RIW Communications

Have blue pencil, will edit.

Hi, and welcome to the RIW Communications web site. I am Rochelle Weber, the President of RIW and, actually, the entire staff. I hold a BA in Communications with an emphasis on writing, and I have over twenty years of editorial experience. I have edited several books on a freelance basis in a variety of genre: fiction, fantasy, self-help and even poetry. In my position at Gail C. Christopher Enterprises, I edited Dr. Christopher’s book for single parents, Anchors for the Innocent. And I edited and sometimes rewrote every piece of correspondence that crossed my desk as an admin. Finally, I have been mentally editing every piece of printed material I have read for most of my life. My mother was a stickler for grammar, as am I. One of my pet peeves is the dreaded comma splice, and I can name a few bestselling authors who use them frequently. Who edits their work?

The Oestara Anthology
of Pagan Poetry is a 2006
EPPIE Award Winner.

I am able to handle a variety of media: Word for Windows (*.doc), Word Perfect (*.wpd), text format (*.txt), Rich Text format (*.rtf), and Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf). I will also edit your printed manuscript, but I would require return postage or I would need to add a shipping and handling charge to my fee.

I am in the Champaign, Illinois area and would be happy to edit theses, dissertations and even term papers. I offer a twenty percent discount to University of Illinois students. Please believe me when I tell you that you cannot edit your own work. It becomes too familiar to you, and your eyes miss errors that would be glaring to another person. Nor can you rely on your computer to catch every error. The computer cannot distinguish between homonyms. E.g., She had (a) too much to drink, (b) two much to drink or (c) to much to drink. The answer, of course, is (a), but your computer wouldn’t know that.

I use the reviewing function in Word, adding comments in bubbles in the margins. I provide instructions on the use of this function, or if you are not working in Word, I can provide a separate document with corrections and comments listed by page and paragraph. However, I would charge an extra ten percent for that service.

Here is an example of my editorial style:

“The children were playing in the yard, they were playing soccer.”
This is a comma splice—would you rather split this into two sentences or separate these independent clauses with a semi-colon or an em-dash? I think this statement would be stronger as two separate sentences, or you could combine the two and just say “The children were playing soccer in the yard.”

"It was a hot, muggy day in Washington, DC, as people gathered on the Mall to protest the fall of the Constitution." Comment: This opening is cliched and does not truly hook the reader, nor does it introduce the main character. I would say: "The protesters pushed against each other, trying to hold their signs up high above the crowd. The smell of sweat hung in the muggy July air, and Annie Peterson struggled to escape from the mass of bodies for a breather."

I also write excellent résumés, letters, newsletters and pamphlets. Or, I could ghost-write your book. Fees for such services would be negotiable.

And now, for the most important part: For those of you who have visited this site before, I have changed my editing rates. Since not all pages in a book are the same length, it isn't quite fair to charge by the page. Therefore, I am changing my fee base to the word count of each piece. For larger pieces, I would request half of the fee when half of the work is done and the rest upon timely completion, such timeline to be defined in the contract.

Fees

Proofreading / Copy Editing	$0.0025/page
Extensive Editing	$0.005/page
Rush Jobs	fifty percent (50%) surcharge

* Fees above $0.0025 are negotiable.

Turn-Around Time

Small projects (up to 30,000 words)	one week
Medium projects, (31,000 to 50,000 words)	two weeks
Large projects, (50,000 words or more)	negotiable

Testamonials

Rochelle, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your exceptional editing services. Because of your sharp eye and amazing talent in this area you gave [Beautiful Devil] a realism I could never give it. I thought at the time that you were a little rough in some areas, and what I would call "picky" but apparently those are the earmarks of a good editor. Now every time I pick up a book that has the distinguished name of Rochelle Weber, Editor on it, I'll know it has been handled by the very best.

— Audrey Godwin
 Author of Beautiful Devil
Audrey Godwin.com

Recently I hired a content-editor/copy-editor/proof-reader, and I am very impressed with her work. Her name is Rochelle Weber and she not only gets the work I ask of her done on deadline, but she goes the extra mile for me, even compiling index lists and tweaking formatting for me. Rochelle is a member of Mensa and has a BA in creative writing, so she knows how to handle us tender, artistic types. She's also a Vet, so she knows how to handle us stubborn gits! Anybody looking for editing services I would recommend you take advantage of Rochelle Weber’s talents and skills.

— Cynthia Joyce Clay
Oestara Publishing, LLC

Contact

For more information or to schedule editing or writing work, send an e-mail message to Rochelle Weber.

---

URI: http://www.rochelleweber.com/editing.html
Revised: September 4, 2008