Unfortunately, due to ethical guidelines regarding conflict of interest, we cannot represent anyone who we have provided paid editing services to. If you end up working with one of our editors, you cannot later seek representation from that agent.

Paragraph 8 of the American Association of Literary Agents Canon of Ethics states:

8. A) The Association believes that the practice of literary agents charging clients or potential clients for reading and evaluating literary works (including query letters, outlines, proposals, and partial or complete manuscripts) is subject to serious abuse that reflects adversely on our profession. Members should be primarily engaged in selling or supporting the selling of rights and services on behalf of their clients, i.e. members should not be primarily pursing freelance editorial work and misrepresenting themselves as literary agents or support staff of a literary agency. Members may not charge any reading fees for evaluating work for possible representation. However, members may provide editorial services in exchange for a fee to authors who are not clients, provided members adhere to the following provisions:

I) Members who render such services must make clear to the author in writing in advance that the rendering of such services does not indicate or imply that the member will represent the author as a literary agent and must provide to the author at the outset a copy of this Paragraph (8A-8B) of the AALA Canon of Ethics; and 

II) if during or after the rendering of such services the member agrees to represent the author, the member must then return in full all payments received for such services prior to submitting the work and waive any further payments for such services for that author; and 

III) to help prevent confusion, abuse, and to further separate paid editorial services from literary representation, at no time may members respond to an author who approaches them only for literary representation by instead suggesting or directing the author to pay for editorial services by the member or by anyone else financially associated with the member or member’s agency. Members must provide paid editorial services only to authors who have approached them directly for such services.

B) Literary representation of any author must not be contingent upon the author engaging any such paid editorial services, nor shall a member retroactively charge for editorial services in the event a client’s project is not sold. For avoidance of doubt, the intent of this clause is to allow members flexibility and independence in their payment structures while avoiding the conflict of interest that may arise from members making a profit on top of commission from the sale of both their client’s works and separate paid services rendered to that client. 

C) The foregoing provisions shall not apply where a member provides services with respect to a non-client’s work if all of the following conditions apply: 

I) any payment therefor is made directly to a charity, as part of a fundraising effort for a third party, or to an established educational institution; 

II) the member shall personally create the evaluation and provide it within a reasonable time; 

III) the member does not in any way benefit financially from the activity; and 

IV) the member conducts the activity in an honorable way fully consistent with the AALA Canon of Ethics.   

For purposes of clarification, payments received by members for teaching classes or from writers’ conferences, whether virtual or in-person, which may include payments that specifically apply to such evaluations, shall not be a violation of this paragraph. 

Absolutely! As editorial literary agents we have done developmental and line edits for the following titles: The Sunflower House by Adriana Allegri, The Ascenditure by Robyn Dabney, The Vixen Amber Holloway by Carol LaHines, What Remains of Teague House by Stacy Johns, The Claiming by J.A. Nielsen, and The Winter Heir by J.A. Nielsen.

Each of our editors has a list of their preferred genres. However, we will consider projects in other genres as well.

No. Pink Pen Editors offers only pre-publication editorial services.

“Thoroughly revised” means your manuscript has been through multiple rounds of edits, many (if not all) of your chapters have been reviewed by your trusted critique partners, and your full manuscript has been read by beta readers who either write in your genre or read many, many books each year in your genre.

To build the skills necessary to become the best writer you can possibly be, we recommend utilizing the books and articles listed on our resources page, taking writing classes, attending conferences and workshops, and being actively engaged in one or more writing critique groups.

Copy editing is a vital final step in the publishing process. Whether you’re self-publishing or seeking traditional publication, problems with spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure/variance, adjective overuse, etc. can be the reasons your book never finds its audience. Don’t let that happen to your beautiful words!

The only two editing packages that can be combined are the Pink Lemonade (query letter and synopsis evaluation) and Rose (first 35-40 pages evaluation). This is only appropriate for the author whose book has been thoroughly revised and they are ready to seek an agent or publisher.

This will depend on the services you have requested and the other projects in the queue ahead of yours. If we are able to offer you services, we let you know the how many days or weeks we will need and we will all sign an agreement that includes deadlines for all parties.

This will depend on what type of manuscript you’re writing and how far along you are with the project. In the Editing Packages section of this website, there are details about each of the packages and what type of project might be helped best with each of them.

We reserve the right to decline to offer our services for any reason. A few reasons we might turn down a project include: We may already have a full queue and won’t be able to provide editing in a timely manner. We may feel we don’t have the level of expertise required to do what you’ve requested. We may just not connect with your project, and in that case, it would be a disservice for us to take you on as a client.

Our fees will vary based on the editing package you’re seeking and sometimes the length of your project. Please see the “Editing Packages” section for more information.

Depending on where you are at in your publishing journey, there is a high probability that further revisions will benefit your book. Of course, you will need to take our notes and incorporate those as you see fit (always running them by trusted critique partners and/or past beta readers). We make suggestions that, from our years of experience and knowledge of this industry, we feel will make your book the best it can be. But you are the author and you have the tough job of actually doing those revisions once we get back to you.

If, however, we have agreed to do a full copy edit for you, we have already vetted that you’re far enough along in the process that your book is ready to make its way into the world–whether that be searching for an agent or publisher, or self-publishing.

The short answer is yes. Memoirs are considered nonfiction books and the proposal is a chance for you to make a business case for why your book is important to the world, who your audience is, and why you’re uniquely able to write the book (hint: it’s not only because you lived it).

However, one of the key differences between memoir and other types of nonfiction books is that the narrative voice and the quality of the writing matter just as much as the business case. So, put just as much work into your sample chapters as you do in to the proposal.