About me…
I have more than thirty years experience as an editor in publishing, newspapers and magazines, and, for the last twenty years, in writing development, mentoring and book coaching.
I am an author - both traditionally and self-published - and my focus is on providing services and support to writers - principally, but not exclusively - looking to self-publish their work.
As an indie author (a title I prefer over the more common title ‘self-publishing’ author), I walk the walk. I recently recovered the rights to my first, trad published novel, and I’m working on a new version of the book, and an audio book. I also recently published a new collection of my performance poetry, which I sell at gigs - check out the 4000 Nights of New York tab in the menu above.
Editorial and coaching services….
Please note - at present, I only work on nonfiction projects. That is, works including biography, autobiography, memoir, works on travel or nature, on general, accessible histories and other aspects of the arts and music.
I am also very happy to consider projects that are at the intersection between trade, commercial nonfiction and academia, and I also work on projects that are for private archive, family history projects, or for other small-scale, specialist circulation and not for wider publication.
I offer the following services - please read and consider all of the following. An indicative guide for fees and terms and conditions is below.
Editorial Assessment -
This is an assessment of a draft of your book as an overview, focussed on the ‘big picture’ issues. I’ll read your work and provide feedback on its structure, content and over-all flow and logic of the book; your chapters and their order and suitability, your headings, and the style and tone of the writing, with recommendations for change / development. This has a focus on making the work right for your intended market.
If you are unsure of the market for your work, then I can advise you on that as part of the editorial assessment, and in a way that enables you to fully understand your project and its potential.
All Editorial Assessments include a follow-up meeting to go through the points raised for clarity, and to discuss approaches to making the changes recommended.
Editorial assessments can be highly beneficial in this single report and discussion process.
Development Editing -
This provides all of the above but is highly focussed, granular and text specific. This is particularly useful in problem solving, in moving the development of the work on in partnership with the author. Like editorial assessment, writers must be open to developing their work and respond constructively to critical engagement if the full value of these services is to be achieved.
I will send you a detailed report on your work, and will offer a follow-up meeting, as above. But I highly recommend that we continue to meet as you develop the work in response to the report.
Please note - None of the above provide proof-reading or copy editing of your text. That is a different role, and comes at a later stage to the above is completion of a work for publication.
Book Coaching -
Book coaching works on supporting and developing your writing project and your writing processes in relation to that project. The aim is to ensure timely completion to the highest standards, and to help you navigate the editing and publishing processes.
Coaching supports you as a writer through these challenges, and equips you to progress your work and to finish your project. As your coach, I will work on supporting and nurturing your writing process so that you can overcome the many hurdles there are in completing a book project. It can be hard, but I specialise in supporting writers to achieve their goals, whether they are new or more experienced writers.
I will help you to define your project, define issues in the work and your writing process, and help you to find clear aims that will help you to complete the work.
I will support you as much as your want and need through the entire process, from creative ideas and motivation to finished words on the page. Many writers have a compelling story to share, but creating that work can be a hurdle - you need advice on style and tone for your work, sometimes you maybe suffering from block. As your coach, I will support you through the process.
Mentoring -
This focuses on you, the writer and your creative processes. It is a programme defined by you and the support needs you identify in our initial discussions. It is highly tailored, responsive, flexible and supportive.
Many of us, as writers, face issues in our work, we struggle to find time, motivation and focus to make progress. All of that is entirely natural and a part of the creative process, and of creative development. Life also gets in the way. We find ourselves blocked, distracted, not knowing where to start and to build commitment.
Mentoring is a dynamic process. It is suitable for beginners, as well as more experienced writers. It is suitable if you want to start writing and to write for purely personal reasons, and to secure the many benefits to your well-being that creative writing can provide. You don’t need a book project to have a writing mentor, all you need is a desire to write. I also find mentoring to be a highly effective and efficient way to address issues such as writer’s block, fear, and in boosting confidence.
A Hybrid model - Editorial / Coaching / Mentoring
I offer a blend of my editorial, coaching and mentoring services that is tailored by you, flexible and dynamic - part-focussed on your work / the text, part-focussed on your writing practice and process. This is designed to enable you to complete the work to the highest standard, with support for your writing process, and to navigate the processes of publishing.
My experience as a writer, and as an editor, has shown me that rarely is the line between editing and mentoring that far apart. In indie authorship and self-publishing, I believe the most useful approach for many writers, especially those starting out, is a hybrid blend of these services, and with a single editor/coach.
I have conducted 100s of 1-2-1 meetings with writers over the last decade, as they raise issues with their work in progress. Often, discussion of these issues leads straight to issues in their writing practice and processes, and their relationship to their own work. To solve the problem with the book, so often, first we work on the highly individual processes of writing itself. And that is an on-going process of writing development.
For many writers, achieving completion and fully utilising the recommendations for changes to their work that editorial assessment might provide, can be difficult. Very often the reluctance to change comes back to issues in our relationship to our work, as manifest in our writing processes and practice. This hybrid model can help you make progress on these issues.
Our initial discussions will determine the right blend of these approaches for you, your project and your budget.
My work is goal-orientated, but always person-centred.
I work to the principle that engaging story-telling is at the heart of all successful nonfiction projects. Whether your project is a memoir, autobiography, biography, or other project, its narrative form and content is key.
Marketing advice
Included in all of there above. It is important to have a clear sense of who your reader is or is going to be, how you find them and what your options are, the right options, in choosing traditional publishing or self-publishing for your project.
I can advise you on all aspects of both routes to help you determine the best route for your work.
One size does not fit all. Some books are stonewall indie projects, some are best in the trad space. I can help you to determine which route is right for your project, and support you in whichever option you select.
Please note - I work only in the English language. I am happy to work with clients based outside of the UK.
How I work…
Editorial assessment - After we have agreed terms, I will ask you to send me the work concerned. With four weeks (length of work dependent), I will send you a detailed report on that work containing an itemised critique and suggestions for its development. I will also send you, if requested, my view on your best route to publishing, and the commercial potential for your work. At that point I will suggest a date for a 1-2-1 follow-up via Zoom. I aim for the entire process to be concluded within six weeks of receipt of your work.
Development Editing / Book Coaching - I like to begin any project with an informal meeting, a discussion of your needs, and how you think I might be able to help you. It is also good to get a sense early on of your aims; how you define them, and what a successful engagement would mean and produce for you. I may also ask you to send me some of the work, where applicable, in advance of this initial meeting so that I can get a sense of your project and what stage you are at with it.
If your project is at a very early stage, or even just an idea, we can meet (online or, on occasions, in person) to discuss and define it, and put steps in place to make your aims fully achievable.
We also have to consider and agree timescales and fees, and then we commit to a contract/ agreement that sets out our mutual understanding of the process we will enter into, and its clearly defined outcomes and deliverables.
The dynamism of working in partnership, in a team with an author to produce a well-written, well-conceived and professionally executed self-publishing project gives me huge creative satisfaction and pride.
Mentoring - We will arrange an informal one hour discussion of what you feel mentoring can achieve for you, and for me to understand if I am the right person to help you. This is free of charge, and there is no commitment. After that meeting, I’ll send you a summary, along with an estimate of fees & timescales, which can be on a. time-limited/ fee basis, or an on-going regular meet and fee basis.
Client endorsements…
John Rogers - Welcome to New London - Journeys and encounters in the post-Olympic city
'Peter Urpeth for his wise editorial guidance and support. Peter’s morale-boosting feedback on the manuscript was essential for getting this book into print.' (Acknowledgements & Thanks, Welcome to New London)
“What Peter did was incredibly vital...Peter enabled a shift in mentality for me that allowed me to look at the text in a way which helped me shape it for a reader. And before and after your work on the book, it was completely different text, even though, actually it was all there. It was all the same stuff in a lot of ways. But just the way I shaped it and contextualised it and framed it changed. And it made it a lot more of a coherent text as well. I also felt I was able to get a more consistent tone of voice across the entire text.
Peter enabled me to take the book from being a passion project into something I could present to the public. And particularly if you're self publishing,(...) you have to feel confident that you've got that external voice to guide you on that path. I would have made a lot of mistakes without his help. That made a big difference.
Pic credit: John Rogers
When it came to my mentality of what I'm doing now in terms of promoting the book and selling the book, Peter helped me think about that differently. And I couldn't be doing what I'm doing now without that help. What Peter did was incredibly vital, actually.
But there were a number of things Peter said to me early on about the self-publishing process that I couldn't really absorb at the time. But then, when I came to do it, it all came back. I was going, oh, this is what Pete was talking about! Okay, I get it now. I understand now. And it was really good to have had that in the back of my mind because he'd sewn the seed. And so somewhere it was there, somewhere I had been thinking about it subconsciously, but all the little details you have to go through when you publish them make a massive difference.’
It has been my pleasure to have worked, over the years, on some amazing self-publishing projects, including, most recently, John Rogers’ ‘Welcome to New London’.
When I first spoke with John he was looking for a trad publisher for his second book, which was a work in progress. His first book, ‘This Other London’, had been very well, and very successfully published by harper Collins. But, with very strong social media and You Tube platforms, with content very closely linked to his books, it was clear to me that his options were open, and that self-publishing was a route he should definitely explore. I worked with John as a development editor, but also on developing his indie publishing plans. Both were successfully completed in October.
Link to John’s work and the book…here
Judy Fairbairn - The Island Wife (and ongoing projects!)
“…I was writing a memoir of a lunatic life lived on the Isle of Mull, my story and not the one that everybody knew. My husband was high profile, an ingenue, a pioneer of whale watching using benign research deployed by myriad university students who also acted as crew. I knew, as many did not, how much paddling I was doing beneath the apparently still waters - a hotel, five children, farmer's wife, 7 holiday lets, and a husband who was barely home.
After I sent the double spaced manuscript to Pete I could barely eat I was so terrified he would tell me it was crap. He didn't. Quite the opposite and from that point we met and edited and worked on a lot of 'less is more' until he decided it was ready for an agent's critique.
I liked Pete from the start. He was kind, funny and generous with smiling encouragement so I never felt, as I had imagined I would, like a schoolgirl before the head.
I always felt supported and important. I have him to thank for my agent and my publishing deal and as the book still sells well, I can see how my story relates to those of many other women. Not only has he the writer's skills and the ability to teach and guide wisely and patiently, but he is a real people person and a pleasure to work with.”
June Graham - a literary biography of Vincent O Carter (WIP - on-going)
Pic - June Graham in the Missouri Room of Kansas Public Library.
“When I started writing the biography, I had no idea how to begin, and Peter met with me and shared practical advice.
Peter’s comments on the first few chapters I wrote for the biography transformed my approach to writing. I completely rewrote these chapters, and the result is a stronger narrative which will appeal to a wider audience.
Peter’s enthusiasm and encouragement has also made a huge difference to my confidence and stamina to keep going and it has been very helpful to bounce around ideas.”
My work with June Graham was financially supported by the artists development programme of An Lanntair arts centre, Stornoway. During our mentorship, June also successfully applied for Creative Scotland funding, which enabled her to go to Kansas to continue research on this very important literary biography. I am honoured to be associated with its development. WTS.
Orla Broderick - The January Flower
“There’s no easy way to say this. He might transform your entire life.
I was a broke and broken struggling with life single mother. I wrote a few pretty sentences, which happened, by luck, to end up in the hands of Himself. He nagged, cajoled and kicked me up the bum until I wrote a bit more. Then he made me read. He gave me every writerly tool at his disposal. He encouraged me to write a novel. He edited my novel. There were times I thought we were telepathically linked.
I won various awards with that first debut novel. I began a life as a writer. My child grew in literary company. My self esteem rose. I now have a Masters in Creative Writing. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Let’s talk!
First, please contact me via the form below, outlining your work and the service and support you would like to enquire about.
If I think I can assist you, I will propose a meeting via Zoom (or similar) to discuss your work and requirements further, and agree on a timetable and fees with you, as outlined above.
Once we have completed an agreement, I will then read your work and send you a detailed report with an invite to a follow-up meeting.
Fees…
My fees for editorial services are competitive. As follows
The following is an indicative list. During our initial meeting, we will outline the services you require, and each project does, as a result, have a different fee.
An editorial assessment (with a report and follow-up meeting) of a 60,000 manuscript will cost £650. For longer works the additional cost is £6 per 1000 words
A development edit of a 60,000 manuscript (with a report and 1 follow-up meeting), will cost £1000. For longer works the additional cost is £15 per 1000 words
Book-coaching and mentoring costs £45 per hour. Reduced rates are available for regular and block bookings across a month/s. You can define the frequency of meetings, and we will agree a block fee.
Hybrid blend of editorial services and coaching - very specific to each person and project, but indicative costs - £1500
Terms & Conditions -
You will of course be able to withdraw without cost at any point prior to the finalising of the contract and payment. Payment is via bank transfer.
If we progress to work together, all fees are payable in advance and are not refundable, unless I am unable to provide the services agreed. In such circumstances, I will refund your fees in full.
If you need to reschedule a meeting, that will be accommodated as far is reasonably possible and practical, and we can reschedule. I will sometimes, but rarely, have to reschedule a meeting, and will give as much notice as is possible and reschedule as soon as possible.
I work with complete confidentiality, with respect, and with a shared goal of making your work the best it can be.
I will also advise you immediately if I feel that I am not the right person for your project. The initial meeting is always free of charge.
The first step…
If you would like to discuss how we might work together on your project, drop me a line, without obligation using the contact form below.
if you simply want to discuss my services and what I can do for you as a writer in the most broad terms, please use the contact form in the ‘about & contact’ menu item above.