Specialties: Jennifer sometimes jokes that she specializes in all things dark and/or speculative, with some steamy romance thrown in for good measure. Most of her time goes to Suspense, Horror, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Science Fiction. She primarily focuses on Adult work, but does have a soft spot for YA Horror and YA Fantasy. When it comes to subgenres, she has experience with nearly all areas of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror, with the one glaring exception being steampunk. With Romance, the subgenres where she’s got the most experience are: Paranormal, Dark, Mafia, Bad Boy, Bully, Erotic, Billionaire, and Contemporary. Her Romance experience has loosely been split between M/F and M/M, though she’d gladly take on more F/F romances. And, of course, she’s always glad to work on Romantic Suspense, as well as other mash-ups of her favorite genres.
Jennifer also takes on literary fiction, women’s fiction, and historical fiction on a more project-by-project basis. Especially when it comes to developmental editing, she feels strongly that an editor needs to have experience in the genre at hand in order to be the best editor for a project, and she’ll be the first to tell you if she’s not a good fit for your manuscript. Her priority is always to make sure that a manuscript gets exactly the level of care it needs in order to find its full potential, whatever that means in terms of either editing or editors. Whether your project is 10k or 200k, though, she’d love to hear from you if you think she might be a good fit for you.
Background: After obtaining her BA and MA in English (from Shenandoah University and Clemson University, respectively), Jennifer focused on teaching prior to becoming an editor. While working on a PhD in English and managing a major university’s writing center, she began taking on freelance editorial work after gaining a reputation as the editor of a couple of different journals. After ten years of teaching, she realized that her passion for editing was overtaking her passion for the classroom, and she made the decision to leave behind academia and become a full-time editor in 2014. Now, she works with a couple of small presses, but devotes the majority of her time to working with indie and hybrid authors, whether on short stories and novellas or on novels of 200k. She also offers her services as a writing coach to writers in the beginning stages of their careers, which allows her to exercise those ‘teaching muscles’ that she gained in her years in classrooms.
You can follow Jennifer on Twitter at twitter.com/wytwavedarling or email her at JLCollinsEdits[@]gmail.com. She does not keep a running website since most of her new clients come to her via referral or word-of-mouth, but you’re always welcome to reach out to her with questions as you work to determine the best editor for your own projects. If you do find her via AnyTime Author Promotions, she just asks that you let her know so that she can make sure to give credit where it’s due! Just remember to reach out early–she generally stays booked up at least two months in advance!