Editorial Services

As a writer, I love editors. As an editor, I love writers.

I read. I write. I love words and the stories that are crafted from them. I have a great eye for detail, a strong vocabulary and an understanding of grammar and structure. You want your book to appeal to readers and intimately connect with an audience. I can help you get there.

All articles and books need editing. Name your favorite author. That author has an editor. Probably even more than one. An editor can see things you can no longer see after you’ve spent months or years with your material. She can see holes in logic. Style and point of view changes. Changes in subtext.

An editor will help you organize your manuscript for impact and readability. She will make corrections and suggestions for word choice, spelling, punctuation. She will verify facts and index accuracy.

My specialty is creative nonfiction, biography, memoir and personal essays. (I do not work with fiction writers). I help authors in all stages of their work:

Project Development – Work with the author to develop an idea to an outline to a book proposal and book. What is it you want to write and why do you want to write it? Who is the audience? Do you plan to self-publish? Find an agent? Do you need help setting deadlines or someone to advise you on research, organization and interview skills?

Focus and shape your book proposal – Sometimes the proposal is more difficult to write than the book. It is the first impression you’ll leave with a publisher and you want it to be good. Do you have an outline? An overview? Contents page? Sample chapters? Marketing plan?

Evaluate your manuscript – Does the story, structure, pacing, organization and continuity work? Is your message clear? Is the work compelling?

Edit and polish manuscript - Does it need rewriting? Cutting? Adding? Moving things around for clarification? Is the style clean and consistent?

Proofread and Copyedit manuscript – Fixing spelling, grammar, jargon, punctuation, semantics, formatting, fact-checking.

For more information or a project quote email me at TSaviano61@mac.com

Ghostwriting

Though the Internet and on-demand book publishing has meant that communication has never been easier and information never been more plentiful, leaving a legacy in print is still one of the most desirous of dreams. To that end, my friend Alanna Nash and I started our ghostwriting business. We offer a service that allows people who never thought of themselves as authors to leave behind lasting memoirs, family histories, how-to books, and personal collections of thought.

These books—offered either as manuscripts to be shopped at traditional publishing houses, or as bound, privately published volumes—will be written by one of a team of successfully published authors, writers, and biographers across the country.

Spearheading the team is Alanna, the prize-winning author of seven books for major American publishers including Baby Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him (It Books); The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story Of Colonel Tom Parker And Elvis Presley (Simon & Schuster), which won the 2004 Belmont Award for the best book in music; Golden Girl: The Story Of Jessica Savitch (E.P. Dutton), which suggested Touchstone Pictures’ feature film "Up Close and Personal," starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer; and Behind Closed Doors: Talking with the Legends of Country Music (Alfred A. Knopf),

"There is nothing more fascinating to me that finding the motivation for why people do what they do," Alanna says. "And in turning the glimmer of an idea into reality, whether for a book, article, speech, or business proposal, I look first for a good story. That can be a mother's heart-tugging tale of a courageous child, a businessman's scrappy story of success, or a tribute to that mysterious bond between animals and owners. The task is to frame the human heart on the page."

Alanna and I can help you if you need any kind of editorial services or writing assistance, whether it’s for a non-fiction book, a novel, a speech, or an article. Most people are surprised to learn that many of the books by well-known persons in the news are actually the product of ghostwriters—people behind the scenes who never see their names on books, but who get the call because the credited “authors” can’t write their stories on their own or haven’t the time to do it.