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"Joshua has edited six of my novels to-date, and I plan to hire him for every single future novel.
"Joshua takes editing to a whole new level. Not only does he do all the line editing with a deft hand, but he's a content and developmental editor without peer. He cares about the stories he works on and he suggests ways to help raise them to a higher level. Not only by suggesting the removal of bad scenes or resolving confusion or inconsistencies, but also by suggesting new scenes or changing scenes to different characters' point of view for better focus and effectiveness.
"No story of mine will be released without Joshua's touch to those pages. My stories deserve the best, and my readers deserve the best.
"The best is Joshua."
-- Frank Morin, author of The Petralist series, and the Facetakers thrillers.
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"From my first email exchange with Joshua Essoe, I found him to be both enthusiastic about my project and friendly. He was upfront about his schedule and actually stuck to it.
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"I found Joshua even-handed in his editorial approach. He never tried to impose a style onto my writing that wasn't true to my voice. That said, he found many opportunities for me to improve my story. Sometimes very small things as simple as moving a sentence from the middle of a paragraph to the end had dramatic impact on pacing and tension.
"I appreciated that Joshua also included positive comments and pats-on-the-back among his edits. He realizes it's no fun for an author to only get feedback about mistakes.
"Joshua pointed out several bad habits in my writing, and offered excellent guidance which improved not only this book, but the one in progress.
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"For me it's been hard to find outside opinions I can trust. I feel very fortunate to have discovered Joshua. My only reservation in recommending him is that his schedule will fill up and I'll have a longer wait on my next project!"
-- Eric Edstrom, author of The Undermountain Saga, Shadow of the Oak, and The Scion Chronicles.
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"Joshua Essoe is insightful, detailed, and dependable. He'll fill your book with red ink and offer specific solutions. He's great at weeding out unnecessary passages and spotting weak language, but he also sees the big picture. He gave me some of the most brilliant suggestions I got about [The Black God's War], in addition to helping me with countless smaller issues. Most importantly, you can trust that he'll give you his best effort."
-- Moses Siregar III, author of The Black God's War and The Children of Wind and Wood
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"As an aspiring writer, I am constantly looking to write stories that are both technically adequate and captivating. Working with Joshua Essoe has given me an editor, a teacher, and someone I feel is genuinely out for my best interests; someone who not only is working to support himself but to see me succeed. Going over Joshua's edits is a humbling experience, but leads to a beautifully tuned product.
-- Stephan McLeroy, author of The Burden of Knowledge
"Before I sent my novel out to agents and editors, I wanted to make sure it was the best, tightest manuscript I could possibly create. Beta-readers were a necessity, of course, but on recommendation of several friends, I decided to hire Joshua Essoe to edit it as well. This was the best decision I could have made.
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"While I received valuable feedback from my beta-readers, nothing compared to the thorough, all-encompassing edit that Joshua gave my manuscript. His detailed line-edits alone would be well worth the cost of hiring him, but the in-depth content edits were even more valuable in making the book one that I believe will really resonate with readers.
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"I feel much more confident sending my book out to agents and publishers after having Joshua's editing expertise, and will absolutely hire him again in the future."
-- Megan Grey Walker, author of Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer and Other Tales, The Skilled, and “To Be Remembered”