Mentoring

Services for Middle Grade or Young Adult Authors:

My mentoring services are like a cross between one of my group classes and a freelance edit.*

In anywhere between 6-9 units, I work with you and your full manuscript with our goal being to get your book ready either for submission to agents or editors OR to get it ready for self-publishing.

Mentoring starts with you sending me your full manuscript (up to 60,000 words for a Middle Grade and up to 90,000 words for a YA). From there I do a full comprehensive edit complete with line edits, margin notes, and an editorial letter. I also identify problem areas in your writing that might benefit from extra practice. From there we break your manuscript into either 6 units (for middle grade) or 9 units (for YA). In general, each unit is comprised of a 40 page revision, reading assignments, and supplemental work to improve targeted skills. When you have completed each unit, I review your work and again do a comprehensive edit on the revised pages. Afterwords we meet either through a phone or video call for 30 minutes to discuss your work and any questions or concerns you may have.

When you agree to mentoring, you are committing to at least 6 units for a book of up to 60,000 words. Shorter books will still be divided into six units; you will just have to revise fewer pages each unit. After 6 units, we will need another unit for every additional 10,000 words (rounding up to the nearest 10,000) until we reach the maximum 90,000 word young adult novels. Each unit costs $400, and you are billed by the unit.

The Value You Get with Mentoring:

For a 60,000 word middle grade novel, mentoring costs $2400. For this you get:

• 1 full comprehensive edit (240 pages @ $4/pg) $960
• 1 additional comprehensive edit — broken into 40 page increments (240 pages @ $4/pg) $960
• Personalized version of the Writing & Revising Class tailored to your specific manuscript and writing needs $750
• 6 half hour voice or video conference calls with me to discuss your work (@$50/call) $300

It’s a total of $2970 in services for $2400.

For a 90,000 word young adult novel, mentoring costs $3600. For this you get:

• 1 full comprehensive edit (360 pages @ $4/pg) $1440
• 1 additional comprehensive edit — broken into 40 page increments (240 pages @ $4/pg) $1440
• Personalized version of the Writing & Revising Class tailored to your specific manuscript and writing needs $750
• 9 half hour voice or video conference calls with me to discuss your work (@$50/call) $450

It’s a total of $4080 in services for $3600.

If you are interested in mentoring, please contact me to get you scheduled on my calendar. I only take 2 new mentoring students a month, so these spots can fill up quickly. Usually each unit takes a month to complete, but if you are particularly fast at revising, they could each be completed in two weeks.

* I have a very strict rule about not editing or mentoring people who wish to submit manuscripts to CBAY Books. If you ever wish to submit a project proposal or query to CBAY, then have a Conference Style Manuscript Critique or take a group class. These critiques are only 15 pages and are reasonably priced. They are identical to the same critiques I do at conferences (for the same price), and that everyone in the industry does. My group classes are similar to the ones I used to teach in the MLA program at St. Edwards University. Graduate level instruction is also a time-honored activity in the publishing profession. However, I feel that to be paid to mentor an author and edit their entire manuscript and then offer to publish it lives on the border of ethical questionability. CBAY Books is not a vanity press. You do not pay it to publish your books, we pay you traditional royalties. Even though technically you would be hiring me, not CBAY, I am CBAY so I don’t think it’s a good idea. So, I won’t do it.