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I recently received a thought-provoking comment from a fellow freelance editorial professional who has been working alongside me on a project I’ve been managing. The projects I manage are typically very large (hundreds of thousands or even millions of words), and there are inevitably hiccups that arise and have to be resolved. So I found it interesting when the other editor commented that I am more understanding than some other project managers about these kinds of hiccups.

My first reaction, I’ll admit, was an irrational sense of worry: Am I a soft touch? Am I checking editors’ work thoroughly enough? Am I setting high enough standards?

It’s always good to self-evaluate when such questions arise, and there will always be things I can learn about my management of other editors’ work. However, a short bout of reflection and a thorough check of the text re-confirmed that I set high st

The basics of proofreading are easy, right? You read through the text and mark errors to be corrected. Simple. But of course, as any competent proofreader at any level of experience knows, that’s not the whole story. A proofreader has to carry out numerous tasks to do with technical aspects, style and sense – not just spot where a crucial name is misspelled. As a result, a great deal of finesse is needed to pull off a truly professional proofreading job.

During nearly 12 years in publishing, both in-house and freelance, I’ve seen and done a lot of proofreading. As well as proofreading for other project managers, I manage upwards of 5 million words per year as a project manager of academic encyclopedias and books. Most of those words have to be proofread, so I spend a lot of my time briefing proofreaders, answering their questions, and checking and collating their corrections.

That’s a

I am a huge advocate of comprehensive and well-organised style sheets. When copy-editing and proofreading, they help me to clearly summarise the style decisions I’ve made and communicate them to my client. And, in my project management work, they are indispensable tools for corralling copy-editors on multi-editor projects and for keeping styles consistent throughout copy-editing, typesetting, proofreading, collating and indexing. I’ve previously written about how editors should never fail to provide a proper style sheet (see point 4).

I’ve recently been experimenting with a new technique in my own style sheets: the use of the combo box (also known as a dropdown list). These allow inputting of a set of pre-defined options, one of which is later chosen by clicking on the list and selecting an item.

Why?

So how can combo boxes be used in style sheets? Well, I find that the process of compiling a style sheet can be quite time consuming. Yes, I can create a template

You’re a good editor. You can juggle serial commas and breathe fire at dangling modifiers. Your ninja coding skills can subdue even the most tortuous of manuscripts.

But, however good your editorial skills, they may not be able to save you from losing a client to certain common etiquette pitfalls. I’ve collected seven of these below. These examples particularly apply to relationships with traditional project managers (PMs) or production editors. However, they can apply to relationships with business or self-publisher clients too.

Avoid these ‘sins’ to lessen your chances of irritating your client into dropping you as a supplier.

1. Bad filing

Unhelpfully named documentation can be a hindrance and gives a poor impression of your professionalism. When communicating with your PM or other members of the project team, try to pick email subjects and file names that wi

‘Professionalism’ is one of those rare things: a buzzword with longevity and real value for both the professional and the client who benefits from that professionalism.

But what exactly does it mean to be a professional copy-editor or proofreader? As a project manager, I have worked with the very best to the very worst on the scale of professionalism. I have been rendered eternally grateful by editors’ quietly assured meticulousness and I have been repelled by blatant lying and gung-ho slapdashery.

But how to ensure you’re on the right end of this scale? ‘Professionalism’ can feel like a nebulous, never-fully-attainable thing – or like something that only happens to other people. Following are ten simple, practical steps to help you cut through to the essence of what it means to be a professional copy-editor or proofreader.

1. Read, read, read!

It doesn’t much matter what. Just get on your blogroll, a high-quality forum or Twitter, or dig out an

Being an editorial project manager (PM) can feel a bit like being a very delicious, but very forbidden, cake. When I tell other freelancers that part of my work involves hiring copy-editors, proofreaders and indexers, I sometimes find myself the object of longing glances from those who seem to feel themselves starved of work. However, I’ve met enough freelancers to know that a person’s talents may not be equal to the amount of work they are receiving – it may be how they are presenting themselves that is to blame.

In my previous post, I explained how I research prospective freelancers and how simply being on a publisher’s list isn’t enough for me to offer someone work. I often find myself looking on LinkedIn – it’s free to set up and can hold all sorts of information, so it’s an obvious and easy way for freelancers of all kinds to find out more about each other. So, this post concentrates on what I look for when I view a freelancer’s LinkedIn profile.

As a copy-editor, proofreader or indexer, you may think that getting yourself onto a publisher’s list is the Holy Grail of freelancing  and will be enough to get you hired regularly.

However, it’s often the case that the people on publishers’ lists who receive regular work have done so for years, and always work with the same contacts. Newbies to the list, and freelancers whose contacts move on, may find themselves languishing at the bottom of the pile, receiving little or no work.

I’m a freelance editor and project manager, and as such I both try to get myself hired and hire other people. So, I’ve occasionally experienced that frustrating languishing feeling myself, but also found myself rejecting the same names on publishers’ lists time after time, project after project.

Let me explain why this might happen and what you can do about it.

Pin the tail on the donkey

I shepherd between 10 and 15 books a year through copy-editing, typesetting, i