Book proposal editing services for authors
Make your book irresistible to publishers—without losing your voiceIdeas on Fire provides interdisciplinary scholars with expert book proposal editing that helps their projects move from promising idea to publishable book.
A book proposal isn’t just a summary—it’s an argument about why this book needs to exist, why now, and why you are the person to write it.
For interdisciplinary scholars, that argument is even more important. You’re often writing across fields, methods, and audiences while trying to meet the expectations of acquisitions editors who are juggling market pressures, a peer review crisis, and list cohesion.
Those intersections—between fields, publics, politics, and presses—are where we work best.
Read on to learn how we help scholars craft book proposals that are clear, compelling, and legible to the people who decide what gets published.
Book proposal editing services
A book proposal is first a foremost a marketing document.
It needs to make a compelling argument for your book's existence, not merely describe what the book does.
Our book proposal services focus on helping you meet those expectations without flattening your intellectual commitments.
Developmental editing
Clarify your argument, contribution, and audience
Developmental editing focuses on the big-picture content of your proposal.
We identify ways to strengthen how you present your argument, audience/market, methodology, analysis, organization/structure, theoretical and scholarly contributions, and overall narrative arc—ensuring your you make the strongest case possible for why presses should publish your book now.
Our service includes:
- One round of in-text edits in Microsoft Word using Track Changes
- A detailed editorial report outlining your key audiences and interventions, strengths and areas for improvement, and concrete revision strategies
Rate: USD $0.11 per word
Turn-around: starts at 15 business days for just the proposal, sample chapters extend the turn-around depending on length
Copyediting
Improve readability and get your proposal ready for publishers
Copyediting focuses on the clarity, consistency, and precision of your writing.
We attend to sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, spelling, consistency, formatting, and citation style—ensuring your proposal is polished and publisher-ready.
Our service includes:
- One round of in-text edits in Microsoft Word using Track Changes
-
A style sheet to ensure consistency across the proposal
Copyediting takes place once your content is complete.
Rate: USD $0.10 per word
Turn-around: starts at 15 business days for just the proposal, sample chapters extend the turn-around depending on length
Publisher insight report
Find the right publisher for your interdisciplinary book
Optional add-on service for book proposal editing.
Our publisher insight report provides a tailored analysis, identifying five US academic publishers that align with your book’s key audiences and focus and that suit your publication goals.
Your custom report includes each publisher’s relevant acquisition lists and major fields, detailed book proposal submission requirements, insights into the book proposal review process, series suited to your book, and contact information for acquisition editors.
Rate: USD $495.00 flat rate
Turn-around: starts at 15 business days
How book proposal editing works
1. We assemble your team
Our CEO Cathy Hannabach personally assembles and leads your editorial team with the help of our editorial director—matching your proposal with the right editors and project managers for its fields, editorial needs, and publishing context.
2. You deliver your proposal
You send us your proposal and any sample chapters on the contracted start date, along with any notes on target presses, prior feedback, or specific concerns.
3. Your team gets to work on your edit
Your team dives in, reading as acquisitions editors would—evaluating clarity, framing, contribution, and audience.
We refine structure and organization, strengthen your arguments, smooth grammar and punctuation, format citations, and ensure your writing speaks effectively to acquisition editors.
We also create the supporting editorial documents—a style sheet for copyediting and an editorial report for developmental editing—to guide you through the revision process and ensure your ideas shine through.
4. We conduct a final review
Our CEO and editorial director conduct a final review to ensure your argument and voice shine through clearly and consistently and that all of the book proposal elements have been addressed. We create the final files that present a unified Ideas on Fire edit with detailed tracked changes and revision recommendations.
5. You receive your edited proposal
We return your edited proposal and editorial documents, with tracked changes you’ll integrate to create a submission-ready text. You can be confident that your proposal meets professional publishing standards and truly reflects your scholarly voice.
Recent book proposal editing projects
Frequently asked questions: academic book proposal editing
How do I know what kind of editing I need?
Most manuscripts move through three editing stages:
-
Manuscript review and developmental editing: focus on argument, analysis, structure, and organization
-
Copyediting: focuses on clarity, style, grammar, consistency, and citation formatting
-
Proofreading: a final check of typeset page proofs before publication
If you're just getting started with a dissertation-to-book conversion, you can start with a manuscript review.
If you’re still shaping the argument or structure, you likely need developmental editing.
If the content is set and you’re polishing the writing, you’re ready for copyediting.
If you’re reviewing publisher-issued page proofs, you'd benefit from proofreading.
For a deeper explanation, see our article When to Hire an Academic Editor or Indexer.
Do I need a finished manuscript to work on my book proposal?
No. Many authors we work with on proposals are still drafting the full manuscript. A strong proposal can—and often should—precede a finished manuscript as it provides a useful frame as you revise the full text to fit the proposal claims.
Do you help with dissertation-to-book proposals?
Yes. We frequently work with authors revising their dissertations into first books and can help you reposition the project for today’s publishing landscape.
You might also check out our First Book Publishing Series, covering everything from finding a great publisher and preparing your book proposal to navigating peer review and marketing your book.
What kind of proposals do you edit?
We work on book proposals in the interdisciplinary humanities, social sciences, and arts, including:
- Proposals for scholarly books aimed at university presses
- Proposals for crossover books aimed at university presses and crossover presses
- Proposals for trade books aimed at university presses
- Proposals by scholars for trade books aimed at trade presses
You can see examples of our work on our portfolio page.
We do not edit proposals in STEM fields, fiction, memoir, business, marketing, corporate communications, or non-scholarly fields.
How is my editing team assembled?
Each manuscript we work on is supported by a collaborative team throughout the entire publishing journey.
Our CEO Dr. Cathy Hannabach handpicks and leads each team, ensuring the exceptional quality our editing projects are known for.
This collaborative method provides your manuscript the benefit of multiple professional perspectives and Ideas on Fire’s unique, holistic publishing support.
Learn more about our outstanding team members on our team page.
Can I reschedule an editing project?
Yes. Please get in touch with us as soon as possible to adjust your start date.
What other publishing support do you offer?
Unique among editors and indexers, we provide comprehensive publishing support for books, including strategic book promotion and targeted marketing campaigns designed specifically for academic and crossover audiences.
We leverage our extensive interdisciplinary network and expertise to maximize your book’s visibility and impact through coordinated social media campaigns, conference placement, email newsletter features, blog posts, website showcasing, and other strategic promotional opportunities.
We know interdisciplinary scholarship can help build more just worlds, which is why our goal is to ensure your ideas reach the widest possible audience while maintaining the scholarly integrity of your work.
How do I pay for services?
We will send you an invoice with the edited manuscript, and payment is due within 15 days.
We accept credit/debit cards and bank transfers. We do not accept paper checks.
If you are using university funds, please confirm with your university before the project begins that they will pay via credit/debit card or bank transfer.
We are a registered vendor with hundreds of colleges and universities so the process is streamlined for payment.
If we are not already on your institution’s vendor list, we will register to enable direct payment.
Will you ghostwrite my proposal?
Absolutely not.
We have a strong ethical and political commitment to academic integrity. For scholarship to have credibility, it needs to be researched and written by the person whose name is on it.
Academic editing should never include ghostwriting or creating original content for an author.
Further, we will not edit any manuscript that contains plagiarized material.
Do you have any additional resources on scholarly publishing?
Tons! Check out our extensive scholarly publishing resource library.
And for those of you working on your first book, check out our comprehensive First Book Publishing Series, featuring advice from more than a dozen leading university presses.
Your book deserves a proposal that does it justice
A strong book proposal doesn’t just summarize your project—it translates your intellectual labor into terms publishers can champion.
You don’t have to do that alone.