About

About Us

Eyetooth Editing was created by Shannon Winton, a developmental editor with over a decade of critique experience.

YouTube

Eyetooth Editing creates videos on the different facets of writing. Whether you're looking for information on craft or finding your audience, we have something for you.

Facebook

Eyetooth Editing posts information on what's happening in the writing world, information on events we hosts, and sage advice to help you on your writing journey.

Instagram

See the whole beautiful world through our eyes. We post pictures from events, share snippets and tidbits on editing errors we find, and provide great #bookish guidance.

aN aUTHOR-CENTRIC EDITOR

Building Up the Writing Community

In 2019, Shannon took on the role of NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison for Houston. NaNoWriMo is a national nonprofit organization. Participants attempt to write an entire first draft or fifty thousand words of their story in a month. Between keeping the calendar updated, finding sponsors for event swag, coordinating and hosting numerous write ins and drink ins across the city, providing free workshops on the hero’s journey, and streaming live AMA’s about the website updates, November was a busy but rewarding month.

Helping authors achieve their goals is one of Shannon’s passions, and getting to see author after author hit their word count during the month was an amazing experience.

Providing Free Education and Networking

In 2017, Shannon founded Houston Independent Authors (HIA). Initially a meetup for local writers, HIA evolved into a networking and educational group with recurrent Writers Lunches, Word Count Wednesday write ins, and Authors Helping Authors (AHA) Nights. HIA has hosted numerous speakers including Tex Thompson, Kirsten Kiki Oliphant, Jami Albright, Stephanie Wittels Wachs, and Alison Nissen among others. Our topics have included how to find the right editor, the controversies surrounding the Romance Writers of America, zombie writing, interviewing experts for your novel, presenting the perfect pitch, launching on a shoestring budget, and many many more. All of our events are completely free. We’ll be pursuing nonprofit status in the next year. If you’re a Houstonian, join us here or here.

Supporting Fellow Editors

In 2020, Shannon joined the leadership team of the Editorial Freelancers Association Houston Chapter as co-coordinator with Editor Amy. As a recipient of the invaluable resources this organization provides to editors everywhere, she was thrilled to have the opportunity to provide support locally and represent the organization at national events, such as the 2020 AWP Conference. The local chapter provides meetings every other month for new and experienced editors. Past topics have included SEO for Editors, Working with Difficult Clients, Intro to Formatting, What to Charge, and (her personal favorite since she led the workshop) Finding the Diamond in the Rough Draft: An Intro to Developmental Editing. Meetings are free to nonmembers. If you’re thinking about becoming an editor or are looking for local edibuddies in Houston, find us here.

Our Story

How It All Started

“You know you could get paid for this. In fact, you need to.”

Jason, a critique group partner who also ran a small publishing company, said these words, and they changed my life forever.

We’d just finished a critique of his entire apocalyptic zombie novel. I’d identified plot issues and included a number of easy solutions that wouldn’t force giant rewrites. I’d always been a problem solver, so this wasn’t unusual for me.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the consistency with which I identified developmental problems and either outright solved them or worked with my fellow authors to find solutions was unique. Unlike most people who’d say, “This is how you fix it,” my ideas actually worked.

At first, I said no, but the whole group stood behind him. As I was protesting, one member popped out his phone and started coming up with ideas for names of my first editing business and checking to see if websites were available.

With so much support, I couldn’t say no. Instead, I researched the hell out of editors, found mentors, took a ton of classes through the Editorial Freelancers Association, and launched my editing business.

But I Had a Problem

My first editing business was called Novel Nurse. The name was a play both on book doctors, a common nickname for developmental editors, and my background as a registered nurse.

I didn’t see the issue at first. I was getting great traction with speculative fiction authors, but it seemed like most people who sought me out did so because of word of mouth. The authors I worked with loved their experiences and shared that with their friends.

Over time, I came to realize I was turning away more and more requests for help on medical textbooks and nonfiction. It was logical for an author to see Novel Nurse and presume I worked on these things, so I felt bad that I’d accidentally misled them. This resulted in me spending numerous hours trying to connect nonfiction authors with the right editors who worked in their genre and at a price point they could afford a.k.a I was doing their legwork for them.

While I love helping people, being a middleman was not what I aspired to when I started this.

Study the Problem and Fix It

After taking a big step back and evaluating the situation, one thing became crystal clear. My branding completely missed the mark for my target audience. (HINT HINT: that’s you.)

I was getting clients, yes, but that was in spite of my name and logo, not because of it.

I’d made a pretty basic mistake, but I didn’t let it get me down. I often worked with authors who made similar missteps in their book marketing.

Their covers were beautiful and polished but told the reader the story was about the wrong thing. Or, they wrote a book thinking it was great for a particular audience, but the plot didn’t hit the genre expectations.

The solution was to find what wasn’t working and fix it. Essentially, I needed to developmentally edit my own business.

Thus, Eyetooth Editing was born. I can help add character nuance and depth to a vampire hunter with hemophilia one day and expand the world building of an alternate history mystery the next.

Along the way, I’ve amassed a wealth of knowledge about the craft of writing and the nitty-gritty of finding your audience and marketing your story.

I’d love to share some of that knowledge with you.