Pricing
One quoted price for the whole book
Every manuscript is quoted as a single figure once I've seen a sample of your pages — never by the hour, so the price never depends on how quickly I happen to be working that day.
What a whole book costs
A 50,000-word memoir in clear handwriting — about £900. An 80,000-word novel in clear handwriting — about £1,440. A 100,000-word manuscript in a difficult hand — about £2,400. Handwritten pages usually run 250–350 words, so a rough page count is enough for me to estimate from.
How that figure is worked out
Every manuscript is quoted individually once I have seen a few pages, but almost all of them fall into one of the rates below. I type books, and only books — I don't scan pages, convert files, or take on anything beyond the typing itself. The manuscript stays with you throughout.
A book typed on a typewriter years ago, or a carbon copy of one, turned back into a file you can edit. The quickest work and the cheapest.
Legible and consistent, in ink, on ordinary paper, with a normal number of corrections. Most novels and memoirs written in the last few decades.
Cramped, hurried or shaky hands, heavy crossings-out, insertions running up the margins, pencil, or writing on both sides of thin paper.
A book written decades ago and left in a drawer — faded ink, dated spelling, paper gone brittle. Uncertain readings marked throughout.
If you'd rather speak your book than write it out. Your own voice, recorded however suits you — a phone is perfectly good.
Included in every price
- A full written report — every query raised, every passage flagged as uncertain, and exactly how illegible words are marked in the text, so you know precisely what's definite and what needs your own eye. Sent with the finished manuscript.
- A properly formatted Word document — consistent chapter headings, sensible paragraph styling, page numbers, and a working table of contents where it makes sense.
- Your spelling and punctuation preserved — I type what you have written. Obvious slips of the pen are flagged, not silently corrected.
- Uncertain readings marked — you always know what's definite and what needs your eye on it.
- Corrections included — I don't charge to put right anything I've misread.
- A signed confidentiality agreement — before a word is typed.
- Files deleted on completion — and confirmed to you in writing.
Optional extras
Your manuscript set out in standard submission format — the layout agents and publishers expect to open. Double-spaced, correctly headed, title page, the lot.
A full second read of the typed text against your original pages, checked line by line. Worth it for anything going to an agent or to print.
Sketches, maps or photographs from the original lifted out, tidied, and placed at the right point in the text.
I type and prepare manuscripts. I am not an editor and will not rewrite your book — if you need structural editing or a copy-edit, I'm glad to point you towards someone who does that properly.
Paying
- A free manuscript assessment first. No deposit, no obligation — I type the opening 1,000 words from a sample of your pages, so you see the standard of work and I can give an accurate quote.
- A full written quote next. Sent once you've confirmed you'd like to go ahead, so you know exactly what you're being charged before anything is typed or any payment is requested.
- Short manuscripts — under about thirty thousand words — are invoiced in full on delivery.
- Longer manuscripts are delivered and invoiced in batches, so you never pay far ahead of what you've received.
- Fourteen days to pay, by bank transfer or PayPal.
- Stop whenever you like. At the end of any batch, simply say so. You pay for the pages delivered and owe nothing further.
Get a firm price
Send a few pages and a rough page count, and I'll come back with an exact figure and a delivery date.