Copy-editing

Mak­ing text (the ‘copy’) as good as it can be is at the heart of what I do. I have an eye, a nose even, for ambi­gu­ity, incon­sist­ency, unfor­tu­nate gram­mar, vague punc­tu­ation, improv­able sen­tence or para­graph struc­ture, indeed all the things which can get in the way of the mes­sage to the read­er.

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Typesetting

A good text set­ting does not draw atten­tion to itself and allows the author’s mes­sage to be absorbed effort­lessly; a poor one is dis­tract­ing. Wheth­er your pro­ject be large or small, with or without illus­tra­tion, I can com­ple­ment its con­tent and mood with sens­it­ive typo­graphy and lay­out.

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Proofreading

An eye for detail is essen­tial, but alone not enough: the knock-on effect of proof cor­rec­tions can be expens­ive, so they had bet­ter be neces­sary, not just nice to have. I respect this require­ment and, as a type­set­ter myself, can sug­gest ways to min­im­ise the dis­rup­tion in repair­ing an error.

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About me

About me

I’m old-fash­ioned enough—well, I’m old enough—to think shared interests and val­ues can foster a good busi­ness rela­tion­ship, which is why I’ve tried on this web­site to con­vey a little of what makes me tick.

Many of my pro­jects have been naut­ic­al books, which I’ve been edit­ing, pro­du­cing, and pub­lish­ing, single-handed, since 2009—about fifty titles to date, which are sold through the book trade, and world­wide online at Lode­star Books. But I can har­ness my pas­sion for com­mu­nic­a­tion, insa­ti­able curi­os­ity, and edit­or­i­al skills to a wide range of mater­i­al; my exper­i­ence, learn­ing and read­ing embrace sci­ence, maths, nature, travel, cur­rent affairs and com­put­ing, as well as sail­ing and boat main­ten­ance (I sail a clas­sic wooden yacht and run a web­site ded­ic­ated to her design­er Albert Strange).

They say, ‘Put noth­ing on your CV which you don’t want to do again’; but then, how would I explain away the forty-years-plus I’ve spent in com­puter sys­tems and soft­ware, in a vari­ety of hands-on, man­age­ment and com­mer­cial roles? And years of com­puter pro­gram­ming do make for a cer­tain clar­ity of thought. Or per­haps it’s the other way round.

I’m a Pro­fes­sion­al Mem­ber of the Soci­ety for Edit­ors and Proofread­ers, and adhere to its Code of Prac­tice.