Manuscripts to Market - The New York Pitch Launches Novel Editing Service

By Julie Field
 
Faculty of the New York Pitch Conference, Michael Neff and Paula Munier, have launched a boutique novel editing service. The service is "boutique" because, according to Neff and Munier, they have no intention of turning TNE into a manuscript critique factory.

As it states on the TNE website:

We do not portion out our services like dim sum, and neither are we a manuscript editing factory dependent on large volume to stay in business. We only take on a few clients each month so that dedicated and careful editorial work on your novel or nonfiction can be accomplished by not one, but two highly experienced editors (bios below) working in tandem.

Let's not fool ourselves. This is the way to do it. In truth, could there be a better approach? Pay peanuts and you get monkeys, as witnessed by the so-called professional reviewers of the manuscript editing industrial complex (whose credentials you almost never get to examine in advance) who get paid to "critique" 300+ page manuscripts; and surprise, the bulk of the critique turns out to be proofing and line editing with only a small portion being "development notes" (much of which is questionable) plus a paragraph or so of false praise and personal flattery added for good measure. The management pockets $800 to $2000 per ms--the entire structure dependent on acquiring a score of manuscripts per week.

Most writers come away feeling good and hopeful, few realizing they've basically been duped.

The Manuscripts to Market Novel Editors, however, working in a very opposed dimension, utilize not one but two highly experienced editors to work on each manuscript, thereby enabling a more realistic and balanced approach to the complex task of novel editing:

In our case, two editors equal your single best chance to become published. We possess over thirty years experience working on the publishing side of the business as well as on the literary agent side. As a result, we are networked with many literary agents and publishers in New York, and on the west coast, but just as importantly we have a solid track record of working with authors to produce books published by major commercial publishers and/or signed by major agencies. 

If you review the bios of the boutique editors of TNE, Neff and Munier, you'll see they do have the solid track record noted above.

The choice is obvious, but yes, we're biased on this end.