... and the Option of a Free Sample Rewrite

When Great Material is Not Clearly Expressed

Sometimes writers know their material but don’t have the time and/or skills to express themselves clearly on the page. If a writer is able to draft chapters that give a clear indication of what they want to say, even if it is clunky and lacks clarity or flow, then a professional rewriter can be hired to fix the problems.

Yes, some wordsmiths are professional rewriters. This might seem a rather odd occupation to those outside the publishing industry, but you might be surprised how many bestselling books have required rewriting – not just editing – before publication.

Sometimes the public profile of a writer is so high that publishers think their investment will be worthwhile because the book should receive plenty of publicity to drive sales. At other times, a publisher can see how good the underlying story or account is, but the writer’s first language might not be English or their education was cut short. A detailed rewrite can work wonders.

Free Sample Rewrite

You can think of rewriting as ‘heavy editing’. Almost every sentence might need to be rewritten. Which is why Euan offers a free sample rewrite of 1500 words for manuscripts over 20,000 words. Yes, free. No obligation. Really.

He selects a sample of text from your manuscript, then rewrites these 1500 words using Track Changes in Microsoft Word. The Track Changes file uses coloured mark-ups (red strikethrough for deletions, blue underline for insertions) to enable you to see everything he has rewritten.

Of course, he also sends you another file of the finished clean copy, which incorporates all these changes without the mark-ups showing.

Requesting a Quote

At this point, you can decide whether or not to proceed with Euan bringing his experience, as a former senior editor for a major publisher and published author, to rewriting your entire manuscript. You decide whether to stop at your free sample, or ask Euan to prepare you an accurate quote based on the time he took to complete the sample rewrite. Once you have his quote, you can decide if you would like to invest in the rewriting of your book.

Rewriting vs Ghostwriting

Please note that rewriting is not ghostwriting. A ghostwriter typically claims a 50% share of the copyright in a book. By contrast, rewriters (and editors) typically make no copyright claims on a book, i.e. the manuscript/book remains 100% the copyright (intellectual property) of the original writer.

Ghostwriting usually involves the aspiring writer hiring a professional writer near the beginning of the process. The aspiring writer might use dictation software or their phone to record what they want to say – perhaps supplemented by a few written notes and face-to-face interviews – then the ghostwriter works out how to turn this raw material into high-quality prose fit for publishing.

Rewriting is much more affordable than ghostwriting. For example, a ghostwriter will typically charge at least $30,000 to write a novel or memoir of about 80,000 words.

By comparison, the fee for rewriting is more like a ‘heavy editing’ quote, which means it is likely to be a mere fraction of what a ghostwriter typically quotes and without any copyright claims.