Hello! I’m Erin Wiegand, a freelance editor and publishing consultant with over 20 years of experience editing nonfiction books and journal articles. I’ve helped hundreds of authors navigate the publishing process, develop their manuscripts, and fine-tune their writing.
Book Proposals and Publishing Support: As a former acquisitions editor for both trade and academic presses, I can help you understand what editors are truly looking for in a proposal – and what you should be looking for in a publisher!
Developmental Editing: If you’re struggling to organize your book chapters, need help working through revise-and-resubmit feedback, or want to turn your PhD thesis into a monograph, I can help you get your publishing plans back on track.
Copy Editing and Line Editing: If you need help to make your writing clear, compelling, and accessible, I can provide sentence-level editing that allows your core argument to shine through. Copy editing can also provide a final polish to ensure that punctuation, grammar, spelling, reference formatting, and style consistency are up to publication standards.
About Me
I got my start as an editor at the indie magazine LiP: Informed Revolt in 2005. From 2007 until 2025, I primarily worked within the book-publishing industry, including roles at North Atlantic Books, Palgrave Macmillan, and Pelagic Publishing, among others.
I bring strong ethical values to my work and am attentive to issues of unconscious bias and potentially exclusionary language. I provide careful, kind, and constructive feedback to authors, and I have extensive experience working with first-time authors and writers who do not have English as a first language.
Outside of my work as an editor, I have a passion for cinema and film history; I received my PhD in film studies from Northumbria University in 2022. (To find out more about my work as an independent scholar and film programmer, see erinwiegand.com.) In my spare time, I like to crochet, birdwatch, and go on bike adventures.
Born and raised in California, I now live in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
I have completed the Professional Sequence in Editing at UC Berkeley Extension, including advanced coursework in substantive editing, and I am well versed in The Chicago Manual of Style, APA style, and New Hart’s Rules (Oxford style), and I can easily adapt to other style systems. I’ve received additional training in developmental editing for academics from Laura Portwood-Stacer, and I’m committed to ongoing professional development. I am a member of ACES: The Society for Editing and an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading.
Publishers I’ve Worked With
