Hey there – I’m writing this as a brief introduction to the Book Butchers community, so you can get a feel for what we’re all about. After being an independent editor for a few years while getting my PhD, I began to focus on publishing fiction and nonfiction; which led to a deep-dive on the craft of writing books. No longer editing myself, I set up this website to pair the best editors with authors who really need quality service.
Too many editing companies only offer a clean and polish, and don’t have the expertise or experience with plotting structure, story momentum, character description and worldbuilding, suspense and intrigue, and all of the other critical things that separates a great book from a clean book.
Since I’ve built up a sizeable platform and some influence in the self-publishing space, I’m able to drive quite a bit of traffic to this service. The only problem has been, my high expectations: unlike most other editing services, we offer 100% refunds if clients aren’t happy with the level of service. It’s my name and brand on the line, so if clients hire Book Butchers and later find typos, I’ll usually refund them AND edit it myself for free.
Obviously, this should never happen. But it does sometimes, because it’s extremely hard to vet qualified editors, until something goes wrong. We don’t *yet* have a system for double-checking your work or looking over your shoulder, though we may implement a final proofread later. Mostly, we trust you to do amazing work, which means:
- 99% free of typos: at least one manual edit and a final self-check with Grammarly (nobody’s perfect; just to make sure you catch everything. You can use the free version, which has the “correctness” panel – that’s all you’ll need).
- Tons of feedback and comments, with useful suggestions on their writing style, story and organization.
Although of course you’ll have your own experience, process and style, we also hope you’ll go through our free resources on fiction and nonfiction (even professional editors and authors rarely have a grasp on the very deep craft-work of compelling writing, and we aim to be the best). So please humor use so you’ll know what kind of things to look for, critique, comment on and suggest. This helps our brand maintain its unique edge – and should also make you a much better editor.
We feel we charge and pay reasonable rates. Unlike other companies, we aim to stay small, so there’s not much for overhead and advertising. This gives us a very casual, boutique feel. We’ll be on your side and protect you, but our duty is to our clients. If a client is unhappy, we’ll review the documents and decide on the best resolution possible for everyone. In case of refunds, we will usually eat the cost, but this may lead to a removal from our team. We need to be able to trust our editors 100% to provide amazing service.
If all that sounds good and you’re still interested, please download our welcome guide.
PS. We know there’s a difference between proofreaders and developmental editors, and that not everyone is suited for every task. But since we’ll usually count on an editor to wear many hats, we’ll support them with learning materials and suggest they use Grammarly to self-check.
That said – we prioritize function over form. You may have noticed that our website isn’t perfect. We’re a little fluid with our punctuation and grammar. “Perfect” to us means compelling and captivating. And while there should be no obvious mistakes or typos, we also know the story or content is a book’s main value. That’s why we don’t use a default style guide. Writing can be messy. The point is to make sure the messiness is intentional, consistent, and makes an effective point.