You're happy with your overall story, it's been edited at the sentence level, and you've gone over and over the manuscript until your head hurts. Now you want to make sure there are as few errors as possible before releasing your work into the big wide world.
Proofreading is the last stage in the editing process. The final check for spelling, punctuation and grammar issues, as well as any other glaring problems that may have slipped through the net.
You're happy with the overall story. You have faith in your character development, you've got to grips with your plot and subplots, and you're generally confident that you've got a great story under your belt.
Now you want it to be a delight to read. You want to trim the fat, remove clunky sentences and weak phrasing, and get readers to want to keep turning the page.
Copyediting is there to clean up and iron out your writing so that it flows well, making sure your readers are fully immersed in your story.
You've finally finished your manuscript. Perhaps you've even had a few family members and friends have a look at it and they tell you it's good. Now you feel like you need a more critical eye to give you some thorough and honest feedback on the story as a whole.
With this service you will receive extensive comments and suggestions regarding your manuscript on how to resolve problems with the foundation of your story.
This will involve in-depth commentary on structure, characters, plot, pacing, narrative and POV. A manuscript critique will not focus immediately on the small details that are involved in copyediting and proofreading, but instead the larger picture.
If you're not quite sure your story is ready for the submissions or querying process just yet but don't necessarily have the means to shell out a lot of money for a full critique or copyedit, this is likely the service for you.
With this service you will receive a hybrid copyedit and critique of the first 10,000 words of your manuscript, allowing you to get the beginning of your story in the best shape possible before you submit, increasing your chances of grabbing a publisher's or agent's attention.
My current prices for fiction manuscripts are as follows (these prices will vary for other projects such as non-fiction manuscripts, academic proofreading and web copy/articles):
Proofreading: 7.50 GBP per 1000 words
Copyediting: 10.00 GBP per 1000 words
Manuscript critique: 6.00 GBP per 1000 words
Pre-submission Copyedit and Critique of 10,000 words: 200.00 GBP