While working on A Bond of Blood and Lavender, we've met a lot of wonderful people. So many in the writing community have helped us out more than we could’ve ever imagined. They have been a Godsend. We couldn’t have gotten this far without them. Because of that, we’d like you to know who they are just in case you ever want to use them.
Demi went above and beyond to ensure that we made my story the best it could be. We've learned how to be a great writer because of her. She taught us so much and has helped us make every novel, short story, and flash fiction piece sing with her suggestions. We’ve been working with her since 2024. She does developmental editing, full manuscript critiques, short story critiques, partial editing, and phone calls. The full manuscript critique has to be our favorite. She does a lot of in-line edits to help with your flow, let you know if you have reused a word, if a sentence could be reworded, and many other things. Then she puts a lot of comments (200+). Sometimes, she is trying to guess what’s about to happen, says something that makes me laugh, or several other very helpful things. It makes reading the comments and her edits fun. We always get so excited to see what she will say. We think one of the best things about her critique is that she tells you after every chapter what she thought of that specific one and if anything needed to change. She’ll then write you an edit letter that is extremely detailed. She doesn’t miss a thing. And if you don’t believe us, test it. Say, for some reason, we're wrong (because we are, after all, human, so it’s not 100% perfect), you have that phone call to ask her. Also, if later you’re stumped on something and need to ask her about it, she is open to having another call. She is very caring, heartwarming, and all-around amazing. (We also think she might be a wizard!)
Andie is not only an editor but also an agent. She really knows how to make those stories sparkle and catch an agent’s eyes. We have been working with her since 2024 on almost everything she offers on her site - and a few more random things. She does query packages, developmental edits, copy edits, and proofreading. Though not on her website, she also helps with blurbs. She is the queen of blurbs and query packages. One of our favorite things about Andie is that she never leaves you hanging. She will always help you with anything you need, and if she can’t help you, she will figure it out or send you to someone or somewhere else who might have the answer. Her edits are always so helpful. When working with her on developmental edits, she always made us see things we never thought about. These suggestions have made a world of difference.
River is top-notch! River offers development edits, line edits, copy edits, opening chapter evaluation, manuscript evaluation, mentorship, and sensitivity reading. If we had money, we would use them for it all. We’ve used them on my chapter opening, and oh my gosh! They really make sure that your chapters sing. They are so helpful. The first time we worked with them, they sent us a ten-page edit letter for just my three chapters. River wanted to be very detailed and ensure that we understood everything. If you’re stumped on anything, River will figure out what’s going wrong and how to improve it.
Melissa is super attentive, understanding, and helpful. She is a copy/line editor and proofreader. We used Melissa for copy/line edits. She gives two rounds of edits. She does it once, explaining things if you’re not used to something (We had no idea what a dangling modifier was before using her), she asks questions, gives alternative options, and many other things. Then, you accept, delete, modify, and respond to her edits before sending it back. She goes over it again to make sure everything is okay. We loved having two chances. We also loved how detail-oriented Melissa is. It really showed us that she cared about what she was doing and really wanted to help the author. She doesn’t take her job lightly at all. We had some hiccups with timing issues, and Melissa also helped us out. Melissa was wonderful to work with.
Andrew Heasman is amazing. He’s from the UK but knows the writing standards of the US, UK, and more. He will work with the style you need. He offers proofreading and copy editing. He will send you your manuscript in pieces and let you do it in sections so that you don’t feel overwhelmed. Then, once you finish that section or the entire thing, you can send it back to him, and he’ll get it formatted and ready for publication if you need that. He’s very helpful and understanding. We hired him as a proofreader - but with him having a kind heart, he went above and beyond. If he thought something was wrong, didn’t understand something, or thought it could be worded better, he pointed it out. So, he didn’t just stick to checking grammar and punctuation. He did it all! We loved how caring he was. It warmed our hearts. Every time we used a foreign language, he checked it to make sure it was accurate. He also checked every location to make sure it was real. His work was so intense. He takes this so seriously. You can really see his passion in the emails and in his work. We were thoroughly impressed by him.
Jade Feldman is a ninja. (Seriously, one day, We're going to test our theory and find out if she really is one.) She can do everything, and we mean everything. Anything you need in the writing world, she’s got you. Do you need help with editing? Ask her. Need help formatting? Ask her. Need help to find an artist, map, mentorship, reviews, or whatever? She’s got you! Jade is like our personal writing coach. Anything we need or question, we go to her. She guided us through the entire process of getting Caroline's debut novel published. We had a video conference while Caroline uploaded her work to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the copyright system, and so much more. She is so helpful at every step. She even checked the book for proofreading before Caroline submitted it. We're so lucky to have her in our corner. We asked for her help in December, and she’s still been with us in every step since then. She really cares about the author and their work.
Lindsay Schraad Keeling is such an encouraging, wonderful person and supporter. Lindsay has your best intentions at heart, and you can tell she loves helping. She has helped us edit a few works, and she caught things we would’ve never seen. Lindsay does developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, proofreading, and alpha/beta reading. She doesn’t have this next item on her site, but we think she should. She is a marketing guru. She can help make any type of marketing material. She is phenomenal at videos for your book! Phenomenal. She also can help with Twitter posts, Instagram posts, banners, and flyers. And the best part is she loves it. She has so much fun doing it, and it makes you, as the author, enjoy it even more. Every time we talk with her, we can’t help but get excited. She really is so helpful and creative!
We’ve also worked with a few more editors at the beginning of our writing journal (like way beginning). Our stories are much different than when we worked with them. However, they were great people and tremendously kind.