🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Tim

Yes - I've been monitoring this newsgroup for a couple of months, but
there's very little activity.

I'm a freelance proofreader, copy-editor and indexer so my interest is
professional.

Feel free to start up an exchange of ideas/information with me - you never
know, someone else might join in!


All the best

John




Tim Shock wrote in message <368C83DE.C3CC6794@microserve.net>...
>Found this newsgroup among a list; wondering if it's active. Please
>reply.
>

Well I just dropped in, I'm a copywriter so perhaps I'm in the wrong
place:-)

Nick


----------
In article <76sgl2$qjk$1@nclient1-gui.server.virgin.net>, "John Holmes"
<john.holmes3@virgin.net> wrote:


>Hello Tim
>
>Yes - I've been monitoring this newsgroup for a couple of months, but
>there's very little activity.
>
>I'm a freelance proofreader, copy-editor and indexer so my interest is
>professional.
>
>Feel free to start up an exchange of ideas/information with me - you never
>know, someone else might join in!
>
>
>All the best
>
>John
>
>
>
>
>Tim Shock wrote in message <368C83DE.C3CC6794@microserve.net>...
>>Found this newsgroup among a list; wondering if it's active. Please
>>reply.
>>
>
>

Hello Charlotte

Great to hear from you. Sorry for the delay in answering you, but I'm rather
busy at the moment and I wanted to do justice to your request.

Running a freelance copy-editing business is a somewhat precarious
operation. I strongly recommend that you consider all of the points I
mention below and then spend time doing plenty of research for yourself
before deciding whether it's really for you.

How much work is available to you will depend on which country you're in
(looking at your timestamp, I suspect that you're in the eastern USA - in
which case you should be OK), the subject areas that you can offer and the
technical skills you possess. How successful you will be in actually
obtaining work and completing it to an acceptable standard will depend on
your personality, your marketing strategy and quite a bit of good luck.

First: your personality. You need to be observant, meticulous and good at
organising information in a logical way. When raw copy reaches you, you will
need to read it through thoroughly and understand what the authors are
trying to convey, while correcting for spelling, grammar and the publisher's
house style as you go. If you feel that the authors have not used the most
appropriate language to communicate some particular concept, then you would
need re-organise or re-write whole chunks of copy, while maintaining the
original meaning (and bearing in mind that authors are easily offended when
someone starts messing with their words of wisdom). You need good powers of
concentration and have a desire to get things exactly right. You will
probably work from home and therefore spend a lot of time alone: no
workmates to chat to, no after-hours social life away from home, no escape
from your home problems, no getting
completely away from your work (although you can deal with all of these if
you've a mind to). On the other hand, there are no overbearing bosses, no
office politics and no mind-numbing journeys to and from work. You will have
to cope with periods lasting weeks when no work comes in and not let it get
you down, and yet always be able to shift into a higher gear to deal with
complex and/or urgent material all arriving simultaneously.

Second: skills. Other than an eye for detail, you need to be good at
spotting potential spelling mistakes (you don't necessarily need to be good
at spelling yourself, as you can always refer to a dictionary), have a sound
grasp of grammar, be conversant with current usage, be able to explain
difficult/complicated ideas clearly and have a "feel" for the language (i.e.
be able to take a grammatically correct sentence and re-phrase it so that it
sounds better). You also have to be able to follow the instructions of the
publisher to the letter and, most importantly, know when to stop and leave
well alone! I suggest that you join a professional organisation and
undertake
some of their training programmes - I joined the Society of Freelance
Editors and
Proofreaders (SFEP) here in the UK and I found their training seminars
invaluable.

Third: subjects. You will find it easier to obtain commissions from
publishers if you specialise in a fairly narrow range of related subjects. I
spent 20 years as an analytical chemist before becoming a freelance editor,
so I offer chemistry, the pure sciences aimed at a general readership,
biotechnology, pharmaceutical science, food science and technology, and the
history and development of science and technology - all subject I have
either trained in, had work experience of, or have a deep interest in. If
you offer too wide a
range of subjects, publishers may wonder if you really have the depth of
knowledge to follow and correct their material - after all, their
reputations depend on the quality of their output and people who are genuine
experts in a particular field may refer to these texts. You will have to
decide for yourself what subjects best suit you, but as a general rule, the
more popular a subject is with the book-buying public, the more rival
freelance editors you will have to compete against (obviously, there must
have been sufficient people available to edit all those books in the first
place).

Fourth: your marketing strategy. Find out which publishers currently produce
materials in you specialisms. This means visiting bookshops a looking at
recently published books, etc. Don't waste your time and effort contacting
publishers who never publish in your subjects. Try to have a look at a guide
(probably worth buying your own copy) that lists the main publishers and
includes their addresses, phone numbers and subject range (in the UK we have
the "Writers' and Artists' Yearbook"). Get some decent headed notepaper and
business cards printed - this makes you look much more professional. Send
off lots of brief letters on your smart notepaper publicising your services,
remembering to include your list of specialisms - that way, your target
publishers will know that you've bothered to do some research and that
you're restricting yourself to areas where you have some knowledge, and so
take you much more seriously. In my case, about 90% of publishers never even
bothered to reply and most of the rest sent me a bland letter promising to
keep my details on file. A small number, maybe only one or two, may reply
showing some interest, perhaps saying that they have nothing suitable to
offer you at that time, but if you contact them in a month or so, something
might be available. Write back thanking them for their letter and agreeing
to do as they suggest. Write this up in your diary and make sure that you do
contact them at the appropriate time. As you gain more commissions,
periodically write back to all the publishers that failed to reply,
highlighting the fact that you have successfully completed commissions for
other publishers - drive home the point that you are considerably more
experienced than you were the last time you wrote to them. Mostly, though,
you just have to be patient. I'm currently working on a magazine for a
publisher that I first wrote to in April 1998, but didn't reply to me at the
time. They telephoned me out of the blue last week and commissioned me - so
don't be
discouraged.

Fifth: equipment. These days you really need a decent computer, telephone
answering machine, fax (my computer fax works fine) with its own number, at
least one decent printer, a really good general dictionary, a grammar
guidebook, an encyclopaedia, a biographical dictionary, a good world atlas,
national maps or a gazetteer of place names, various general reference
books, and many detailed reference books on your specialisms. I also have a
scanner, which can serve as a photocopier, and a colour inkjet printer in
addition to my HP LaserJet. Make sure that you have somewhere quiet to work,
where you can spread materials around without disturbing anyone else, where
you can leave a mess and deal with it the next day if you want, and where
no-one will meddle with your stuff. Oh, and make sure you get yourself a
decent professional quality chair from an office equipment supplier -
there's a lot of sitting down for prolonged periods in the business and a
stiff back is best avoided.

Sixth: media. I'd say that most copy-editing is still performed on the
author's typescript, marking up for the typesetter in pen as you go.
Increasingly, publishers are taking text directly from the author's disk and
incorporating this into typesetting software. This means that the
copy-editing stage is performed directly "on-screen", rather than by
scribbling on sheets of paper which then has to be interpreted by someone
else as they laboriously re-type the entire text into their particular
software. For example, I copy-edit a scientific journal almost entirely
on-screen. I load the text from a floppy that the publisher posts to me into
MS Word, save the changes that I make back to the file and return it to the
journal editor. I've just starting receiving proofreading work via e-mail
too: the magazine pages arrive as PDF files which I print out on my LaserJet
and then mark up as usual.


Seventh: fees. How much you should charge for what you do very much depends
on the "going rate" in your region. If you're very expensive but can offer
no exceptional service to justify your fees, then you'll price yourself out.
If you offer bargain basement rates, then most publishers will think that
you're either useless, and this is the only way you can get work, or you're
so new that you haven't discovered the appropriate professional rates yet,
and you're probably just as inexperienced when it comes to doing the editing
too. If you join a professional body, they will advise you on their
recommended rates for established members. You may like to start off
requesting 5-10% less, just to get your foot in the door, but you should
build up to the full rates within 1 to 2 years as you gain experience. If
you pitch in too low, then you may find it very difficult building your
charges up in later years - you will always be seen as a cheap option and
publishers may try to take advantage of you. Remember too that whatever you
charge must provide you with a reasonable living after paying all your
bills, and cover holiday breaks, sickness, pension provision, taxation,
personal insurance and all your business overheads. You may charge for
expenses incurred in fulfilling a commission (e.g. postage, packaging or
maybe travel costs) as an extra on your invoices, but all of the rest (and
probably more that I've forgotten to mention) comes straight out of your
hourly fee.

Eight: services. It's a good idea to offer a range of related services to
publishers. For example, I offer proofreading, copy-editing, indexing,
re-writing and re-design. With one enquiry letter I publicise all my
services and increases my chances of getting a commission doing something.
Once you've proved yourself in one area, publishers may be more willing to
try you out in others if the skills necessary are broadly similar.


Well, I think I'd better stop here as I've become rather more prolix than
I'd intended.

I hope this helps. Please do get back to me if anything is unclear or if
you'd like more information.



Best wishes

John




Roger and Charlotte Panton wrote in message
<369A4D30.900B0D9D@infinet.com>...
>Dear John,
>
>I read your post to this newsgroup.  I have been looking for a
>copyediting newsgroup for a long time.  I found several forums on
>communication in which the participants were interested in finding one
>also.  Also, on misc.business.marketing moderated, they have been
>searching for a newsgroup on editors.
>
>I would be interested in any advise you have on copyediting as a
>business.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Charlotte Panton

Thanks for the very good information about your field.

I'm not sure which message got through before as I was having trouble with
Express News.  I've got it fixed now.

What I had written was that I had seen inquiries on misc.
business.marketing.moderated for such a newsgroup.  They were told none
exists.  Also, I have been monitoring some forums which would be interested
in this newsgroup also.

Maybe they'll post here in the future.

I'll tell them about it.

Thanks again for the info.

Charlotte Panton