Here's how it usually goes:

• Email me and describe your project.
  What kind of document is it? What is its purpose? Who is the target audience? How long is it (about how many pages)? Will editing be governed by any particular style (APA or MLA or Chicago, etc.)? Tell me about any deadlines. How many authors will be contributing? Any relevant information about the author(s) would be useful. If you want me to call you on the phone, give me your number.

• I'll get back to you.
  In most cases, I will get in touch with you within a day, asking any follow-up questions. Once those preliminaries are settled, I will ask that you send me at least the first few pages of the project in Microsoft Word, attached to an email. I will then edit a few pages of text, and email the file back to you with change flags turned on. This way, you can get an immediate sense of what kinds of edits I will bring to your writing; and I will tell you how long the selection took me to edit, so you will have a rough idea how much time will be required to edit the entire project. Thus we can work up a preliminary cost estimate. If the outcome of this early experiment is that you decide not to engage me for the project, I will not charge for those first few pages. If you do want me to proceed, I will let you know where your project fits in my scheduling. I can usually get going on a new project within a couple of days.

• It's generally in MS Word.
  Editing work is nearly always done in Microsoft Word, with files exchanged by email attachment. A few clients have requested hard-copy mark-up editing, and I can deliver this if you prefer.

• $25/hour.
  On most projects, I work for $25/hr. The reason I use an hourly rate, and do not normally charge by the page or by the word, is that some prose can be edited rapidly, while some can be a real slog, even if the writing is good.

• I only charge for time I work.
  When charging by the hour, I charge only for the time I actually spend working for you. So if I take a 10-minute coffee break, I "clock out" for those 10 minutes and that time does not count toward your total. If a personal meeting between us is needed, I will gladly drive to your office, home, or any other meeting place you specify...however, I charge for travel time plus 25 cents a mile.

• It's a collaboration between you and me.
  You needn't be bashful about questioning any of my edits where you do not agree with them. It can be a ticklish and very personal matter, editing another person's prose. Some people, at a visceral level, simply don't like having their words changed -- even some people who sought out the service! This is perfectly normal. Sometimes a document goes back and forth between author and editor a number of times before both are happy with the final product. All the editor can do is present the reasoning behind the edits; obviously, the author has final say.

• Paying me.
  I invoice by email, once a week or when the project is finished. You can remit by check or money order payable to Cliff Nelson, P.O. Box 323, Fountain, NC 27829 -- or (even better) you can send a PayPal payment to my email address: cliff@cliffedits.com

A few editing examples I can share:

One client wrote:
"Further, accountability of aging individuals to plan and prepare for the costliness experienced as a part of the aging process is key to establishment of intergenerational distributive justice."

I changed that sentence as follows:
"Further, an emphasis on the responsibility of aging individuals to prepare for the expenses of old age is key to establishing intergenerational distributive justice."

In my opinion, the edited version is easier to read. The client agreed.

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Another client wrote:
"To give students the autonomy to pick and choose their learning events, from an array of learning options, is the best model for the young professional at the undergraduate level."

I changed that sentence as follows:
"The best model for the young professional at the undergraduate level gives students the autonomy to pick and choose their learning events from an array of learning options."

I trust the improvement is as instantly clear to people reading this page as it was to my client.

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Finally, I would invite the prospective client to review the evolution of the following paragraph. It started out like this:

"In light of the history of tobacco industry and their practices, one must consider whose the respective interests in adding nicotine to cigarettes versus adding caffeine to soft drinks and beverages. However, it is well known that individual judgment is not an effective deterrent to the inevitable health effects suffered by tobacco. The same is true in generations of people who may or may not be adequately informed in order to give consent, ie, make informed decisions about various food void of nutrients. Yet, people will consume. Brownell and Warner submit that the tobacco industry vigilantly advertised about their partnership with public health, while they worked desperately to prevent or delay shifts in public opinion that would permit a barrage of legislative, regulatory and legal actions, eroding sales and profits (2009). Yet, we know that lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease run rampant today secondary to tobacco abuse, costing large sums in health care expenditures. Why is obesity different? Theoretically, the truth is that obesity is not different from tobacco abuse."

This choppy block of text required extensive re-work. It highlighted, or tried to highlight, some of the most important points contained in the paper. Yet I thought much of the thrust was lost in a tangle of words. So I moved some ancillary points to other, surrounding paragraphs, and I totally recast and emphasized the most important concepts. In my opinion, the new version positively sings.

"So the issue goes beyond full disclosure in packaging. The entire structure of food marketing and corporate interests comes into play. Just as it bears asking who is most served by the addition of nicotine to cigarettes, so too we should ask who is most served by the addition of caffeine to beverages, or fat to snacks. We have seen that consumers, even in full knowledge of tobacco-industry depredations, have not entirely stopped using tobacco. But they have cut back. The same is surely no less true of consumers of unhealthy foods. First of all, they may not know the content of their food choices and thus could not give knowing consent, an ethical issue in its own right. Secondly, even though some consumers would still make unhealthy choices in full knowledge of food content, that knowledge, once sufficiently widespread, can lead to better (if imperfect) choices."