine and identify plot holes, tropes to be revised, flatness in characters and/or lack of development, and provide a detailed analysis of the manuscript through track changes as well as in a separate summary regarding suggestions to strengthen the manuscript’s plot, characters, structure, etc. Begins at $0.050 a word; thus a 50,000-word manuscript would begin around $2,500.00 USD altogether.

For more information on the services we provide and pricing structure, visit Midnight Publishing’s editorial pricing page. And as always, we’re always available to discuss your project and provide a free editing sample of your first 1,000 words today! Just contact us through our email or by phone and we’ll get back to you shortly. Midnight Publishing: trusted with over five million words and counting.