Bookaholic Editor
Over one million words exist in the Oxford English Dictionary. Of these, some 200,000 are used by English speakers, with 20,000 the most commonly used. Nowadays, a vocabulary of 10,000 words is closer to the average. It can be no surprise then that I stand in awe of authors: their ability to take a cluster of words, coax, tease and massage them to create their novels is magic. Moreover, it is pure alchemy.
I love editing and I will do everything possible to help you to make it the best it can be. Books enrich readers and open doors. They change lives, alter perceptions, entertain, inform, demolish barriers, illuminate and transport the reader to new worlds.
My experience includes journalism (trade journals, company journals and ghosting articles for in-house magazines), PR, editing and proofreading for indie authors and traditional publishers, in a variety of genres. https://www.bookaholiceditor.com/portfolio/
My rates are reasonable – I have no desire to fleece anyone. I provide a comprehensive and conscientious service for both American and British English at a fixed rate for a complete edit, including proofreading, with no hidden extras.
Services
Complete Editing
Proofreading
Testimonials
Jayne! Happy to report that The Unseen is the Winner of the NYC Big Book Award for 2020 in the Crime Fiction category, yay!
You can click this link and scroll to see my book listed:
2020 WINNERS:
https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2020winners
Thank you for your careful editing support of this book, I couldn’t have done this without your expertise, patience, kindness, and care. Many blessings and with gratitude. – Lisa Towles (USA)
“I wish to thank … … … and Jayne Southern, my editor, who forced me to really look at how I write.” – Moro, author of Record. (Italy)
“… Jayne Southern mixed the attention to detail of an excellent editor with the sense of humour of a mensch to take the manuscript to another level. …” – Barbara Schreiner, author of The Travels & Travails of Stella Bellamy. (South Africa and Germany)
“Jayne Southern, or as I like to call her, ‘My Brilliant Editor,’ is as fine an editor as I’ve worked with, and I have eight published novels. Writers are the creative force behind a novel, but a good editor is the one who shapes the novel into a quality piece of coherent reading. The work Jayne did on my novel “shaped” the story into the best writing I’ve ever produced.”– DJ Swykert, author of The Pool Boy’s Beatitude (USA)
“Recently I had the great pleasure of working on a book on the wildlife of South Africa’s Bushveld region … is an all-encompassing reference material for the nature and history of one of South Africa’s most diverse biomes, the Savannah. The editing of such a tome is surely a momentous task and certainly not one to be envied with Latin names, scientific detail, historical anecdotes and more than 700 pages. Enter Jayne Southern. This amazing lady, with the patience of a saint, managed to translate my knowledge and poor English into an excellent read, which flows in a way I did not think would be possible. … (Jayne’s subtly inserted jokes, in bright green, were often so good that I felt guilty erasing them, but they certainly motivated me to carry on!) ….” – Lee Gutteridge, author. (South Africa)