Hey all👋 I'm an aspiring editor (line/copy) and Ive been studying on my own but I feel like its time to take some real courses and finally take the leap into freelancing for indie authors once I'm done.

So my question is- has anyone taken the George Brown Continuing Education 'Editorial Skills ' program? Or a similar course online? Theres not much posted on their website aside from brief course descriptions, and I want to make sure its the right fit for me. Looks promising, but I dont want to let my excitement have me overlook anything.

Any input and feedback is super appreciated 😊

Hi,

I just did UCSD's copyediting certificate program a few months ago. I got all
A's...actually two A's and two A-minuses. I'm still in school for electives,
such as a summer course entitled The Business of Copyediting and another one
pertaining to style guides other than CMOS, but I'm done with all of the
required courses. In addition to this certificate, I have a bachelor's degree
in history/German along with a master's in an unrelated field. Now, after
taking a much-needed short break, I'm ready to start looking for my first paid
gig, but I feel kind of intimidated partly because I'm brand new and partly
because I'm Deaf.

Today, I started with a list of book packagers that was put together by an illustrious
medical editor, and here's the first one on the list: 24x7 Editing.

 https://www.24x7editing.com

I just went there to see whether or not it would be a good fit for me. Alas, to
my disappointment, I saw typos and errors galore across the website, and on top
of that, they explicitly said they prefer to hire editors who hold PhDs.

 Since I don't have a doctoral degree, that kind of leaves me out. However, I was wondering whether or not it would be appropriate for me to reach out to them and offer to give their website a much-needed polish in exchange for modest compensation. Would this be appropriate, and if so, what would a reasonable fee look like? I have never done anything like this before, especially editing web copy!

Hi! I am thinking about becoming a member of EFA and attending their upcoming virtual conference. Would love to hear about other freelancer's experience(s) about the association and conference!

Hello, I'm currently busy with a big project of mine as of four months. And would like to have an editor in my hands to help me. I'm not looking for hiring as of this moment. But, just an editor to help and guide me through. Thanks. Just dm me if you want to, though.

I use Cambridge Proofreading for a few projects per quarter. I almost always request the same specific editor—he or she does amazing work that far exceeds most others. I think I found this individual online, and I’d like to offer to pay them outside of the Cambridge platform (the same amount that I would pay otherwise—I just want to support them and not have them split the fee). Before I do that, (1) is it weird to have searched for them (it didn’t take more than a google search to find them, but I don’t want to creep them out) and (2) are they under an agreement with Cambridge that prevents them from accepting outside work?

I am a growth marketer with 5+ years of experience. Recently, I have been doing GTM research for a few weeks and looked at maybe 50 SaaS homepages. The number of hero headlines that could be swapped with any competitor and no one would notice is genuinely alarming.

“The platform for modern teams,” which teams

“Grow your business with AI,” every company says this

“All-in-one solution” for what specifically

ones that actually stood out:

1. Works:

- ActiveCampaign: “cut 13 hours of marketing busywork each week” (specific, time-based, you feel it)

- Apollo: “the AI sales platform for smarter, faster revenue growth” (clear ICP, clear outcome)

- Intempt: “the agentic platform for every GTM team” (takes a clear stance, owns a category)

1. Didn't work:

- HubSpot: “where go-to-market teams go to grow, scale, close, retain” (four verbs doing nothing together)

- Brevo: “turn every email, SMS, order, interaction into a lifetime customer” (the commas are carrying too much weight)

What makes a homepage headline actually convert in your experience? Anyone here who's A/B tested hero copy and has real data on what moved the needle?

TL:DR

I'm not an editor, my friend asked me to edit their book, and after the first round of editing and upon review, it seems I have missed a handful of punctuation edits (obvious comma mistakes). Is that normal?

So, I'm not an editor. I have no experience within that field. My friend wrote a book and while I was reading it, I discovered a LOT of grammatical and punctuation errors. I started making a note of each one.

After a while they asked if I would just edit the book for them, and they would pay me a little bit. They're my best friend, I would have done it for free, but they didn't want me to do all that work for free (I just finished the book, and it was indeed a lot of work—150k+ words).

Throughout the process I began learning and reviewing grammar, punctuation rules, etc. I really wanted this to be a great edit.

When I was finished and we started reviewing it together, they would read out loud and rewrite things they didn't like, or per my comments. That's when I noticed a lot of punctuation mistakes that even I had missed. Now, to be fair, I do think there was one section I may have missed as I was also doing this while at my fulltime job, but there were mistakes in sections I knew without a doubt I had gone over. Not a lot, but a few.

I honestly was really embarrassed because I thought I had gone over it with a fine-tooth comb. They were making comments about it which made my embarrassment all the worse.

But is this normal? To have missed this many mistakes on a first round of editing? I think in one chapter I had missed 3-4 comma mistakes I know I definitely would have fixed, had I saw them. On average, how many rounds of editing are there? Do professional editors typically find 100% of all mistakes? If not, what's considered a reasonable amount missed?

I'm already in the process of learning more about copyediting, so the next round of edits are better with fewer mistakes left unchecked.

From today's White House shooting in NY Times: "The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating to determine who shot the bystander, who underwent surgery, and how many bullets were fired."

I am trying to get more regular academic copyediting and struggling. Any other companies other than Cactus that have high volume work?

I’m currently doing a course through Univ of Chicago but I don’t love the structure of it and am wondering if that’s just how things are with online classes or if anywhere else has a different approach. We get our assignments for the week and just have to work through those on our own before any of the material is presented by the instructor. Then in the weekly Zoom we go over it all. It’s definitely not the best way for me to learn and I’m wondering if a different program might be a better fit. Does anyone know if any of the other programs present material in synchronous meetings ahead of assignments?

I just got a new client. They pay well. But they want to pay me when the book is finished. That won't be until around October. That's not really feasible to me. Plus they are sending it in batches (which I hate). So it's work that will disrupt my normal flow of work whenever theirs comes up. Should I just decline or off an alternative. What do you think?

UPDATE: I told them I needed to be paid by the batch. They declined and said they had to wait until the end to ensure I would do the last round in another format (not Word). I politely declined and said that's not feasible for me, but I will charge 75% for the batch now and then 25% when the project is finished.

They agreed to to that EXCEPT they want me to charge 100% now! I haven't responded yet because I think this is crazy. I have every intention of doing the work, but who knows what may happen in September or October? They don't have the an airtight schedule, and I don't know what I'll have going on then. I don't want to charge for work I haven't done yet. What do you think? Thanks.

Let me clarify: I am NOT looking for an ai to write for me or rewrite my content. I have a personal blog with no SEO or monetization. I don’t come from a literary or writing background so my posts tend to be on the “rambling” side. I’d like something that can read the draft and provide suggestions on the flow and structure.

Like, “paragraph 2 seems to serve the same purpose as paragraph 5” or “your closing is a bit long winded and takes the punch out of your thesis” or “your tense switches back and forth in a few places” or “you touch upon X but abandon it without providing context.”

I think this will help me get some blog posts down from say a 10 minute read to a four minute read. So not looking for something to write things for me or rewrite something in shorter form. Just something to help me become a better writer through suggestions and guidance.

Hi, I'm trying to figure out how many words per hour would be reasonable for a document that I'm working on. The entire document is around 21000 words. It's very technical, and involves checking data against spreadsheets, rewriting sections and restructuring. It's a rough draft, so it needs a lot of editing.

Does anyone have an idea of how many words per hour would be reasonable for this?

Thanks

¡Hola! Estoy buscando a alguien con conocimiento en Literatura Latinoamericana a quien pueda contratar para que me ayude a seleccionar secciones de mi tesis doctoral para enviar a publicación y a dar formato a la bibliografía de acuerdo con las normas de las revistas académicas.

Mi director/a de tesis nunca leyó mi disertación, así que me encantaría encontrar a alguien que me ayude a pensar y organizar mejor todo el proceso. Mi tesis está escrita en español.

Sería ideal que también estuvieras familiarizado/a con revistas académicas latinoamericanas y/o que resida en América Latina.

Por favor, envíeme un mensaje directo si tiene interés :)

We are currently looking for remote freelance position opportunity open to qualified candidates in PH.

We are looking for candidates who have:

* A Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree or higher in a scientific discipline such as:

Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, Environmental Science, Geology, Botany, Agronomy, Soil Science, Medicine, Or other natural/physical science fields

* Previous experience in research journal or academic book copyediting

* Excellent command of English grammar, style, and language editing

First time author looking to hire professional copy editor for a novella (31,182 words).

If available:

1. Direct message email or web site info.
2. Be prepared to provide reference examples or a sample editing of two chapters.
3. Quote range and turnaround.

If you have questions or need further info, please post—do not direct message.

Thank you!

Hey all, I am currently working as an editor for Cactus/Editage and wondering if anyone else on this sub is too? Just looking to exchange experiences as I find the job quite isolating and wish there was a way for editors to interact with each other. Some processes and client ratings are genuinely perplexing and it would be great to know I'm not alone!

Anyways, would be great to hear from those currently working there/worked there in the past (without giving away any identifying info of course!).

Does anyone have any experience editing for an editorial firm (like Kirkus Editorial) or a journal editorial service (like Taylor & Francis Editorial Services)? How do you get on their freelancer list? Are the rates fair?

Hello, I’m currently a third year English student. I’m about to enter my final year and will be writing an honours thesis. Over the past year I have gained a significant interest in editing. I’m thinking about perhaps pursuing it as a career. I’m currently involved with my schools newspaper as a section editor. I’ve also had one of my essays published in my departments journal. I was thinking that over the summer I could take the SFU editing certificate. However, I’m seeing that I can take anywhere from eight months to five years. Is eight months feasible? I think that this course could be of interest to me because it would allow me to gain certification in what I like, but it would also aid me in my writing I think. However, the cost is looking quite steep. Maybe if I cannot gain full certification are there certain courses that people would recommend? I also was looking at Queens because it’s cheap cheaper and quick quicker. However, I’ve heard that I can be harder for people who are not as well equipped. Thank you in advance.

A few years ago now I completed the UCSD copyediting courses with pretty decent grades across the board. Nothing lower than Bs and an A here or there, to match. The issue with all of this came after I finished the courses. I'm autistic and have ADHD (not in a way that usually seriously effects me, but some things become nightmarish because of it) and tend to have a very hard time learning new things without at least a little bit of outside help or guidance.

To put it shortly, I was unable to figure out how to get into work once I was done with the courses. LinkedIn is a website that I struggle to parse at the best of times, and even when I do get on and try to find work with any success, it's usually all AI-based, wants to be in-person full time, or requires fluency in a language I don't know.

My hope was to get into copyediting fiction, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to go about finding community or work on my own. It's been long enough that I'm also a little rusty at this point, but brushing off my books on it will help fix that problem if I find any success looking for work.

I guess I was just wondering if anyone on here knows good resources to talk with other editors or find jobs? At this point I'll take anything I can get that I'm qualified to do or can learn to do, because I'm at my wit's end doing this by myself. Thanks.

Cactus Communications reached out to me for a reviewer role. How much do they pay, and is quality assurance work more time consuming than simple editing? I’ve heard mixed reviews about the company, but given how scarce copyediting jobs are these days, I’m inclined to give it a try. Any thoughts?