Is it worth paying for a copy-edit?

First, I’m an author, not a copy-editor, and I’m not selling any services. For my first four books I didn’t use a copy-edit as it would have cost me around a thousand pounds to do so per book, and I didn’t think it was worth it. Now I have a large publisher behind me, and have just had a copy-edit done for me (for free), I’ve basically changed my mind. 

The last stage before your words are locked in forever
When your manuscript is heading for publication, after you’ve done all you can to polish it, there are always two remaining items to consider.
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Why I wrote 66 Metres

I wrote Sixty-Six Metres over the course of several years, initially stopping after 7 chapters and putting it down for eighteen months while I was working on something else. But it actually started back in 2011 when I had a short story called ‘No Diving’ published online. It takes place in a Welsh quarry called Dorothea, where the bottom is at just over a hundred metres. It’s a dive site that has claimed a few lives, and the story was about a man who had lost his buddy there, and blames himself, so he goes there to commit suicide (to find out whether he does or does not, read the story).…


Landing a publishing contract with Harper Collins…

I remember staring at The Call letter when it came in, and at first thinking it was just another rejection. But something in my brain snagged… and then, an OMG moment, especially when I read the ‘three-book’ part. I had to re-read the letter several times, and call Charlotte, my brand new Carina UK editor, to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating!
I had to do some quick thinking. Two weeks earlier I’d received another offer from a US publisher. I had been strongly considering it and was about to sign… but this was Carina UK, aka Harlequin, aka HarperCollins Publishers.
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