anyone working as a copy editor / proofreader?

[ivet83]

I have finally decided what to do with my english degree. I want to become a copy editor. My first year at uni is almost finished, so I have written to the school newspaper's editor to accept as a volunteer for the summer. I am also considering doing a copy editor distance learning course over the summer. Any advice on how to start getting experience?

[MinniethePink]

Do you know anyone who works in any kind of publishing field, be it books/magazines?

I work freelance part-time as a copy-editor and some things to bear in mind:

• paid permanent positions are rare, unless you go for sub-editor newspaper type positions (something I've never tried, I only work for publishers/online stuff)
• any kind of freelance work is a mix of the great, i.e. your own hours, good pay, relatively easy work once you know what you're doing and the crappy, i.e. you never know when the work is coming in, you never want to turn stuff down so you often end up taking on too much and working late/weekends, etc. And having to do your self-assessment tax forms!

Plus it can be quite lonely work. Oh, and you find yourself obsessing about en-dashes and em-dashes and seeing egregious grammatical errors absolutely everywhere you go, which no-one else in your immediate circle will give a toss about.

A course might well be a good thing; I did a general copy-editing course and an online one as well (more and more stuff is online these days). I did mine through unis, I wouldn't trust those ads you see in the papers/online that say 'earn £££s working from home'!!

I do really enjoy it, having said all that, but unless you are intending to become an editor of some kind it's not really a career. For me it's just a nice way of getting some extra money.

You could write to publishers and start out as a proofreader (less responsibility and a good way to pick up on how it all works) - some will have a test to see how good you are at spotting errors and might take you on on the basis of one of those.

Hope that helps!

[ivet83]

thank you for the post but have 3 questions.is this the only job you do or you have some other job and this is just additional income?what do you mean an editor of some kind, and how do i find out about local publishers and how do i approach them? What should I say?

[ivet83]

How did you get your first freelance job? What did you do? I don't mind doing it freelance or working for a newspaper. I have a daughter and i do plan to have a second one so i guess working from home is not that bad.where do you live?

[MinniethePink]

1. I have another part-time job (entirely unrelated, I am a counsellor!) and so I copy-edit to supplement this income. The copy-editing pays almost double the counselling, but that's another issue!

1. What I mean is, if you become a copy-editor there isn't really a career progression path - you only really get a reputation as being a good reliable copy-editor! However, if you work for e.g. a publisher, you may well find out about production or editorial jobs if you were to ask, and as a copy-editor this would probably stand you in good stead if you wanted career progression that way. Like I say, I've never worked in newspaper editing but there I think it is possible to work your way up from sub to junior editor, to section editor, etc.

1. Local publishers - check out yellow pages or buy 'Writers and Artists Yearbook' which has a list of all publishers in the UK. You don't necessarily need to use a local publisher, but it might help if they still edit on paper (many do) in terms of getting work back to them and also meeting up face to face in the first place. I mostly work online now so in theory I could be based anywhere. I would just say what you've said here - that you are looking for proofreading work (most would be unlikely to give you copy-editing work straight off the bat I would think) and say what kind of skills you have (e.g. an eye for detail, great grammar and spelling). Nothing to lose!

1. I used to work in the sales dept of a publisher and left to train as a counsellor, so I knew people in the editorial depts, took a 2-day proofing/copy-editing course at the London College of Printing and a one-day online course at Oxford Brookes University then asked people for work to get my first few jobs. Some never offered me stuff again, some became regulars (so to speak!) although as they got new jobs etc. sometimes I had to tout myself out a bit to get myself known to their replacements all over again.

I live in Oxfordshire. Oh, not to be negative but another thing to be aware of is not to expect to be reading the next Harry Potter - I've only ever worked on academic-related stuff. Most interesting was the Dictionary of Nicknames, least was probably a physics book. Or one on Trinitarian Theology. If you have any science-related A-levels or can get anything like that in anywhere (or languages), that would help as a lot of editors who give out the work are a bit scared of technical stuff and like to feel the job is in 'safe' hands. I used to work in medical and science sales so somehow ended up with such a reputation (entirely unfounded, but it doesn't affect your ability to delete unnecessary commas) and jobs that wouldn't have gone to other copy-editors.

Hope that all helps! Good luck!