CAREERS IN EDITING & PUBLISHING
November 2000
The following Guest Speaker Discussion originally took place on WRK4US in November of the year 2000. Because WRK4US has a confidentiality policy, all names and email addresses have been altered or removed, except for the moderator's and the Guest Speakers'.
The discussion can be read in two ways- by simply scrolling down and reading the whole thing, or by clicking on the topical links below, which take you to specific places within the discussion. The discussion can also be printed out in its entirety for your reading convenience.
Special thanks to Peter Mickulas who volunteered his time to edit this discussion and prepare it for posting on the web. If you are interested in editing a future discussion, your help will be much appreciated; email Paula Foster, WRK4US List Manager, at pfchambers@sbcglobal.net .
Freelancing
Ph.D - Asset or Liability?
Skills Required
Salary Question
Job Satisfaction
Useful Websites
Paula Foster
Introduction to the Editing and Publishing Career Discussion:
Just a quick word before the Guest Speakers arrive on Monday and we begin our discussion of "Careers in Editing and Publishing." Here's how These things go. On the first day, each of the Guest Speakers posts an introductory message to the list, in which they share information about who they are and what they do. After the introductions, the floor opens for questions and comments from subscribers. Subscribers ask questions, speakers respond, a discussion ensues, and so it goes, for a whole week, until the following Monday, when I post a "thank you" message bringing it to a close.
Anyone is free to ask questions, including Speakers.
No question is too naive, too stupid, too obvious, or too bold [including questions about salaries].
Questions or comments may be directed towards one Speaker, more than one Speaker, or towards subscribers.
Speakers may elect not to reveal information they feel is sensitive, but they will do their best to answer all questions as helpfully and thoroughly as possible.
Postings totally unrelated to the topic at hand should be saved for later, after the discussion is over.
Simple enough, eh? Best wishes to everyone for a helpful, productive discussion.
Paula Foster WRK4US list manager ABD in Rhetoric and Composition The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio
Emilie Babcox
I'm Emilie Babcox, and I'm a production editor and the coordinator of freelance editors at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. I earned a PhD in English literature, majoring in 19th century British literature, in 1998.
How I got here from there:
I expected to be grading papers on the novels of Dickens and Trollope by now rather than editing medical research journals. How did this happen? Well, I realized around the time I began writing my dissertation that the job market for English PhDs was not terrific. However, I still assumed that, with more than 100 colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area, some department would hire me. My husband and I had already decided that we would not move just so I could be as assistant professor struggling for tenure in another location, because he has a wonderful job here and we have three children in various stages of their own lives and schooling. While writing the dissertation, I found adjunct positions at three universities, and it was while adjuncting that I began to realize just how bad the situation was. I met other adjuncts who had doctorates from respected institutions, had published articles and even books, were willing to move anywhere, were terrific, caring teachers, and yet had been adjuncting under some really discouraging conditions for several years.
During my final year of dissertation writing, I discovered that I could make (much) more money working as a temporary secretary than as an adjunct. So I continued to teach one evening class and worked full-time as a secretary. (I didn't tell most employers that I was ABD, or even that I had any postgraduate education.) Here's what I gained from the secretarial jobs: an inside look at the everyday life of big corporations; substantially greater income than I would have made adjuncting (about $31,000 that year as a temp!); experience I put to good use in my evening class (Business Writing); and time to work on my dissertation (no kidding - I wrote a couple chapters during the slow times at work). In addition, one of the companies I worked for paid me to be trained in several computer applications. And I had some benefits, such as paid vacation time. I really can't recommend highly enough the experience of being a temporary secretary (at the right company) for any dissertation-writing student who isn't too proud to photocopy and file for someone else. Its a little hard on your pride, but that's the only drawback, if it is a drawback.
When I defended I vowed to apply for any position within a commuting radius of two hours that seemed even remotely related to my degree (Victorian studies, 19th century British studies, general, composition, etc.). I carefully read the MLA job lists, on-line and on paper, and searched the ads in the Chronicle of Higher Education every week. Nothing. There were about 40 openings that year for people with PhDs in 19th century British literature, if I remember correctly, but none were near me. My husband offered to consider moving for a job, but about that time I was seriously thinking that life in academia just wasn't worth that much turmoil. So I have the odd experience of completing the degree and never actually going on the job market, because the job market had evaporated.
I did NOT want to adjunct again. (I actually think the adjuncting situation is immoral, and do not want to contribute to it ) So I looked into publishing, a field that seemed to have some need for the writing, teaching, and researching skills I already had. I put together a resume that downplayed my education but highlighted the skills I had gained from teaching and working with scientific documents and databases in a large corporation. I didn't know anyone in publishing, so I just sent it in response to newspaper ads. I was pleasantly surprised to get several phone calls and two interviews within a couple weeks, and accepted a job as a production editor in the journals department of a large (one of the worlds largest) medical publishing companies.
What I do:
I started out feeling terribly stupid. I had to learn an editing program and absorb lots of company information and publishing terminology rather quickly. It seemed to me that these tasks were being accomplished rather effortlessly by lots of younger editors with brand-new undergraduate degrees, whereas I was stuck in a cubicle repeatedly producing an embarrassing BEEP from the computer whenever I hit the wrong key (At first I was so flustered I forgot that I could set it to mute). I didn't understand huge sections of the material I was editing. (You know the joke about the science PhD student talking to the liberal arts PhD student, Of course we don't read each other's work. I don't want to read yours, and you can't read mine.)
Within an amazingly short time these new-job blues vanished. I learned the editing program (I like computers, a definite plus for anyone in the business world). I became familiar with the terminology. I went to lunch with a few people. And, more importantly, I began to realize that I had something valuable to offer the scientists and doctors whose work I was editing. I didn't have to understand the intricacies of genetic engineering or cardiac surgery to recognize bad or confusing or nonstandard writing; the authors' problems with the language were the same problems my composition students had. Many of our authors are overseas, and speak English as a second language. I was already familiar with those problems, too. I wasn't responsible for the science; my job was just to make the English correct, consistent, and clear. It was kind of a fun challenge. (And any time I wasn't sure of my work, I could just query the author: Sentence OK as revised?)
Production editing is not developmental or scientific editing, in which the editor really needs to understand the subject matter. It's basic editing, and a good way to enter the field of publishing. This type of job might offend someone who wants to strut his/her intellectual stuff, but I liked learning the basics: art sizing, production schedules, good editing skills, how to manage several journals at once. Its not an intellectual challenge on the order of writing a dissertation, but its very much on the level of teaching several composition classes, and involves most of the same skills (knowledge of writing, ability to correct tactfully, ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously, ability to meet deadlines, ability to schmooze with colleagues). Yes, I spend a few hours every week doing boring stuff like editing reference lists. But it's almost soothing, compared with grading stacks of student essays. Some of the more creative things I've done in the last year are working with our student intern, writing procedure instructions, becoming coordinator of our freelance editorial staff, and designing a database application for our department.
THE FUTURE:
Most people don't stay production editors forever. They move up (sometimes rapidly) to become managing editors or publishers, dealing with a whole new set of problems and challenges. Or they move out -- to become editors for publishing companies that deal with other sorts of books and journals. Almost all large companies need editors to handle their in-house publishing needs, too. Then there's electronic publishing, which my company and all others are entering quite aggressively. And in the back of my mind is the thought that some English departments offer undergraduate concentrations in publishing of various types, and might eventually have a need for a PhD with publishing experience -- which could take me right back into academia. The important things to me are that I'm learning, I'm working with creative, talented people, I'm earning a decent wage (about what I'd be making as an assistant professor at a small private college--you may disagree about whether or not that's decent), and I'm having fun at work. The last two years of writing the dissertation and adjuncting were not fun, and until that memory fades away I will definitely have no regrets about leaving academia.
I am looking forward to questions and comments from others on this discussion list, and also hoping to learn about others experiences in and out of the academic workplace. Publishing is not a simple, unified, field wherein everyone's experiences are alike and everyone's needs and expectations are similar (is anything?) -- I expect there will be quite a variety of suggestions about how to get into, around in, or even out of "Publishing."
Susan Waterman
tethys@rci.rutgers.edu
My name is Susan Waterman. I am ABD at Rutgers, specializing in Victorian literature, and for the past three years I was the editor of the Princeton University Library Chronicle, a non-peer-reviewed scholarly journal published three times a year. I say "was" because just recently I left my position to concentrate on my stalled dissertation. Although the job was supposed to be part-time (30 hours a week), it wasn't really, and evenings and weekends weren't serving as the kind of "quality time" I needed to think about my dissertation. (The job has since been reclassified as full-time.) I had taken a year off from my program during the first year of the job, and deferred my TA for the first two years, but I taught a 1-1 load last year and, as is no doubt transparently obvious to everyone, the combination was nearly overwhelming. And while it was a terribly difficult decision to make--it was especially wrenching to leave the wonderful people I was working with--I had already worked as an editor for about eight years after graduating from college, so for me entering graduate school like realizing a dream deferred. When, last fall, I faced the fact that something had to give, I concluded that "my" work is what gives me the greatest pleasure, and that I didn't want to throw away the time and effort I'd invested over the past five years ("throw away" is perhaps a little too extreme, but you get the idea) for a job that I found less fulfilling. Of course, at this stage, "my work" is relatively amorphous; it's not really a factor in the equation academic job/lifestyle vs. job/lifestyle outside academia. Down the road, when I'm done with my dissertation (and have run out of TAs), my prospects of getting a tenure-track job in academia will be dismal, I know. But I'm fairly confident of finding another editing job that can give me satisfaction--and hopeful that I could continue doing the research that I so enjoy on my own time, and even publish it as an independent scholar. In fact, this combination looks more attractive, in the abstract, than trying to combine my research with all the demands of an academic job (especially serving on committees!). I do love teaching, but I can see already that teaching becomes but one fraction among many in the life of an academic.
My reasons for taking the job in the first place were both starry-eyed and pragmatic: it is situated in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, which has fantastic holdings in the Victorian period, and I was thrilled at the prospect of having easy access to such a wealth of resources (the fact that I didn't necessarily need any of them for my own work didn't fully register or didn't seem to matter). And, of course, I had my other eye on my c.v.; surely the job would enhance my credentials. The two or three professors I consulted, however, didn't reinforce that supposition, perhaps because the journal itself is not widely known, so it remains to be seen whether or not it will be counted as an asset. I would love to start an academic journal myself, but again, I'm not sure whether any institutions are looking for that type of contribution, especially if it would require funding!
I should explain a little of what the job involved. Each issue comprises three or four essays of roughly 25 to 40 pages each, including notes, based on research conducted in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Some examples of recent topics include William Godwin's little-known career as a children's-book publisher, Anthony Trollope's relationship with an expatriate relative who was reporting on the American Civil War, and the work and aims of the Council on Books in Wartime during World War II. Contributors range from graduate students to independent scholars and retired academics; scholars winning fellowships to use the collections constitute another pool of possible contributors. There is an Editorial Board, made up of two professors, two library professionals, two members of the Council of the Friends of the Library (which underwrites the journal), that, in conjunction with the editor, reviews submissions and makes recommendations for revisions or rejections. In addition, the editor may seek feedback from other sources, such as professors with relevant expertise. I was responsible for making contact with researchers and requesting contributions (and keeping in touch to eventually secure submissions), editing essays, convening Editorial Board meetings, communicating with authors on revisions, preparing manuscripts for design and production (which involved some coding of files and manual marking of a hard copy), commissioning photography and requesting permissions, checking page proofs and proofreading corrected pages, writing captions, compiling contributors' biographies and lists of illustrations, and checking bluelines. There is a half-time office assistant who handles subscription and fulfillment matters and incidental correspondence, but it is essentially a one-person operation. In addition to the Chronicle, I wrote, edited, and produced a semi-annual Newsletter and edited miscellaneous other publications projects, such as exhibition labels and brochures. The journal's essay topics were all interesting in their own ways without being too arcane, and the contributors were almost without exception a pleasure to meet and work with. The Chronicle's standards have traditionally been quite exacting, which required scrupulous editing, but since I value those standards myself, I never felt that that part of the job's demands was too onerous.
Despite the fact that I have chosen to commit to my dissertation, I have always thought that editing is an ideal sort of job. It can be very flexible, insofar as it is portable, so you don't necessarily have to do the 9-to-5 thing away from home. It can also combine relatively solitary work (the editing itself) with interactions with lots of different types of people, many of whom are pretty knowledgeable about language or their own particular subjects. This factor distinguishes editing from teaching, which requires a lot more (and more taxing) interaction and in a very different type of relation. It's important not to consign yourself to editing in a field you don't care a pin about or can't really understand. If you're just a little selective, you almost can't help but learn things you would never have anticipated knowing. (When I was freelancing, I edited jobs ranging from the script for a CD about the history and how-tos of beer-making to a children's interactive science textbook.) After college (in Washington, D.C.), I worked as an editorial assistant/production coordinator at a government-reference-work publishing firm (Congressional Quarterly), then as production manager/managing editor for the American Association of Museums (bimonthly magazine and various other publications projects), then as the managing editor of Landscape Architecture, the monthly magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects. How's that for eclectic? Each job was enormously engrossing in terms of the topics I was immersed in and surrounded by, and this added to the pleasure I took in the challenges of editing and managing the production of the publications.
I'd be happy to talk more about the types of things I did at any or all of these jobs, or about what sorts of graduate school skills seem to me most useful for different jobs in publishing--or, of course, anything anyone wants to ask about! I'm very much looking forward to this week's exchange.
Eileen Fitzimons
efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net
Hi everyone, I'm Eileen Fitzsimons, and I am a day late, but not because I want to demonstrate how I meet deadlines. There was just a bit of confusion, that arose from settling tricky things by e-mail instead of phone. I apologize. But I pass it on, because you can do just about anything by e-mail, but definitely not everything.
I have a PH.D. in German literature and an M.A. in library science. I am freelance editor. This is my story of the career path not taken.
Sometime in grade school, I don't remember when, I decided I was going to be a teacher. First it was a kindergarten teacher; then it was high school, then it was college. So I started college "knowing" I was going to be an English teacher.
Serendipity has played a big role in my career. So has my habit of changing my mind and starting something different. Looking back, I wonder if perhaps my childhood passion-which has since waned-for finding "what's wrong with this picture?" or finding the ten differences between Freddy Froggy One and Freddy Froggy Two.
Taking several detours - literal detours such as going to Europe, and figurative detours such as changing majors more frequently than my taste in clothes - I entered the University of Chicago Department of Germanic Languages and Literature to get a master's degree in German so I could teach high school German. Then I entered a doctoral program and at various times taught undergraduates at the University of Chicago and at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana. That was wonderful because I knew then exactly what I was going to do with my life, and it did not include helping anyone with a thesis. Once in a lifetime was enough.
I hadn't reckoned with a cutback in language requirements, with a corresponding cutback in language departments in schools across the nation, but that was exactly the market I graduated into. Every college and university wished me good luck in finding a job and knew that I would find just the right thing but, alas, since the German Department had been combined with the Russian Department, the position now required a degree in Russian as well as German or the ability to teach Spanish or, well, anything except perhaps quantum physics. I could have moved across the country for a one-year replacement position or put together a string of part-time positions in various institutions so that I could teach, earn a pitiful salary, and never become part of a department that was dedicated to improvement and encouraging new majors. But the placement office staff assured me that my skills were eminently transferable and that a Ph.D. in German literature was going to get me a job that would earn me big bucks.
I had a diploma, debts, and no means of paying the rent. I took a position teaching a college-level European literature course to Hispanics in an evening program, turned down midday part-time positions, and starting looking for a job.
A corporate library job turned out to be photocopying and typing letters. I learned that "When can you start?" was a question posed to every candidate, it was not a sign of getting the job. I learned I didn't quite know how to do all those things they tell you in the placement office about convincing a possible employer that your academic skills were very transferable. I myself didn't quite believe it.
Chatting with an acquaintance who was waiting for a bus, I mentioned I was job hunting. He told me they were hiring in the theological library, which was across the street. I inquired and was told, by someone who had no authority, that I was too late; they were interviewing. With a then uncharacteristic boldness I said I wanted to apply anyway. So I filled out an application, not knowing what the job was and, after the administration had spent hours wondering if they dare hire a Ph.D., I accepted the job of clerk/typist. This has never appeared on a resume.
It was as clerk/typist that I started serious proofreading. I entered cataloging records into a national database and edited existing records in the database for our catalog cards. I wasn't supposed to do anything but type exactly what the cataloger had given me, and the cataloger would then proof the records. To keep my mind from wondering too far, I would try to find coding mistakes the cataloger had made, and I soon picked up enough cataloging to correct the records as I typed. A year later I was one of the professional staff, thanks to my proofreading and my Ph.D., and as a condition of my promotion I went to library school, where I eventually decided I would be a medical librarian.
Next move was to the Medical Library Association as the coordinator of the credentialing program and continuing education. Library experience, a Ph.D., and teaching experience were a good combination for that place at that time. In a small office (19 full-time employees) everyone has to help proofread, and I had a hard time proofreading without editing. As a result, I was soon proofing, editing, and writing for both the publications manager and the executive director. Soon I was again in the right place at the right time with the right blend of experience. Working for an association was at first rather terrifying. I had left the predictable world of libraries and scholars and was constantly asked to do things "I couldn't do." Learning that I could was the most exciting experience. After a rather infelicitous experience with a publications manager who did not work out, the executive director decided someone who knew the association could learn about publishing more easily than someone with publishing experience could learn about the association. If I had known what I was getting into, I might have gotten cold feet. But fortunately I did not. It was the most labor intensive, stressful job to that point. I had to learn many things the hard way. But I also loved it.
I am convinced you can plan your own beginner's luck. The most important thing is to feel comfortable with people who know more than you do. I hired a copyeditor with more experience and knowledge than I had. About association matters I was the expert, but for copyediting I treated her as the expert most of the time. If I had a question, we consulted the Chicago Manual of Style. It worked. I hired a layout assistant with desktop publishing experience and gave her almost free rein. That worked too. Since I had no illusions about my expertise in the area of production, I knew better than to pull rank, and it was the best staff experience of my life. It was also the best publication and production education one could wish for. I let the typesetters and the printers teach me. I let my staff teach me. I was the one who organized things, proofed one more time, did some final editing, and made content decisions. My education in literature, writing, and library science stood me in good stead. I did take a course on copyediting so I would have some formal training.
When it seemed time to move on, I looked for association positions with heavy publishing responsibilities. I worked for two divisions of the American Library Association, but found that I wanted to spend more time on publishing and less on membership drives. I loved working with the members, but I didn't want to recruit them. I also didn't enjoy sending everything to the main publishing department for production. I wanted to work with the typesetters and printers myself. I left the association intending to find a job that would allow me to concentrate more on publishing.
Three days after I left a got a phone call from another former staff member who worked from his home in Chicago for small, but prolific, publisher of library science books.. He had worked alone for 4 years and desperately needed assistance. I was in the right place again. A year later I was working full-time for the publisher. I did some freelancing at the same time. When a good friend who teaches writing asked me if I would like her to refer people to me for editing I did not hesitate. I asked her by all means to do so.
For a year I commuted an hour each day and worked from someone else's home, with someone else's dog, putting my lunch in someone else's refrigerator. Sometimes I worked at home for a few days, and I liked both the working at home and working with a friend. I loved the developmental editing and the copyediting. I loved talking with authors (except for unhappy authors). And I learned that the production skills on which I had prided myself were rather paltry. They were excellent skills for small associations, but whereas I had always thought I could juggle many projects at one time, I could in reality only juggle a few. I learned which parts of the process I tended to avoid and which held me captive. I realized that I minded commuting more than I thought, that I would never be an early morning person, and that I could have a dog if I worked at home. Most of all I realized that all of my energy could go into my work, without my having to guess what my boss was guessing his boss might think the other partner wanted. That meant only one thing-freelance, something I had vowed I would never do.
So here I am, with my own fledgling business. I have been freelancing for a year and I have no desire to go back to an office. My workload is increasing not decreasing. For months I answered, "Hi, how are you?" with, "Oh, did I tell you I am freelancing." I wanted the world to know and to come knocking at my door. The word networking makes me freeze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. However, talking to people I can handle. As a word person I am not bothered by that little word game. I have my writing teacher friend as a wonderful source of work. In February I had my first return client who was not a student. In June I got my first serious word of mouth referral. So I am not job hunting-I like what I do.
There are, of course, some very practical questions: Can I pay my rent? What about health insurance? Is it really feast or famine in the freelance world? What about the paperwork?
First, I suggest anyone going into freelancing have some reserves in the bank rather than serious debts. (Not that I had any savings.) My rent? In my first four months I borrowed money for rent twice and COBRA payments once. I have made it on my own since then. I have my insurance through the Diversified Employees Union, still with my old employer, but I plan to register as a business. I can't go out as much as I used t and I have to watch my pennies, but it is well worth it. I actually rather enjoy seeing how much I really do need and what I can do without.
Second, talk to someone who has done this before. Self-employment has its own tax laws and you want to know about them. If you already are very good at keeping your financial records, you may not mind it too much. If you are like me you will find that the paperwork is the worst part of it. I really do hate it--from invoicing to tax day.
Third, this will sound obvious, but keep meticulous records of the time you spend on each project. I have a bad habit of getting interrupted but not noting the time. Guess what, if you don't know how much time you spent and you are charging by the hour, you don't know what to charge. You don't want to cheat your client, but you also want dinner on the table.
Fourth, set up your fee scale to match the type of client you have. I have professionals with grants as well as full-time students who do not have any source of income except a tiny stipend from the university. I charge by the hour because the scope of the jobs I get seem to change in the course of the project. Charging by the project is great if you finish early, but disaster if you underestimate.
Fifth, make sure that your clients understand how you work. I require them to give me their final drafts--no rewriting while I am editing. Otherwise you will be working on two different manuscripts. I know it sounds obvious, but I set up this condition after I had edited papers that were superseded by the time I finished.
Sixth, if you do decide to freelance, convince yourself that there is nothing to worry about. Tell everyone what you are doing, and tell them you have no doubts that it will work out. Don't let anyone but your nearest and dearest know if you are panicked. Your friends will worry about you until you are truly established, so you don't want their doubts to become your doubt.
Seventh, have fun! It can be great. And if you have an advanced degree, you have been editing for several years.
My academic experience is probably the most important asset I had in all of these positions. I had already learned to read carefully, to distinguish sense from nonsense, and to cut down to size. And I do have to admit that the Ph.D. gives people confidence to try me and, so far, the work I do has given them reason to come back.
I am working on my dissertation in historical linguistics at the Univ. of PA, and I would like to find a part-time freelance copyediting job in the Philadelphia area (I want to work at home). Could you tell me how I might go about finding out what jobs of that type exist, and how to apply for them? I did copyediting once--one book for Temple Univ. press. Thank you very much.
A SUBSCRIBER ON APPROPRIATE RESUMES FOR FREELANCING: In the effort to emphasize(probably limited) experience, rather than employment history and education, how would you structure a resume? Also, when approaching journals, newspapers or publishers for freelance work, would you simply send a query letter and/or include a resume or create a brochure of some sorts? Obviously asking for work is easier in response to a job ad than cold 'writing'....
On a different note, I recently attended a session on careers in publishing/corporate writing at S F University, which emphasized the amounts of corporate writing available at major corporations (e.g., newsletters, annual reports) as well as PR firms. Does anyone on the list have experience in soliciting work with such companies? Any suggestions for going about doing this?
PS: SFU does teach some of its courses in the Publishing and Writing Programme via Correspondence--for those of you who are unable to attend classes anywhere else.
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com DISCUSSES FREELANCING:
This is in response to a few different posts (they are coming in faster than I can read them). Some have asked about freelancing, and it happens to be a special interest of mine because I am the freelance editor coordinator for a major medical publisher in Philadelphia. In addition, F.E. says she has recently begun her own freelance editing/writing business - I applaud your courage!
I do not recommend that anyone start by being a freelance copyeditor. It can be done, but I don't think I could have done it. The main reason is that there are lots of little things about copyediting that are easily learned in an office environment, whereas it seems to me to be an almost Herculean task to learn them at home, alone, with no one to turn to with basic questions such as "What are electronic codes, anyway?" and "Why is this text green?"
I think the ideal way for an academic to learn this skill would be to work part-time as a copyeditor in some sort of publishing office (any size), learning any editing program (once you know one, the others are easy). The second best way (these value judgments are all relative, of course) would be to work for a year or so full-time and then go to graduate school and support your studies by freelancing (several of our freelancers are doing just that). The hardest way (but not impossible) is to apply for freelance copyediting jobs without any experience, learn the program at home alone, and struggle through a bunch of files till you get comfortable with the system.
The reason I say this is that the hard part of copyediting for people in grad school is not skill in writing and grammar - that should be second nature to us. The hard part is understanding the technical side of the editing programs and a thousand and one conventions of whatever field you're dealing with. In my case, medical copyediting, that meant becoming familiar with lots of scientific and medical terminology and conventions. After you've done it, it's easy (sort of). It doesn't actually take a long time, either - a few weeks for enough proficiency to deal with most things, a few months for competence, about a year for what seems like mastery (again, this may be illusory).
When I applied for this job and took the copyediting test I was told that I had performed better than almost anyone. Of course. The test asked me to correct the sorts of mistakes students make on English essays. I had a good grasp of grammar; I knew the difference between that and which, when to use less and when to use few, and understood the meaning of a semicolon. This sort of knowledge means you can start to become a copyeditor, not that you're ready to actually do it.
All editing (that I know of) is done today on a computer, and the first thing you have to do is insert (or inspect for accuracy) electronic codes that tell the compositor how to set the document and also provide some kind of protocol for putting documents on the Web. This is specialized stuff, and no one learns how to do this by teaching first-year comp. It's not hard (again I stress), but it's the kind of thing that seems to me hard to learn at home in a do-it-yourself sort of way.
For this reason, no matter how good your writing and editing skills are, I recommend that anyone seriously interested in freelance editing first get a job in an office. If you can edit in English (should be a given) and also understand electronic editing (the more unusual skill), you can earn $10,000-- $50,000 a year working at home. In fact, that seems to be a common career choice around here. Several of our freelancers learned the trade by working here for a year or more, and then left to go to grad school or to work at home or even to start their own editing businesses.
With that big qualification, I will list what seem to me the pros and cons of freelancing for academics/former academics:
PROS You can earn $10,000 --$20,000 a year working part time, once you have established yourself as a good, dependable editor with a publisher or two or three. If you are trying to support yourself and/or family as an adjunct, this amount of money is a substantial help. There is no lack of work. Some of our freelancers work 50-60 hours per week (and make much more than $10,000-$20,000 annually) (not recommended if you are trying to finish a dissertation). You can do it. It takes some extra training, but it's not that hard.
You can do it whenever you want - 2:00 am, in between classes, etc. (However, the time factor can be deceptive. You don't really want to edit medical copy at 2:00 am, unless you're some kind of a nut, and it's not the sort of thing you can do in odd 15-minute chunks of time. But you do set your own schedule.)
You can do it from anywhere in the world. The freelancers I happen to call on most often for my journals happen to live in Tennessee and California (I'm in Philadelphia). So if you accept visiting professorships or become an academic gypsy for some other reason, you can continue to supplement your income with freelancing. On the other hand, the location is limited by the fact that you have to be in front of your computer, with reference books handy. Unlike grading student essays, you can't do it while drinking coffee at Starbucks.
You can accept or reject work at will. Editors call with questions like "Can you take 300 pages of manuscript and have it back to me by June 23?" Just say no if you can't. Or say "I can take 200 pages." Or say "I can if you give me till July 1." Or whatever. The worst that happens is they have to call another freelancer, and you will take the next job that works for you. When you are planning on a vacation, a baby, a dissertation defense, or a nervous breakdown, it's nice to be able to say "I'd prefer not to."
You might be qualifying yourself to teach some technical writing/publishing courses , which might make you a more attractive candidate for some jobs. But the whole job market thing is so unpredictable that I wouldn't bank too much on that one.
Although it's a little hard at first, after a short while it's pretty easy work. (This can also be a hindrance. See the CON section.)
CONS
After you have done this long enough, it is so easy that is it also boring and repetitious. Much of it is stuff that a typist can do, such as making numbers in a reference list bold instead of lightface. Tedious stuff can be easy, but that doesn't necessarily lessen the tedium. If you think you would go crazy sitting down to correct a list of 130 references, you won't like this job. (At present I would rather edit several reference lists than correct 25 student essays, but you almost never find anything amusing or endearing in the reference lists.)
You have to invest in some medical reference books (for this particular field). You can't use the ones in the library, because you have to be on your computer at home.
You have to spend several (10+) hours learning a computer program, taking the chance that you won't really like the job after you have done so. (This isn't a risk with 5+ years of grad school?)
Finally, facts that are neither pro nor con:
The work is extremely deadline-driven. If you tell a production editor you will have the files back on Monday, they must be back on Monday. If you slip on a few deadlines, pretty soon no one will call with more assignments. We all talk to each other about who is a dependable freelancer and who isn't. You can accept or reject work as you please, but after you accept it, the deadline is firm.
This is extremely polite editing. We do not tell authors how to improve their articles, and usually would not know how to begin, anyway. We just add the electronic codes, make the article conform to journal style, fix spelling and grammar errors, make the English more graceful (especially for non-English-speaking writers), and try to catch obvious errors in logic (Place 1 liter of liquid in a .5 liter container.) We query the authors very politely: Please clarify sentence. Please provide affiliation for third author. This seems to be in reference to Figure 1, not Figure 2. Please check. Our authors are not students, but (sometimes eminent) medical researchers and writers, with MDs and PhDs and all sorts of other degrees, and the copyeditor doesn't tell them how to write their article. This actually makes the job much easier, anyway.
To sum up: how do you become a freelance copyeditor?
Decide if you really want to do it. The best way to decide is to take a job doing it inside a publishing company (ideas on how to do that will be the topic of my next long e-mail), see if you like it, learn the conventions, and then become a freelance editor later. The second best way is to just apply for a job as a freelancer (topic of the e-mail after that).
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com MENTIONS THE VALUE OF LEARNING BEFORE FREELANCING:
I think I might have gotten the cart before the horse by discussing freelance editing before I discussed working for a company. The normal way to go about things is to learn the skills working for somebody, and then go out on your own. But I do know that grad students are often interested in freelance work as a way to pay the bills while in school, and because I am coordinating the freelancers at my company, I started talking about that first.
So - if anyone on this list is interested in freelance medical editing, you are certainly welcome to send me an e-mail ebabcox@lww.com . I just want to say first that freelancing is harder than working for a company. Freelancers are expected to be experienced editors who take manuscript and turn it around rather quickly with minimal guidance. In other words, it's not a good way to break into editing. But if you do have some experience with medical editing, we always need more freelancers. There is no lack of work. As I said in an earlier post, we usually start people at $16.50/hour. If you send the e-mail I will send you our editing test, which takes at least 2-4 hours to complete (it's done on paper, not electronically). If you are hired, I will send you the editing program and instructions for learning it. You will need, at a minimum, a Pentium PC computer with a CD-ROM and a Windows environment.
That phrase about "turning it around rather quickly" reminds me of a post I forgot to respond to earlier. Someone asked about editing speed. We expect our editors to edit 8-10 pages per hour (new editors, 4-5 pages per hour). I don't know if that figure is useful to anyone, but we do have actual page per hour standards. (Although I often suspect I don't meet them.)
G.M. ASKS ABOUT HOURLY RATES FOR FREELANCERS: How much can you ask as an hourly fee as a copying editor who has some experience with 'real' editing and about 6 months of copyediting?
SPEAKER "Emilie Babcox" ebabcox@hotmail.com RESPONDS:
I don't know what other companies pay. We start new freelance copyeditors at $16.50 an hour, but they can ask and sometimes get a little more if they have years of experience or some sort of special recommendation from someone in our company. My company is pretty firm on starting people at around that rate, though. Some freelancers tell me they get more from other publishers, and some tell me they get less. Anyone else have some hard information on this (I'd be very interested myself.) We give raises once a year, usually in the first quarter.
SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net ON FEES FOR FREELANCERS:
I think Emilie Babcox's firm is probably typical with the $16.50 starting. if you are doing it for individuals, you can ask more. I probably started low, but I charged a few people $18.50 and then moved up to $20. Then I got some new clients I asked for $40, and that worked, too. As I said in an earlier message, I have a sliding scale, but I don't go below $18-29 because if I doesn't cost much they don't realize that you are giving them something valuable. Since students often procrastinate, I found that I was getting papers on Sunday that were due on Monday and getting paid very little for the work.
SUBSCRIBER B.G. ON FREELANCING:
I think it would be difficult to get freelance copyediting work cold with no references or formal training or documentable work experience; why would prospective employers trust that you know what you're doing? Maybe you could do a few things free or cheap, for instance for your department or for a local school or charitable organization, to get samples of your work?
My question would be directed mostly to Eileen - one of our speakers. The reason is simple - I am a PhD candidate in German studies at the University of T. (And what a luck this is, imagine all the majors in Humanities....) I am in my fifth - and probably - final year of my program and currently I am writing my thesis. That's all fine. The trouble (or the advantage - depending on your point of view..) is that I am Bulgarian-Canadian with kind of a crazy education for over 30 years (I am 40 ) in all kinds of settings and schools. I earned my Masters at Humboldt, Berlin, GDR (with the Wall in the eighties), I lived in Finland for 6 years (so I speak Finnish and Swedish next to Bulgarian, Russian, plus German, English and French....) I don't envision myself in the Canadian academia, although I had extensive teaching experience. Please give my some advice on other alternatives which are not "translating" - I did quite a bit of that.
SPEAKER EILEEN ON WHAT EMPLOYERS LOOK FOR:
You are correct. Employers look for experience. The two things that help is examining your academic work carefully to see if you have done anything akin to editing, e.g., editing a colleagues work, and to do something gratis.
What I really should have said is, don't let any of things prevent you from doing what you really want. Give it a good try. Figure out what you can say to convince a potential employer that you are certainly worth the risk.
One of the beauties for the employer is mistakes with freelancers are far less expensive as mistakes with full-time employees. If they don't like your work, they just don't call you again. And if they do, you're still cheap because they are not paying benefits.
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com ON FREELANCE COPYEDITORS' VARIED BACKGROUNDS:
We have about 35 freelance copyeditors on the list I manage. This is only a portion of the total, though, because the Books division has their own list, the New York and Baltimore offices have their own list, etc. Some of the freelancers are on more than one list, too.
Here is a sample of (abbreviated) career histories of a few of our freelancers:
1. Worked as a production editor out of college, now at Columbia beginning an MA in Nonfiction Creative Writing. Pays the bills by freelancing.
2. Former managing editor at our company, left to work at home.
3. BA in French, became translator/production editor for Une affair de stylos, became managing/technical editor for a journal at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, became Publications Coordinator at same institution, became freelance copyeditor
4. PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at USCLA, postdoc, many publications, freelances (husband in medical school).
5. B.S. in Education, high school teacher and eventually principal, did typesetting and proofreading for a small press part-time, became full-time freelance copyeditor
6. Associate degree, medical transcriptionist and office administrator, took copyediting and proofreading classes at NYU, now full-time freelance copyeditor.
7. Working on PhD in Psychology, was assistant research manager at a large publisher, owned a bookstore, currently writing a book on finding and using medical information, was an editor for major university newsletter, has written for websites, just started freelancing for us.
8. Earned BA in Anthropology and Biology, did internship at Omni Internet Magazine, worked as production editor here, left to start nursery/landscaping business with her husband, freelances part-time.
The range of education and interests represented by this small sample seems to me to reflect the range within our office of editors, too. Sitting in the cubes around me are someone who just earned an MA in Folklore and Folklife from Penn, someone who just earned her JD, someone who is going back part-time for an MBA (and the company is subsidizing this), someone who earned a BA in Spanish and Sociology, became a proofreader and then a production editor, someone who has just finished an MA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College (concentrating on nonfiction writing and copyediting), someone who just graduated with a BA in Biology and Political Journalism, and someone who majored in Greek at Bryn Mawr and then worked as a book buyer at the college bookshop before coming here.
The things people can do to get into publishing are represented in the background histories above: they did internships, they took entry-level jobs as proofreaders, they took classes in proofreading, etc. Some worked for smaller publications (newsletters, etc.) first. And anyway, this is still basically an entry-level job, too.
Here's the background of the Vice President of Society Publishing:
back-issue clerk (typing invoices) Managerial Services Clerk worked three years at home while caring for first child administrative assistant in Marketing Account manager Senior account manager Associate Journal Publisher Director of Production for Society Journals Manager of production for 200 journals (society and proprietary) in Philadelphia, Dallas, and Baltimore VP of Society Publishing
She is still fairly young (at least by my standards!). What I wanted to emphasize with this list is that publishing, it seems to me, is looking for people with the kinds of skills academics have, and that even if you start out in an entry-level job you can move up with some speed. I'm sure there are folks out there who have contrary experiences, but I'm still new and hopeful, I guess.
Plus I agree with everyone who wrote in that you can start anywhere (marketing, advertising, web-based publishing) in the industry and eventually find your way to the niche you prefer. I think production editing and copyediting are good ways to begin, but that opinion is undoubtedly influenced by my choices and by serendipity.
What I need to clear up are the distinctions between types of editors (copy, production, developmental, etc.), what a publisher is/does, and probably the meaning of terms such as society and proprietary in regard to journals.
SUBSCRIBER M.E. PROVIDES A LIST OF URLs FOR FREELANCE WORK:
For editing/writing work, here are some free-lance sites recently forwarded to me that might be of interest:
www.elance.com
www.guru.com
www.wsj.com (I couldn't find a jobs page on this one)
www.about.com www.freelancesearch.com
www.tjobs.com (t=telecommuting)
www.freejob.com
www.freelancebbs.com
www.ants.com
www.allfreelance.com
www.icplanet.com
www.ework.com
www.smarterwork.com
IS A Ph.D AN ASSET OR A LIABILITY BEYOND THE ACADEMY?
SUBSCRIBER R.A. WORRIES ABOUT SEEMING OVERQUALIFIED TO PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYERS and INITIATES A DISCUSSION REGARDING THE VALUE OF THE PHD OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY, THE DECISION TO LEAVE THE UNIVERSITY SETTING, AND THE PERSONAL FULFILLMENT OF EARNING THE DEGREE:
I was just wondering what the feeling is on PhDs entering the publishing field. I know that several people have mentioned it (in terms of employers trusting you, and also in terms of employers being a bit cautious in hiring you), and it doesn't seem to have been a hindrance to you. However, I was told by several of my mentors and advisors that a PhD might deem me overqualified in the minds of some possible employers. I'm really quite interested in publishing and have a little experience in proofreading an academic journal (plus grading freshman comp papers). I'm almost finished with my PhD coursework (specializing in Victorian poetry), and was thinking about taking a break (or longer) to experience the business world before finishing my dissertation. I have a Master's in British literature and history, so I guess my question is: how necessary is a PhD for publishing? Any words of wisdom? Beyond that, any insight into breaking into publishing in the Dallas (or Southern U.S.) area?
SUBSCRIBER D.T. WORRIES ABOUT APPEARING OVERQUALIFIED AS WELL: I'm also interested in figuring out what to do about appearing both over- and under-qualified.
I'm a PhD student in religious studies at U. Penn, and I'm also a part-time Editorial Assistant at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Sounds ideal? Well I find that my situation has led me into a no-man's land when it comes to trying to find work as an editor.
I got the EA job ten years ago to help me pay my way through Penn as an undergrad (BA in English). After taking a couple of years off, I went back to school for my doctorate. I'm working on modern continental philosophy of religion (That I'm doing it in a religious studies department as opposed to philosophy has to do with the fact that like many large schools, Penn does not recognize continental philosophy as a legitimate field. In itself that poses a huge set of problems academically: if I were to go on the academic job market I would be immediately disqualified for most philosophy departments, even continental ones, while being held in suspicion by many departments of religion.)
At this point I'm preparing to take my prelims and work up a dissertation proposal. It's taken me 6 years to get here, mostly because I've been teaching (which I love) while also working at the Inquirer.
The dilemma: Right after finishing my MA comps, I sent out resumes to publishers around the Philly and greater Pennsylvania/DC area for both entry level positions and freelancing jobs in editing. I probably sent out about 3 dozen resumes. I did not receive any calls at all.
Now I'm not sure whether I'm over or under-qualified. As far as the newspaper business is concerned, I am under-qualified for decent editing jobs at any major newspaper. The Inquirer and other large papers are structured like feudal societies: there is a strict caste system and once you are marked as an editorial assistant, you are in essence barred from moving up within the same organization. It's weird, odd, crazy, illogical and maddening. So even though I have an intimate knowledge of the way newspapers are put together from the conception of an idea to its writing, editing, layout, printing, circulation, I cannot use that to move up within this company. It's especially maddening because the editors I work with here KNOW I'm over qualified to do what I'm doing but they are powerless to help me move up.
The move that I'd like to make is into editing at either the book publishing field or the magazine/TV documentary field: I love longer special projects (I've done principal research for a number of larger investigative reporting series the Inquirer has produced.) But I feel lost as to how to make that transition without giving up the decent salary I make here at the Inquirer.
As far as the academic world is concerned, I keep getting mixed signals. Recently I had lunch with a very well-known and highly respected maverick in my field. I've been reading this person's books for years. Well the very first thing this person told me was: Get out of academia fast, get a real job, find a real career because there is nothing left, especially in our specialty.
I hope this email does not sound like a rant. I honestly feel stuck at this time. I do love teaching, but get the impression that other than adjunct positions I will not be going far. At the same time I have enjoyed much of the work I've done at the newspaper and would love to continue that experience.
A SUBSCRIBER DISCUSSES EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALS IN THE PUBLISHING JOB MARKET:
I'm a developmental editor with I. University's School of Continuing Studies. I work from start to finish with professors who want to convert their on-campus course into an independent study (read "correspondence") course. The manuscripts I end up with are 100-200 pages long and divided into 10-12 lessons.
I received a BA in Comparative Literature in 1991, spent four years on no particular career path, and about five years pursuing an editing career. I make 31K a year, which is respectable here in Bloomington, and I can pursue my completely impractical music education for free. I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts, and I've found that I have answers to some of the questions going around.
A few people were talking about the relative value of education versus experience. The hiring committee I serve on always looks for experience first. We've found that experienced editors edit more by the book and less by intuition, resulting in more logical, consistent editing choices. This kind of editing goes over better with authors too.
Another thing we've discovered (the hard way) is that newspaper editing and book editing require different priorities and skills. The former newspaper editors we've hired have been amazingly fast, but they didn't devote the attention to detail our books require and missed problems that were separated by chapter. So if you find yourself committed to finding and editing job, I heartily recommend taking an editing course in the type of editing you want to do. I studied publishing through the continuing education program at the University of Chicago. They have a 1-2 year night-school series that has held me in good stead.
When I found myself in the annoying catch-22 of not being able to get experience because I had no experience, I offered my services part-time for free and called the experience an internship. Eventually I was hired as a receptionist for a small publishing company where job descriptions were pretty fluid. I took every job that no one else wanted to do and eventually found myself doing an editor's work for a receptionist's salary. Then I moved on. This is the how I've moved up the editing ladder for the past five years, doing the work first and then convincing somebody to pay me for it. It's often been frustrating, but I'm happy with my job now.
A SUBSCRIBER ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE PHD:
I too have found this discussion particularly engaging. I have recently completed my studies toward a master's degree in English literature, during which time I took advantage of local publishing opportunities to gain the "practical" experience (working on a literary magazine, learning graphic design programs, etc)--I even attended the 4-week crash course in publishing offered at the University of Denver and the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses. (There are several publishing "camps" out there, by the way, that some of you may find useful--Radcliffe and NYU are the others I know of).
If any thing, this listserv has made me extremely happy with my current position (MA and working as an editor for university publications--more "practical" experience that I hope will help in my future efforts to enter the world of academic publishing). While a PhD could certainly be considered advantageous within some disciplines, the sense I got while attending the Publishing Institute (and subsequently interviewing with several university presses), was that a graduate degree of any sort was not by any means a necessity to make it (or move up within) the world of academic publishing. I was told that a graduate degree "wouldn't hurt," but that experience spoke more to those who were in a position to hire.
A PhD could be in my future, but only if the demand for English professors takes an upward slant. I really admire those of you who have taken the plunge and earned a PhD. I guess I'm just afraid to start down that path when I'm not sure what I'll find when I get to the end.
SUBSCRIBER M.N. RESPONDS TO OVERQUALIFICATION WORRY:
Regarding this question / comment about PhDs possibly looking overqualified to employers -- I have a PhD in history and 2 years (between college and grad school) working as assistant then associate editor on a reference book series (literary criticism). I recently had an informational interview with the executive editor of a medium-sized university press, where I mentioned that I imagined I might look under- and overqualified at the same time. She replied that she would not have a problem hiring a PhD, as long as it was understood that the person would basically be entry-level. She also told me, which I had not expected, that I should be open to starting in any part of the operation, not just editorial (which is where I would hope to wind up). She said that starting in marketing or whatever could lead to editorial. I would consider myself even less qualified to start in marketing, so I found this curious, but interesting.
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com ON THE OVERQUALIFICATION QUESTION:
This is in response to one subscriber, who asked about "downplaying your education" and another who asked about PhDs being overqualified.
There is no need, I think, to downplay your education to get a job in publishing. And if you did, it would probably be discovered somewhere along the line and then you would have to confess to being, of all things, overeducated.
You are right that I left my graduate education off my resume when I applied at a temp agency. In that case I really was a little embarrassed to be an ABD applying for secretarial jobs (although I'm not sure why; since one of my fellow adjuncts was publishing his first scholarly book, adjuncting, and paying the bills by working as a bus dispatcher; another drove a cab). As a temp, I felt very little responsibility to report all my background to my employer; they certainly felt very little responsibility for my career.
But if you're applying for a job that you really do think might lead to an interesting, long-term career, by all means put everything on the resume. Just don't stress it. As others in this discussion have said, they are more interested in your skills and work history than your education. As you said, if you try to write a resume without mentioning graduate school there are weird holes in your working history, anyway.
Someone else said that he thought that having a PhD is fine as long as you make it clear that you understand you are getting an entry-level job. That seems right. (In case the idea of an entry-level job depresses you, remember that the career track is usually much more rapid in the business world than in the academic world.)
And you might find that people in the business world are actually touchingly impressed by your academic achievements, as long as you don't walk around with a sign that says "Call me Dr. XXX - I have a degree!" People in publishing, especially, tend to actually like books and literacy and education.
Believe it or not, people other than postdocs and ABDs are sometimes aware of the crisis in academic hiring. When I was at my temp job at a large pharmaceutical company I overheard two lab directors talking about a third director who had hired several new PhDs to work in his lab, at jobs usually given to people with undergrad degrees. When they asked him why he was hiring such "overqualified" people, he responded, "Why not? PhDs are a dime a dozen these days." I don't think he was commenting on the quality of the people, either -- it's the market.
WORKING ON THE "MARGINS" OF ACADEMIA WITH YOUR PHD:
I just wanted to comment that I feel the same way about wanting to work "on the edges of academia." I love the thought of helping scholars to get their work published, but I DON'T want to go through the "publish or perish" nightmare of the tenure-track! (Although I do admire and respect those who do choose that path . . .)
Many of my professors/colleagues/friends/relatives are surprised that I am seeking the Ph.D. degree but don't wish to become a professor myself, but I feel that this additional training will serve me well in publishing -- it's not a waste, as some seem to suggest to me, but a way to pursue personal as well as professional educational interests.
Have others received similar reactions to pursuing nonacademic work after the Ph.D.: that the doctorate is merely a "means to an end" for a tenure-track position, rather than an end in itself?
Thanks also to Ms. Babcox for your feedback on revealing (or not revealing) one's educational background to prospective employers; it is reassuring to remind myself that my love of books, education, reading and writing can be shared and appreciated outside of academia.
ANOTHER SUBSCRIBER'S REPLY TO PHDs "ON THE MARGIN":
Also, I just felt that I had to respond to the recent posting about working on the edges of academia. I, too, have encountered much surprise and almost disbelief when I tell fellow grads or professors that I'm not at all planning to pursue a career in academia after finishing my Ph.D. in French Literature. And when I was working on my MA, I went through a period of time where I really questioned myself as to why I wanted the PhD. or if I wanted it or if I needed it, etc. I finally concluded that it would be worth the additional 3-4 years of coursework & writing time simply for my own personal satisfaction. I *love* French literature, especially the 17th & 19th centuries, and I also *love* theatre, which was my Ph.D. minor & my 2nd undergrad major & my concentration in the first grad program I started, and since I've found a way to combine my two passions for the topic of my dissertation, I'm pretty satisfied with my decision to earn the degree, even if it may not be directly related to the qualifications needed for wherever my future job search leads me. So be proud of your decision and don't worry about the skeptical looks that others may cast your way! Finishing the Ph.D. for your own sense of accomplishment and for the pleasure of working in your field is, in my opinion, probably the best motivation and inspiration of all!
SUBSCRIBER D.B. ON THE VAGARIES OF THE ACADEMIC JOB MARKET:
I've been following this thread with interest, because while I was in grad school I did various kinds of production-type editing for a couple of people -- the director of our women's studies program here, someone at a university press, a small academic press where I was also the office manager, a committee at the university that was submitting a report.... You get the idea.
I finished my degree in 1998, in religious studies. My dissertation was adopted for publication immediately by a university press and is in production right now. I have multiple academic presentations to my credit, but have not even attempted publishing articles (yet). I have one or two that need tweaking and then could be sent out, however.
I was not successful on the academic job market the first season after my dissertation was finished, but I didn't try very hard that year, either. I was resting and recuperating, mostly. I had two official interviews the second year, and one "unofficial" interview, but none of them panned out.
All this time, I've been applying for non-academic jobs as well -- and editing has been one of the main fields that I've pursued. In the last two years I must have applied for dozens of editing jobs, yet I haven't even gotten an interview for one, yet. I recently took an editing test that one potential employer sent me, and they wrote back saying that my editing skills were not what they could use at this time. Ouch! How could so many others have been happy with what I did (which granted was more oriented toward substantive editing than copy editing, but there *was* some copy editing that made people very happy, too), when other potential employers are so unimpressed?
I have had a professional career counselor evaluate my resume and help me write a more effective one. I've written several versions of the resume, for various kinds of jobs. I've written every kind of cover letter I can think of. I've followed up on some jobs rather aggressively, because I was really interested in them -- thinking that extra demonstrated interest in a position might win me notice.
None of it has worked. I was working as an office manager for a health care consulting firm in a long-term temp assignment, but that has ended. It was my main source of income. It was not particularly satisfying as a career move, and I am tired of taking "just for now" jobs that sap my time and energy, reinforce my identity to myself and others as "just a secretary," and are not a career move. I did this all the way through grad school (another way to support myself when necessary) and have done it for two years after grad school. I don't want to keep on doing it. I feel like I'm getting trapped. However, this means that I am now grossly underemployed, my only other job being at $7/hr in the copy center of an office supply store on weekends. I can't pay the rent on that, even if it were full-time. Can barely buy groceries on it.
So I have two questions --
(1) Any ideas about what I can try next? I just can't believe that others seem to fall so easily into editing jobs, when I'm trying so hard to get one, but can't. (2) How does one become another kind of editor? Say, an acquisitions editor? What is the entry-level job for that kind of work?
Any constructive suggestions (other than, "Face it, you're a loser.") will be gratefully accepted.
SUBSCRIBER W.S. SUGGESTS LIBRARY WORK:
Has anyone suggested libraries? My first year out of grad school I worked as a manuscript processor in an archive. I had to read the papers of famous folks and arrange and order them for future research. At the end of arranging a collection, the manuscript processor writes a description of the works found in the collection - what information is found in the letters, the book drafts, etc. It was fun, I got to write, and the pay was about $11 an hour, with plenty of upward mobility. Those who help in archives are all very educated and the criteria for hiring is something like "ability to write, ability to think logically . . ."
A SUBSCRIBER RESPONDS TO THE IDEA OF EARNING PHD FOR SELF-FULFILLMENT:
I have done some freelance copy-editing on a publication with articles in both German and English. I must say that it was quite difficult and I wouldn't attempt it without at least one member of the editorial team who is actually a native speaker to catch you on the inevitable mistakes you make. That being said, it is quite highly skilled work and paid rather well. Also, one piece of advice for Germanists in particular: don't even think about copy editing unless you know the spelling reforms backwards and forwards!
I am about to finish a doctorate in German and have quite a different take on it than J. does -- I questioned doing it during the MA, decided to go ahead with it, and have regretted it every step of the way. It's been awful. I wanted to do it because I was enjoying the stimulation of the course work, but when it got to the isolation of writing the dissertation, I was ready to jump off a bridge. Also, you may do it out of love, but the bank doesn't care why you did it, it just wants those loans paid back. I did a doctorate in part because I thought it would open up new career possibilities for me, but I find that in a way it's narrowed my options because now I have to stick within a salary range that will let me pay back my Stafford loans.
SHOULDN'T SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING HOUSES VALUE THE ADVANCED DEGREE?
Thanks for your insightful career autobiography! I am currently working on my dissertation on Black women writers/publishers at the University of Georgia. My goal is not to become a professor but to work for a university or (independent) scholarly press as an acquisitions editor.
I was interested to learn that you downplayed your education in order to find work outside of the academy. This has been suggested to me as well, especially if I need to pursue my first job in commercial publishing instead of with a scholarly press. The latter often prefers candidates with advanced degrees, but commercial houses, I've found, prefer entry-level candidates who have just completed their undergraduate degrees. I don't mind making copies, answering phones, and "working my way up" the editorial ladder, but I wonder how I can explain the past 8 years of my life to future employers if I opt to downplay my ABD status for commercial houses. I've been in graduate school the whole time and feel awkward about leaving a "black hole" in my resume or c.v.
A SUBSCRIBER WONDERS ABOUT THE STAFFS OF ACADEMIC JOURNALS:
1. This may seem fairly obvious, but who works for academic journals? Only academics?
2. Are there other types of journals that post-PhDs/ABDs should look into?
3. It looks like you had a lot of experience in editing after college (4 main jobs) that made you an ideal and experienced candidate for the Library Chronicle job. For those of us just out of grad school or with minimal editing/proofreading work (for me, just 6 months), how long do you think it takes to earn your dues in the field and get to the more interesting jobs like the one you just had? i.e. how much grunt work/copyediting is necessary beforehand?
STAFFING AT ACADEMIC PERIODICALS: One example of an academic journal with which I am very familiar is at the educational association level. I work for one of the Dupont Circle higher ed groups - we publish four different quarterlies: two special interest/topic and two general journals.
In each case the editor is a full-time employee of the association. One of the four is edited by a former faculty member and senior academic administrator. The others are all being edited by folks who are ABD from English and Composition programs.
These journals are not "newsletters" for the association - but they are not high-end scholarly journals as exist in most discipline. The editors work to solicit articles, manage production, and work with advisory boards. I think it is fair to say that they are content generalists.
SUBSCRIBER B.M ON WORKING FOR ACADEMIC JOURNALS: I just wanted to say that who works for academic journals does tend to vary tremendously. While B.G. spoke of journals where the academic editor is not on site, in some fields (e.g. anthropology), the journals are housed in a university's department with the academic editor doing a lot of the hands on work (with a reduction in faculty load generally corresponding with this). Generally, these journals hire people with PhDs in the relevant area for copyediting, author correspondence, peer review, etc. and the printing and business operations are done by the scholarly association that puts out the journal.
WHEREIN OUR INTREPID BAND OF JOB SEEKERS BEGIN DISCUSSING THE SET OF SKILLS REQUIRED TO MAKE THE MOVE INTO PUBLISHING, THE WAYS TO ACQUIRE SAID SKILLS, THE SPECIAL RIGORS OF THE INDUSTRY, AND SOME RESOURCES TO MASTER THEM (INCLUDING STYLE GUIDES):
SUBSCRIBER D.L. DISCUSSES TECHNOLOGICAL PROWESS AND THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY:
I've been reading with interest about the various career moves of our three 'speakers' and I know one of them mentioned the technical skills they picked up at school and the help it provided in the outside world.
I'm currently in the last stage of my dissertation in Comparative Literature/Medieval Studies (defending next month!) and I've been working in an 'outside' job in editing that others may find possible--I work for the Technology Education program here at Indiana University, where I help teach students, faculty and staff about computer applications such as Word, Access and Web publishing. I knew very little about the field when I started, but they really wanted my teaching skills. We also develop and write the classes, so after working part-time for 2 years, I found myself offered a professional-staff position as Materials Coordinator--in charge of developing a style manual and working with others developing classes, editing, publishing for print and Web, etc. We hire PhD students to teach our classes all the time, and many of our best teachers are from the humanities, particularly from English. If you're at or near a big campus, they may have a similar set up that might be worth looking into. We train all of our teachers, so high-end technical skills are usually not as important as teaching skills. Also, if you can gain technical experience through support programs like ours, it opens a whole new field of potential employment--technical training or technical writing. Both fields are not likely to disappear! As for corporate deadlines, I've rejected several corporate offers (much more money that the University) because of the annoying deadlines. The University environment provides a good mix, and constant contact with academia.
I'm half-heartedly looking for an academic job, but won't leave until something better comes along. I whole-heartedly agree with Ms. Babcox's feeling about the relative immorality (on the side of institutions) of grinding through adjuncts. We all have a lot of very marketable skills, communication, writing, and RESEARCH, that many companies really want and need. If Universities start losing the best people to corporate America, I'm not worried about the decline of education, but hope they 'wake up' and rise to the occasion...probably wishful thinking...
JB RECOMMENDS TECHNICAL SKILLS TO ACQUIRE, INCL. HTML
One word of advice I would give to anyone who is interested in finding any jobs such as technical writing and areas that have a decidedly more "technical" aspect is to learn HTML. It is VERY easy to learn and I can say without a doubt that it would have helped me get a job way back in June. I had an interview with a company in Washington state and they really wanted to hire me, but they wanted someone with more web-based publishing and writing skills. Learning HTML (I have since learned XML, which is a step up from HTML and also quite intuitive) has given my resume a little added firepower. With the direction our economy has taken and the focus on computer skills, I believe it is imperative that one learn them.
Z.M. RESPONDS TO QUESTION ABOUT COMPUTER INDUSTRY AND HTML, XML SKILLS:
There is a big demand for humanities folks in the computing industry. The two obvious areas are training and documentation. In fact, most companies lump these two things together in one department called Training and Documentation.
A very valuable skill to learn if you want to get into the electronic publishing or documentation field is "mark-up" languages. The popular ones are HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), and XML (Extensible Markup Language). HTML, or course, is the language of the web used for displaying texts and images, but SGML and XML are more complex languages used not only for display but for indexing and describing a piece of text. (i.e.. dividing a play into acts, stanzas, and lines or dividing a book into chapters, pages, paragraphs, and lines). SGML and XML are very hot things in the market right now and the funny part is they were developed mostly in academia (at least that is true for SGML).
XML and SGML look something like this:
<WORK> <TITLE>The Raven</TITLE> <LINE>Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary</LINE> </WORK>
The analytical nature of these languages lend themselves to humanities and academic types and you really don't have to be a computer wiz to learn them. If you go to Barnes and Noble and buy one of the HTML for dummies books or something like that you can learn the basics pretty quick. But SGML and XML have a huge future in every aspect of computers from publishing to wireless web applications.
Oh, my background. I have my M.A. in English and completed the course work for the Ph.D. I'm "sort of" leaving academia to work for a university as a "humanities computing specialist". The job involves helping humanities professors develop on-line classes, text-encoding projects, etc. (By the way, Humanities Computing is another growing field that I wouldn't mind talking about later on, but I'll stick to the topic for now.)
But from first hand experience there is a big demand for humanities type in the computer/electronic publishing field. I'm not suggesting you run to the IT field just because it is hot, but if you like computers there are a lot of good-paying opportunities out there and it is really interesting work.
A SUBSCRIBER IN AN MFA PROGRAM DISCUSSES SKILLS I recently have dropped out of the corporate world to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, but having worked in marketing for a magazine the last couple years, I hope I can provide some insight here. I would make two suggestions: First, that having a course in copyediting under your belt, and possibility one in HTML, would greatly expand your chances of landing a job out there. Copyediting doesn't align quite as neatly as we'd hope with the editing skills acquired in the academic world, and it's often just a matter of learning a different shorthand. Having the class on your resume and showing familiarity with the standard marks will probably help quite a bit. (I suggest HTML, as well, because there's growing demand from dot com startups and online publications for production editor-type positions. ) The second suggestion, which I think someone already made, would be to consider positions in marketing or PR. Good English skills are in incredibly high demand in the business world in general, and entry level marketing positions tend to be more accessible than editorial positions. Some publications are more open than others to transferring across departments later on, but it is a foot in the door, steady pay, and a place from which you can learn more about whichever industry interests you.
A QUESTION ON EDITING TESTS:
Could you describe some of the editing tests you have taken. Do you get several printed pages and are asked to find spelling, grammar, stylistic and typesetting errors? I've been to job placement agencies, which asked me to take (very basic) spelling and grammar tests in the True/False format. Furthermore, do you take these tests on paper or using editing software? Maybe you could give us and idea... Thanks.
Emilie BABCOX RESPONDS:
Our company has two types of tests that I know of. If you are applying for a position as copyeditor or production editor, there is the kind of test you mentioned: on paper, several pages, find errors, etc. It takes about an hour, and about 20% of the applicants pass. If you are applying for a job as a freelance editor, you get an actual unedited article to copyedit (text, references, legends, tables). This should take 2-3 hours, although you have an unlimited amount of time to take it and mail it back. The second kind of test is much harder, because to do it successfully you must already know how to edit medical text. To pass the first kind of test, you just have to know how to write clear, grammatical, correct, logical sentences (and anyone can do that, right?).
ANOTHER SUBSCRIBER'S EXPERIENCE WITH TESTS:
The tests I've taken have been on paper and are exactly that -- grammar, style, spelling, typesetting. On this last test, I was proud and pleased that I had spotted "baleen" as a misspelling of "balean" (referring to the whales). When I looked back at what I'd done (I kept a copy), I had found all sorts of spelling errors -- omitted letters, transposed letters. So I don't know what the problem was.
YET ANOTHER TEST TAKER WEIGHS IN: My 2 cents on editing tests; I've now taken 3.
One was basically a spelling test: about 25 words on a piece of paper, some misspelled, some not, you had to make corrections. I did this at the interview. One was that, plus a paragraph to edit, plus a dozen or so sentences to edit--some of the sentences looked fine to me & so I didn't do anything to them (I passed anyway, or at least I was offered the job). I was given this to take home and fax back.
The hardest one, also on paper, was a complete short manuscript (4 or 5 pages)on a social science topic, complete with charts and footnotes. I was given the MS and an article from the journal I'd be working for, from which I was supposed to deduce style rules. I was put in a room, offered coffee, and given 2 hours to edit the manuscript. This was difficult for several reasons:
1. There were so many mistakes that it was difficult to make corrections without making the paper unreadable; I realized that it's not just about knowing what would be right but about being able to convey that neatly to others; you may need to know standard proofreaders' marks, for instance.
2. There seemed to be too much to do for the time allotted; e.g., every single footnote was incorrectly formatted.
3. Being an English department type, I'm not used to dealing with tables and charts and the unfamiliar terminology and ungraceful writing sort of threw me.
I left convinced that I had failed the test; the paper was covered with scrawls and I wasn't finished. But they called me for a second interview, so maybe they didn't expect perfection? I was so appalled by the experience and the thought of doing that all day that I didn't go back for the interview.
SUBSCRIBER CJ ASKS ABOUT TAKING COPYEDITING COURSES: I know from bitter experience that it is virtually impossible to gain access to courses in the Journalism School at my university--they are very protective of their professional territory.
SUBSCRIBER W SUGGESTS CERTAIN TESTS: Quite a few companies have proofreading/copyediting tests. See if you can get hold of one, just for practice anyway. Each house has its own set of rules (e.g., serial comma). I worked in publishing before entering graduate school. I was in the college division at Macmillan and later at The Free Press before Robert Maxwell fell off that boat, I mean yacht. Anyway, I've since done free lancing for grammar and high school text books, and they pay way better than trade publishing.
My question is similar to T's: how does one graduate from editorial assistant? I got some of my free-lance assignments from word of mouth. Outside of this, what do you do?
SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons <efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net> ON COPYEDITING COURSES: The copyediting course I took was sponsored by a local group called Chicago Women in Publishing, but I know that the university extension has them as well. I can't say what is available in other parts of the country, but the night school, continuing education, adult ed. route is often fruitful. Emilie Babcox mentioned investing in medical reference works. There are a few one would definitely want in hard copy, but there is also a website, Mdconsult.com that has 35+ reference works, full text retrieval for journal articles, and other medical sources. It is about $200 subscription, slightly more if you pay monthly. ALSO: Try a local community college. They usually have these sort of courses, and for a lot less then a standard university tuition.
At Ohio State, the literary publishing course--ENGL 662, taught every autumn by one of the two editors of our lit magazine, spends a fair amount of time on copy-editing and proof-reading. Ohio State also has an undergraduate course, 405, which is an introduction to technical writing and editing. We're planning to split into two courses, one on technical editing.
SUBSCRIBER W.A. ASKS ABOUT WORKING DURING GRAD SCHOOL:
First, for those who worked in proofreading/editing/etc. while ABD: you mentioned that you downplayed your academic experience while in search of these temporary and permanent jobs--but was the converse true as well? Was your committee aware that you were in search of non-academic experience, and if so, what were their reactions? If not, and you hadn't worked for most of your graduate school experience, who did you use for references?
Secondly, I was wondering whether academic publishing can translate into employable experience in the non-academic world. In other words, do editing/publishing professionals take all those book reviews, encyclopedia articles, and archival newspaper columns seriously as examples of writing and editing experience?
YES, HONE SKILLS WHILE STILL AN "ACADEMIC":
I am ABD working on my dissertation in German Studies. I have just started working as an intern in the Center for Advertising, Marketing and Sales History, an archive that is part of Special Collections here at D.U. This internship was open to all late stage grad students (basically those who face funding issues). I got the job primarily because of my German skills, as originally the director wanted me to work on a Frankfurt collection.
Why is this germane to this discussion? I was hired for my academic skills: writing, RESEARCH, German. Plus, I was able to argue my familiarity with advertising because I had written about advertising photography in my undergraduate thesis (of almost 10 years ago). Although I am working with Advertising (rather than print media), and am processing that collection, much of my job involves tracking down copyrights on the images (which is a very transferable skill, I would imagine). As well, we put out a regular newsletter, and as none of my present supervisors know how to use Quark, I have volunteered to learn the program and be responsible for the desktop publishing. While this was not part of the original job description, I see it as an ideal way to gain "non-academic" skills, thus my leaping into this gap that presented itself.
This job is through the academy and one that was set up to make use of my academic skills. I would suggest to other current academics out there to check out jobs/internships on campus that segue into less standard academic jobs as a way of gaining new applicable skills (as was suggested regarding the technology teaching).
Now, unrelated to my present job experience: This summer while working at an Irish pub, I was casting about for other ways to make money. I chatted up my customers, and claimed to have done editing for colleagues whose English was marginal (or not fluid), as well as translating German papers into readable English ones, thus that I had experience (although for the most part unpaid) in editing both content and style. Just by chance, one of my customers moonlighted as an organizer for wildfire fighting units in the Rocky Mountain states. He said he wanted someone to take a look at his 45 page set of guidelines and put it into more readable (less legalese) language. I suggested I take a look at it, mark up a couple of pages for a reduced price, and see if it was what he had in mind. I didn't over-claim my competence, and gave us both an out, just in case. He was pleased with the product, so I did the rest of the work for him, and made a $100 for it. Another customer from the pub brought me in a copy of standard copy-editing notations (yes, different from academic ones). I guess my point is, you can gain access and skills through the most unlikely places and people. I think what I learned from all of this was that if I wanted to try something new (or not so new) it was helpful to talk about it with as many different folks as possible, even if only in a chatty way. It opened up doors I hadn't even seen.
AN ASIDE FROM SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net
One comment on copyediting. There are still a very few publishers that copyedit the paper manuscript. Clearly not the rule, but it happens now and then.
SUBSCRIBER D.E. ASKS ABOUT STYLE MANUALS: Thank all of you for a very helpful and interesting discussion. People have said that the best way to become a freelance copyeditor is to take a course or work in an office as a copyeditor. Neither of those options is open to me. If I got very familiar with the Chicago Manual of Style and learned HTML, would that make me qualified in the eyes of potential employers? (I want to do freelance copyediting at home.) And, Eileen, you mentioned manuals other than the Chicago one. Would you please tell me the names of other important manuals? Thanks.
SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons" <efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net> RESPONDS: I make frequent use of APA format, the actual title is Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. It is published by the APA in Washington, DC, 4th ed. It is used extensively in scientific (science, medicine, nursing, obviously psychology, etc.)and social science disciplines, and it uses author-date citations and reference lists. I have also used A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations By Kate Turabian. It is in its 6th edition and is used in many universities, including the University of Chicago. It is based on Chicago Manual of Style, but geared to papers and theses rather than publishing. Now that the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style has author-date citations and reference lists as well as the numbered end- or footnotes, Turabian does too.
I have been in places where there have been copyeditors who started before they had had a course, but I don't know how things are now.
SPEAKER Susan Waterman tethys@rci.rutgers.edu ON STYLE GUIDES:
Since Eileen hasn't answered yet and I wanted to contribute something tonight before taking my weary body off to bed: there are the UPI and AP style guides, which I believe all the newspapers use (we used UPI at Congressional Quarterly, and the other general rule of thumb we went by was whatever was shortest and simplest). Then there's the GPO, or Government Printing Office, guide, which the federal government uses. There's also the APA (American Psychological Association), but I'm not sure how widely that's used; I've never actually had to use it myself. And, of course, the MLA stylebook.
There's a handbook titled Substance and Style: Instruction and Practice, by Mary Stoughton, published by a wonderful firm called Editorial Experts (it's based in Alexandria, VA, and matches up freelancers with editing jobs), and it's extremely useful for learning copy-editing--kind of a GRE self-test type of book. My copy is between 5 and 10 years old now, but I hope it's still in print!
One way to get your foot in the door without having had experience or a course to put on your resume is to have a flawless cover letter and resume and then to ace whatever editing test they give you. In my editing jobs before graduate school, I hired several editorial assistants, and I didn't look twice at any candidate who had a single error in either document--though perhaps that should go without saying!
SUBSCRIBER A.D. WEIGHS IN ON STYLE GUIDES:
glad you brought that up. - Note and Q: All the academic educational reports I've copyedited use APA, & all the policy/education/history journals I've seen and have been involved with use either APA or Chicago. Part of the competition as to who is more 'scientific' and 'objective' I suppose - (The MLA lit folks have their own demons of course.)
I've noticed however, that newspaper/magazine ads invariably say they require 'knowledge of AP style' - and have always had the little creeping worry at the back of my mind that were I ever to interview in that realm, my own APA knowledge could be laughed out of the room by some head honcho who says "Oh No Dear - we meant "AP style" as in "over the AP and Reuters wires."
STYLE GUIDES: I can't speak for what APA style is like, but I do know that AP style is a different entity (indeed, it IS the kind used for AP wire copy). I used to be a newspaper copy editor, where AP style is the norm. (Used to know that darn little book pretty well - such as, "under way" is two words, unless you're talking about an "underway flotilla," whatever that is!)
I've enjoyed this discussion very much, as someone who's nearing her master's degree in history and contemplating a PhD, and whose "dream job" would be scholarly editing. I have gotten a lot out of this discussion, and it sounds as if a PhD is definitely the right way for me to go because it would be helpful in the world of academic publishing.
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com ON STYLE GUIDES:
Just wanted to add a couple of points about style guides and training. Some of this applies mainly to copyediting for medical texts, but some is more general. Our editors handle a variety of journals that use a variety of styles. For example, our house style is based on the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 9th edition, but we have some idiosyncratic rules that "break" style. One whole series of journals, the Current Opinion series, has its own style guide, again generally based on the AMA, but with exceptions. Some journals use APA style. One big, very scary and prestigious journal seems to have its own system entirely, or so I hear.
This discussion of style reminds me of the question about copyediting programs, which in my experience have turned out to be created in-house, and therefore also somewhat idiosyncratic.
Therefore, someone who wants to be an editor might be intimidated, wondering if there is any way to understand the system before you get hired, because you can't know ahead of time which style is being used, and which rules are broken for house or journal style. And you can't learn an editing program that you can't even get your hands on. How does anyone ever get hired?
All we expect of new editors is that they are very good in general English grammar, not in specific style points. For example, you should be able to recognize and correct errors in subject-verb agreement, parallelism, spelling, sentence structure, etc. You should know the difference between that and which, less and few, compared to and compared with (that's a biggie), and where to put the word "only" in a sentence. You should be able to see whether Table 1 is incorrectly identified as Table 2, and know that if the author didn't cite reference 23, something's missing (actually, our new program counts and catches those missing references for you). You should notice inconsistencies in style, even if you don't know which style is correct for that particular publication. These kinds of ability we cannot teach. Only 20% of the people who take the editing test pass it.
We do not care if a new hire uses the serial comma or not (we use it, but that's house style), although they should learn about it soon after being hired. We do not care if they use superscript citations or on-line citations, because they will have to be able to use both (and other kinds) to edit for us. Those are the kinds of things we expect them to learn after they start work.
We do not expect them to know our editing program; it would be pretty darn odd if they did. We do expect them to be comfortable with computers, and it's a plus if someone knows a few computer applications, because every one you know makes the next one easier.
After an editor is hired, he or she is trained in the stuff we can teach: house style, journal style, the editing program. It's a billion times easier to gain this knowledge than to gain a good grasp of the English language and to acquire logical thinking ability; those are the skills we can't teach. This is why editing is such a natural for postgrads; they already have the skills that are difficult to find.
When I said that it would be difficult to learn the editing program on your own (as a freelance editor) I meant it; it's the sort of thing that is much easier to learn when someone else is right there so you can ask questions. Most of our freelancers first worked in a company and then went out on their own.
If you don't already have copyediting experience, you can get hired, but not at a senior level. Then you move around in the company, fairly quickly, depending on your ambition, desires, happenstance, and how well you get along with people.
If you want to work in publishing, and have English and logic skills, and like computers, and do not mind starting at an entry-level job, you can almost certainly get a job. Once you have experience (even one or two years of experience), you can almost certainly freelance. Or, you can then try to get a position in publishing that is closer to your own interests (literary, academic, specialized fields), although they probably don't pay as well as the technical, medical, and legal editing jobs (I don't know this for sure).
Again, very sorry for the long post. Maybe it's because we're all so quiet in the office, sitting here tapping away at our computers.
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com DISCUSSES ONLINE RESOURCES FOR MEDICAL TEXT EDITORS:
Just a note about two free online resources we use quite frequently: PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/citmatch.html) lets you look up medical articles (reference info and usually an abstract) and is good for checking spelling of author names, etc.
(By the way, the author is responsible for the accuracy of the reference list. We don't have to look up every single reference. But we check out the funny-looking ones, or the ones that obviously have missing pieces.)
And the Index Medicus journal abbreviation site is also very handy: http://www.medscape.com/Home/Search/IndexMedicus/IndexMedicus.html for looking up journal titles and their correct abbreviations.
A QUESTION ABOUT NEED FOR SPEED FROM EDITORS:
P's observation about the differences between newspaper editors and book editors got me thinking about reading (and so working) pace expectations for editors. I'm sure there's a relatively wide range among professional editors, and many grad students/PhDs have developed quickness as well as thoroughness during their studies. But is there such a thing as "too slow"? Or is speed more important for proofreaders vs. editors?
I realize that meeting deadlines may be more important for editors, but it seems to me that--particularly for freelance folks--time would equal money at some point. So I'm curious whether working pace becomes a real issue in combination with quality.
ON READING SPEED:
I took an editing test a number of years ago for an academic press and failed to meet their standards. The person who graded it said that I didn't take enough time with it. I recently took another editing test with a company that publishes K-12 science teaching aids and failed it. The person who graded it said that I took too long with it.
Don't get me wrong. I've had quite a few successful editing jobs, too. But I have not been able (yet) to turn those successes into permanent employment. The issue of how long it "should" take to do an editing job has, obviously, been a problem for me. So I echo the query above. What is the situation with speed and editing?
SUBSCRIBER S.K. ON DEADLINES AND PRESTIGE Of course you are right about academic deadlines. I was thinking more along the lines of being far down the food chain in pay and prestige (in the engineering firm) relative to the pressure to meet deadlines and to produce with required accuracy. The overtime that our technical writers worked rivaled my teaching load, but your comments are well taken, and the tenure part adds to an already impossible burden. I liked your point about understanding which deadlines are right for you. construction, as much as if not more than any other business is deadline based, yet as the work progressed, the logic was physically evident, so I did not mind the deadlines and enjoyed the teamwork required meeting them. It really gave me insight into collaborative efforts, which I wrote my dissertation on years later (school-to-school collaborations). I'm looking for work in a school at the moment, and can't help but thinking, when I consider a school: How would this work as a construction site?
"Emilie Babcox" ebabcox@hotmail.com ON TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS REQUIRED OF EDITORS:
The deadline pressure in publishing is indeed intense. I say this after sending faxes and e-mails to authors in Europe and Asia today, strongly urging them to return their page proofs ASAP! On the other hand, I found the deadlines in academia just as harrowing. I'm speaking now of the pressure to grade 25 essays, and write a paper, and get those conference proposals out, and attend a meeting or two, and finish reading that book - by Monday. Not to mention the deadline pressure of trying to get tenure, a pressure I have not, of course, experienced firsthand. There seemed to be an unspoken assumption (well, maybe it was just me) that the life of an academic is somehow more free, more driven by inner goals, less bound by the deadlines created by management and "bosses" than the life of someone in the corporate world. I finally came to think that that assumption is just so much nonsense. It is true that academics get nice long vacations around Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, and that fabulous summer off. But it's also true that if you're not working like mad during most of those "off" times, you're falling behind. In my experience, all professionals have some pretty intense deadline pressure, of different sorts. It's just a matter of finding the kind of deadlines under which you thrive.
Your point about the "disparaging" attitudes of the experts with whom editors and technical writers often work is a good one. Anyone who is working with a group of people who do not respect his or her particular expertise (writing, editing, whatever) should be looking for another job. One of the nice things about my job is how often the doctors and scientists with whom I work actually appreciate the editing. Not everyone, of course, but some. But everyone has a story about some incident similar to the Dilbert cartoon in which the technical writer is asked by the engineer "Why don't you have any useful skills?" Oh well. Just think of the all disparaging comments about university professors! Somehow they manage to soldier on.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDITING SKILLS?
Although I haven't posted any questions to this week's discussion, I've been following it avidly, as I have also often thought that a career in publishing/editing would be great for me since I love literature and reading, am very detail-oriented, and have pretty darn good grammar skills. I do have one question now, though I realize the discussion is almost over: Has anyone had experience with international publications or working in different languages? I'd love to hook up with a company that works with foreign texts or authors, but I don't know if that would require following a different path or learning a different set of skills.
THE SALARY QUESTION
THE QUESTION ON EVERYONE'S LIPS: HOW DO ALL OF THESE SKILLS TRANSLATE INTO SALARIES?
SUBSCRIBER MAX ASKED: I am enjoying the speakers' opening remarks very much so far. I'd like to ask each of them to comment upon the question of income: what is the typical salary range for someone starting in the editorial and publishing industry (say with little previous experience), and what realistic salary levels might such a greenhorn (with a humanities Ph.D.) expect to work up to if making a career in the industry? I ask because as a historian facing a limited job market, I've often thought that publishing or editing could provide a very satisfying alternative career-path. However when I've mentioned this to older, wiser, persons, I'm always told that publishing is largely a thankless industry with even worse pay than academia. What do each of the speakers think?
ANOTHER SUBSCRIBER WONDERED: Could you or anyone else on the list suggest how to respond to ads like this which ask the applicant to state "salary requirements"? If we are new to the field, how can we know what is an appropriate amount to ask for?
BG replied: You can find out what's typical by looking at others ads which do have salaries offered. There are salary surveys out there--if I remember any of the publications ones I'll post another note--but when I've looked at them I've found them somewhat unhelpful since salaries vary so much by industry and city that averages aren't always very accurate. But you also need to decide what you really need/want to live on; there's no point lowering your requirements just to be competitive if you wouldn't want a job at that salary.
N.B THAT AT TIME OF THIS DISCUSSION, SEPTEMBER, 2000, SPEAKER Emilie Babcox received a raise and a promotion. She thinks it might he helpful for people to know that in her first year of employment as an editor, her salary went up by 16%: once due to a scheduled pay raise, and another time due to a promotion. She believes that compares favorably to the rate of increase in academic pay. SUBSCRIBER B.G. DISCUSSES SALARY AND ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS' WEIGHT IN SEEKING EMPLOYMENT:
Some on this list know me in my capacity as a freelance writer (I'm also an English ABD at Rutgers), but 2 months ago I took a "real" job as an assistant editor, so I have a few comments in response to questions & observations on the list:
1. $$-I make 35k and don't care who knows it. I interviewed at other places where they were offering more, but this job has other things that appeal to me: nice work environment, good location, issues that I care about, 22 days of vacation per year in addition to about 10 paid holidays when the office is shut (VERY important to me as someone used to academic schedule; I can't imagine 2 weeks a year). Excellent benefits (health completely free for me & dependent, they double my retirement contribution, transportation subsidy) also boost the value of the compensation some, & I can earn more by freelancing on the side if I wish.
2. In my transition from full-time grad student>freelance writer>full time editor, I put my academic credentials on my resume but did not mention them in cover letters. I also did some low- & no-paying writing (newspaper editorials, nonacademic book reviews) to get published samples. And I segued into nonacademic writing by writing about stuff I knew about anyway. Higher education, primarily.
3. There are tons of Web writing & editing opportunities out there, some more stable & some more flaky. One other place I interviewed (and was offered a job) was editing for an entertainment Web site.
My job now: assistant ed at a higher education association. Publications staff of 2 (other people in the org help with certain tasks, though). What I do here: Research and write material for bimonthly magazine and edit other material for bimonthly magazine. Proofread almost all of the bimonthly magazine. Handle all aspects of advertising for the magazine: sell ads, make promotional materials, send out mailings, make sure ads end up in right page positions. Track down some photos for the bimonthly magazine. Deal with distribution (finding distributors, billing them). Edit, produce (in Quark), and write some of 2 separate quarterly newsletters. Collect info, write and send a weekly email newsletter. Code the bimonthly magazine as HTML and put it on the Web.Answer people who write wanting copyright permissions, who want to donate old magazines to us, who thought they saw an article about X somewhere but now can't find it. Periodically edit miscellaneous publications for other departments. If I ever have time, go through large file cabinet of unmarked photos, marking them. More stuff I can't remember right now.
Always too much to do in a given week, but that was also true in grad school, I found. And as in grad school it all does get done eventually. And the content interests me.
Another thought about editing: depending on what kind you do, it really can be quite different from grad school/grading. I've heard several stories of perfectly competent English PhD-holders and writing teachers failing copyediting tests. Copyediting is a certain precise thing for which you have to know rules which may not have applied in your discipline. I'm not as good at it myself as I would have thought.
SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons" efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net ADDS INFO. ON SALARIES:
I can say a few things about salaries, but they vary so widely. The type of publishing and the area of the country are two very big factors.
When I was working for the library science publisher, I made $36,500. This was a cut from what I had been making at the library association, but it was well worth it. I didn't have to deal with any of the politics except for the fallout from my boss's dealings. For that salary I did some copyediting, got copyeditors and reviewed their work, worked with authors on rewrites and nagged them about deadlines, read manuscripts (not all) and wrote letters to the authors with suggestions for turning it into something publishable, applied for Library of Congress CIP (i.e. cataloging on the verso of the title page), did filing and correspondence, coordinated with typesetter, proofreader, author to get proofs back in time. We printed once a month, so a day late for the proofs sometimes meant a month late for the book. I also worked in the booth at a couple of the library trade shows. I wrote copy for the publisher's catalog, outlines for press releases, and some research in the library. We published a good 30 books per year, which is quite good for a company of 9, including order fulfillment, marketing, office support staff. Particularly since the owners were at the point where they wanted to cut back, and they were already down to working 4 days per week.
The long and the short of it was that I found it too much for the long haul. The person who replaced me was blessed with a full-time assistant. Part of that is that the replacement is in New York and there is more room for staff and your work is more visible.
For freelancing, the range seems to be $20 to $100+ per hour. In other words, there seem to be as many different prices as there are manuscripts to be edited. The best thing is to check with someone who has worked in that type of editing.
When I worked for the publisher, we paid copyeditors $15-$18 per hour and proofreaders $1.00 to $1.25. Keeping costs down was extremely important for us because we had to make a good profit for the company by selling books to nonprofits (libraries) or underpaid individuals (librarians.) That was also a factor in both of the associations I worked for, except they didn't have to make the same kind of money.
I thoroughly agree with everyone who is recommending a copyediting course. It's the best way to learn the rules of the game, which are necessary if you are going to work with anything that is going to be published. It is also is a good way to learn how to acquaint yourself with style manuals, because if you are freelancing you may use more than one style. I use three manuals with variations, depending on the client.
HTML is also a good idea. Websites need editing and updating, and if you can't do it you are limited. (I know.) Books with CD-ROMS are becoming more common, and it helps if you are able to make a few little changes by yourself.
What you have been reading here is true. Being able to write well and correct papers is a great help. It makes doing a good job much easier, but it is insufficient by itself. You have to know the copyediting conventions.
I found that looking at other copyeditors' work was helpful. If I had something copyedited by someone else, I looked very carefully to see if they had any good techniques and to see if they did things that I thought should be done differently. It is possible to learn in isolation, I suppose. But it is not as good as working with others and seeing other editors' work.
SUBSCRIBER D.L. ON SALARIES and INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Z.M.'s points reinforce what I suggested this morning about IT and training as an interesting and rewarding field--as for salaries, I think the salaries may often be better than beginning jobs in editing, but I only know my own situation--here in the mid-west at a University (i.e., lower than industry), the salaries start in the low 30's but often with excellent university benefits (about 30 days PTO--sick days and vacation combined, another 8-10 official holidays, flexible schedules, good medical benefits, retirement matching/donation, etc). I imagine the salaries may be higher in universities on the coast?
In addition to the languages, if you have access to training, pick up those computer skills. My favorite Web editor on the Windows side is Dreamweaver, as it goes from beginners (you don't need to know HTML or XML, though it helps) to experts.
Training itself is a great way to stay in touch with the classroom!
SPEAKER Susan Waterman tethys@rci.rutgers.edu ON SALARIES, TRAINING, AND STAFFING DECISIONS:
To respond to S's questions first: it's my understanding, which should not be taken as authoritative, that it is primarily academics who get to edit academic journals, but maybe this is only true of the most prominent ones. As to other types of journals, depending on how you define journal (as opposed to, say, magazine), there are plenty out there that would be good matches for PhDs and ABDs. I'm more familiar with the Washington, D.C., area, where I spent 15 years, than with the NY metropolitan area, but there are zillions of publications put out by the zillions of associations headquartered in and around DC. All of them have some vehicle for communicating with their members, at least a newsletter if not a magazine, and quite a few of them verge on the scholarly or are in fact scholarly. For example, the publications of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (among them Science magazine) are based in downtown DC in the Association's own gorgeous building with a multi-story atrium (at least the were when I interviewed there many years ago); another organization I interviewed with, called, I think, the Coffee Development Group, also had an educational/outreach/PR publication that it used to promote coffee--lighter stuff perhaps, but the range of articles I saw in flipping through some issues was amazing. Now, I don't know how that translates to other geographic regions, but some of these organizations are large enough to have Midwest or West Coast offices, too.
I think a year is a fair amount of time to give to a position and expect it to return a baseline of credibility in the eyes of other employers--not to mention the crucial skills to carry to the next level! Unfortunately, more often than not, the credibility is greater when the eyes belong to a different employer--the salary increase is likely to be greater, too. I got a great jump in salary going from CQ to the American Association of Museums--I think it was like $14,500 to $20,000 (back in 1986), partly because I did have a lot of production experience that wasn't being utilized in my editorial assistant position (which I had gained working on my college newspaper, starting out as a typesetter and graphic artist [a/k/a paste-up person--this was prior to computerized layout!], moving on to production manager, managing editor, and then editor--I should explain that I was also writing movie and theater reviews and feature articles at the same time), and partly because the publisher realized he was getting quite a bargain: production managers then could expect $25,000 and even $30,000, depending on experience. The AAM had a bimonthly four-color magazine and a large quantity of other projects, such as the annual meeting program, membership brochures, and even essay collections, so it was a pretty demanding job in terms of juggling deadlines. The same thing happened when I left the AAM to go to the ASLA after a little more than a year.
Salaries in this area don't seem too shabby to me: almost annually, Rutgers University Press advertises for an editorial assistant at a starting salary of $26,000, which seems pretty good for an entry-level position. I have no idea how much room to move up or around there is once you're there, however. At Princeton (which is otherwise not known for its largesse to employees), I was making about $33,000 for three-quarters time, so I imagine the full-time starting salary will be about $40,000. Interestingly, the position of editor of their alumni magazine was recently open and the advertised salary was in the $60,000 range (it's a four-color magazine published roughly biweekly with a hiatus in the summertime, averaging about 80 pages per issue). That said, I understand that some entry-level positions at NYC publishing firms still pay unacceptable salaries (for NYC's cost of living) like $16,000 or $18,000.
I agree wholeheartedly with what several people have already said about learning HTML. Traditional publishing is just part of the pie now, and lots of opportunities are opening up in Web publishing. My partner runs several Web sites and was recently looking for a computer-literate person to do some editing, both online and off, and some other computer-oriented functions (not including programming), and was willing to pay $25/hour for someone with those skills. Undergrads with computer science degrees are looking for greener pastures--and can't necessarily edit their way out of a paper bag--and editors with computer skills or savvy aren't as plentiful as one might think--yet.
Z.M. ON SALARIES AND "NETWORKING" I have had the same experience with L. as far as salary goes. I will be earning a salary in the mid-40's, BUT I will be working in Manhattan, so that probably equals low 30's in the Midwest. University benefits are great: 22 days vacation, full medical, the whole week of Christmas off. I could make more in industry and maybe I will in a few years, but working for a university in a "staff" position is a good deal. If I can restate the obvious that goes along with all job searches: "connections" are usually the best way to find jobs, at least for me. The job I have now at the university is a direct result of the recommendation by my major professor. I know not everyone has the fortune of having a major professor who supports them in their look for non-academic work, but mine gave me great support. But regardless, work the connections. Talk to people! This list is a great start.
SUBSCRIBER B.G. ON SALARIES: My unscientific observations suggest that there's an inverse relationship between pay and the immediate attractiveness of a publishing field to humanities types: scholarly presses, arts-and-culture writing pay worse than mainstream newspapers and magazines, and tech stuff often seems to pay better than both. The best paying freelance jobs I've had have been for sitting in on meetings and writing summary reports which, in my opinion, a bright high school senior could write, whereas theater reviewing, which I love, is barely worth it financially.
I don't know about all academic journals, but some of those that I've encountered have a 2-tier structure wherein a faculty/academic editor or board of editors is in charge of selecting issue themes, making journal policy, picking articles, etc, and a managing editor is in charge of daily operations such as copyediting, making sure everything gets in from authors on time, corresponding with authors, handling ads and printing and distribution, & business operations generally. Often the academic editor is not on site, as she is at her university, whereas the managing editor is a full-time employee of the journal.
LIST MANAGER Paula Foster foster.242@osu.edu DISCUSSES CONSULTING
This is a little off-topic, but if that is your interest, you might want to consider reinventing yourself as a "communication consultant." Communication consultants do many more things than just writing, but those who do hire themselves out as writers very often get hired on a freelance basis to write company newsletters and other house organs for all kinds of businesses, corporations, government agencies, etc.
WRK4US had a discussion about consulting last June. When the Escape Pod website is repaired a couple of weeks from now, you will be able to read the edited version of that discussion. You might also visit the website of APCC (Association of Professional Communication Consultants). I think the URL is http://www.apcc-online.org . APCC is a marvelous source of info on communication consulting.
Downplaying your education may be unnecessary in academic journals, but if you're going into mainstream publishing, it might be better to downplay it. One cosmetic brochure company I worked for was wary about hiring people with MAs, lest they decide to go on for the PhD after they'd been trained. On the other hand, that company was delighted to learn I had worked in comic books, because it meant I had experience in checking visuals, not just prose.
As for gaps in experience, if you're applying to fashion magazines in certain cities (like NYC), they won't raise an eyebrow if you tell them you spent that time in one of the performing arts--they're used to hearing it, and if they have an artsy/downtown slant, they may prefer it.
ON JOB SATISFACTION AND "BURNOUT" POTENTIAL:
Since many people on this listserv are or have been somewhat undecided about which way they want to take their careers (i.e., academic vs. nonacademic work), I was wondering if you could discuss briefly the one or two aspects of your jobs that you find most satisfying. Also, since career changes and burnout happen in all careers, could you talk about one or two aspects of your jobs which tend to contribute most to editor turnover?
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com DESCRIBES THE SATISFACTIONS OF HER JOB:
Most satisfying---
Solving problems. Once I took over production of a journal that had been running months behind for more than a year, and got it back on schedule. This week I have been given responsibility for a major international AIDS journal with a variety of problems, not least of which is the fact that much of this is timely research that should be disseminated as quickly as possible, and I am looking forward to satisfaction as well as stress in solving these problems. (BTW, our eventual goal is to have timely articles on the Web 48 hours after receipt, compared with the current weeks or months.)
Working with the people in this office. It's fun.
Earning my highest wage to date. It's not a princely sum, and it's not the highest I've seen others mention, but it's my personal best (mid-thirties). I have what I think are realistic hopes of seeing this increase significantly within the next five years. I am about to start earning retirement funds in the 401K. The company matches up to 14%, and even gives everyone the first 6% whether they decide to contribute or not. Retirement income is something grad students and untenured academics should think about more seriously, in my opinion. Anyone who has spent a major chunk of his/her twenties and thirties without building up any sort of retirement fund will, I believe, be at a real disadvantage later on. It's like a horrible ironic joke. You spend your early years earning very little so you can get that great job, and then are punished in your latter years all over again (when being poor is even less fun than it was when you were a struggling grad student--the romance (ha!) is gone).
The free time. We work a 35-hour week (really). We almost never take work home. I take a whole hour for lunch. I've been able to read more books than I did while in academia, and I've read much more widely. I have time to go to movies, and to jazz clubs, and to take walks on nice days.
What contributes to editor turnover? You'll notice I didn't mention as a great satisfaction the actual nitty-gritty of editing, working with manuscripts. I would say it's intellectually challenging at times, but because medical research is not my field, I'm not as involved with it as I could be. That would be the one thing that would cause me to eventually look into publishing jobs in different kinds of companies, or in different fields. I'm not saying I definitely will switch, but that it always seems like a possibility.
Although a few people in our office have been production editors for more than five years, that sort of longevity is unusual, simply because most editors are fairly ambitious people who want to move up in the organization to a management position, or who want to see other aspects of publishing.
Moving from production to freelancing is pretty common, especially for people who love the thought of running their own business. I'm not that kind of person, though. (Note my very conservative thoughts on the whole 401K thing above.)
A SUBSCRIBER ASKS ANOTHER ABOUT HIS UNUSUALLY FUN JOB: What did you do with comic books? How did you get your job? I would love to get into that field!
HE RESPONDS: That job [with the comic book] came about through a fluke. I had read that when you are looking for a job, let everybody know--your grocer, your drinking buddies, etc, no matter how humiliating it feels. So I mentioned it to a group of people who included math geeks, NYU computer faculty, gamers, historical re-enactors, and a motley collection of sporadically employed actors. One of the re-enactors immediately said he knew someone at Valiant who was looking for a new proofreader (his old one had been promoted). I went in, took a test which involved checking the dialogue on an art board against the original script, and a few weeks later I had a job. I don't remember if the test involved making sure the speech balloons were going to the right character's mouth, or that the frames were in the right order to advance the story, but that became an integral part of the job. (If you remember that classic scene in "Singing in the Rain" -- "No no no/ YES YES YES" -- you'll see why.)
Two things can work in your favor--one is, don't be embarrassed to tell everybody you're looking for a job. But the other thing is your background in Academia can help you, depending on the book. The editor of "Magic: the Gathering," pulled me in as Story Consultant because he found out I was in Medieval Lit--always a good thing on a sword-n-sorcery project. When Valiant was bought up by Acclaim, which eventually closed the comic division, I was brought back in to work on the CD-Rom interactive as a freelancer. (I knew absolutely nothing about hard-wiring or forks, but I could suggest lots of perils and fortress-things for the technical people to wire in, plus I could translate my editor's dialogue ("We need him to make a threat here") into stuff that sounded vaguely archaic but wouldn't confuse a 12-year old. Interactive games might be a better route for you to go than comic books, right now. Acclaim cut its comic division in part because the price of paper had gone up drastically, and most kids won't blow $3-5 on a comic book every month. Even Marvel and DC were hard hit and had to trim their titles. Moreover, due to video and cable, a lot of kids just aren't reading--not even comic books. But if you're really keen on doing this, look at smaller companies like Dark Horse or Elf Quest. They are not as stable as the larger ones, but you have a much better chance of expanding your job description there. Creative work is often delegated on the basis of who has a pulse and happened to be there at 6:10 when the color boards came back and they wanted a rewrite and re-lettering before the messenger left. Pretty soon you can be editing your editor, or known writers at Wizards of the Coast. You'll have much less freedom at the larger companies, where some of the writers are sacred cows to be spell-checked only.
By the way, the pay is usually awful because everybody wants to do it. I got much better pay at things like tax law journals, because nobody wants to do that except accountants and lawyers--and they usually can't copy edit.
SPEAKER Eileen Fitzsimons efitzsimons@worldnet.att.net WEIGHS IN ON HER JOB'S SATISFACTIONS:
I find that being on the edges of academia is very rewarding. I edit (for the most part) for intelligent people who need help expressing their ideas so that they can get published. But it is a relief to me not to worry about tenure myself. Some of the people I have worked with, both for the publishing house and in my freelancing, have been delightful people, and we have often talked about much more than how to make the book or the article read better. That people contact is also what I liked about association work. Often, but definitely not always, the people you talk to regularly on the phone give you a real boost, something that someone in your office with the same frustrations you have cannot do. For me, I really like making people's writing read better.
I am fortunate enough to edit mostly things I am interested in: library science, nursing, medicine. I would make a terrible physician or nurse (if I made it past the first week of training), but I like the involvement. I also like helping students who do not speak English as their first language. Having studied abroad, I am familiar with some of the problems that international students have. It is a good feeling to do for them what generous people in Germany and Denmark did for me.
I like the freedom of running my own business. I like setting my own hours. I also love working at home. These are all things that five years ago I would have said would be loathsome. I have really changed. I think part of it is the electronic world, that makes working at home private but not isolated. I do not relish the thought of invoicing people for the rest of my days, or keeping records, or of somehow planning for my own retirement. (Everyone in our family has decided that our youngest sister has to take care of us in our advanced years, and she has agreed; I just might hold her to it.)
I have seen burnout in publishing and in the association world. It is caused by the same thing everywhere, too much work, too little time, too much adjusting what you want to do to what someone else thinks is best. An example: to help offset a shortfall in income, I was mandated to cut the newsletter by 50%. I argued strongly against it, but to no avail. So I put together the newsletter, 3 pages of advertising, already paid for, and one page of news. I was then listened to, but it took laying out a newsletter that was not going to be used, and then doing it all over correctly. If that happens once or twice it is aggravating. If it happens with regularity, you soon lose the tolerance you need to deal with it rationally. At that point, people look for other jobs.
Good luck to everyone in whatever you decide to do.
SPEAKER Susan Waterman tethys@rci.rutgers.edu DISCUSSES JOB SATISFACTION:
I agree with Emilie that the people I worked with were the most enjoyable aspect of my last job before grad school, at Landscape Architecture, and of my job at Princeton. Editors seem to be some of the best educated and/or most widely read people I've ever encountered, and ditto for library professionals, many of whom have PhDs themselves. Trading discoveries of unusual words, tales of author foibles, or merely sharing an appreciation for the fine points of language all make for a pleasurable work environment. Also, the readers (researchers) I met at Princeton (to learn more about their work and to solicit journal contributions) were, without exception, fascinating, energizing people, and the range of their projects defies description. Of course, some of those projects help to define the word esoteric, but it's part of the challenge to help the authors figure out how to make their work accessible and interesting to the generalist. Then there's the satisfaction of turning out a product one can be proud of; there's something about the concreteness of the thing, acting almost as a testimonial to all the effort that went into it, even if nearly everyone in the imagined audience won't know. I also derive great satisfaction from editing itself, knowing that I am enabling or helping a writer to convey what he or she means to say, and getting to deploy sometimes arcane or nuanced knowledge to do so. The downside of this is that I often feel guilty for enjoying what may seem petty to many; e. e. cummings' line "who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you" nags at me sometimes, but maybe that's the voice of society's anti-intellectual bias.
In terms of burnout or turnover, it seems to me that almost any job gets routine and unchallenging eventually (sometimes even after about a year), unless new aspects or ventures are introduced. There were a number of ups and downs at Landscape Architecture that kept it interesting for almost five years: problems with production managers (we went through three while I was there--long story!), changes in design and format, changes in technology and consequently our production process, various battles over ads(!), some additional publications projects, a dynamic range of contributors, and what I thought was a consistently engaging editorial calendar (ranging from cemetery design to ecotourism). And the Princeton Library Chronicle holds just as much promise of variety of contents (without the other hassles just enumerated)--I just couldn't finish my dissertation while working there too, to my enormous regret. As Emilie has already pointed out, subject matter can make a big difference; at the same time, you'd be amazed as how engrossing some topics can be that you'd never have imagined becoming interested in!
JOB ADS IN NEWSPAPERS, RESPONDING TO THEM, AND EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS:
Thinking about this discussion, I opened the employment section of the Inquirer today and found [an ad seeking proofreaders and copyeditors at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which] might suit some people on this list.
I also noticed the ads for editorial assistants. I forgot to mention them in my description of jobs. In my company editorial assistants are sort of like secretaries, but they get experience in proofing, checking revises, logging in manuscripts and art, tagging art, etc. on the job, and some eventually become copyeditors. It is definitely considered an entry-level job, though, and I think people might look askance at someone with a graduate degree seeking this particular job. I suspect the salary is in the low twenties, but I don't know for sure.
We also hire part-time editorial assistants, and they are usually undergrad students. We train them in coding, and they can either work on-site or take work home. For some reason (legal, but I don't know the details), if they work on-site they can work no more than 19 hours a week, but if they take work home they can work unlimited hours (I think). I love all the editorial assistants, and we depend upon them very heavily, but the work is quite repetitious (typing, coding, styling reference lists, photocopying). As a job for an undergrad, though, I would think it beats waitressing and would definitely be as asset on the resume of someone who wants to work in publishing after graduation.
SUBSCRIBER M.V. SUGGESTS NY TIMES PUBLISHING LISTINGS IN EMPLOYMENT SECTION:
If you can deal with living there or commuting from Conn. or NJ (or the boroughs) , New York has a lot of publishing houses. Look in the Sunday NY Times under, "Copy Editor," "Editorial," "Proofreader," "Publishing," or "Production Editor." Sometimes you can get a foot in the door through "Word Processing," including temporary, but "Administrative Assistant" tends to stay relegated to things like arranging flight reservations and dealing with petty cash. For technical editing, the vocabulary of legal writing is probably easier to pick up than medical, where you waste enormous amounts of time checking the PDR or the Merck to verify spellings of new drugs or procedures.
You might also want to look under "Advertising" or even "Copy Writer." I was once sent to a financial corporation to turn their pie charts and bar graphs into an annual report booklet. I had no clue whether my interpretations of stats were correct or not, but I basically translated everything into corporatese, i.e., "This proves conclusively that potatoes will be going up in 1998." I told my supervisors that the numbers crunchers would have to check for accuracy and add the word "not" if necessary, but that they would have a prose document to work from. At the end of the first part of the project, management checked what I had so far, and renewed my assignment to finish the rest, telling the agency who had referred me that my work was exactly what they had needed. This proves either a) you do not need to be an expert in a number of fields to write effective copy, let alone to edit it; or b) they were as clueless as I was.
SUBSCRIBER JB ASKS FOR ADVICE ON JOB SEARCH IN DC AREA: I am a recent Ph.D. recipient in Linguistics and I have decided to pursue "alternate" career paths. I have been increasingly interested in the publishing industry and, in particular, editing. I am currently working on a large on-line database project and I'm really enjoying the challenge of the organization and creation of this project. I'm very glad there is this discussion group this week because I'm hoping to find employment in the next couple of months. I was wondering where the best places are to look for employment in the publishing industry. I don't necessarily mean geographically, but I'm wondering where do I turn in order to find the opportunities? Geographically, I'm focusing on the Chicago and Washington, D.C. areas. I think I could really do well in this field and I would appreciate any advice from those of you who might be more in the know.
BG RESPONDS WITH DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ADVICE: In DC get in touch with Washington Independent writers; they have a fee-based job bank of both full-time and freelance jobs, and they can probably give you advice or resource suggestions, too. And the Washington Post job ads, obviously.
SUBSCRIBER A.D. REMINDS ALL OF THE ARCHIVED DISCUSSION ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY JOBS AT THIS WEBSITE (SEE ARCHIVED DISCUSSION ON DOT COM CAREERS):
Regarding the info-tech/dot-com discussion: it (along with the others posted so far) does contain *much* useful info and I second the suggestion to visit the site since the info-tech discussion nicely complements this editing discussion by covering some other technical aspects of writing, along with URLs of job sources, salary comparisons etc.
PAULA FOSTER expresses THANKS TO BABCOX, WATERMAN AND FITZSIMONS:
Well, it's Monday October 2, and it seems that most of our questions about "Careers in Editing and Publishing" appear to have been answered.
Emilie, Susan and Eileen, you have been generous with information, and your ability to make it all "make sense" is a wonder to behold. Moreover, the fact that you took time out of your own overwhelming work schedules without being personally acquainted with me or with WRK4US is just remarkable and speaks volumes about your character. On behalf of all WRK4US subscribers, I would like to hereby THANK YOU for your outstanding service! Many subscribers have said, both on and off list, that this discussion was excellent: engaging, informative, encouraging and incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for participating.
Thanks also go to WRK4US subscribers (all 715 of them) for contributing such interesting questions and for making our speakers feel welcome.
Any additional questions can be asked of the speakers directly at their personal email addresses, or can still be asked on the list, even though the three Guest Speakers will soon be leaving us
SUBSCRIBER M.E. PROVIDES A LIST OF URLs FOR FREELANCE WORK: For editing/writing work, here are some free-lance sites recently forwarded to me that might be of interest:
www.elance.com
www.guru.com
www.wsj.com (I couldn't find a jobs page on this one)
www.freelancesearch.com
www.tjobs.com (t=telecommuting)
www.freejob.com
www.freelancebbs.com
www.ants.com
www.allfreelance.com
www.icplanet.com
www.ework.com
www.smarterwork.com
SPEAKER Emilie Babcox ebabcox@hotmail.com DISCUSSES ONLINE RESOURCES FOR MEDICAL TEXT EDITORS
Just a note about two free online resources we use quite frequently: PubMed lets you look up medical articles (reference info and usually an abstract) and is good for checking spelling of author names, etc.
(By the way, the author is responsible for the accuracy of the reference list. We don't have to look up every single reference. But we check out the funny-looking ones, or the ones that obviously have missing pieces.)
And the Index Medicus journal abbreviation site is also very handy for looking up journal titles and their correct abbreviations.
NOTE ANOTHER BIBLIOGRAPHIC TOOL ON THE INTERNET:
The Library of Congress catalog is another free site that is excellent for verifying bibliographical information. I use it frequently to check names, publication dates, exact titles, and so on.