About Me

My name is Vicki Low and I'm a recovering academic.

I am also (more happily) an editor and indexer of scholarly and serious non-fiction texts. I work with academic presses and with individual scholars and writers who are preparing their manuscripts for publication. I have edited and indexed books in a wide range of fields: archaeology, international relations, literary and linguistic studies, political biography, religion, and women's studies. I have a particular interest in topics related to Asia.

I regret to say that, as of 2011, I have decided not to accept further fiction manuscripts. As much as I have enjoyed editing the occasional novel, I realize I haven't kept up my own reading of fiction and don't know enough about the current market to edit literary works.

I am also reluctant to accept self-published manuscripts, unless the topic is one I am very interested in and the author has successfully marketed and distributed previous texts. (I feel bad charging for my services otherwise.)

To see a list of books I have edited and indexed, click here. To see my work experience, education, and a list of academic awards, click here.

To see a sample index—one that I created for the book by Dorothy Haines, Sunday Observance and the Sunday Letter in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, Suff.: Boydell & Brewer, 2010)—click here. (More samples may be viewed from my Publications page.)

My Contact Info
Email: scholars.cap@gmail.com

My Rates
I charge $50 per hour for editing jobs and $5.50 per page for indexing ($5.75/page for books requiring special treatment, for example insertion of unusual characters or diacritics). For indexing, I also usually tack on a printing charge of 5 cents a page, unless the manuscript can be delivered to me in hard copy. I am happy to negotiate fixed amounts for editing. Payment is usually made by cheque or bank transfer; I will also accept payment by Paypal, but reserve the right to shift the 5% vendors' commission onto clients.

My Blog
I know that "thoughts on la langue et parole" is a rather poncy way to describe my random (and increasingly infrequent) bloggings on what people say and how they say it. But I thought I may as well put my background in historical linguistics to some use. I hope you will subscribe to my posts and (more importantly) enjoy them!

My Tribe
I'm a member of the American Society for Indexing, the Editors' Association of Canada, and the Indexing Society of Canada. In my spare time, as a member of the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), I rescue birds that have collided with office towers.