LYNN EVERETT

Children’s Diagnostic Report

The Children’s Diagnostic Report provides an analysis of the overall “health” of your children’s book. This report will outline your book’s unique strengths and weaknesses and give you valuable, usable information that you can apply to take your book to the next level.

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Here is the kind of information you will see on your Diagnostic Report:

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• A recommended book category (e.g., picture book, young reader, chapter book)

• A recommended age bracket for your target market

• An assessment of whether your children’s book meets the standard word and page counts for the age bracket and category

• An assessment of whether content, word choice, and sentence length are age-appropriate

• An analysis of what works and what doesn’t in big-picture items such as story line, characters, and point of view (in fiction) or organization and completeness of content (in nonfiction)

• Examples of surface errors, such as those in punctuation, spelling, and grammar

• A recommendation for the level of editing that would best suit the needs of your work

Children’s Substantive Editing

This big-picture edit looks at the building blocks that form the foundation of your children’s book. I will place comments strategically throughout your piece, giving specific advice on areas such as the following:

In Nonfiction

• Organization (e.g., into sections or subsections)

• Supporting information (e.g., source citations, graphics, examples)

• Extraneous or off-topic content

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In Fiction

• Character, plot, and scene development

• Showing rather than telling

• Point of view

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After you review the completed edit, you can either make the changes recommended in my comments or hire me to make the changes for you. (A bid for my additional work will accompany the edit.)

Children’s Copyediting

This light to moderate edit fixes surface errors, such as those in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Children’s Copyediting will also suggest ways to make sentence length and word choice age-appropriate.

Art and Layout Editing

Art and Layout Editing flags problems to be fixed by your book’s illustrator or designer. Examples of flagged areas include the following:

• Illustrations that inaccurately depict the related text

• Illustration details that are inconsistent from one page to the next

• Text inadvertently hidden or made illegible by illustrations or other design elements

• Awkward juxtapositions of illustrations and text

Children’s Proofreading

The Children’s Proofreading service points out surface errors and typesetting problems to be fixed by your designer. This service is typically performed on books that are formatted and almost ready for production.