Dijana Ihas

Project Background

A successful string musician from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dijana Ihas is a professor of music education at Pacific University. She approached Flatpage about a textbook manuscript that she was working on about historical and modern pedagogical practices for violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Although her press included copyediting in their publishing contract, as a multilingual author Dijana needed assistance cutting the manuscript’s length from approximately 100,000 words down to 65,000 words—a considerable amount in only six weeks.

As a scholar whose native language is not English, I previously worked with many, many professional editors and was almost always unhappy with what they did to my texts. In most cases they would just change my sentences to fit what they thought I was trying to say and not what I was actually saying. That all completely changed after I discovered Flatpage! The gracious and respectful way in which they received my project and took care of it immediately indicated to me that they are not only in business but that they like what they are doing and that they deeply care about their clients.

Dijana Ihas

The author needed a skilled line editor with a background in music who could work with her chapter by chapter to address the press’s requirements in order to meet her publication deadlines.

We met on a virtual call to discuss my needs and budget, and they connected me with their amazing editor, who happened to have a degree in music. Having Flatpage working on my book editing project was the most instrumental step in the success of my book that is now out and doing very well!

The Collaboration

The author approached Flatpage to work on her book dedicated to an overview of historical and modern pedagogical methods and approaches for violin, viola, cello, and double bass, which was under contract with a scholarly press. The book was organized into four chapters and comprised approximately 100,000 words, which the author was tasked with cutting down to 65,000 words before returning to the publisher in six weeks. Since she had already worked with copyeditors during her drafting process, a line editor at Flatpage was called in to assist in further pruning the text and addressing passive voice and parallel structure.

Line editing was the perfect service for this project since it required significant work to reduce the word count at the line level. Because such cuts necessitate the reworking of sentences, the editor needed to make substantial revisions while still maintaining the author’s voice.

The editor worked with me for four or five weeks, always meeting the tight deadlines that we had. She masterfully shortened my manuscript without losing the richness of the content or changing the meaning of my sentences. During the process she gave so many good suggestions and asked so many excellent, clarifying questions. For the first time in the past 20 years I felt that my editor cares about my project as much as I do.

Working closely together on Flatpage’s project-management platform, the author and editor moved through the book chapter by chapter. Therefore, rather than cutting the word count back by 40,000 words as a whole, the editor needed to keep strict length limits for each chapter to meet their goal. The author indicated areas that absolutely needed to remain in the text and asked the editor to keep lesser-known sources, if possible, in order to bring them to light for other scholars.

The Outcome

Dijana Ihas’s book, Teaching Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass: Historical and Modern Pedagogical Practices, was published by Routledge in 2023. She has subsequently returned to Flatpage for several other projects, including journal articles, essays, and applications.

I am virtually in awe of how well written my book is, and that is largely due to the quality of Flatpage services and their editor’s skills. After my book, I had another manuscript edited at Flatpage and again I had great experience in terms of clarity of fees, quality of editing, and how prompt they are in responding to emails and meeting deadlines.