Submission

Please email or call me to arrange submission and scheduling.

Fee & Options

My hourly rate is $85, and I offer a range of editing options to suit different needs and pocket books.

I’m assuming that most of my editing clients are hoping to improve their manuscripts with the goal of making their work as strong as they can make it and finding a suitable publisher, but I’m open to working with poets who would like to polish their manuscripts prior to self-publication and family/friend distribution. I also line edit individual poems singly or in batches, as  suits the poet.

Comprehensive Edit = $1,020 - $1,870

This is the type of editing I have done for authors I have published. It includes detailed line editing (basically, I note everything I see that could be polished or improved, line by line), ordering, inclusion, title brainstorming, and overall strengths and weaknesses. This option includes a free 60-minute telephone consultation upon my receipt of the balance owed, wherein we can discuss any aspect of your manuscript or your career as a writer that you wish to discuss, including advice on whether or not I think the manuscript is ready to submit for publication, and if so, potential venues for publication.

I estimate that a fifty to seventy-page manuscript (including front and back matter) should take between twelve and twenty-two hours ($1,020 - $1,870). The range is wide because the hours required vary greatly, depending on the page count, how much work needs to be done, the accessibility of the poetic style, and on how dense the poems are on the page (long-lined, long poems vs. short-lined, short poems) and on how many poems are to be lined edited. Most comprehensive edits take between sixteen and twenty-two hours (chapbook manuscripts take less time).

If you email me your manuscript (MicrosoftWord document or PDF’s only, please), I will make an estimate of the total cost in advance, though the final price will vary. If you wish to place a cap on the cost, I am willing to do so, though that may mean that the job will be less thorough than it would have been had I been allowed to finish in the comprehensive mode.

While editing, if I discover that there is significantly more work involved than I estimated, I will contact you immediately to learn how you’d prefer I proceed (a continued comprehensive edit or less intensive overall edit for the balance of the work).

This edit does not guarantee publication, but depending on what stage you are in in your apprenticeship or your career as a poet, how willing and able a reviser you are, and what your publishing goals are, it should bring you closer, possibly much closer.

Overall Edit = $340 (Four Hours) - $935 (Eleven Hours)*

This is a less intensive version of the comprehensive edit. I will look at overall weaknesses and strengths in the text of the poems and offer specific line edits for a number of example poems and suggest that you look at each poem with those suggestions in mind. I will also offer ordering suggestions which will be more general or more specific, depending on which price/hourly commitment you choose, and suggest which, if any, poems should be cut or if some might be added.

*The six to eleven-hour options include a free 30-minute telephone consultation upon my receipt of the balance owed, wherein we can discuss any aspect of your manuscript or your career as a writer that you wish to discuss, including advice on whether or not I think the manuscript is ready to submit for publication, and if so, potential venues for publication.

Manuscript Status Consultation $255 (three hours)

I will read the manuscript and offer written advice regarding whether I think the manuscript needs heavy or light editing (and include sample edits), whether or not I think it’s ready to submit for publication, and if so, potential venues for publication. This option also includes a 30-minute telephone consultation, wherein we can discuss any aspect of your manuscript status that you wish to discuss.

If you decide after the conversation that you would like to proceed with either the comprehensive or overall edit, the fee for that will be a little less than it would have been otherwise, as I will already have read and considered the manuscript, and will need to spend less time than otherwise going forward.

 Manuscript Status Advice = $170 (two hours)

I will read the manuscript and offer written advice regarding whether I think the manuscript needs heavy or light editing (and include sample edits), whether or not I think it’s ready to submit for publication, and if so, potential venues for publication.

If you decide after reading the advice that you would like to proceed with either the comprehensive or overall edit, the fee for that will be a little less than it would have been otherwise, as I will already have read and considered the manuscript, and will need to spend less time than otherwise going forward.

Payment

One half of the fee (or estimated fee) must be paid in advance of comprehensive or overall consultations, and the balance upon your receipt of the edited manuscript.
The comprehensive and the six to eleven-hour overall edits include a free telephone consultation upon my receipt of the balance. The full fee for manuscript status consultations is due in advance.

I accept checks or money orders.

Refunds
No refunds unless I fail to perform the work due to extended illness or injury. 

Testimonials

April Ossmann's editing skills were invaluable to me while preparing my manuscript for publication. Her comments, ideas, and gentle but firm suggestions made the process of editing my first book a delight. I came away with even more confidence in each poem's ability to move the reader and a sense that the overall order of the manuscript was the most powerful and most inevitable. I am so grateful to know she will be there for me when my next manuscript is almost-ready to go.

                                –Frank Giampietro (Begin Anywhere, Alice James Books, 2008)

From my own experience, I can tell you that when the poem or manuscript deserves critique and editing suggestions which are nuanced and subtle, then that’s exactly what April provides. And though it may be a difficult pill for our pride or our ego to swallow, she also offers the hard brass tacks when the poem or the manuscript needs them. And all of this she does in service to the text—to the writing itself—which I think is the greatest offer of respect one writer can offer another. April’s insights arise from a deep and expansive reservoir of craft knowledge, from many years of guiding writers to more polished and developed manuscripts. I encourage writers to do what I have done—give the bright instrument of your work to April so that she can guide you and your work so that it shines even brighter still.

                                           —Brian Turner (Here, Bullet, Alice James Books, 2005)

April told me at the beginning of our editing session that I would not be obligated to take her suggestions, but I took them—all of them—with tremendous gratitude and a sense of awe. Her understanding of the emotional pitch of the poem, attention to minute detail, and seemingly intuitive sense of extraneous material that could—and should—be removed made my poems unquestionably tighter and better, yet still entirely true to my voice and style. I was so lucky to have the opportunity to work with April. I can’t imagine a more skillful or more insightful editor. 

                    —Henrietta Goodman (Take What You Want, Alice James Books, 2007)

April Ossmann talks about editing at Alice James Books:

Poetry Foundation Harriet Blog Feature: April Ossmann

April Ossmann Essay in Poets & Writers: 

Poets & Writers: The Practical Writer: "Thinking Like a Poetry Editor: How to Order Your Poetry Manuscript," by April Ossmann

Email address:  aprilossmann@hotmail.com