About Me

Hello! I thought I would start this off by telling you a bit about myself. My world as a fellow person on this planet and then of course, my experience in the editing field.

First off, my name is Amanda Carbonell. I am a Puerto Rican KidLit & Adult author represented by Sandra Proudman with Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency. I am un-published but am currently out on sub with many fun projects!

I married the guy who has had a crush on me since elementary school who went on to become my best friend in high school. He once ate a slug on a dare when we were children…I’ve gotten over it. I’m a mom to a toddler (who, by the way, is named after a Viking, thanks to my husband). The toddler runs my schedule as well as all things in the house, within reason. Human-mom aside, I have to mention that I am also a dog mom to an English Yellow Lab, who is an almost-retired explosive detection dog, plus a German Shepherd-Sheltie mix who I rescued from a kill-shelter in New Mexico.

Now, to tell you about my experience and what I feel makes me qualified to offer my editing services is the following:

I previously worked as a junior literary agent at Belcastro Literary Agency where I managed four clients varying from picture books to adult works. Prior to being promoted to a junior agent, I worked at Belcastro as an agent-apprentice. Before all of this, I worked as a literary intern with CMA, Inc. (Creative Media Agency, Inc.) in Jan 2024 and with Arthouse Literary Agency back in 2021. I have also volunteered as a mentor with the WriteMentor Summer Program. Both authors I worked with have gone on to obtain literary representation.

While pursuing traditional publishing in more ways than one, I have helped many authors with my editing services who have gone on to receive full and partial requests, offers of representation, books deals once settling with their agents, or have indie-pubbed. In truth, I started editing for authors back in 2021 where I was doing it for free and learned pretty quickly, I wasn’t half-bad (due to the updated results).

With the many years I’ve been doing this now, I soon went on to open Editing Tales in 2024 which has officially in count of sales, helped close to 200 people (Fiverr included). I have heard many wonderful updates from clients from query packages I’ve worked on, full and partial book edits, and other select services. For this, you can check out my testimonials page for a bit more information.

Side note before I digress, my editing services have also obtained me a place within Quill & Cup’s verified services listings for book editors as of April 2024!

Now, in terms of my own writing journey, before signing with my current incredible agent, I was previously represented by another pair of agents before I severed my contract. It sadly was not a great experience and left me a bit in shambles. However, this experience helped me to learn A LOT to say the least both about the industry and agents as a whole.

I also got a full understanding of what it truly means to kill your darlings.

What I mean by this is, after severing my contract with my first pair of agents with a book that had already been on sub and passed on a few times, I was left with a shell of my book. A book I had loved that had been severely altered to fit a different standard that was not the original vision. I gutted the book from beginning to end removing uneccessary characters, scenes, abilities, and so on cutting it down from 99,000 words back to where it started at 75,000.

I soon went on to receive close to 30 requests of fulls/partials, and 3 offers of rep.

My query journey aside:

I have my bachelor’s degree from WCSU in Professional Writing with a focus on Journalism and Public Relations though I really focused more on creative writing than anything and probably should have switched majors *shrug*. I was awarded a distinction in writing by my university’s writing department.

Lastly, I also have experience as a marketing assistant focusing on copywriting and editing which is what I was doing full-time before I had my peanut.

My Approach

I know firsthand what it’s like to create a story and wonder what I should be doing next. Back in 2020, I knew one thing. I was an author with a lot more free-time than I had ever anticipated. I had a book and dream.

I wanted a literary agent and to be traditionally published, I just didn’t know where to start. I especially didn’t understand where all of the rejections I received when I first started were coming from!

Let me help you to evaluate your manuscript and make suggestions from an outsider looking in who also takes delicate care in understanding how close you are to your story. My feedback will always be a combination of things; actual reactions to your holy cow moments but above all, ways in which I think you can enhance your story from showing vs. telling, plot holes, pacing, dialogue, imagery, the works.

I would love to help you take your book to where it should be.

Excited to connect with you!

XX,

Amanda Carbonell