Prepare Your Book For Submission To Agents Within 21 Days

You only get one chance when submitting to an agent. Why risk screwing it all up with an error ridden book and an unprofessional book proposal? After all, knowing exactly what an agent is looking for is a skill most people lack.

Our editors will identify and correct any problems within your book - we will also help you to prepare a professional book proposal - leaving you in control to submit with confidence. All for £7/1000 words.

Submit Your Book Today

  • In-depth and detailed copy edit (line edit) that will allow you to produce an error free manuscript.
  • £7/1000 words with a 21 day promise.
  • A multi-page copy editor’s report which will teach you how to produce a book of publishable quality.
  • Free access to our 20,000 word How To Write A Book Proposal guide, ensuring you are in a position to send a professional book proposal to agents and publishers.

Copy Editing is Used By the Most Respected Publishers in the World

Copy Editing is Used By the Most Respected Publishers in the World

BubbleCow helped me learn from my mistakes and reined me in where I was over-enthusiastic. I’m a better writer for their advice, and no mistake. They were measured, kind and constructive, basically taking a sewing machine to my work, sorting out all the stitches I had dropped, either in haste or simply through inexperience.

Matt Hill, author of Colin & The Strimmer Men

What The Copy Editing Will include…

The single most important aspect of our editing service is that it is designed to look at each line and word of your book, and then provide the advice, feedback and guidance you need to correct errors both big and small. The goal of the copy edit is to provide editorial feedback that, when applied to your book, will bring it to a publishable standard.

BubbleCow’s copy editing service has been designed to provide a ‘publisher’ style edit, which leaves your manuscript as close to ‘print ready’ as possible. This means that our copy edit will leave you confident that your manuscript is ready to move to the next stage.

If your book was being prepared for publication by a publishing house, it would pass through a three editing step process - Structural Editing, Stylistic Editing and Copy Editing. Our service combines the three types of edit (Structural, Stylistic and Copy) to provide you with a ‘publisher’ standard in-depth line edit. The edit involves one of our professional and experienced editors reading through your work, line by line, and asking themselves the following questions:

  • Is the book’s organisation and content suitable for the intended audience, medium, market, and purpose? [Structural]
  • How can the book’s meaning be clarified, the flow improved and the language smoothed?[Stylistic]
  • Have you ensured the correctness, consistency, accuracy, and completeness of the document? [Copy]

In reality this means that we will not only be looking to correct grammar and punctuation, but also paying attention to the narrative flow, potential plot holes and the overall ‘feel’ of the book in relation to its genre and readership.

If you wish to see the style guidelines we use when line editing then this document will help you to understand the internal process in more detail. We have built our line editing process around the professionally recognised line editing standards and our style document will show the changes we will make.

What Your Copy Editing Will Look Like…

Your final report will be made up of two parts.

The first is theCopy Editor’s Report. This includes our copy editor’s thoughts on your manuscript, ideas about improving your work and any general structural points you should consider. This feedback also includes any points that we feel need particular attention. The aim of this report is to provide a single summary document that you can use as a reference point when applying the feedback. Many writers have told us that they found it very useful to have a summary of the key areas that need attention, especially when the individual comments embedded with the document can number in the high hundreds.

The second part is the in-depth line edit. This is embedded in your original document and can be viewed by opening the document with any good word processing package. Our comments will appear on the right hand side of the text. The copy editor will have read through your work on a line-by-line basis, and added comments and pointers that will improve your text. Though this is not a proofread, any grammar or spelling mistakes we spot will be corrected. The report is designed to allow you to produce a new and better re-write by systematically working through the comments and implementing as you see fit.

Please note that when copy editing we often use a mixture of tracked changes and comments. The reason for this is that much of the editing process requires the editor to make a judgement call. Our editors will suggest the corrections and changes their experience and training tells them will work best in the context of your book. However, you may wish to overrule their judgement. Tracked changes are only used for minor errors.

It is our belief that the report is as much a teaching aid as it is an assessment of your book. We design our feedback to highlight areas in which you can strengthen your writing. We also structure our comments in such a way that you will be shown how to apply the techniques we are suggesting to improve your book.

Download the sample to read in more detail.

No matter how many mistakes I made BubbleCow was only too pleased to correct them. My editor encouraged me in every line and file I sent. When there is something wrong, she told me. When something was good, she told me. Anyone who is completed a story should look no further than BubbleCow to edit it for them.

John Gillum, author of Big Bad Dog

What Your Book Proposal Includes…

Each year thousands of book proposals are rejected by agents and publishers. The sad truth is that the reason that many of these ideas are never turned into books is that the initial query letter and synopsis were not strong enough to be worthy of further consideration. We can help to make sure that this does not happen to your book.

In 2001 Gary Smailes wanted to be a writer. He was working for author Terry Deary (of Horrible Histories fame), as a researcher. He showed Terry some of his work and was encouraged to get it published. However, a bucket full of rejection letters later Gary was disillusioned and ready to give up. he went back to Terry and asked him what was the key to his success. It turns out there was no secret, just hard work and (here it comes) a great book proposal.

Gary became obsessed with decoding the book proposal, both fiction and non-fiction and over the years talked to literally hundreds of writers, publishers and agents about what makes a great book pitch. This book proposal assessment is the accumulation of the knowledge that has seen Gary published time after time.

Today Gary has an agent (Andrew Lownie), and books published by a number of publishers.

The assessment process is pretty simple. You email your query letter and synopsis to Gary. He works his magic and sends back his feedback with suggestions on how you can improve your pitch. You make changes and send it back. Gary checks he is happy with your book proposal before giving you the thumbs up to submit. The whole process normally takes a couple of days.

Cost of Copy Editing

BubbleCow is an Internet based company and our low overheads mean that we can pass on the benefits to our writers. We charge just £7 per 1000 words.

At BubbleCow we understand that each writer’s needs are different, and therefore we have a minimum word count of just 5000 words. This means that you can send a short sample to ‘try out’ our editing service with little financial risk to yourselves.

We aim to return the completed edit within 21 working days, if not sooner. Upon payment you will be sent an email with the latest date on which the edit will be returned. However, as a rough rule of thumb you should allow a full calendar month for one of our editors to assess your work.

How It Works

  • 1. You complete the form below,
  • 2. We assign a suitable editor,
  • 3. An email invoice is sent to the email you provide and payment is made via our secure PayPal server,
  • 4. Our editor aims to complete your edit within 21 working days of payment,
  • 5. You receive an email with the editor’s report and line-by-line edit,
  • 6. You receive an email regarding your book proposal, together with guidelines on the best way to write a query letter and synopsis,
  • 7. You email your book proposal and Gary Smailes provides feedback,
  • 8. You send back any feedback or questions and we answer them,
  • 9. You re-write and are then ready to submit to agents and publishers.

Risk Free Submission

We want to make sure that it’s BubbleCow that’s taking all the risk, not you the writer.

Therefore, we make a simple promise — If our edit fails to improve your book we will give you your money back.

Questions & Answers

Is copy editing worth the money?

Think of it like this…

Let’s say you are submitting your book to an agent or publisher. The publisher is, ultimately, looking for a book that is as close to ‘publish ready’ as possible. The more work they have to do, the more likely they are to reject. This means that a well edited book can be the difference between a no and a yes. But can you put a price on rejection? Well, I think so. A typical advance can be in the region of £5,000. Are you prepared to risk throwing away 10K for the price of a £300 copy edit?

But what if you are self-publishing? Let’s ignore the fact that ALL publishers will have a book copy edited prior to publication and, instead, look at the marketplace. All self-publishing writers will agree that a good Amazon review will sell books. But… bad reviews will cost you sales. How many sales do you think will be lost after your book gets a 1 star review because of a hoard of obvious typos and mistakes? 100? 50? Probably more, but let’s be conservative and say 25. Therefore, for each bad review you lose 25 sales, at £5 a book that’s £125 — lost. Surely a £300 copy edit is actually making you money?

Will copy editing really improve my book?

I think it’s best to let writers who have been edited by BubbleCow speak in their own words:

I didn’t like the thought of some stranger interfering with my book, I was, I admit, a bit precious. However, the process was massively useful - problems were highlighted that I didn’t know existed and insightful and creative solutions were offered. I even got praise for the good bits!

Nik Jones, author of 9987, published by Tonto Books.

BubbleCow know the fast-changing literary landscape inside out. The experience and contacts they have will improve any writer’s chances of either a first publication or improved sales and readership.

PR expert, Chris Rickaby.

BubbleCow’s guidance remains the most helpful of all. They have the ability to read your work and come up with a suggestion that leaves you slapping your forehead, thinking “Of course!” Their thoughts have invariably improved my work and needless to say, I shall be Bubblecowing again very soon.

Self-Published writer, Matthew Watkinson..

Will editing take months?

Being honest, some copy editors take months (and months) to edit a book. The problem is often that they are not full-time editors. You will often find that they edit on the side to try and earn some extra cash. At BubbleCow we are all full time editors. Editing is what we do, each working day. Its our job.

It’s for this reason that we have a 21 working day turnaround promise. If we edit your book, you will get it back within 21 working days. I promise.