Copy Editor

Your manuscript, edited closely.

Three-pass copyediting built on Chicago Manual of Style rules. Detects your style first, then edits — and delivers tracked-changes .docx files you open straight in Word.

Start a copy edit $1 per 1,000 words · style sheet free
What a professional copyedit costs — vs. Kellen
Professional freelancer · EFA 2023 median
$1,920
80,000 words × $0.024/word median copyediting rate
Kellen Copy Editor
$80
80 credits · $1 per 1,000 words · tracked-changes .docx delivered
How it works

Three passes. One price.

Most copyeditors work in a single pass. Kellen works in three — catching inconsistencies the first pass always misses.

01
Style Sheet Pass — always free
Before changing a word, Kellen reads your manuscript to understand how you write. It finds evidence for every style decision — serial commas, em dash spacing, ellipsis style, dialogue punctuation, number thresholds — and builds a style sheet from your own text. You review and confirm it before anything is edited.
Free · no credits charged
02
Edit Pass
With your confirmed style sheet, the edit runs against every document in the project using the full Chicago Manual of Style rule set. Each suggested change is classified by severity — error, warning, or query — with a confidence threshold. Low-confidence catches are silently dropped. Everything else goes into a tracked-changes .docx using native Word revision markup (not comments).
$1 per 1,000 words
03
Consistency Sweep
A second pass reviews all the edits from pass one and hunts for the same errors across the rest of the manuscript. An em dash fixed in three places but missed in five others — found. Character name inconsistencies — found. The sweep is included in the same credit charge, not an add-on.
Included — no extra charge
04
Tracked-changes .docx delivered
One file per document in your project. Native Word tracked changes — accept, reject, or review each edit individually in Word, Google Docs, or any compatible editor. Queries appear as comments. Download individually or as a zip.
Native Word format · accept/reject each change
What gets checked

Chicago Manual of Style,
built in.

Kellen applies CMOS rules as its foundation, layered on top of your manuscript's own established style.

  • Comma usage (serial, compound predicate, restrictive clauses)
  • Em dash and en dash spacing and usage
  • Ellipsis style (spaced vs. unspaced)
  • Dialogue punctuation and attribution
  • Number style (spelled out vs. numerals by threshold)
  • Possessives (including proper nouns ending in S)
  • Italics — foreign words, titles, intentional emphasis
  • Character name and invented term consistency
  • Intentional fragments and comma splices (flagged, not auto-corrected)
  • Dialect and voice consistency across characters
Pricing

$1 per 1,000 words.

Credits are $1 each. The style sheet pass is always free — you only pay when you confirm the style sheet and the edit begins.

Style Sheet Pass Detects your manuscript's style — serial commas, dashes, dialogue, and more
Free
5,000 words Short story, novella chapter
5 credits · $5 ~$120 pro value
25,000 words Novella
25 credits · $25 ~$600 pro value
80,000 words Standard novel
80 credits · $80 ~$1,920 pro value
120,000 words Epic fantasy, literary fiction
120 credits · $120 ~$2,880 pro value

Word count is rounded up to the nearest 1,000, minimum 1 credit. Pro value based on EFA 2023 median copyediting rate of $0.024/word. Maximum manuscript size: 200,000 words. Credits are automatically refunded if a run fails before completing.

Ready to see your manuscript through a copyeditor's eyes?

Upload your manuscript, confirm your style sheet, and get tracked-changes back in minutes.

Start in Kellen Studio