The process
From your pages to a finished manuscript
Seven steps, no surprises, and nothing you have to pay for until you have seen the quality of the work.
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Get in touch
Tell me roughly how long the book is, whether it's handwritten or typed, and anything that might make it awkward — faded ink, loose pages, a difficult hand. If you're not sure of the word count, a rough page count is plenty.
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Send a few sample pages
Photographs or scans on a phone are both fine — scans are preferable if you're able to manage them. I need to see the handwriting before I can quote properly. Your manuscript stays where it is — nothing needs to go in the post at this stage, or at any stage if you'd rather it didn't.
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A free manuscript assessment
I type the opening 1,000 words at no charge and no obligation. You see exactly what the finished document will look like, and I find out exactly how long a page of your handwriting takes me — which is what makes the written quote that follows accurate rather than a guess.
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A written quote and a confidentiality agreement
Once you've confirmed you'd like to go ahead, I send a full written quote — a firm price and a realistic delivery date — along with a signed confidentiality agreement covering your manuscript. Nothing is typed and no payment is requested until you've seen and accepted the quote. The agreement confirms that the work stays entirely yours and that typing it gives me no rights over it whatsoever.
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The typing
I work through the manuscript personally, in order. Anything I genuinely cannot read is marked clearly rather than guessed at, and I keep a full written report as I go — an unfamiliar place name, a date that doesn't match, a name spelled two ways, every passage flagged as uncertain — to send you with the finished manuscript.
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Delivery, in batches for longer works
Anything over about thirty thousand words comes to you in batches as it's finished, each one invoiced on delivery. You see the work as it arrives rather than waiting months for everything at once, and you can stop at the end of any batch.
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Corrections, and then it's yours
Read it through and tell me about anything I've misread. Corrections are included — I don't charge for putting my own errors right. Then the files are yours, and every copy I hold is deleted.
Sending your pages
How to photograph a manuscript
A scan is preferable if you have access to one, since it gives the clearest, most even image to work from. But you don't need a scanner — a phone camera and a bright window will do just as well, and imperfect photographs are usually workable. I'll tell you if anything genuinely won't do.
- Daylight, not flash. Flash creates glare that hides the very words you need read.
- Lay the page flat. Curved pages throw shadows into the gutter and lose the inner margin.
- Include the whole page. Margins matter — people write important things in them.
- One page per photograph. Tempting to fit two in, but it halves the resolution of each.
- Name the files in order. Most phones do this automatically, but do check before sending.
- Faded ink? Light it from the side. A lamp low and to one side, rather than straight on, lifts faint writing surprisingly well.
If the manuscript is bound, fragile, or the only copy in existence, tell me and we'll work out the safest approach together. I would generally rather you didn't post an irreplaceable document to anyone, myself included.
Ready when you are
Send a few pages and I'll tell you what it would cost and how long it would take.