Read our fantastic testimonials.
Best thing that has ever happened to my writing.
Dave’s editorial work on Crossing In Time extended far beyond copyediting and delved into plotting, pacing, and even character motivations. Still, his most valuable skill is his uncanny ability to work within your voice to make the manuscript the best it can be. He addressed everything from character-specific word-usage to weak scenes to changing the weather to strengthen the emotional power of a setting. Wow. His diplomatic suggestions created faster pacing, stronger scenes, and more emotionally charged characters—all at a price lower then what others were charging for line edits only.
Dave is reliable, efficient, and has high professional standards, but on top of that, he’s a pleasure to work with! Needless to say, I’ve contracted him to be editor-in-chief for all the books in the Between Two Evils Series.
As a debut author, I highly recommend thEditors.com to anyone who plans to submit to an agent or publisher, and especially anyone planning to self-publish. If you’re motivated to be the best writer you can be, work with Dave, and the results will speak for themselves. Working with him is the best thing that has ever happened to my writing.
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David is a true mentor and a remarkable human being
My journey with David began when he generously offered to review the first chapter of my manuscript. I assumed it would be the industry-standard quick gloss-over. Was I ever wrong. The chapter came back filled with meticulous notes, thoughtful ideas, highly detailed discussions, and deeply insightful comments.
As we continued working through the full manuscript, I was even more blown away by David’s professionalism and efficient approach. He seamlessly combines a 100,000-foot view of the entire story arc with a sharp focus on the tactical details that drive pacing, clarity, and reader engagement. And when needed, David didn’t shy away from kicking my literary butt into shape—demanding discipline, structure, and refusing to let me settle for easy, superficial solutions.
But beyond the professional, David is a true mentor and a remarkable human being. With emotional intelligence, he knows when to tread lightly and when to push hard, always relating to you as a person—not just to the words on the page. In this often-ominous journey of writing, editing, and publishing a novel, I’ve found a true ally.
You will not be disappointed.
That was many, many books ago.
Each time I have used thEditors’ services, I have been more than pleased. Each of my books has improved significantly from a grammatical standpoint to the storyline itself. He work with characters in particular is amazing, he has a gift for understanding them and helping you bring out the best from them. I could not be happier with the work Dave and ThEditors have done with my work.
Dave clearly understands that the revisions process is not only one of the most crucial aspects to writing a novel, but also a delicate one that involves telling the author what’s needed to take their work to the next level. Dave does every aspect of his job carefully, proficiently and diplomatically.
He clearly understands what is needed to make the storyline improve and come alive. I have been pleased with everything about thEditors—they are prompt and professional and I believe my books are much better after having worked with Dave.
I not only plan to continue to use thEditors for my mystery series in the future, but I would highly encourage any writer who wants to improve the quality of their work to also consider using thEditors. I can say with confidence that you will not be disappointed.”
Professional and knowledgeable editing.
I began my journey with Dave by submitting the first 3,000 words of my manuscript for a free review. What I received upon completion surpassed all expectations! Dave’s feedback reflected both an attention to detail and incredible insight into the foundational ideas of the book and characters. He truly understood the story I was telling. Needless to say, there was no hesitation when I was provided a very reasonable quote for developmental and copyediting services.
As Dave and I began to work together, he welcomed my inquiries and provided wonderful suggestions to help me see the flow of the story and character development from an outsider’s perspective. This is an important idea in the growth of a novel from inception to completion. Without his insight, I was stuck in my own version of the tale and missed important elements that ended up providing a richer context for my characters and a stronger plot.
The first round of editing was filled with lengthy comments and suggestions that inspired me to delve back into the work and flesh out the story. I cannot emphasize how perfect our pairing was. Dave got me. He knew where I wanted to take my reader and even provided ideas that I had already included in the second book, further evidence of how in tune he was to the story. Once the first round of work was finished, Dave took another look at my edits and provided a second round of less intensive suggestions.
Dave Taylor at theEditors.com provides professional and knowledgeable editing that will enable you to weave a story that captures the heart of the tale you want to tell. He won’t just make your story a bit better, he will make it a lot better!"
I highly recommend thEditors.
In today’s publishing world, I knew I needed a professional edit of my manuscript. I searched the Internet for possible editors, evaluating the services they offered for the price demanded. After every search I kept coming back to thEditors, who I found through Twitter. So I contacted them. I’m convinced it has been one of the best decisions of my writing career.
From my first interaction with Dave, his comments were not only encouraging but on point. He helped me to see which characters needed further development, and identified repetitive language and phrasing. He pointed out plot contradictions and my overuse of the “ly” adjectives. He suggested some scenes could be cut, something that initially made me nervous, but having done so I realized he was correct and the work was stronger for it. I also appreciate his thoughts on what the reader might be thinking at a certain points in the novels. That is the type of reassurance that the message or feel I am trying to convey is getting across.
The chapter impressions, together with the line by line edit, makes revising an enjoyable experience. Dave is also extremely approachable, always willing to answer questions I have about his comments in a timely manner. His insights help me to tighten the plot, create engaging (although not always likeable) characters, and better books overall.
If your manuscript needs editing, I highly recommend thEditors. You won’t be disappointed. I wasn’t.
I look forward to working with thEditors and Dave Taylor on all my future books!”
A truly fantastic editor
Of course, I have saved the original manuscripts. These days I’m not sure why. Even if you stop by the house, I won’t let you read them.
This experience has been like hiring a trainer to help me lose weight and get in shape. The process is not easy and at times uncomfortable, but the trainer has my best interests in mind and knows the road to success. We both want the book(s) to be the very best they can be and it shows in the final products.
You, the reader, may be on the fence about hiring thEditors for your work. If you believe in what you have written, start the process – your dreams are on the line. Give them their greatest chance. You WILL NOT find a better editor."
You will not find a better editor.
I found ThEditors via a Tweet that mentioned their offer of a free assessment of the first few thousand words of your MS. At that time (April 2015), I’d been polishing the book over many years, and felt it was finally ready. In my mind, the assessment would be a quick check that it was indeed ready for publication.
That initial free assessment I received from ThEditors arrived sooner than I had expected, and the email explained several significant issues. Every point that Dave made, I saw excellent sense in; and each taught me something. The points were not obvious until they had been pointed out. At that point I decided I would indeed like to pay for a full assessment, after I had attended to all the points he had made. Dave and I exchanged some emails, during which he impressed me with both his honesty and his integrity. And a mention of an attachment made me wonder whether I might possibly have overlooked something in his original email assessment…
I certainly had! Dave had attached a fully-marked up copy of the sample of my MS, line by line, with many detailed comments. Which I had completely overlooked, because there was so much “meat” in his email. Feeling like an idiot, I then went back to my MS and made still more improvements.
The full assessment arrived at the time Dave had said to expect it, and was even more rigorous, thoughtful and helpful than the free sample assessment had been. To be a little more concrete, some of Dave’s suggestions were:
- Greatly reduce the POV shifts.
- Greatly reduce the scene shifts.
- Rewrite many scenes so they were from the POV of the main character, not the second MC. In Dave’s words: “It’s Sara we want to be with; not Harmon.”
- Don’t make things too obvious (“Rule 1 really is respect the reader’s intelligence … if you give a subtle hint they will pick up on it.”)
- And so much more plotting and pacing advice that I can’t even list it all.
Dave has given me so much valuable and substantive feedback that I could never summarise it all here: just his Critique ran to over 9k words, for my 150k-word MS. In addition, he provided a detailed structurally-edited MS with something like a couple of thousand extremely helpful comments. You will not find a better editor.
But his biggest suggestion was that I had two books here! He thought the first half could make a great book in its own right (if I could flesh it out enough to make a good plot for it by itself). I reluctantly saw the wisdom in this, after thinking deeply and honestly about it, discussing it with Dave, and discussing it with my two key Beta readers. So I went ahead, and re-worked it, and then had Dave do a 2nd critique of the new 1st book. Dave was just as diligent, just as insightful, and just as helpful for this 2nd effort.
And lest you think that this is just my opinion, let me quote from a review on Amazon from someone who had seen and read most of the MS (via Amazon’s WriteOn writers workshop):
“Backstory/How I came to know about Wild Thing. Since I’m on a writing site, I do try to give feedback. Normally, though, I give feedback for the first chapter, but if the book is really good, I continue. I don’t continue reading most books that I read. But, Wild Thing was one of them, even though I never really finished it. I did read a fair bit before the author decided to use some professional editors.
And woah, the difference is amazing! This is probably not relevant to 99% of the people out there, but I really want to say, that the changes in this book are amazing. I liked it before, but now, it’s a lot more fleshed out, and the characters feel a lot deeper. It’s amazing to see the story that was hiding under that first draft I read.”
Enough said, I feel.
Thanks, Dave: I’m looking forward to working with you on the whole series!
They are absolutely brilliant
