Jillian Bray

Jillian Bray – Editor

Experienced grammar fiend specializing in children's and lifestyle nonfiction. Reliable, professional, and meticulous.

Overview

You’ve devoted countless hours to your craft. You've sacrificed and overcome obstacles, and it's all culminated with a manuscript you've proudly published for the world to see. Congrats! Just one thing: you accidentally typed "poop" when you meant to spell "pop." Facepalm.

Sound familiar? Don't let this happen to you. Instead, prevent such a faux pas from happening by partnering with me.

Clients benefit from my:

*Breadth of experience,

*Hawkish attention to detail,

*Relentless pursuit of errant punctuation and grammatical mistakes, and

*Unwavering resolve to submit projects ahead of deadline.

For 12+ years I’ve worked with publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Capstone Publishing, Skyhorse Publishing, W. W. Norton & Co., and ABDO. I've copy edited and proofread for #1 New York Times bestselling authors such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. David Agus, Sheila Johnson, Michael Uslan, and more to ensure their published manuscripts are worthy of readers’ eyes. I endeavor to do the same for you.

I've provided top-tier editing services on more than 1,000 projects, including memoirs, guidebooks, picture books, and more. And I’m a pleasure to work with, or so I’ve been told:

"Thank you so much for all your great work over the last few years, and for being such a pleasant, flexible, professional person to work with." — Yvette Grant, Simon & Schuster (previously at Penguin and Skyhorse)

Ready to put the finishing touches on your manuscript? I am. Let’s connect!

Services
Non-Fiction
Children’s Non-Fiction Health & Wellbeing History Self-Help & Self-Improvement Sports & Outdoors Travel
Fiction
Middle Grade Picture Books
Languages
English (US)
Certifications
  • Certificate in Editing - University of Washington

Work experience

Self-employed

Jun, 2012 — Present
As a thorough, knowledgeable copy editor, my main objective is to correct spelling, punctuation, and usage and grammar issues, including subject-verb agreement, redundancy, and passive voice. For Capstone Press, I specialize in nonfiction titles for young readers. For W. W. Norton, I line edit textbooks, test banks, and instructor's manuals. I review academic manuscripts for clients such as Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, and Duke University Presses. In my role, I adhere to publisher-specific style guidelines, ensure consistency, review notes and bibliography entries for proper formatting, and code documents for typesetting.

Self-employed

Jun, 2011 — Present
As a proofreader, I exercise my innate need to polish copy to perfection. For publishing houses such as Simon and Schuster, Skyhorse, ABDO, Crabtree, Rosen, and Capstone, I read and mark up works of fiction and nonfiction for a wide range of audiences and reading levels. With an eagle eye for spelling, capitalization, and grammar, I've reliably provided fast-turnaround services on hundreds of manuscripts. As standard practice, I cross-reference and reconcile front and back matter against main texts; inspect for bad breaks, widows/orphans, and word stacks; and check running heads and feet for accuracy, including pagination.

Self-employed

Jun, 2016 — Present
Through contracts with Capstone Press and Abdo Publishing, I have published two juvenile nonfiction titles: Famous Ghost Stories of Asia and Komodo Dragon: Toxic Lizard Titan, respectively. On the digital front, I compose 500-word blog posts for clients on a monthly schedule and craft effective SEO content for new Web pages.

Portfolio

World War C

Sanjay Gupta

CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, MD, offers an accessible, data-packed answer to our biggest questions about Covid-19: What have we learned about this pandemic and how can we prepare for—or prevent—the next one?As America’s favorite frontline Covi... read more

Jillian has 61 reviews

Professionalism

Quality

Value

Responsiveness

Sharie G.

Sharie G.

Sep, 2025

Oh my goodness – Jillian is AMAZING! She is exceptional on all counts: Talented, knowledgeable, skilled, thorough, patient, kind, collaborative, encouraging, understanding, timely, and communicative (and I could keep going, but I suspect you get the point LOL). I was drawn to working with Jillian...
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Doug F.

Doug F.

Sep, 2025

Jillian did an outstanding job as my editor. She really took the time to understand the message in my book and made edits that strengthened it while keeping my voice and tone intact. She created consistency throughout the manuscript, and every one of her comments added value and improved the wo...
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Jillian B.
Wow, Doug, thank you so much for the thoughtful, glowing review. It was truly such a pleasure to copyedit your manuscript. I appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with you on this and wish you ...
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Neil R.

Neil R.

Sep, 2025

Jillian is the best. She is precise and accurate, always ready to go the extra mile to help, and a pleasure to work with. I will continue using her for a long time. Neil
Shauna S.

Shauna S.

Jul, 2025

Jillian is great to work with and does high-quality work. I have used her for multiple projects and am so fortunate to have found her!
Jillian B.
Thanks for the review, Shauna. It's been a blast working with you and your team. :) I strive to provide high quality to all, and I'm so glad you've found value in my services. Thanks again for hiri...
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Jason S.

Jason S.

May, 2025

Jillian is a delight to work with, and I am so glad she was part of my first book journey. Her attention to detail and experience are woven together with encouraging insights and positive feedback. I can't wait to work with her again in the future.
Jillian B.
You're awesome, Jason. Thanks for the positive feedback; I'm so glad to hear I provided value. It was a delight working with you too. I'll be on the lookout for the sequel. :)

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