Safe Counseling & Coaching
| Role | Manuscript Editor |
| Type | Freelance |
| Period | Jul 2015 – Jun 2017 |
Background
A friend of a friend was writing a Christian counseling book. He knew the subject cold but needed someone to make the manuscript readable. I got the call.
It started as copy editing. Grammar, punctuation, consistency--the baseline stuff. It didn't stay there. Chapters would come in and I'd find myself flagging structural problems: a section that circled the same point twice, paragraphs in the wrong order, passages that made sense to the author but wouldn't survive a stranger reading them for the first time. He took the feedback well, so the role quietly expanded. By month three I was doing developmental work--reorganizing chapters, cutting redundancies, pushing back on sections that needed rewriting rather than editing. Nine months of that, chapter by chapter, revision after revision. Not glamorous. But the manuscript that came out the other end was a real book.
Published in 2016. Sold more than 300 copies in the first year. For a self-published niche counseling manual, that's a number the author can point to. He ended up speaking at conferences and handing copies to colleagues, which is the kind of traction you don't get from a manuscript that just got a spell-check pass.
What I Did
- Performed comprehensive copy editing on a full-length counseling manuscript, correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling, and stylistic inconsistencies across all chapters.
- Provided content editing feedback on each chapter as it was drafted, identifying structural weaknesses, unclear passages, and redundant sections.
- Recommended and implemented chapter reorganization, reordering paragraphs and pages to improve logical flow and reader comprehension.
- Managed a chapter-by-chapter editing workflow over 9 months, tracking revisions and maintaining consistency across drafts as the manuscript evolved.
- Coordinated directly with the author on revision cycles, balancing editorial suggestions with the author's voice and subject-matter expertise.
- Ensured consistent terminology, tone, and formatting throughout the manuscript to meet publishing-ready standards.
- Contributed to a published work that sold 300+ copies in its first year of release.
Key Skills
Editing · Copyediting · Proofreading · Collaboration · Managing Deadlines · Microsoft Word · Task Management · Style Guides · Content Management · Manuscript Editing · Content Editing · Developmental Editing · Self-Publishing