My manuscript review service focuses primarily on middle grade and young adult novels. It starts with a “Let’s Get Acquainted” review of a manuscript for thirty dollars. I spend a half an hour reading an excerpt and making comments followed by a second half-hour in which I briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your project. If you think we’re a good fit, we discuss what you’re looking for via email. It can anything from a tight edit to a Skype discussion based on my notes, which I would send in advance. If your project contains horror or sexually explicit scenes, I am not the right person for you. I don’t read or write in those genres, so I don’t know the conventions.
While I have helped one author edit a couple of her independently published picture books, I feel that I have more to offer novelists. In fact, when I attended a retreat with award-winning picture book author Lisa Wheeler, this was how she opened our one-on-one: “You’re a novelist, aren’t you?” I told her that I was guilty as charged but wanted to attend the retreat with my friends and needed to submit something. But here’s the thing. If you want to tell your story in a certain way, I can help with punctuation, continuity, and logic.
Kristin Wolden Nitz 