As I’ve mentioned ad nauseam on these boards, I’m a freelance copyeditor. I graduated from college in 1990 with a degree in graphic art and started working as a litho stripper for a printing company. Liked the work, hated the job. A friend for whom I’d done typing and light editing when we were both college students mentioned that she thought there might be a market for that sort of thing to be done at home. (At the time I had never heard the term “copyediting” as it’s used in publishing, and I knew precious little about freelancing or being self-employed.) I started doing my research and sending out resumes in the fall of 1994, got my first client in March 1995, quit my job in October 1995, and quit the “fun” part-time filler jobs I’d taken in the meantime to go 100% freelance in May 1996.
My husband was supportive, but perhaps a bit dubious. That changed in 2001 when he lost his job and I became the breadwinner. I ramped up my workload, snagged some new clients, and got busy. I’m still busy, and as Mr. S is still not 100% employed (but getting there), it’s still on me to pay most of the bills. I can’t recall the last time I had nothing on my desk; I’m almost constantly swamped. Need to work on just saying no. (And raising rates, but we can discuss that later . . .)
Any and all other freelancers are welcome to chime in; I certainly don’t consider myself an expert by any means, and as I said above, I’m damned busy!
Very interesting. Just stopped over here from the other thread.
I’m thinking that something in editing might be what I want to do after I retire (if all goes as planned, I’ll be somewhere between 55 and 58). I’ve also thought about going back to doing freelance translation (haven’t done that in about 20 years). So I’m sure I’ll have lots of questions.
How did you decide what to charge and when to raise rates? Are there any resources you’d recommend for self-employed people?
Well, to be frank, I don’t really have a rate sheet or anything like that. I prefer to use individually negotiated project or page rates, because (1) every project is different, and (2) I tend to be faster than the average bear, so I can potentially make a fatter calculated hourly rate than anyone would ever agree to pay. I remember one easy job that came out to something like $80/hour (but only for about 4 hours total) and I think I had one around $100/hr. But those are rare.
When I started out, clients would call me up and say, “We have this project, here’s what it entails, and we’re paying $X/per page [or $X,XXX for the whole project].” Then the ball was in my court, to say OK, or I need to see a sample first (important for project bids) or gee, I think this project is worth $X+Y per page, or (if the offer is really insulting) take a hike. And that’s pretty much the way it’s gone since. Only one or two clients pay hourly, and I haven’t been able to talk them into a project rate (calculated by taking the number of hours they expect me to spend x the hourly rate), so that kind of sucks. But their jobs are easy, short, and fun, so I don’t sweat it too much. If the projects were more intense, and took more of my time, I’d push the issue more.
I’m a bit of a weenie when it comes to negotiating higher rates. Generally I just don’t take the ones that are really low, or I make a counteroffer that may or may not be accepted. Fortunately I’m in good enough stead with my regular clients that they’re willing to up the ante when I ask for it, because they generally really want me to take the project.
Generally I have a rough minimum hourly target rate in mind; if the job comes out above that, great! It it starts creeping lower, unless the job is super easy and not very long, I start getting crabby. And if the hourly is dipping because the client has started adding on extra tasks that weren’t mentioned originally, it’s time to renegotiate.
Resources for freelancers in general? Gee, it’s been so long since I looked into that stuff that I couldn’t really say; I’m kind of in coast mode now and can’t really think of what I checked out. Licensing and all that stuff is different everywhere and you need to check it out with your city, county, state, etc. There’s a mailing list for freelancers who work in publishing that’s an excellent resource for talking about dealing with clients, finding new clients, tax stuff, software, contracts, and other stuff specifically related to publishing.
Back to work . . . (and by the way, anybody who tweaks me about typos will get smacked with a virtual flounder. I shouldn’t even be Doping as it is! So unless you’re willing to pay me to make my posts as perfect as the stuff on my desk here, well, you’re gonna have to live with the occasional flub. I’m an editor, not a typist. :p)
Well, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here. Generally a copyeditor does not work with laid-out text in its final visual form, but rather the raw manuscript. So yes, a good chunk of what I do is edit text.
With luck the ms. has been through several higher-level edits: developmental (whole-book level: suggestion for chapter topics, front/back matter, general approach), substantive (in a little closer: this topic needs fleshing out, do these two ideas contradict each other, etc.), line edit (closer yet; content editing on a section/paragraph basis). Then the ms. should be ready for copyediting, which is the final “mechanical” edit before it goes back to the author/publisher for query review and to the typesetter for first pagination.
Copyediting is what most people think of as “proofreading”: fixing spelling, grammar, punctuation, usage, etc. This is not in the manner of “correcting” the work like your English teacher, but rather making the document conform to the preferred style (Chicago, APA, MLA, publisher’s house style, etc.), norms of the subject field, author’s voice, etc. We also check for organizational issues such as alphabetizing/numbering as needed, missing elements, coordination of figures/tables and text, cross-references, and general consistency. We also watch the content and query the author to review/fix anything that looks odd or seems to be a misstatement or contradiction, biased language, etc. Various combinations of these items are done based on the edit requested by the publisher. For a very light edit, we might edit for obvious errors only. For a heavy edit we might be asked to pay more attention to organization, ask the author to flesh out as needed, fix bias, etc.
This is a nutshell description based on my experience, which is mostly college-level textbooks. I also edit some fiction, which is a whole different ball of wax. Preserving the author’s voice is much more important, so the edit is generally looser, but we do also keep track of the “facts” of the story so they hold together; i.e., someone who’s an only child on p. 36 can’t complain about her sister on p. 223. We watch for holes in plot and timing, use maps to check the geography (or draw maps for fictional places). And so on.
What made you decide to go freelance as opposed to sticking it out in the corporate grind?
Ever regretted it?
Was your husband supportive when you got to stay home and work while he commuted and held down his job “at work”? Did he expect you to do extra chores or errands in your “free time”?
How many hours would you say you work in an average week?
Do you have a dedicated office or just work wherever you feel like?
Do you use an accountant to help you figure out all your write-offs and deductibles? Or do you just wing it with the aid of some tax program?
Have you considered turning your freelance career into a small business with a couple of copy editors you oversee?
Well, as I said, I hated the office politics and general bullshit. Also, I was working the night shift (by choice), and driving home one bright fall morning, I realized that I live on nine wooded acres in a tourist area (rural WI lake country) where people spend their leisure time, and I never get to enjoy it; here it was a beautiful day, and I was going home to bed. I figured there ought to be a way to get to enjoy being home.
Nope, not for one minute. I’m ruined for any future employers.
Wait, I take that back. I regretted it for a short while – after totaling my new car one week after quitting my job. :eek: I thought I’d never be able to get another one financed with no provable income. Thanks for co-signing, hubby.
He was dubious, but he also knew how miserable I was. At that time he was the breadwinner and my income was for extras, so it wasn’t a big hit for us when I quit. I worked two part-time jobs (bookstore and framing shop, both hobbies!) for another 7 months. I’m now making about double (gross annual) what I made at the Real Job in 1995.
However, a few years later, there was a period when his job was going sour on him when he got a bit jealous that I was enjoying my work and he wasn’t. There were a few . . . conversations :dubious: about that. But we got through it. And a few days after he got downsized, we went to hang out with some friends, and they said he looked so happy and relaxed. He also said that one of the first things that went through his mind was that at least he wouldn’t have to fight with that damned SAP software anymore.
We’ve always shared household stuff; in fact, he’s been in charge of laundry since we first moved in together because he was pickier about it. And neither of us is all that fussy. We vacuum if company’s coming, that sort of thing. So no. It did kind of go in reverse, though, when he was un- or underemployed and I was the breadwinner, especially when that first came about. Suddenly my 1/3 of the household income had to cover everything. So while I ramped up the workload, he took over more and more of the cooking, cleaning, errands, etc., so that I could spend as much time as possible earning bucks. Even though he’s about 60% employed right now (and holding out for a full-time slot), he still takes care of most of it. I don’t remember the last time I did the dishes; he brings me breakfast to order every day. I say “Thank you, dear” a lot.
Rough calculation from my time clock program for 2008 to date: about 35 hours. That’s billable only; doesn’t include bookkeeping, office cleaning, trips to the UPS box, work I was too lazy to clock in for, computer maintenance, self-training, etc. It’s rare that I spend zero time on my job on any given day. I’d say my workload is on the heavy side; because a freelancer has to spend “work” time on nonbillables, you shouldn’t be putting in 40 hours billable. They say about half that. I guess I’m a workaholic on paper, but I do love my days off and wish I had more of them.
My office is a 10x12-foot room with five windows and a view of the driveway and yard. It used to be a junk room, but hubby added glass doors (one faces into the living room, so I can makes faces at him while he watches TV) and a custom desk setup to maximize my work space. I’m a bit on the anal side, so I have to have my own space, and a lot of my projects involve having lots of paper spread out. I also use my Levenger lap desk a lot for “couch work” – mindless typecoding and such that I can do while watching/listening to a movie. And my laptop gets a workout now and then.
Oh yeah, I hate bookwork. I’d use a bookkeeper, but then I’d have to be even more organized than I am so somebody else could figure it all out. So most quarters* I crunch the numbers and send them off to Bonnie, my tax preparer, and she tells me how much to send in.
*I say most because sometimes I’m too busy/lazy at the end of the quarter to crunch the numbers, so then I just take 26% or so, based on recent history, and send it in. I try not to do that too often, though, or I’m likely to get a nasty surprise the next time Bonnie does it. I normally chop 30% off the top of every check; the extra pays property tax in January and July and house insurance in November.
Nope, never. I was a crewleader for a while at the Real Job and I didn’t like it much, being responsible for other people’s work. I’d rather be accountable for myself. Very rarely, if I have the right type of work, I hire friends/family to come and help me out of a jam: alphabetizing, simple typemarking, nothing involving the substantive editing. But even that’s a pain because I have to set up a place for them to work, explain the job, have enough work ready for them to do, check to make sure they’re doing it right, maybe pace myself against what they’re doing . . . bah. And once when a client had a huge rush job, they suggested that I bring in subcontractors, and I found a few online colleagues to help out. But they made their own contracts with the client; we just coordinated on the actual work.
I know of one person who keeps a stable of freelancers, but still calls himself a freelancer. Nuh-uh. He’s running a business, and he has employees. He requires his “freelancers” to work exclusively for him. The IRS would take a pretty dim view of that.
Do you advertise, send out mailers, cold call to get clients?
How do your finances work… do you have a separate business account you pay yourself out of, or does everything you make just go into your personal account?
Do you try to maintain sort of normal business hours, or do you just kind of work when the mood strikes and take a break when you feel like it?
My husband is a senior medical writer and is considering going freelance in a couple of years, with a view to working 4 days a week and pursuing his (fiction) writing ambition on the 5th day.
Based on your experience, is it feasible that he would earn the same as a freelancer in 4 days compared to being an employee working 5 days?
How much of your work comes from networking versus general advertising of your services?
I’ve been thinking about giving freelance editing a shot, so thanks for the thread.
How do you work out things like health insurance (do you get that through your spouse, or?)and taxes? How do you manage to secure yourself blocks of uninterrupted time at home? Threats? Do you have to have a business license? And (the rude question), would you put your income in, oh, the bracket 1) under 20,000, A) 20-30,000, B) 30,000-40000, or C) Above 40,000? Do you have a “niche” that you specialize in? Do you keep up a website or anything like that?
Got my first client as a result of a mailing to about 40 targeted potential clients; sent out resumes and cover letters, followed up with phone calls. It was brutal; I’m not a “phone person,” so I allowed myself 3 calls a day. A few people sent tests, and one of those snagged me client #1. I still work for her.
After that, I joined a few professional organizations and got on their freelancer lists, and got some clients that way. Some by trolling for “freelancers needed” listings online.
For a long time now I’ve had 4-5 clients that keep me as busy as I want to be. I turn down work regularly. That’s not as scary as it sounds. Most projects are from regulars, and I’m usually first on their list, and they know I’m busy; if I’m not available, they just go to the next person and call me again for the next project. Sometimes they line me up ahead of time.
I do still market and look for new clients, because publishing is in a state of upheaval and it’s no good to be complacent. (Client #1 will be retiring in five years, and another good client was just sold to an Indian firm, which has usually been a kiss of death for U.S. copyeditors; the work is still coming from them, but I’m taking nothing for granted.) My marketing is pretty passive, though; just checking a few freelance job sites every day and sending resumes for anything that looks interesting. Most marketing is done by e-mail these days, unless the client specifically requests hard copy. Who has time to deal with paper?
Recently I’ve gotten a few new clients by word of mouth: editors I’ve worked with get jobs at new companies and take their freelancer lists with them, or colleagues ask colleagues if they can recommend anyone good. On the freelancing list I mentioned earlier, people sometimes post job ops for their clients, for projects they can’t take or that aren’t in their area of expertise. Another editor colleague recently recommended me to one of her clients for a job she couldn’t take, and lucky me, I got it; when I finished it, they offered me another one.
So most of my work is repeat business. I don’t advertise to the public or work directly with authors; for me it’s just too much trouble to do all the hand-holding and education that goes along with that. Working with publishers and related companies means (usually) that everybody is on the same page and there’s a logical process in place.
Also, because I work mostly on textbooks, each project is in the hundreds of mspp. and usually spans a month or two, if not longer. I’d hate to have to round up little jobs all the time. Right now I have seven projects going, in various stages of completion.
Because the company is me, myself, and I, and I don’t have to deal with inventory, I just use my personal checking account. I have two savings accounts: one is my “Uncle Sam” account, where I dump that 30% that gets lopped off every check, and the other is my cushion. Usually there’s only about a scant two months’ worth of living expenses in there. I know, bad, but that’s all I’m usually able to manage.
As long as you separate out business expenses on paper and report them on Schedule C, the IRS is fine with this system.
It’s pretty loose. I generally try to align my main work hours with my husband’s work schedule, and since he’s been working second shift the last few years, that what I’ve been doing. But there are also the daily deadlines to consider: for hard-copy batches, I have a local pickup deadline of noon for Fed Ex and 3 pm for UPS, so anything going out today has to be completed before then, or else it’s a 2-hour round trip to the late box.
So generally I work a few hours, take a short break, work a few hours, break, etc. You can’t really edit for hours in a row; breaks are A Good Thing.
Well, that’s kind of like asking, “How long is a piece of string?” He could do it if he works his ass off those 4 days. Remember that he’ll have to cover all that stuff that employers usually provide: equipment, the other half of SS tax, vacation, health insurance (unless you have it through your job), retirement, disability, unpaid time on work-related tasks, and all the other overhead and bennies.
I’m making more than I did at the Real Job 13 years ago, but I don’t get the nice bennies I got there. It’s a trade-off, though: bad stress for good stress.
I think I covered this above. I’ve been very lucky in that about the time I start thinking, “Hm, I’m going to be finishing some things in a week or to and will need to find something new,” the phone starts ringing with new projects.
If not, it’s time to drop a line to my regulars: “Hey, I’m going to be available starting on X date. Got anything in the pipe?” This usually produces something, because clients frequently have something that just came in that they haven’t gotten around to placing yet. When I set my hook, I get the fish.
My impression is that publishers generally don’t need to go hunting for freelancers; they’ve usually got a big slush pile of resumes to dig through if they need someone new.
Don’t know much about the medical writing field, but I do know one successful medical copyeditor who does a lot of work for ESL physicians overseas who would like to have their articles polished for publication in U.S. journals. She gets a lot of repeat business, referrals from Dr. X to Dr. Y, and effusive gratitude.
When hubby first got downsized, I trolled the Internet and found a high-deductible health plan ($5000) combined with an HSA. You can find my rants about that elsewhere on the board. It did what it was supposed to do, which was pay for the bare minimum with pre-tax dollars and cover anything major if needed (which we didn’t). But I got stressed out whenever anything unexpected came up, because we were never able to keep much in the HSA above expected expenses.
Then hubby got a job as a school custodian, and we were covered by the state teachers’ plan. Very nice, but also very expensive, and with his low salary and other things (which I’ve also ranted about, I think), he was eventually just working to pay for the insurance and bringing home $700/month for himself (working full-time).
So he quit that job last fall and took a class to be certified as a CNA. When he quit, we went to our local insurance agent and got on Blue Cross/Blue Shield (Anthem). I think it’s technically a PPO. Still paying a lot out of pocket, but have gotten off with a few copays. Hubby got a job at the state veterans’ home, and in July he’ll be eligible for another nice plan, but much more affordable this time: a $1500 plan that will cost us $68 a month. Beats the $430 we’re paying now (plus the out-of-pocket stuff all the time).
So it’s good to have a spouse with insurance through work, but if the spouse loses the job, you may be in for a bumpy ride. Some groups (Chamber of Commerce, professional orgs like EFA, etc.) have group plans; I checked those out back in 2001 and they were still too rich for us. Ya gotta shop around.
Taxes: pretty simple. Lop off a percentage (I use 30%) off every check and sock it away. Every quarter, calculate your estimate (I send mine to the tax preparer) and send off a chunk to federal and state.
Easy: no kids, hubby is a grown-up. No threats required. It’s usually pretty quiet around here. I hear horror stories from people whose family, friends, neighbors, etc. think that because they’re home they’re “not doing anything” and are free to run errands, watch kids, etc. But I’m out in the sticks and don’t really have neighbors, a lot of my friends are self-employed, and my mother is fine with my saying, “I’ve got a deadline today, can I call you back?” if she calls when I’m under the gun.
Not here. I do have a DBA, which I needed to have on file at the bank in order to deposit checks made out to my business name. And if my business name were Firstname Lastname Editorial Services, I wouldn’t even need that.
Other states and municipalities have different requirements, though.
Once I kicked it into full gear after hubby lost his job, I topped $40K by a fair margin every year.
Mostly college-level textbooks, which I pretty much just fell ass-backwards into because that’s what my first few clients did. I’ll tackle just about any subject except economics, because it puts my brain to sleep. I have a slight niche in sciences and math (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy; algebra through calculus), which gives me a chance to put those classes I took in college to use. (Not for working the problems, which is not my job, but for being familiar with the notation and terminology – but I have occasionally spotted errors in logic or setup of problems.) I also dabble in cookbooks, and I almost always have some sort of fiction in the pipe.
No, but I should. Not so much for advertising to the general public (see above), but for having a place to point current or prospective clients to for information, resume, contact info, etc. It just hasn’t been a priority.
I do have a domain name and hosting account, which I use for e-mail, and I just recently set up individual FTP directories for my clients, because they’ve been sending me more and more files that are too big for e-mail. If you go to www. mydomain .com, you’ll see a cute picture of my dogs and an e-mail link.
Do you find it hard to stop working sometimes? In other words, since you’re never really “home from the office”, so you find it difficult to stay at home and rent a movie and enjoy it when there’s work to be done?
Do you ever have a hard time motivating yourself to work?
Do you ever take typical vacations, like 2-3 weeks off at a time? How do you plan for them?
Do you try to maintain a professional, non-distracted work environment, or do you work with the TV on, feet up, in your pajamas?
Do you find it hard to maintain or establish a social life without the built-in social experiences work gives you?
I have serious procrastination issues, and I’m easily distracted. Like now, for instance. And yes, you’re right that even when I’m not on the clock, the work is sitting right here; I can see it from my living room, sitting here taunting me. My work is deadline oriented, and I spend so much energy and effort tracking hours and how many pages/hour I can do, that it’s hard to leave that behind. Unless I’m really, really caught up, even when I’m away from my desk I’m thinking about it: “OK, we’re out and about shopping for the day, but I’d like to be home by 6 so I can put in at least 3 hours and get that last chapter wrapped so I can start the next project fresh in the morning.” That sort of thing.
Procrastination and motivation go hand-in-hand. I can talk myself into avoiding just about anything, especially if it’s drudge work (say, a messy or boring ms., or one I haven’t quite gotten a handle on yet). My eyes are sore. This great movie’s on. We’re out of milk, so I need to run to town (and add on a bunch of unnecessary errands while I’m at it). I’ll do a better job if I’ve get some sleep under my belt.
That last one is often true. Late at night I might have half an hour’s worth of easy odds and ends to wrap up a job, but I just can’t face it and get the brain cells to tackle it. In the morning, 1-2-3 it’s done.
Never did that even when we both had Real Jobs. A week to 10 days is about our max; the dogs are homebodies, and it’s hard to afford much more. 2006 was a banner year: I spent a week in Texas in March with the folks, and then Mr. S and I took two weeklong trips to visit friends and family on the East Coast. Now with his new job, that sort of thing will be curtailed for a while. It’s OK, because we’re more likely to just do little fun day trips.
Planning as far as the workload is just a matter of committing to it, and letting clients know well in advance. Schedules are usually flexible. I try not to take work with me, but sometimes it can’t be helped.
Example: Next week I’m flying to Rochester, NY for four days to attend a workshop on customizing Word for editors. I signed up for it in February. Once I started getting work that was going to range across those days, I just told clients, “Hey, I’m going to be out of town for these days, so let me know how we need to tweak the schedule.” Not a big deal. I do check e-mail as much as possible while I’m away to catch any new messages from people who don’t know I’m gone, potential new clients, etc.
I can’t concentrate on serious editing with music, a ticking clock, or anything like that. Fortunately my computer has a loud fan, which creates sufficient white noise. Most of my work requires me to be sitting upright to reach all my papers, notes, etc. Once in a while when I’m doing something that’s keyboard-only, I might put the keyboard in my lap and stick my feet up on the desk, at least until my butt goes numb.
Occasionally there’s “couch work” – usually a big ms. that needs typecoding, which is marking things like “NL” (numbererd list), “CO” (chapter opener), “EXT” (block extract), etc. A typical ms. has several dozen codes, and once I’ve got them memorized (they’re frequently the same from job to job) it’s just mark, mark, mark. For that I’m usually on the couch with my lap desk and the TV on.
I just wear grubs for working in, and often the same ones a few days in a row, with changes of underthings. The dogs don’t care, and it saves on laundry. If I’m sick or really busy or lazy, I might stay in my robe all day.
Well, I wasn’t nuts about most of the yahoos I worked with, so I don’t really miss that. We seem to have reached a point in common with a lot of people our age, which is that it’s hard to get together with everyone’s overscheduled lives. People have kids, who have activities, everyone’s weekends get booked with stuff, etc. I wouldn’t say I socialize any more or less than I did when I had “a job.” But one ongoing minor conflict has been that when Mr. S gets home from work, he wants to stay home and enjoy the place, and I want to go somewhere! But we compromise as we do with most things and it’s not a big deal.
This is an awesome thread, again. It’s helping me wrap my brain around this possibility.
So you like the college textbook editing gigs? Do you get those directly through those companies themselves, like Pearson or MacMillan or whoever, or are there middlemen/ subcontractors?
(This is great–like one of those ‘informational interviews’ but without the implicit begging for a job!)
And, if it’s not a pain in the ass. . . I’ve been finding a lot of aggregators of writing gigs on teh webz (especially icky work, like for crap blogs, while I’m much more interested in something more academic), but not so much for editing. Do you have any suggestions? (if this seems like it’s getting too specific regarding editing, or generally less useful to the masses, rather than “ask a freelancer,” or if it borders on advertisement for someone, you can tell me to stuff it or respond in a PM). Thanks!
Yeah, I like the big books, nice and meaty. (Heh, that sounds dirty.) There’s a considerable amount of prep time setting things up, but once you’ve got that done and the job is “in your head,” you just crank away, a few chapters a week. I wouldn’t like all the starting and stopping of small mss. And of course it almost always interesting reading.
All of my textbook work is for “book packagers” or “editorial services,” which are the same thing. The publishers contract all the production work out to the packager, and then the packager hires and coordinates the design, copyediting, proofreading, photo research, illustration, typesetting, and whatever else is needed. A lot of my books are for Pearson/Prentice-Hall, Wiley, Benjamin Cummings, and Thomson/Delmar. They’re all busy buying each other up, so the names change. As long as the checks don’t bounce, I don’t care.
Some editors dislike working for packagers because the pay is lower and they feel that packagers are unreliable payers. I haven’t found that to be true. The page rates may be slightly lower (because they take their cut), but again, I’m fast, and I like the setup that they do. Also I almost never have to do “cleanup,” or following up after author review and incorporating any further changes, copyediting additions, making sure all queries were answered, etc. I’ve dealt directly with authors a few times, and while many of them were very nice, I prefer to omit that part and let someone else deal with it.
You need to go to the source and look for the clients, not the job listings (although those are a good resource too; as you’ve found, there are copyediting gigs among the writing gigs, but fewer of them, so you have to check that many more sources). Literary Market Place is one place to look (www.literarymarketplace.com, I think; they have online listings and a hard-copy version at the public library reference desk). Go to the Web sites of publishers that do the kinds of books you’d like to work on. Google every possible combo of keywords, such as “freelance copyeditors college textbooks.” Your search hits may suggest more keywords. Join a group like EFA, CWIP, or BAEF and access their job listings. Look for Web sites of freelance editors; many have helpful resource pages. And so on. It’ll be good practice for the important freelance editor’s skill of ferreting out information.
I would advise staying away from Craigslist; lots of small one-shot jobs, cheapskates, and goofballs there. A few legitimate possibilities, but mostly “I need 500 pages copyedited by tomorrow and I’ll pay you $100!!” No thanks.
capybara: Some other ideas that occurred to me this morning: university presses (though they’re notorious for low pay), academic journals, corporations, nonprofits. The cool thing about journals is that once you’re in, you’ve got a nice recurring gig.
Easy: no kids, hubby is a grown-up. No threats required. It’s usually pretty quiet around here. I hear horror stories from people whose family, friends, neighbors, etc. think that because they’re home they’re “not doing anything” and are free to run errands, watch kids, etc. But I’m out in the sticks and don’t really have neighbors, a lot of my friends are self-employed, and my mother is fine with my saying, “I’ve got a deadline today, can I call you back?” if she calls when I’m under the gun.
And yes, you’re right that even when I’m not on the clock, the work is sitting right here; I can see it from my living room, sitting here taunting me. My work is deadline oriented, and I spend so much energy and effort tracking hours and how many pages/hour I can do, that it’s hard to leave that behind. Unless I’m really, really caught up, even when I’m away from my desk I’m thinking about it: “OK, we’re out and about shopping for the day, but I’d like to be home by 6 so I can put in at least 3 hours and get that last chapter wrapped so I can start the next project fresh in the morning.” That sort of thing.