I proofread on an amateur basis. I’ve also contributed as such a number of times here, which seem to have been well received. I enjoy doing it, commenting on the style, suggesting rewording, catching typos, catching inconsistencies, etc.
But what’s it like to do it professionally? If I were to look to proofreading as a second source of income, how would I go about it?
I have limited experience in this, but here’s my advice:
Ask yourself if you would really want to do it for hours on end. I don’t know what your amateur proofreading experience consists of, but there’s a big difference between proofing interesting material for an hour every few days and proofing whatever a company throws at you for eight hours a day, five days a week. It’s very intense work, and very much focused on output speed and quality.
Determine what it is about “proofreading” that really appeals to you. Parts of the process you’re describing really belong more to various levels of editing than to proofreading per se. Commenting on the style is editing, not proofreading.
I’m a good editor, and a good proofreader down to a certain level–but I’m nearly blind when it comes to formatting issues. I can pick out a misspelled word on a page in an instant, but I can read through pages of text without noticing whether the apostrophes are curly or straight, or whether the leading is inconsistent from page to page, or whether there are “rivers” of whitespace, widows, orphans, line breaks in the middle of a phrase, or a multitude of other formatting problems that a real proofreader would be expected to catch.
Here’s a page I found with definitions of various levels of editing and proofreading:
http://www.editthiskristen.com/definitions.shtml
Do you care what kind of material you’re proofreading? Many of the jobs out there involve proofreading painfully dry, boring, tedious crap–a friend of mine had a job proofreading fine-print credit card disclosures, for example. Another friend has a job proofreading press releases–“Xanzoovium is pleased to announce their latest quarterly earnings! Gum Babies Inc. releases new, improved line of widgets!”–as fast as possible before they go out on the wire.
Are you OK with the relatively low pay? I see from your profile that you’re an IT professional. I’m guessing that as a proofreader, you would probably end up making something like one quarter to one half of your normal hourly rate in any computer-related field.
I’ve found my jobs in editing and proofreading more or less the same way you find any other job: looking at listings and sending in my resume. Where are you located? Are you able to work on site or are you only interested in companies that will send you work remotely?
Thanks - this would be a second, supplementary, income, not a primary income. I guess what I currently do is a mixture of substantive editing and copy editing per that website. As for the type of material, I’m used to proofing - editing as you’d call it - fiction, but part of asking the question is to find out about other fields.
First, let’s distinguish between copyediting and proofreading. By most definitions:
Copyediting = working on the raw manuscript, ensuring consistent and correct spelling, grammar, syntax, and style, while maintaining the author’s voice. Checking numbered and alphabetized material for correct order. Checking chapter heads against the table of contents. Ensuring that the text, including footnotes, bibliographies, and other elements, conform to the specified style (whether Chicago, APA, a house style, or some combination) and/or dictionary. Often simple fact checking (spelling of proper names, dates) and verifying URLs. And a bunch of other mechanical editorial tasks, depending on level of edit. It is the final mechanical edit before the manuscript goes to the typesetter.
Proofreading = comparing that copyedited manuscript against the page proofs that were set from it. (Very rarely, if ever, does a person proofread copy that he or she copyedited. This is a fresh set of eyes.) You are checking to make sure that the text was set as marked. These are the pages that will go into print! You are also the copyeditor’s second set of eyes, picking up any editorial errors that he or she may have missed – but at this point most clients do not want you to be making massive editorial alterations (EAs), but rather query any major inconsistencies. The other half of the task is checking that the material was set according to the design specs: correct fonts, colors, spacing, tints, rules, placement of art, margins, page depth, headers/footers in place. Get out your pica measure. You’re probably going to verify that words are hyphenated correctly, that there are no stacks (same words at the beginning/end of successive lines), rivers (of vertical white space between words), loose/tight wordspacing, or bad kerning. Are all chapters supposed to start on a recto? Are all the dingbats where they belong? Are all the H1s set as H1s, the H2s as H2s, and so on? In tables, do columns of figures align correctly? Do numbered lists clear for 10 (allow extra space before 1-9, so the periods align with 10 and up)?
It ain’t always glamorous. Right now one of my ongoing projects is proofreading a physics textbook. That includes verifying that the Greek letters are italic or roman as appropriate, math is set properly, equation numbers and tints are in place (they’re easy to miss), and proofreading some rather complex art that was set from the author’s very messy drawings, following some 16 pages of art specs as a guide. (Is this a velocity vector or an acceleration vector? The colors are different.) Is the italic v for velocity the pointed or rounded style? Which type of epsilon are we using? Are fractions builtup or inline? Are multiple exponents aligned, or is the second one a little higher? Is there a hair space or no space between a trig function and its argument?
Mind you, I enjoy proofreading, but it can get quite complex. I’m not just toodling along picking out typos. And the language needs to stay the way it is unless there’s an egregious error – that’s not my job.
Even when copyediting, you seldom get free rein, especially in fiction. Right now I’m copyediting a novel by a best-selling author (no, I’m not telling who). She has enough cachet with the publisher that I’m instructed to leave her informal style alone unless it’s out-and-out incorrect or the meaning is unclear. Tough waters to navigate. I don’t get to slash and burn like I’m her English teacher. And for a book-length project, you need to keep your approach consistent from beginning to end, through hundreds of pages. That can be tricky, especially when (as is happening more and more) the project comes to you in batches and when you’re working on Chapter 9 you find something that was done differently in Chapter 2, and you’d rather do it this way, too bad because you sent Chapter 2 back three weeks ago and you’ll never see it again.
And yeah, it’s not all sexy reading. I just finished a book in the financial field that was an absolute snore. But the money was good. I do a fair amount of math and science, which some editors won’t touch.
As for finding work, good luck (and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically). It’s a tight market right now, and as more companies downsize and dump their employees into the freelance pool, it’s gonna get tighter. But there’s lots of work for the right people. I started out with no publishing experience and went right into freelancing, which I’m told is pretty rare. I started with Literary Market Place (available online or at your public library reference desk) and peppered my targeted potential clients with resumes. That first mailing of 40 resumes (followed up by phone calls) netted me a couple of tests and one client (after about six months). I’m told that’s an amazingly good response. Guess I got lucky. You’re going to want to research the market, acquire the appropriate reference books, and polish your skills – which need to be more than catching typos, but being able to do all the things I named above and more, and darn near error-free. That’s what clients will be looking for.
Googling “freelance copyediting” and “freelance proofreading” should also turn up more resources than you can shake a stick at. Mind, as newbies ask time and again, there are no “web sites where I can sign up for freelance jobs.” It’s just like regular job hunting: you have to sniff out who is using the services you’re offering, and then sell yourself and get them to hire you. Plan on taking their in-house tests, especially if you have no professional experience.
Also, everything that tiltypig said, with one exception: I often find myself making pretty decent money when I’m working for project rates (by the project or page, rather than hourly). At least for getting to work in my jammies.
My company has a proofreading department that looks over all our publications and external communications. They’ve saved my skin on numberous occassions.
They look to see that all the numbers match the back up, that everything is grammatically correct (with some exceptions for “marketing copy”), and that the style matches our company’s style guide (e.g. things like whether to use the serial comma or not). They also make some more editorial comments (for example, pointing out that a sentence is awkward and suggesting a revision), but they always note those as suggestions and not mandatory changes. A lot of what they do depends on the manager sending through the work. Some don’t want any editorial type comments. Others (like me) welcome any suggestions (saves our poor readers from my dreadful syntax).
We do hire temps on a regular basis because their workload has predictable peaks (at year end, for example). A lot of our full time proofreaders started out as temps and discovered they enjoyed it and had a knack at it. I think we get most of our temps from an agency. If you’re interested, you may want to try it on a temp or freelance basis at first.
A lot of the work probably depends on the company. I work for a financial services firm, so a lot of what our proofreaders get involves pages and pages of numbers that need proofing. Other industries probably wouldn’t have that.
It’s never not a tight market. I’ve been doing this off and on for 15 years, and during that time, two things have remained true:
I’m thinking that the publishing industry still pretty much depends on an old-school, paper-and-ink, one-to-many gatekeeper approach to remain relevant, that there is no new business model on the horizon except for “do more with less”, and no plans to make one. It might be different today if the dot.com boom had amounted to anything more than a bust, but for the foreseeable future, no one is going to make a viable online business out of anything that could just as well be printed on paper and moved around as tangible “product.”
I made a living as a freelance proofreader for 10 years. I now work full-time as a writer and editor at a newspaper and do some sideline proofreading for a book publisher.
Scarlett67 is right on the money about the differences between editing and proofreading. Also about the picky stuff proofreaders need to look for on the printed page. I would also add that every publisher has a different “house style” and conventions, and those must also be respected. For instance, is house style “Web site,” “Website,” or “website”? Are certain words or phrases verboten in the publisher’s style guide? Proofreaders rely on a style guide, plus a publication’s conventions, which can contradict the house style on some points.
Proofreading can be tedious and dull, and the pay isn’t great for the time and energy you put into it. The work can be sporadic (6 projects one month, none the next), and turnaround times can become a pain in the frame. And the work is drying up, unfortunately – publishers think that sending a manuscript through spell check is sufficient to catch errors these days.
Despite that, I like proofreading. Just not for a living.
That’s interesting that the demand for proofreaders has dropped in the publishing industry. Have any of you seen demand pick up in other industries?
As mentioned, I work in financial services and my company regularly brings in temps and freelancers for peak times. Since Sarbanes Oxley, we’ve actually increased both our full time proofreading headcount and the number of temps. Things that in the past would be reviewed by one proofreader now require at least two, and one must be a full time employee and not a temp. Some very long (or very data intensive) pieces require more.
Our proofreaders do look at different sorts of things. They are responsible not just for grammatical and style proofing. They also look at performance numbers in things like prospectuses. There can be pages of numbers and one misplaced decimal point can get us in a world of trouble.
Do financial proofreaders have to check all calculations that appear in a document – ie, is basic accounting knowledge needed?
In my company, no. They get backup for all numbers and only check that the numbers in the document match that backup. Sometimes they’ll double check a simple calculation (like an average), but that’s as a courtesy. We don’t hold them responsible if the calcution is still wrong and they don’t catch it.
All numbers come from the performance or accounting group. They have their own data verification teams, but they wouldn’t be considered proofreaders.
After reading the OP I was planning on posting about the difference between copy editing and proof reading, but I see it’s already been done. A lot of good info had been posted in this thread. I’m gonna take a different tack.
The most important thing is enjoying the (seeming) minutae (sp?) that your world will become. Use of em-dashes and en-dashes won’t be minor issues to you, but they will to everyone else. You mention that you like that stuff. Good.
Some of the advantages of the editor/proofreader path: It’s a quiet job, with not too much interaction with other people. You do talk with others, but doing your job is a solitary thing. You can really have an effect on how a company presents itself to the outside world. Remember that when you decide not to purchase some “stationary” mentioned in a advert. Copy editors generally have a lot of freedom to make things “right” as you see them. I was always persnickety about em-dashes and proper capitalization; things the average reader doesn’t notice. But I felt better knowing we were doing these things right.
Disadvantages: Generally, the pay is low. When I got out of college in 1989, jobs I applied for had well over 100 responses. This was in Washington DC, which has a big publishing base. Your location will largely drive the amount of jobs available.
Another big minus is that most people don’t really appreciate what you do. Often, there is someone who has had their butt saved at the last minute who realizes the import of the job. Most people, in my opinion, look at editors as a needless step between writing and printing. They often don’t understand how an error could be missed (especially when you caught 85 million other errors on that page).
IMO finding the right environment is paramount to your enjoying that job. Publishing companies obviously prize editing skills.
As for getting a job, you already have experience. You just need to dress it up a bit for your resume. Presumably, this wouldn’t get you a job at a major newspaper, but you have experience editing which is more than the people who want to hire an editor.
Also, buy the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP style book. Get a Merriam Webster dictionary. And a thesaurus.
As a final test, if you enjoy looking through the Chicago Manual for fun, then you really know you are meant for this job.