Leonard & Virginia Editorial offers administrative and editorial services—from manuscript critique, editorial guidance, copyediting, line- and content-editing, research, to layout and design, prepress formatting, and much more—all at reasonable author-friendly/small-business rates, served up with a refreshingly professional attitude and a smile.

While our primary focus is on fiction and creative nonfiction, such as memoir, we’re ready, willing, and able to assist you with almost any project. Print or electronic media, short stories or full-length manuscripts, smut, romance, or academic studies, work for pleasure or for hire, even for submission and possible publication. We're here to do the dirty work to make your writing sparkle and be the best it can be.

We have very few taboos. Our background and experience include working with sexual and erotic content, so let it rip. While your subject matter may not always be our cup of tea (and oh, how Leonard and Virginia love their tea), there’s little we may reject simply because of its nature.

So please, cruise around our cozy website for more information and our rates. If you're intrigued, then click over to the Contact Us page and send us an email with details about what you’re working on and what we can do to help you make it happen.

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Leonard & Virginia Editorial offers an extensive array of editorial services. We can get down to the nuts-and-bolts basics of sterling prose like proper punctuation, sentence structure, and grammar. Or we can lavish loving attention on the very structure of your work, down to such details as plot and character development, the use of active vs. passive voice, elimination of redundancies and/or repetitions. We can even go so far as to roll up our crisp, starched sleeves and help you lift sentences and paragraphs about or draw up a plan for restructuring the whole of your project. Regardless of how much or how little we tinker with your words, our end goal is always the same: to polish your prose to a brilliant shine.

Leonard & Virginia's editorial techniques combine an old-fashioned mastery of the red pen as well as the latest digital tools in order to make our comments on your project as simple to understand as they are efficient.

Copyediting

Leonard & Virginia editors will check your manuscript with a finetooth comb, correcting errors of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. In addition, your editor will verify cross-references and impose an industry-standard style on your rugged prose. Leonard & Virginia find The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition) to be their gospel of choice, but many of our editors are familiar with various academic and AP styles.

Line Editing

Some manuscripts require more work than others. When heavy copyediting is required, Leonard & Virginia's editors will check the manuscript for more pervasive errors of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The editor will also make suggestions to improve syntax and word choice and may recommend light structural changes to improve the overall readability of the work.

Content Editing

In addition to performing the functions of a line editor, our content editor will work to ensure the general accuracy and consistency of your work's content and focus on more extensive restructuring of sentences. For works of fiction, your editor will focus on the continuity of details in the plot, characters, and setting. For nonfiction pieces, your editor will monitor the consistency of information and ideas.

Research

Leonard & Virginia's editors will research to ensure the accuracy of all proper names or titles, brand names, geographic locations, pop culture references, etc., in your manuscript or project. Historical novels, family memoirs, and many other works require precise and accurate additional information. Leonard & Virginia Editorial will assist the author by gathering facts and information as needed.

Proofreading

The process from manuscript to published book is never 100 percent foolproof. Even the best copyeditor in the business or the most persnickety author will overlook a few errors. In fact, in the good old days, publishers usually proofread a manuscript twice. Our character-by-character proofreading is highly recommended by Leonard & Virginia Editorial.

Manuscript Critique/Editorial Guidance

Sadly, Leonard & Virginia Editorial can’t help you write if you can't. We can only make recommendations and point you in the right direction here. Yet, for those who have a certain way with words, we can help you polish up what you are writing or have already written. To get you jumpstarted, we will offer a thorough but loving barrage of questions for your to answer: Originality (Is this manuscript original or does it seem you’ve read it before?), voice/style/craft (Is the author’s use of language strong and distinctive?), characterization (Do you understand and care about the characters?), and plot/storyline (Is this a good story? Do you want to read more?). There isn’t an author alive who can’t be helped by such a solid outside positive critique coupled with caring guidance based on the author’s goals and voice. Alas, we can’t help you with your future agent’s or editor’s or reader’s personal taste—or the current lack or glut of markets for your particular project—but we can help you make your manuscript or story the best it can be.

Miscellaneous

Cover text
Promotional copy
Spreadsheets
Database set-up and management
Mailing labels
Technical- and ghost-writing
Manuscript layout and design
Manuscript prepress formatting

Don’t see what you were looking for?
We still may be able to help!
Send us an email.

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Leonard & Virginia Editorial reserves the right to accept or reject work on any project. Receipt of services by Leonard & Virginia Editorial are in no way a guarantee of acceptance or publication by any outside person or organization. All services and projects remain confidential.