Plenty of writers have benefited from working with Brigham Editorial on their manuscripts:
As the owner of The Purcell Agency, I feel Joel has added wonderful services to the agency by critiquing manuscripts. His thorough notes and helpful suggestions have brought manuscripts from good to great, allowing them to sell to publishers. His work has been so professional and profound. I recommend him to any author, 100%!”
-Tina P. Schwartz, literary agent, The Purcell Agency
Joel reviews and edits words with a unique sensitivity to detail and an uncanny ability to understand exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Whether you’ve hit a creative wall and feel like you’ve forgotten what words even are, or you’re trying to polish something you’re proud of into something even better, Joel’s insights will help. He is encouraging and funny in his guidance, and helpfully specific in his advice. in some of my darkest moments as a writer, Joel’s input has given me hope and restored faith in my project. I highly recommend working with him!”
-Audrey Burges, author, The Miniscule Mansion of Myra Malone and A House Like an Accordian
Joel made me feel my story was as important to him as it is to me. His critiques brought new insight to my manuscript and query letter, and his help continues to raise my work to the next level.”
-Christina Boyd, writer, editor (The Quill Ink)
Joel is fantastic as an editor. He’s able to provide honest and actionable feedback in a way that is encouraging and uplifting. His insights on pacing and character development made a huge difference in my manuscript.””
-Kelly Ohlert, author, To Get to the Other Side and Let’s Get Quizzical
Engaging Joel to do a manuscript critique for my work was transformational. His insights helped me solidify the beats of my story, refine some loose ends, and craft a tighter narrative that leveled up my work. Post-feedback, Joel has continued to support me by answering questions and being a sounding board for challenges I have encountered along the way.”
-Bruce Hermie, author
Joel has a unique way of finding the heart and soul of a story. Working together, he saw the vision I had for my characters in those early drafts and helped blaze a trail to get there. Once we knew where we were going, he coached me along in stages, and it wasn’t until I saw the finished product that I realized how much work we’d done to get there.”
-Pete Fanning, author, Spellbound, and winner of PitchWars 2021
I’ve worked with Joel on everything from polishing queries to editing full manuscripts to sharpening opening pages and crafting log line pitches. His feedback is invaluable across the board. Joel has a keen eye for identifying a manuscript’s structural issues like pacing, stakes, and beats, while providing suggestions to pull out and support the heart of the story, building on the manuscript’s strengths. He delivers honest and straightforward edits, bringing the many perspectives from his multifaceted experience in the literary world. Whether a messy first draft or a near-final draft in need of line edits, Joel does it all. He’s super fun to work with, sticks to deadlines, and is reliably thorough. Whatever stage of your writing career you’re at, Joel can and will help—I can’t recommend him enough!”
-Elora Ditton (repped by Jon Darga, Aevitas Creative)
Joel’s focus on expanding my protagonist’s motivations made my story so much more compelling. He took the time to ensure that I understood all of his suggestions and was always available if I had questions. If you’re looking for someone to push your story from good to great, I highly recommend working with Joel.”
-Sierra Isley, author, In the Ring
Joel is a master at story craft. His edit letters provide insight into your story’s structure, pacing, character development, and emotion, and he offers suggestions that are concrete and easy to understand and implement. He’s also a really nice guy, and someone I trust to be honest about my writing while letting my vision and unique brand of storytelling shine. After following recommendations from Joel, I was offered representation by an agent. I had gotten close before, but it took a trained set of eyes to help the pieces click into place. Joel was able to see what I couldn’t, and the payoff (an agent!) was totally worth it!”
-Shannon Balloon (repped by Christa Heschke, Mcintosh & Otis)
Joel worked with me on my manuscript, helping me prepare it before my agent began submitting it to publishers. He’s smart, professional, and thorough. He explains everything. His feedback was organized and easy to follow. I think he took my book to the next level, and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to work with him!”
-Sarahlyn Bruck, author, Light of the Fire
I reached out to Joel early into my querying process for a query letter and first ten pages review. This is not the first book I have queried, but definitely the one I’ve been the most intentional about through this process, and Joel has been a big part of that. His feedback was thorough, actionable, direct, and most of all, incredibly kind. I took all of his notes, and have since received multiple full and partial requests. I could not recommend him more, and will definitely be reaching out to him for my next project!”
-Allison McWilliams, author
When I first saw how long Joel’s critique on my novel was, my heart sank. Was it really that bad? But when I read his comments, I could tell that he was as invested in my manuscript as I was. The feedback Joel provided was what I needed to hear. He even targeted issues that I had been willfully ignoring, thankfully giving me suggestions on how to achieve what I didn’t know how to fix. Joel also respected what I was trying to do with my story. His suggestions maintained the integrity of the plot and characters, yet challenged me to push my creative vision. I am thankful for his critique and know that my novel is stronger because of his guidance.”
-Angelique Burrell, author, A Mark in the Road
Joel’s edits helped me land my agent. His editing style combines encouragement and praise with straightforward actionable steps you can take to level up your writing and reach your goals. He is also the best pep-talker I’ve ever met!”
-Christy Swift, author, Celebrity Crush
I would hands-down recommend Joel for any editing services you might need! He really has a knack for understanding the heart of your story, even if you haven’t gotten it down on paper perfectly yet. And bonus: Joel’s personality is lovely. He’s super kind, funny, and thorough, and as a fellow-writer himself, he really understands the work that goes into making a novel shine. Ego is not part of the equation with Joel, either. He always respects your authority as the author and makes sure to remind you that at the end of the day, he’s ‘just a guy with ideas!'”
-Rachel Berkowitz, author
Joel has been terrific to work with! He identified weaknesses in my manuscript and offered direction on how to fix them. He’s an extremely talented editor and clearly cares about his clients. If you’re looking for an editor, I definitely recommend Joel!”
-Nicholas Orshansky, author
Joel is a blast to work with on any writing project. He is fast, thorough, and concise. It was exactly what I needed for my project.”
-Mike Mallow, author, In the Country Dark
Joel was a pleasure to work with. He gathered notes and insights about my work that I had never considered, but were unerringly true once they were pointed out. I did a review of my submission package, but it made me consider submitting the entire novel for review.”
-Jacob Von Tobel, author
The insights, responses, and depth of thoughtful feedback Brigham Editorial provided is set to take my book from ‘first-time novelist’s first outing’ to a work I can honestly see on bookstore shelves. Before even finishing the first edit I was inquiring about a second round for Joel to review my revisions because my faith in his work is both personal and poignant. I cannot speak highly enough of the experience of working with Joel, even though I also want to give him a terrible review so he’ll have more time to focus on my books.”
-Sarah Goehrke, author, The Keepers
Joel’s feedback was very insightful and helped me, among other things, to realize that I was ending the book at the wrong place in the story.”
-Jim Clay, author, Daelan the Damned
Joel is an editing wizard. Actually, he’s far more than an editor. I availed myself of Joel’s Full Query Package critique. Based on his written feedback I rewrote the majority of the first ten pages of my manuscript, imbuing the scene with far more evocation, while deleting a half-page info.-dump. My query letter and synopsis are also markedly better after Joel reviewed them. I highly recommend Joel.”
-Bob Marsocci, author, You Exhaust Me
Joel’s editorial skills are thorough and perceptive. He not only recognizes problems but suggests insightful ways to fix them. Conversely, he points out the strengths of the manuscript and makes note of what works well.”
-Cheryl Eager, author, When Two Stars Collide
Joel’s query package critique service got my query, synopsis, and first pages in amazing order. His communication, level of expertise, and knowledge of the industry is invaluable and so worth its weight in gold! My manuscript ended up gaining requests after working with Joel, so I recommend hiring him ASAP!”
-Kathryn Orwig, author
Joel’s notes on my historical fiction RevPit submission in 2023 resonated so well that I hired him for a developmental edit to polish it before querying. His edit letter was thorough, easy to turn into actionable edits, and included both areas for improvements and noted strengths. The format of his edit letter reflects the style and substance you see from Big Five editors, which helps exercise those expectation muscles. And I learned a ton. After tackling those edits, I returned to an old manuscript and could see how far my writing has come. I’m honored to recommend Joel’s skills.”
-Jennifer M. Lane, author, Downriver
Joel and I worked together on the query letter first ten pages of my manuscript. Prior to us working together, I didn’t know much about query letters or synopses, and Joel’s edits and suggestions gave me confidence to start sending out queries to agents!”
-Aailyah Andrews Jackson, author
Joel was lightning fast, very thorough, and incredibly professional. He gave me actionable suggestions for my query package, and he was so nice in his emails and comments. I picked him based on his helpful social media presence, and I am completely satisfied with my choice to use his editorial services. Thanks, Joel!”
-Leigh Clay, author
Joel is an expert in his craft. His notes and revisions were thorough, insightful, and supportive. His comments were constructive and fair. He provided me with a sense of purpose to continue my writing and querying journey, notwithstanding the challenging publishing landscape. He was generous with his time and experience. Simply put, Joel was the perfect writing partner.”
-Michael D. Pappas, author, The Solace of Autumn
Joel’s feedback on my query package was clear, constructive and actionable. Not only that, I was able to apply his advice when editing the rest of my manuscript to make it much stronger. I’d have no hesitation recommending Joel or using his services again in the future.”
-Rhian MacGillivray, author, The Cards We’re Dealt
Joel was able to very quickly get to the heart of my issues and give me solid advice on how to overcome them. I was on a path of stagnation, and he set me on a path to progress with concrete suggestions of how to navigate. His unique understanding of both story and industry was invaluable and I highly recommend his services to anyone struggling with putting those pieces together.”
-Ben Giudice, author
I had followed Joel on social media and received his newsletter for quite some time before I reached out for editorial help with my manuscript. I’d tucked away many of his tips, pointers, and general nuggets of information, so I knew he was the one who could get me ready for the query trenches, and I was right! Joel has a great balance of seeing both big picture and minute details that transformed my opening pages, query letter, and ultimately the ending of my book by asking perfect questions based on my synopsis. If you’re ready for next steps, let Joel take a swipe at your work, you will not be disappointed!”
-Amy Gatman, author
Joel truly has a knack for helping a writer shape a story. Because his feedback is incredibly positive, I feel like I have a coach beside me saying, ‘Stefanie, you are DOING this! Keep going!'”
-Stefanie Wass, author
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