Clara Weiss
Features, guidebooks and cookbook editing
I write about what people eat and where they travel to eat it, and I edit other people’s books about the same.
Commissions and fees
Terms and questions| Service | What it includes | Length | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feature commissions | Reported features of 1,500 to 4,000 words for magazines and newsletters, with my own photographs on request. | 3 to 5 weeks | From $1,800 |
| Guidebook chapters | New chapters and full updates: every listing visited, checked by phone and rewritten to your house style. | 4 to 6 weeks | From $2,600 |
| Structural edit | A full read of a cookbook or travel manuscript, a ten-page editorial letter and a call to go through it. | 6 weeks | $4,500 |
| Line edit | Sentence-level editing in tracked changes, with recipe testing notes for cookbooks. | 4 weeks | $0.04 a word |
Terms and questions
Which rights do the fees include?
First rights in one publication, print and online, for twelve months. Syndication, translation and book use are agreed separately.
How are expenses handled?
Travel and meals for reported pieces are agreed in writing before the trip and invoiced at cost with receipts.
Do you sign NDAs and kill fees?
Yes to both. My standard kill fee is 50 percent of the agreed fee once reporting has started.
Can you edit a manuscript that is not finished?
A structural edit works best on a complete draft. For a half-finished book, book a two-hour call first and we will decide together.
About
I spent twelve years on the food desk of a city magazine, the last eight as its editor: restaurant reviews, a weekly market column and an annual guide that sold out every November. In 2020 I went freelance to report further from home and to work on books.
- Food editor, city magazine, 2008–2020
- Author of two regional guidebooks
- MA in Journalism, 2007
Most of my work now is reported features for magazines and newsletters, guidebook chapters that need every listing visited again, and editing cookbooks and travel books before they go to a publisher or a designer. I test recipes in the books I edit, and I tell you which ones did not work.
I take two or three book projects a year, so dates fill early. For features, send a short pitch or a brief and I will reply within two working days.
Before journalism I cooked for four years in restaurant kitchens in Philadelphia and Lyon, which is still the most useful training I have had for writing about food.
From editors and authors
Clara files clean copy two days early and every fact holds up. Her piece on Lisbon’s fish markets was our most-read feature of the year.
Daniel O. Features editor, travel quarterly
Her editorial letter reorganised the book in a way I could not see myself. The structure she suggested is the one we printed.
Sunita R. Cookbook author
Forty guidebook listings, all revisited, all on time.
Mark T. Series editor
I spent twelve years on the food desk of a city magazine, the last eight as its editor: restaurant reviews, a weekly market column and an annual guide that sold out every November. In 2020 I went freelance to report further from home and to work on books.
- Food editor, city magazine, 2008–2020
- Author of two regional guidebooks
- MA in Journalism, 2007
Most of my work now is reported features for magazines and newsletters, guidebook chapters that need every listing visited again, and editing cookbooks and travel books before they go to a publisher or a designer. I test recipes in the books I edit, and I tell you which ones did not work.
I take two or three book projects a year, so dates fill early. For features, send a short pitch or a brief and I will reply within two working days.
Before journalism I cooked for four years in restaurant kitchens in Philadelphia and Lyon, which is still the most useful training I have had for writing about food.
From editors and authors
Clara files clean copy two days early and every fact holds up. Her piece on Lisbon’s fish markets was our most-read feature of the year.
Daniel O. Features editor, travel quarterly
Her editorial letter reorganised the book in a way I could not see myself. The structure she suggested is the one we printed.
Sunita R. Cookbook author
Forty guidebook listings, all revisited, all on time.
Mark T. Series editor
Recent writing
All writing-
A week of breakfasts in Porto
Seven mornings, seven cafés, and why the best one served nothing but toast, butter and very strong coffee.
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Editing recipes that work the first time
Most recipe errors are in the order of the steps, not the quantities. What I check in a cookbook manuscript before anything else.
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Forty listings, revisited
What changes in a guidebook chapter in three years, and why a phone call is not enough to update it.
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The book stalls by the river
Four stallholders, eleven crates each, and the paperback cookbooks nobody else wants.
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How I read a cookbook proposal
The four questions I ask of every proposal before I read a single recipe.
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What a fact-check costs
An honest breakdown of the hours behind a checked feature, with the sources in the footnotes.
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Notes on writing a menu
Three restaurants asked me to rewrite their menus this year. The rules I gave each of them.
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A guidebook chapter in six weeks
Week by week: how a new chapter goes from a blank brief to forty checked listings.
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The last market column
After eight years and four hundred columns, what I learned writing about one market every week.
New writing by email
One email when something new is published. Unsubscribe any time.
Commissions
Replies within two working days