• matt@mooreattuned.com
  • Bookings available from December 2026
  • 20% off copyediting quotes until the end of 2026 (even if you book a 2027 slot)

Copyediting

Let your writing be a gateway to your story, not a barrier

Your scenes propel the reader through the narrative, all the emotional beats pack a weighty wallop, your characters are fleshed out and memorable.

You’ve wrangled your story into a shape you’re proud of. (And you should be!)

What comes next is the more technical, nitty-gritty part: making sure each sentence is smooth and snag-free, the meaning of each idea is clear, facts (both real life and story world) are accurate, and character details are consistent.

This is important, as every time a reader has to reread a line or their image of a character is suddenly warped, their confidence in your writing erodes (and your book gets closer to landing on their DNF pile).

A copyedit gives your story the professional polish it – and your reader – deserves.
'To see someone treat my work with as much passion as I put into it is the highest compliment and encouragement.'
It was an absolute pleasure working with Matt from Moore Attuned Editorial. From our first interaction, Matt was friendly, professional, and easy to communicate with. It's clear that he is very passionate about the work he does. I was blown away by the thorough and conscientious amount of detail Matt put into analysing and documenting the world, characters, lore and narrative of my story. To see someone treat my work with as much passion as I put into it is the highest compliment and encouragement. Matt includes detailed notes in his edit, explaining why he's made a change, including examples, which makes it easy to understand some of the more complicated rules of grammar, helping me as an author become a better writer. Matt asks thoughtful questions, and offers great suggestions of how clunky or confusing prose could be improved. He has an eagle's eye for detail, and in so many places has caught small inconsistencies that would otherwise have slipped past. I am eternally grateful to Matt for polishing my story; I couldn't have asked for a better result! Given this is the first novel in a trilogy, you can bet I'll be working with Matt on the next two.
C.A. TasamAuthor of Across the Lunar Sea

Let's make sure your words don't make the reader stumble.

After a second, third, or tenth draft, keeping the details straight and the commas in check can seem impossible.

I’ll comb through your manuscript line by line to prune away errors, tidy cluttered sentences, remove redundancies, and ensure consistent editorial style – all while keeping your voice intact.

Yes, tidy up my manuscript!

What does a copyedit help with?

  • Correcting errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling
  • Enforcing consistency in:
    • Editorial style (The Chicago Manual of Style or New Hart’s Rules, the major style guides for the US and the UK respectively)
    • Character portrayals (e.g., a bald character doesn’t run his hand through his hair, or a tattoo doesn’t switch arms)
    • World-building and setting details (e.g., a spell’s rules don’t change, or a wooden door isn’t suddenly made of steel)
    • Use of tense
  • Ensuring the timeline checks out (e.g., a three-day journey isn’t completed in an afternoon, or a major event doesn’t fall on the wrong day)
  • Basic fact-checking (e.g., a tool isn’t used before it’s invented, or the date a planet was terraformed doesn’t change)
  • Continuity (e.g., a character doesn’t enter a room twice or perform actions out of order)

What do you get?

  • Your edited manuscript with tracked changes and comments
  • Your edited manuscript with all changes accepted
  • A comprehensive style sheet that lists editorial decisions made during the edit and tracks character, location, and timeline details
  • Project notes to explain any major and recurring issues I've fixed and to help you navigate the edit

How it works

Step one

We'll have a chat about your book, and I'll answer any questions you may have.

Step two

I'll do a sample edit of roughly 1500 words to see if I'm a good fit for your project and to produce an accurate quote. Preferably, the sample should be from the middle of your book and not polished before sending; this is so the sample is an honest reflection of the work.

Step three

All happy? Great! I'll send over the quote (including the deposit due) and the agreement.

Step four

Once I receive the deposit and the signed agreement, I'll block out the time in my diary ready for work! We'll go over style preferences beforehand.

What does it cost?

Every manuscript is different and has its own editing needs; a sprawling fantasy with several POVs and timelines will be more complicated and time-consuming to edit than a simpler story lighter on the details. As such, costs can vary.

Below are indicative prices based on a fairly straightforward edit of a manuscript that’s in decent shape.

My editorial decisions are guided by New Hart’s Rules or CMOS, depending on your favoured style guide, but they’re not bound by them. In writing, there are no real rules, just conventions based on majority usage. And while these conventions are best followed most of the time, rigidly sticking to them can hinder your fiction.

So I don’t do that; if, by breaking them, you nail a specific tone, rhythm, or effect, I won’t butcher it in favour of ‘correctness’.

There’s a time and place for breaking those rules, however. And doing so too often or in the wrong places can look sloppy, not stylistic. I make sure your rule breaking makes your readers go ‘Oooh’ and not ‘…Huh?’

Copyediting versus proofreading

Copyediting and proofreading are similar; they both deal with fixing grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors and help ensure consistency. However, copyediting has more scope than proofreading, which does as little meddling as possible. For example, most of the issues that require sentence restructuring (e.g., dangling modifiers – ‘walking down the road, the sun was shining’ – or overuse of the continuous tense, making separate actions happen simultaneously) are usually ironed out before the proofreader gets their hands on it. This means there may be thousands of changes in an edit, while in a proofread changes may number in the hundreds; a copyedit is always performed before a proofread. See the table below to compare the services.

TasksCopyeditingProofreading
Correcting egregious, essential errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation ✓ ✓
Enforcing consistency with spelling variations, hyphenation, and capitalisation ✓ ✓
Ensuring styling of various elements is consistent, such as time and date formats ✓ ✓
Checking for ambiguity or incorrect word choice and suggesting alternatives ✓ ✓
Checking page numbering if necessary x ✓
Checking final layout (on the designed file) x ✓
Carrying out light fact-checking if something seems off ✓ ✓
Addressing clunky, but correct, prose ✓ x
Rephrasing to improve flow, tone, or sentence structure ✓ x
Carrying out more detailed fact-checking ✓ x
Addressing minor story problems (and flagging larger ones) ✓ x
Checking for continuity or timeline errors ✓ x

Clear the path between your reader and your story.

I'm interested!

Want to smooth the rough edges of your prose so your story takes centre stage?

Contact me