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Reviews for Austin book publishers
W. V.
Review post on editor Melanie Grunwald Elegant Editing
1. Hired editor Melanie Grunwald around October 2018 to edit a book I had written. Originally, I stated I needed spelling, typos, edited and references placed at the end of each chapter. Melanie agreed, and is verified by email. Her quote was $600 total, and another $50 to transfer the file to a pdf so I could send it to a publisher. $650 total.
2. I had given instructions to Melanie on editing and specific details via worddoc.
3. I stated I would give $200 when she was done with one third until finished. I told her I had a previous editor who I had a bad experience that I had deposited $325 and never heard back or any work was done, so I was being leery of who I hire. I have had paypal reverse that prior editor fees for non work. She understood, and agreed.
4. Melanie later stated via email she was done with entire book and sent me her draft, and gave me the remainder of the bill which I did pay in full. I told her since the file she sent me had red markings for editing pieces, I could not read the edited version. She stated to just punch the ‘approval’ so she could remove the red watermarks so I could see the book as it would appear publicly.
5. After viewing the document on my book she sent me after allegedly editing the book, I noticed spelling errors. I saw the bibliography had been created by the end of each chapter, yet this was a minor part of editing. I also noticed she had not numbered the bibliography references, yet left book numbers after sentences to reference sources, despite eliminating numbers in the bibliography. She forgot to remove them from chapters in book, thus there are numbers with no reference comparisons.
6. I sent multiple emails after final edit was sent to me. I noticed many typos, errors, and also noticed Melanie in fact had done very little if any editing on the entire book, and mainly focused on simply doing simple bibliography editing. This is not what I hired or agreed her service for. In our original conversation, I clearly explained on the phone and email that it needed editing for typos, paragraph spaces, etc. I emailed her December 5, 2018 to remind her that there were no indentations on paragraphs in the original draft, which she deflected by stating it was ok that way, yet I did remind her of grammatical corrections needed in this email:
Date: December 5, 2018 at 6:59:32 PM CST
To: Melanie G
Subject: Re:
"Oh ok. Just to be sure, I didn’t do indentations. I know you said it’s my style but grammatical correction if needed."
For that period of the last week or so in early 2019, my wife and I ended up editing my book, and have overcome an ocean of errors, typos that were part of the original wordcoc I sent to be edited. I sent Melanie an email of my disappointment, and her absolutely lack of any major editing on my book. My wife and I had to edit 132 pages when we first checked typos, that Melanie never touched.
7. My wife and then went over editing the entire book. This consumed hours a day, and it seems there has been a minimal amount of editing at all. I was told that her cost to convert worddoc to pdf would be $50. I had no problem with that, although I had to pay again another company $60 to redo on a new pdf now that we have spelling errors corrected.
I did file this with my claims department, and had the total amount reversed back to my account.
Detail on email parts to Melanie on unprofessional work in case Melanie tries to claim my review is not accurate:
On Dec 5, 2018 I noted about needing editing for grammatical corrections.
On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 I went through pdf file of the final edit Melanie allegedly did on my book, and noticed many errors I thought she had edited including:
1. Page 103.
2. Page 117.
3. Page 138.
4. Page 144.
5. Page 243.
6. Page 263.
7. Page 268.
8. On page 275.
9. On page 276.
10. On page 277.
11. On page 278.
12. Also "from then" to "on". After "proleteriat, there is a colon "' that needed to be eliminated.
13. On page 308.
14. On page 311 on 1-4.
15. On page 316.
16. On page 341.
17. On "Conclusion, thank you" at end of book, changes needed.
8. Thu, Jan 3, 2019 I sent Melanie more errors that she missed or didn’t edit:
18. The name of the printing company.
19. Page 49.
20. Page 69.
21. Page 90 .
22. Page 100.
23. Page 110.
24. Page 234.
25. Page 237.
26. Page 244.
27. Page 263.
28. Page 273.
29. Page 305.
30. Page 327.
9. On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 I found more errors I sent to Melanie needing correction:
31. I reminded her again to remove wrong publishing company on first page, that I had emailed her the day before requesting, and to replace with current publishing company.
32. Page 91.
33. Page 255.
34. Page 305.
35. Page 348.
36. Page 378.
10. Again on Jan 4, 2019 I found more errors that Melanie never corrected:
37. On first page publishing website address she changed the font to New times roman instead of Arial.
38. After an intro page, next page was blank.
39. After blank page, next page were blank almost half way down on the page.
40. Page 255 'changed the font to New times roman.
41. Page 348 she changed the font from the rest of the paragraph to New times roman.
42. Her response was telling me I needed change the font (Not her, who is the actual paid editor but me):
“You'll have to change the font as the one you had wasn't a legitimate font on my Adobe pdf program.”
Ironically she stated I needed to find the font (arial), yet many paragraphs on her pdf were still in New times Roman. My wife was able to change those later.
NOTE: Melanie should have just told me she didn’t know how to convert to PDF very well instead of blaming me or telling me I needed to find the font that the entire book was already in.
11. My wife and I decided to read the whole book.
My wife and I both realized Melanie had done practically zero editing in the actual book, but simply prioritized on bibliography part at the end of each chapter. All of my old errors, or gaps, or typos, etc. that I found, I sent her to correct, were still there from when I first sent Melanie the file. It seems she simply took references, made a bibliography page at the end of each chapter and decided that was the majority how she planned to edit the book. There seems to be some spellchecks here and there, but this is probably a auto program because some of her own corrections were incorrect.
12. 90 pages my wife had to edit
I attached and sent Melanie pages my wife and I having to do our own editing.
There were 90 pages we had to correct spelling, spaces, etc. in addition to the 42 pages I originally corrected and sent her. Melanie didn’t notice 132 pages (1/3 of the book) of the book’s errors but my wife and I did?
We had to correct:
- spaces, even page numbers that were off center
- paragraphs that jammed into another
- typos
- and so many other issues, that I am not excusing this as accidental, or something missed.
My wife and I ended up re-editing the entire book from front to back. It is now up for sale. I waited to file this review until after I was done with my book and it was published. None of this has any credit to Melanie, in fact her unprofessional editing delayed our book for almost a year. We were delayed until January 2020 to launch the book.
This is lazy editing. Cherry on top of unprofessional was when she stated $50 to file it on pdf that we had to redo the entire PDF due to Melanie’s errors on it and pay another company $60 to redo her PDF errors.
13. Melanie tried to vaguely suggest or place blame on me in an email. She tried using obfuscation of facts claiming she did more than footnotes and I had the chance to accept or reject button.
Melanie didnt know I am better on detail then she is at editing. I copied her own email, and sent back to her her own instructions to me was the only way to remove the red watermarks was for me to hit accept all changes:
Me asking can she remove visible edits watermarks:
“Melanie, Are you able to send edited version without visible edits, or is there a quick way to remove them?”
Melanie’s response via email:
“Go to review tab in Word and hit accept all changes in document.”
Melanie in another CYA campaign, tried to blame me as if I had never contacted her:
"I wish you had come to me sooner. I would have been happy to have gone through it again once all those changes were made and it was clean again as I usually offer 2 passes with large books like that. I have had many satisfied clients and strive to do all I can to rectify any unpleasant issues so I'm sorry for all the time and effort you had to take on it."
I did refute her in a response by notifying her she was assuming I was supposed to read, edit the whole book faster to send her corrections?
I also told her that was her job, not mine!
And of course I confronted her via email asking why is she ignoring her avoidance of editing or failing to address how she missed 132 pages of spaces, errors, or typos I already told her needed correction. I finished the email by telling her:
“ignoring content as a hired editor is not my fault, and your tactics of blaming me are despicable.”
14. I just went through some of her other reviews on thumbtack. I noticed some other complaints are very similar to mine on font, typos, spacing, editing errors, etc.
Maybe she is better at term papers or other areas, but definitely there is nothing elegant about her editing.
Elegant Editing
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