Editor's note: This is a guest post by editorial professional Rachel Lapidow.Now that I’ve been a freelance copyeditor, proofreader, and developmental editor for six years, I’ve started to get more questions from current and aspiring copyeditors about how I became...
Editor's note: This is a guest post by editorial professional Suzy Bills.As a freelance editor, have you ever been confused about which pricing method to use? Does your stomach knot up when you try to decide how much to charge for a project? Have you preemptively...
In Part 1 of “Can Social Media Help Book Editors Get Work?,” we explored the benefits of being active on social media and which platforms can be the most fruitful for growing your client base. Now that you know which platforms to be on, what to post, and best...
Editor's note: This is a guest post by editorial professional Jenny DeBell.I recently completed the copyediting course at Editorial Arts Academy in order to build skills I’ve developed more or less informally, and to help clarify some of the differences between...
Editor's note: This is a guest post by editorial professional Katherine Kirk.Hold on to your red pen! I’m about to show you how I become a highly efficient editing machine by combining: Macros Keyboard shortcuts TextExpander snippets Word add-ons My Favorite Macros...
Editor's note: This is a guest post by editorial professional Caitlin O'Brien.No matter how much you love freelance book editing, or any kind of editing, or how selectively you cultivate your client list, sooner or later you end up with a joyless slog: a task so...
Most book editors fall into two categories. They’re either on social media but think they can do more to help their business, or they’re overwhelmed by it and don’t really know where to start. Regardless of which category you belong to, help is on the way!The Best...
If you're a freelance book editor, or you're training to be one, you need PerfectIt! In this post, Hilary Cadman shares why PerfectIt is such a powerful tool for editors. See the last paragraph for a link to Hilary's PerfectIt training courses, including...
Traditional trade publishing is, once again, changing. On May 10, 2021, HarperCollins absorbed Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the Boston-based publisher was drawn into the constellation of the Big Five NYC publishers: Penguin Random House (PRH), Hachette Book...
I just took the exciting step of becoming an LLC, or Limited Liability Company. I’m now in the Vermont Secretary of State’s registry under Sheryl Rapée-Adams Copyediting, LLC, dba Cat’s Eye Copyediting. It took a week, a lawyer, and $600 to transform my side hustle...
For over twenty-five years, I’ve been a developmental editor of nonfiction. But recently, I’ve added “book coaching” to my editorial services. The shift came about when Dr. Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist with a bestseller under her belt, contacted me to help...
In the early 1990s, my lifelong fascination with language rules was transformed into a rewarding side hustle copyediting academic journals. Over time, I took on projects with trade publishers and began editing fiction and nonfiction books. My other careers waxed...
I think we can all agree, it's fun to fix a spelling error, or a grammatical mistake, or a comma that should be a semicolon. Rooting out these distractions in the reading experience brings deep pleasure. If your responses on our Book Editor Profile Quiz indicate...
As a developmental editor of fiction for the last decade, I’ve worked on almost two hundred novels in just about every genre of fiction, both literary and commercial. By chance, some of the writers I’ve worked with held day jobs as editors in other fields, such as...
Editor's Note: This course is not currently open for registration, but we will likely reopen it in the later months of 2021. When I tell colleagues about my specialty of developmental and line editing for nonfiction books, I’m often asked, “But where do you...
When I started my career as a freelance book editor back in 1995, I was thrown into the deep end and had to figure out how to sink or swim. If I knew then what I know now, I could have had an easier time of it, and I certainly could have made a lot more money....
Freelance book editors have a place in the fight against racism. First, we’re human, and all humans must participate. Second, we are uniquely suited to recognize the influence words have on readers, populations, and entire societies. This gives us additional...
When I tell people I teach freelance book editing, I often get this response: “I love books, but I couldn’t be a book editor—I don’t know grammar well enough.” Or: “I can’t spell—I could never edit books.” Or: “I don’t have the skills to work directly...
A few years ago, at a gathering for college instructors to kick off the new semester, I found myself pouring a bubbly drink alongside a colleague I hadn’t seen in a few years. “Where’ve you been?” fell from my lips. “Oh, I’ve been traveling throughout the...
If you're considering a career as a freelance book editor, you're probably wondering what type of editing is right for you. This is a question we often get from aspiring book editors. They're interested in bringing their talent with words to the world of book...
Do you love to read and wish you could spend your life with books? Do you find errors in books and wonder how they got there? Do you cringe at misplaced apostrophes and rail at undeveloped character arcs? If so, you may be a wordsmith who hasn't reached your full...
“Book editor.” The mere mention conjures up an image of an exalted creature who sits in a corner office of a Manhattan publishing house, madly editing great piles of manuscripts in a quest to create bestsellers, à la Maxwell Perkins. Celebrity editor Maxwell...
One of the fastest ways to learn about the field of freelance editing is to attend a regional or national conference. This summer, Susannah and I did just that. Gathering with over two hundred freelance editors, writers, indexers, translators, and other editorial...
In March 2019, I went to the ACES conference in Providence, RI. I met many lovely fellow editors, including Emily King. Emily was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about her life as an editor. Emily offers line editing, copyediting, and proofreading for a...
Summer has arrived—at least, judging by the vibrant green foliage and fragrant lilacs in bloom outside my office window here in Montpelier, Vermont. Susannah and I are glad for the temporary end to braving icy roads and white-out conditions to get to our local...
I was the eleven-year-old miscreant with a purple Sharpie correcting restaurant menus, school textbooks, and the science fiction novels on my parents’ bookshelves. In the 1980s, my college English professor, author Evelyn Wilde Mayerson, told me I’d make a good...
Editor’s note: Texan Ann Kellett (annkellettediting.com) has been a full-time, award-winning editor for more than thirty years. The business cards she ordered for her new focus on developmental editing—with the tagline “I slog through your book’s substance and...
Editor's note: Zora is our summer intern. In exchange for marketing and social media help, we're teaching her about developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Zora majors in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Editing is an intimate...
On June 16, 2018, Susannah Noel and I held a day-long training at the Hampton Inn in Colchester, Vermont: Getting Started as a Freelance Book Editor. After enjoying a full roster of lectures, self-assessments, quizzes, and exercises, our fifteen participants ended...
Most of my career, I've been a copyeditor for large NYC publishers, an intellectually stimulating but also somewhat straightforward task. It starts with this injunction: A copyeditor must never fix or improve the author's style. (What is style? See Dave Hood's...
It was early Sunday morning, and the rain-slicked Pacific Coast Highway was relatively empty. Luckily, there were few cars coming over the hill behind me when I hit that pool of water and put my car into a ninety-degree tailspin, jettisoning me toward the guard...
It happens all the time. A prospective client contacts me about their book, wanting my book coaching or editing services to help in some phase of its completion. But their request is vague, not tailor-made for my packages and rates. They only know what they want,...
“Can anyone find the mistake?” Mrs. Bressette, tall and slim with close-cropped black hair, pointed to a picture of a construction site with a yellow sign in front that read, DEVELOPEMENT COMING SOON. We stared at the book. We were the advanced spellers, sitting at...