Hire the Best Fantasy Freelancers in Chicago, IL

From 2007 to 2017 I was the owner of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, which published 40 books for total distribution of over 20,000 copies. Along the way, CCLaP's books won or were finalists for a half-dozen awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the Lambda Award for LGBTQ literature, and the Independent Publisher Book Award; and the center itself was named one of the 10 best indie presses in the United States by both BookRiot and Poets & Writers magazine. Now I bring that same award-winning deep experience to your own self-published or small-press manuscript, helping you hone it with a fine knife into the best book it can possibly be. I currently offer three services as a freelancer, the first and main one being editing. I provide not only developmental editing (helping you identify “big picture” problems regarding the story, characters, dialogue, information logic, and more) but also copy editing (including a close-in technical pass for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage, also sometimes known as “line editing” or “content editing”) and post-production proofreading (where I review not only the text but also all the book parts, such as headers and footers, the title page and synopsis, etc.). I charge half a cent per word for proofreading, 1 cent per word for either developmental or copy editing, or a bundled discount of 1.5 cents per word for all three. Secondly, I offer graphic design of your book’s interior pages. If you have specific ideas beforehand of what you’d like included, I’m happy to incorporate those wishes; or otherwise we work in an iterative process, where I present you multiple options as far as layout style and typeface choices, and over several back-and-forth discussions we whittle things down to a design you love. For books of less than 500 pages/100,000 words with no tables, I charge a flat $300 for the entire process, plus provide EPUB and Kindle ebook versions for free; please drop me a line if you have a bigger or more complicated book. (My apologies, but I do not offer cover design as a freelance service.) And thirdly, I offer help as a story coach, which you can think of as a creative writing college course but with only one student, you. I meet up with you at whatever frequency works best, review the latest work, give you pointers on where to go next, help you brainstorm ideas, and serve as an accountability partner during mental blocks. You determine exactly what kind of help would work best for you, and the maximum amount of hours I should work per week, at a rate of $30 per hour. See my portfolio section at the bottom of the page for a broad selection of testimonials from authors I've worked with as a freelancer, and praise my books have garnered over the years from such publications as Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, the Chicago Tribune, HTMLGIANT, and more. Proud member of: American Copy Editors Society Romance Writers of America (fellow RWA members get a discount; write for more) Chicago-North Romance Writers ANTI-AI PLEDGE: I promise that all work I complete for clients has been, and will always be, accomplished using only my human brain and ten human fingers, never using AI bots, Grammarly, or other software options.

I write, read, and proofread young adult, adult, contemporary, dark, mafia, and paranormal romance novels and short stories. I also have experience in writing scripts for Short Films, Webtoon, and other mediums in the Drama, Romance, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Historical, and Musical genres. I am here to help hone in on your creative visions. You tell me your ideas, and I'll be your pen!