Welcome! I'm Julie Coleman, and I'm based in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, metro area. For ten years I have worked as a professional copy editor and have edited more than thirty published books.

My latest position was as a Senior Editor at Publications International, Ltd., and I now offer freelance editing services full-time. I also offer writing services of all kinds. See this page for writing samples.

With my experience and skills, we can work together to make sure your manuscript is exactly the way publishers need it to be.

My resume

 Editing and Proofreading Service Levels

• Basic Copyediting/Proofreading
  Review manuscripts for spelling and typographical errors, grammar, punctuation, and consistency. Click here for rates.
  

• Thorough Editing
  All of the above, plus:
• Looking for problems in tone, flow, dialogue, word choice, tense, style, point-of-view, sentence structure, and clarity. Click here for rates.
  

• Developmental Editing/Substantial Editing
  All of the above, plus:
• Restructuring the manuscript to ensure proper transitions, presentation, and organization of the content. Click here for rates.

Editing Styles

Each publishing house has its own style guide, and I can adapt to whatever style guidelines your organization uses.

• AP Style
  Most newspapers base their styles upon the Associated Press style.
  
  
• Chicago Manual of Style
  The most widely used style guide.
  
  
• Words Into Type
  A clearer and more precise version of the Chicago style.
   
• APA (American Psychological Association)
  The APA style guide is used to cite sources within the social sciences. I have a B.A. in Psychology and am very familiar with the APA style guide.
   

Subjects I've Edited

Many of the books I've edited are listed here. Some of the nonfiction subjects I have edited include gardening, baseball, law/legal issues, baby names, grant writing, travel, art, spirituality and religion, movies, grammar, U.S. history, and business. I have also edited fiction. 

Proofreading Example

While Google lists 879,000 entries for the word pair "copy editing" and 502,000 entries for the single word "copyediting," only one choice is correct: "copyediting."  "Copy editor," however, is two words...so a copy editor does the job of copyediting. Proofreading, however, has a different rule--it is always one word. Thus, the sentence "A proof reader does proof reading" is incorrect, and I would change it to "A proofreader does proofreading." So why do the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook agree that a "proof reader" who does "proof reading" is incorrect, while a "copy editor" who does "copyediting" is correct? Unfortunately, the answer has been lost to the sands of time, but the main thing you need to know is that there is a correct answer, and I will always make sure that your letter, report, or manuscript is correct, as well.

Whether or not if you live in the Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota area, if you need freelance editing services of any kind, feel free to give me a call at 651-236-0533 or drop me an e-mail at mail@juliecoleman.com, and we'll talk about your editing needs!