I help make your rulebooks read well.

Work with a native English speaker with years of writing, editing, and game design experience.

Whether this is the first version of the rules or the tenth, clear and concise directions help everyone understand your game better.

What sort of things do you look for?

Beyond the usual spelling and grammar checks:

• Subject-verb agreement
• Unclear or wordy directions
• Awkward phrasing
• Americanisms
• Cultural references
• Slang
• Gendered references

The editing process

I’m happy to work with your Microsoft Word document or within Google Docs. PDF’s should be converted into an editable format before editing can begin, and text in images cannot be edited.

If requested, I’ll work in ‘Suggestions’ mode on Google Docs or with Track Changes turned on in Microsoft Word. I’m also happy to make changes directly in your document, or make a fresh copy that’s edited and ready for the next step. I also leave comments on what’s unclear or if more information is needed to understand something.

I’m an American and predominantly work in American English by default. If you require Canadian, British, Australian, or New Zealand English, I’m happy to work with those — just let me know.

The writing process

Want some help writing the rulebook to begin with? This costs a little more (since it’s a more time-consuming process), but takes it off your hands. My goal here is to organize things into a structure that follows as many best practices as possible.

• We start with a virtual meeting to talk about your game. If you have it in Tabletop Simulator or Screentop, let’s play a few rounds.
• I’ll ask you to send over your current version of notes – anything you have.
• I’ll get to work producing a first draft.
• We’ll meet a second time to go through things line by line.
• I’ll produce a second draft for you to carefully review.
• Once reviewed, I’ll fix issues you may have spotted and deliver the final draft.
• Your rulebook can (and will!) still change as you develop your game, but now you have a solid structure and grasp of your current ruleset to edit as needed.

Rates / FAQ

For typical proofreading: £0.035 GBP a word (100 words = £3.50 GBP)

For typical editing: £0.055 GBP a word (100 words = £5.50 GBP)

For more in-depth editing and/or detailed restructuring: £0.075 GBP a word (100 words = £7.50 GBP)

For rulebook writing or re-writing: £0.105 GBP a word (100 words = £10.50 GBP)

Minimum fee: £10 GBP

Most work is turned around in a week or less.

Payments can be made via Paypal, Wise, or a bank transfer, whichever is easiest for you. For larger jobs, a 50% deposit may be requested before work begins, with the remainder due on delivery.

Simon and Caezar from Alley Cat Games have re-mastered Tinners Trail, a Martin Wallace classic, and I was honored to serve as a proofreader for the project.

Tanares Adventures is an amazing RPG that raised $1.6 million on Kickstarter. I came on board to edit and proofread the expansion to this incredible world.

Small Samurai Empires and the Rise of Tokugawa expansion – a fun action programming and area control game.

Chris was very communicative, easy to work with and most importantly stood by his estimation. We would love to work with him on future projects!

Milan Tasevski, Archona Games

Vamp on the Batwalk, from Gold Nugget Games — I helped Cody get the rulebook together. He already had a great start, but just needed some tweaking to get it ready for primetime!

“Just reviewed all of your comments and made the requisite changes. Thank you so much. You brought a lot of clarity to the rule set and helped me pare down some sections that I knew were verbose but I struggled to rephrase. You brought up interesting points concerning the layout and definitions as well.”

Jack Dunbar, designer of New Kingdoms

Koala Kraze is a fun little card game I helped to edit – it’s available over at solucafia.com.