B. Look for editors who will do a single pass read through and write an editorial letter without any inline comments. This will be cheaper, and if you can do the hard work of making chapter notes and going back and forth to the letter yourself, this is a great investment.

Maybe I should step back and say what my (varied) experiences have been with first pass editorial notes, aka dev edits.

Some editors like to do all their work in line, with comments as they read through. Some like to write a letter. Some do both. Some do chapter analysis.

"Do all their work in line" means COMMENTS in a word doc, not LINE EDITS, although some (a lot of?) indie editors do line edits with some revision notes on a first pass edits, and honestly: that's probably just a line edit.

Which is fine, but stop pretending you do dev edits? It stresses people out when they can't afford an entirely different thing than you actually do?

Anyway. Moving on.

C. Synopsis assessment! I haven't ever actually done this, but I know some editors offer it. Again, cheaper.

And I think if you had a really exciting project that you want an editor's help on, and you send them an honest email saying, "I like your work, I value your work, but my budget is $400, what can you do with part of of my story/project for those pennies," they will let you know.

It might be nothing! That's okay. Being told no is actually fine. That lets you know that editor is not for you. Back to the dating pool. But I bet you CAN find someone who will work within your budget.

DO NOT SPEND MORE THAN YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH.

But once you know you could use that support to level up, make the investment with your whole heart. Follow your pennies with enthusiasm to really tear the project apart and make it better (and oh, I should have said this at the top: only work with an editor who wants that, too!)

Questions and confessions of not paying for dev edits are always welcome in my DMs, BTW. You are not alone.