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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚

@editsinthemargins.com

1.4K followers 1.9K following 4.4K posts

I help writers to shape their stories and hone their skills via developmental editing, coaching, beta reading, workshopping, and more. As a writer, I enjoy kid lit and exploring fantastical worlds. 🐉 https://editsinthemargins.com/social

editsinthemargins.com

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · May 27

Now that I have a new service to offer, it’s time to update these slides.

Editing means something different to everyone, and each writer has a different journey from blank page to finished product. I started In the Margins to support fiction authors in their creative journey, and that means . . . ⬇️

Which of my services is best for your needs?

The services I offer:
Developmental editing
Skilled beta reading
Coaching
1:1 workshopping

Which one is right for you? It depends on your needs & budget.

Let's break it down.

Developmental Editing

Goal: Strengthening a completed manuscript

What I do: A manuscript deep dive. I provide detailed feedback and suggestions on big picture elements (i.e. timing, characters, plot lines).

What you get: Detailed marginal notes, light inline edits, and a 10- to 20-page feedback letter.

Time and cost: $$$$
Because it takes about one week per 20,000 words, developmental editing is the most expensive of my services.

Skilled Beta Reading

Goal: Getting general feedback

What I do: A temperature check. I respond to your story as a (skilled) reader, providing my thoughts on strengths and weaknesses, and my overall questions and suggestions.

What you get: Occasional marginal notes and a 2-3 page feedback letter.

Time and cost: $$
Because it requires significantly less time and feedback, skilled beta reading costs far less than developmental editing.

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 4h

...so many of us were able to do so because of libraries and other book friends.

Still looking for ways to help? Here are 12 ways you can: editsinthemargins.com/post/ways-yo...

Ways You Can Help Your Library - In the Margins Editing & Writing Services

Next week is National Library Week in the United States. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that now more than ever, our libraries need us to stand with them against defunding and book bans.…

editsinthemargins.com

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 4h

Today is Let Freedom Read Day.

It closes out Banned Books Week and serves as a call to action: to defend books against censorship and to protect library staff (and teachers, writers, publishers, and booksellers) who bring us those books.

So many of us first found ourselves within books, and...⬇️

"Harvey harrumphs, pushes his gold wire-frame glasses up his nose. 'It’s a library, Daphne. If you can’t be human here, where can you?'"

—from FUNNY STORY by Emily Henry

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 13h

I will... in a few weeks. 🤣

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 13h

We went from having a string of days in the 80s to a high of 57 yesterday. It was 32 when I woke up this morning. (And I stubbornly refuse to turn on the heat until November 1. 😂)

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 13h

Sir, I had on a pair of thick socks, with a pair of fuzzy socks over them!

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 16h

I think the second one is out next month! (Now I have to figure out if I pre-ordered it or not... 😆)

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 17h

I do! I wonder if there's a similar process. If I see any weird posts about shoulder wounds, I'll send them your way. 😂

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 17h

😆😆😆 Glad I could help.

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 17h

I just . . . I'm not sharing this to be weird . . . 😅

But we all have to look up wild things, and some writer may find it helpful.

www.reddit.com/r/interestin...

From the interestingasfuck community on Reddit: How to survive a gunshot wound to the neck

Explore this post and more from the interestingasfuck community

www.reddit.com

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 18h

I LOVE Andrea Stewart! Enjoy!

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Michelle Steinberg, M.Ed @michellesteinberg.bsky.social · 1d

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

This was me last night. 😭

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

My blog post on comps goes over what you need to look for in a comp title and where to start finding them: editsinthemargins.com/post/finding...

Finding Comps - In the Margins Editing & Writing Services

When looking for comps, stop seeking exact matches and look instead for books that relate to your audience, themes, plot, style and voice, characters, and the general structure of the journey or tale…

editsinthemargins.com

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

✨ Friday Tip ✨

Comp titles help agents and editors understand the key audience for your book/how it may sell, and they help self-publishing authors to identify their reader base and shape their marketing strategy.

But finding comps can feel daunting to any writer. So, where should you start? ⬇️

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

I think this is excellent decision making.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Oh gosh. 😂 In the middle sounds perfect to me.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Agreed! I can just keep piling layers onto myself in the cold. But I can't even breathe in the heat!

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Oh, I get this! I definitely will find myself picking up on repetitive words or descriptive phrases. My clients are probably sick of me commenting that they need to trust their readers to clock details and remember them.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

😂 A friend was visiting from the west coast a couple weeks ago to attend a work conference in Haverhill. When I picked her up she was like, "Someone told me at the end of the day that it's not pronounced Haver-hill?!?!"

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

That's exactly how I feel!! 😫

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

*runs to the store*

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

It should! I was wearing two pairs of socks earlier—a regular pair and then fuzzy ones over that and I was still cold. 😂

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

This cliche seems like a right of passage, but once a line like that becomes poked at enough that jokes/memes are made of it (and they are), the reader is much more likely to pause on it. They become more aware of the writer. And that’s a risk to the experience and a risk to the story.

Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

Today’s #EditorsTeaClubCommunity prompt: What's an editorial hill you'll die on?

I can name 7 breaths that characters didn’t know they were holding from manuscripts I’ve read just this year. I flagged every single one of them.

Why? ⬇️

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Kayleigh | Developmental Editor ✍🏻📚 @editsinthemargins.com · 1d

I know this is so low on the list of world problems, but I'm a baby and I'm cold.