Writers and Editors

• Organizations for editors and publishing professionals
• Associations of translators and interpreters
• Resources and tips for editors and publishing professionals
• Blogs by and for editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders
• Where to find work
• What editors and copyeditors do
• How much to charge
• Why editing matters
• What book doctors and consulting editors do
• Interviews with (and profiles of) agents and editors
• Macros for editors and proofreaders
• Proofreading tips and tools
• Indexing: why and how
• Courses on book publishing, editing, and proofreading
• Books for editors
• Books on design
• Books on indexing
• Interesting examples of heavy editing in literature

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Editing is not just finding and correcting spelling and grammatical errors. In looking to hire an editor, be sure to figure out which purpose you are hiring them for. Different types and levels of editing call for editors who charge different rates, or require different amounts of time and levels and kinds of expertise (and eye, or ear). For an excellent essay on what magazine and literary editors do (acquiring pieces for publication), and why, read "No" by Brian Doyle (Kenyon Review, Spring 2008).

Chapter 1 of the Editorial Freelancers Association's online Code of Fair Practice describes the various types of writing and editorial services (abstracting, copyediting or line editing, copyfitting and page makeup, desktop publishing, developmental editing, evaluating a manuscript, illustrating, indexing, project management, proofreading, researching, rewriting, substantive editing, technical writing, translating, typemarking, writing).

What an editor charges depends very much on what the local market will bear, but a proofreader will generally charge less than a copyeditor, who will typically charge less than a substantive editor, who will generally charge less than a writer. Book publishers tend to pay on the low side. Technical and marketing copy command higher rates than other copy, for different reasons (the technical writer must be able to make the meaning clear without changing it; the editor of marketing copy must aim for the best "selling" copy, which requires a different kind of flair). Experience and expertise count for a lot, so an editor with a law degree, for example, can expect to be paid more for more editing legal documents. Good judgment, common sense, and a deep and wide enough knowledge either to spot errors or to know when to check things out are important skills in an editor. Tact in editing will help you keep clients returning with more work.

• American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA)
• American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors (AASFE)
• American Cinema Editors (ACE)
• American Copy Editors Society (ACES) (for journalists -- members can get job listings)
• American Medical Writers Association. AMWA has an excellent private Editing-Writing email list, particularly helpful for medical writer-editors; member directory and member access to job bank
• American Society for Indexing (formerly American Society of Indexers, ASI--advancing indexing, abstracting, and database building)
• American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE), which has local chapters
• American Society of Healthcare Publications Editors (ASHPE)
• American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), with its important National Magazine Awards
• American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which publishes The American Editor
• Archivists. National Archival Organizations in the United States, a directory on the website of The Society of American Archivists, which links to societies of medical archivists, religious archivists, regional history archivists, business archivists, and state organizations of archivists. See So You Want to Be an Archivist: An Overview of the Archives Profession.
• Associated Press Media Editors (APME, for editors of consumer magazines and business publications sold in U.S.)
• Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE)
• Association for Church Editors (ACE)

• Association for Documentary Editing (ADE)
• Association of Alternative News Media (AAN)
• Association of Art Editors (AAE)
• Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors (Capitol Beat, for reporters covering state and local governments)
• Association of Earth Science Editors (AESE). Member directory and job bank (members only)
• Association of Freelance Editors Proofreaders and Indexers (AFEPI) (Ireland)
• Association of Personal Historians (APH). Not an editors association per se, but personal historians do custom publishing for private clients and need editors, proofreaders, transcribers, indexers, and designers. Personal historians interview people to get their life story; those interviews need to be transcribed and shaped into narratives, as memoirs, tributes, ethical wills, etc. (Formats: print, audio, and video.)
• Bay Area Editors' Forum (BAEF) (searchable public member directory and EXCELLENT resources for editors on the website)
• Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS), founded in 1991 to evaluate the proficiency of manuscript editors in the life sciences and to award credentials similar to those obtainable in other professions. See how to become a board-certified editor (the ones that add ELS after their names). Members-only job listings, email list; publicly accessible directory of freelance BELS editors
• Bookbuilders of Boston(publishing professionals involved in book publishing and manufacturing throughout New England, with public searchable directory)
• Cambridge Academic Editors Network (CAEN) (searchable public member directory)
• Copyediting (formerly Copy Editing, excellent publication and webinars) and Copyediting job board (formerly Copy Editor, excellent newsletter, free job board for which you can set up profile to get alerts when gigs are available)
• Copyediting-L Community (a free listserv-based discussion list for CE-l subscribers only, to prevent spammers, but readable by the public). "Stalking Danglers Around the World" (with a freelancers directory, and frequent exchanges of macros that make copyediting easier, etc.)
• Council of Science Editors (CSE) (formerly Council of Biology Editors), job board lists freelance and in-house jobs with medical and science journals, publishers, and pharmaceutical companies
• Editcetera (a self-governing association of freelance publishing professionals in San Francisco area)
• Editing and proofreading societies around the world (Louise Harnby's excellent annotated list)
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), for editors, writers, indexers, proofreaders, researchers, desktop publishers, translators, etc. New York City-oriented. Clients can find you through free online freelancer directory and freejob listing service. You can post questions on the private email list.

• Editors' Association of Canada (EAC) , which has six regional branches
• Electric Editors (Internet community for editors, proofreaders, indexers, translators and publishers, with excellent links to resources, such as Resources for translating and interpreting
• European Association of Science Editors (EASE), which has excellent links to further resources likely to be useful to editors
• Fraternity Communications Association (formerly the College Fraternity Editors Association)
• Freelance (discussion list for publishing industry freelancers, moderated by Chuck Brandstater, available as e-mail only or as archives
• FreelanceWritersEditors (forum for published professional freelance editors, mostly, and writers, moderated by Ruth Thaler-Carter, a breakoff group from Freelance)
• Help Authoring Tools and Techniques listserv (HATT) (a Yahoo group, with frequent Yahoo ads)
• InDesign Talk (discussion listserv about the Adobe page layout product)
• Indexers' humor (site hosted by Leverage Technologies, which sells Cindex indexing software)
• Indexing Society of Canada (Sociιtι canadienne d'indexation). Resources include links to indexing discussion groups.
• Institution of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) (Australia)
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) (for professionals in corporate communications, marketing, and public relations)
• International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), training and networking for editorial office staff in academic, scientific, medical, technical and professional publishing
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE serves those doing investigative journalism)
• Mediterranean Editors & Trnaslators (English-language editors & translators for the Mediterranean area)
• MPA, The Association of Magazine Media (formerly Magazine Publishers of America)
• The National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) (not a nonprofit organization, so far as I can tell)
• National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS)

• Northwest Independent Editors Guild (NIEG). Here's an interesting 10-year history (by co-founder Sherri Schultz, in 2007)
• Professional Editors' Group (PEG), professional copy-editors, proofreaders, and other practitioners in South Africa
• Professional Editors Network (PEN) (editors, writers, proofreaders, indexers, book layout specialists, and allied professionals in Twin Cities area)
• ReligionWriters (free tools and tips for writing about religion with balance, accuracy and insight, a free resource of the Religion Newswriters Association, or RNA)
• San Diego Professional Editors Network (SD/​​PEN)
• Scholarly Editing Forum (SEDIT-L), discussion list for documentary editors (including members of Association for Documentary Editing). Click on "join or leave this list," to join.
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders (sfep), UK, which publishes SfEP suggested minimum freelance rates and an interesting Code of Practice
• Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) (for publishers, printers, e-products developers, technical service providers, librarians, and editors in scholarly publishing)
• Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature (SPELL, with members from many professions and walks of life)
• Society for Technical Communication (STC), which has a Technical Editing SIG (special interest group). For editors involved in producing instructional manuals, online help, multimedia, training resources, and other forms of technical communication.
• Society of American Archivists (SAA), whose many resources include Richard Pearce-Moses's Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology and Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research (by Laura Schmidt)
• Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc., Australia
• Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors (SENSE), Netherlands
• Society of Indexers ( (British and Irish)
• Society of Writers, Editors & Translators (SWET, Tokyo-based society of writers, editors, and other English-language publishing professionals in Japan). Publishers of Japan Style Sheet: The SWET Guide for Writers, Editors, and Translators, most useful perhaps for translators
• TECHWR-L (Internet-based group for technical communicators)
• Testy Copy Editors (Phillip Blanchard's discussion group for newspaper copy editors)
• Textbook Publishing Professionals (LinkedIn group)
• 26 (UK writers, editors, language specialists, designers and anyone with a love of language)
• Western New England Editorial Freelancers' Network
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Macros for editors and proofreaders

Macros are simple programs that allow you, with one or two keystrokes, to automate tedious search-and-replace tasks and other mind-numbing copyediting chores. They let the computer do the boring tasks while you focus on the content. Free trials are available for most of these tools.
• Editor's Toolkit Plus--The Editorium (tips, macros, add-ins, and utilities for editors editing online using Microsoft Word). Check out Jack Lyons' Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word.
• EditTools (www.wordsnsync.com)
• FileCleaner for Microsoft Word cleans up common problems in electronic manuscripts, including multiple spaces, multiple returns, unnecessary tabs, improperly typed ellipses, ells used as ones, and so on. It turns double hyphens into em dashes, and hyphens between numerals into en dashes. It can also remove directly applied font formatting (such as Times 12 point) while retaining styles (such as Heading 1) and character formatting (such as italic and bold), quickly cleaning up those messy documents imported from other word processors or OCR programs.
• PerfectIt (www.intelligentediting.com) (proofreading software for professionals). read about features and compare standard and pro editions
• Reference Checker checks numerical (Vancouver) and name+date-style (Harvard and APA) references in Word files. Finds all name-date or numbered citations in a document and checks them against the references. When finished, it displays a list of matches and mismatches.

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**Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (superb links from KOK Edit: Katharine O'Moore-Klopf), on several themes, including The Basics, Business Tools, and Editing Tools.

Interviews with, and profiles of, agents and editors
• Lives and Letters, an interview with Robert Gottlieb. This Salon.com interview with the legendary editor is ostensibly about writing but gives helpful insights into the editing process (and the writer-editor relationship) inside a good publishing house.
• The Cranky Wisdom of Peter Kaplan (Nathan Heller, The New Republic, 9-14-12). New York’s last romantic gets his own magazine. The former editor of the New York Observer is now editorial director of Fairchild Fashion Media.
• A former Indy editor on fighting the good fight (Bob Moser, Indy Week, 9-26-12) See also Why I started the Independent and why I am selling it (Steve Schewel, Indy Week, 9-26-12)
• Editors interviews (The Editor's POV). A series of interviews with developmental editors (Jennifer Hager, Amy Smith Bell, Karalynn Ott, Diane Mettler, Marta Tanrikulu, Beth Stokes, Nancy Wick, Julie Van Pelt).

Poets & Writers interviews with Agents and Editors
• Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Agent Lynn Nesbit by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Jan/​Feb 2008). With more than forty years of experience in the business, agent Lynn Nesbit discusses how she signed some of her biggest clients, how a writer can get an agent’s attention, and what’s wrong with the publishing industry.
• Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Agent Molly Friedrich by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Sept-/​Oct 2008)
• Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Editor Jonathan Karp by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Nov/​Dec 2009)
• A Q&A With Jonathan Galassi by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (July/​Aug 2009)
• Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Agent Georges Borchardt
• A Q&A With Four Young Editors by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (interviewing Richard Nash, Lee Boudreaux, Alexis Gargagliano, and Eric Chinski, March/​April 2009)
• A Q&A With Editor Chuck Adams by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (Nov/​Dec 2008)
• A Q&A With Editor Janet Silver by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (July/​Aug 2008)
• A Q&A With Editor Pat Strachan by Jofie Ferrari-Adler (March/​April 2008)

About Editing (Richard Nordquist, About.com)
• Harold Ross on Editing. "Editing is the same as quarreling with writers--same thing exactly"
• Lillian Ross on Helpful Editors. "Avoid the following kind of editor: one who does not like writers"
• The Editor of the Breakfast Table, by Charles J. Shields “The worst thing you can have a reader say is, ‘So what?’”
• An Editor's Five Rules of Thumb Gardner Botsford on Writing and Editing

Bob Miller: The Coming Editorial Crisis. HarperCollins chief Bob Miller tells Media Bistro about economic variables shaping publishing industry and prospects of "more work for fewer people" ahead, with YouTube video of his comments.

Book design. Dick Margulis's helpful series on designing book interiors.

Book Editing Associates FAQ . This is a great model for a FAQ page for editors and an interesting system of marketing a group's members' services.

The Business of Editing: Schedules and Client Expectations (An American Editor, 4-30-12)

• Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers: A Guide for New Starters (eBook, Louise Harnby, for UK market but relevant in U.S., too -- for freelancers, self-publishers, and editorial business owners). Here's Copyediting's review .

Metadata, about:
• Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers (PDF, Amy Brand, Frank Daly, Barbara Meyers, Niso Press)
• Publishers Take Seat at Metadata Table with Giant Chair (Jennifer Zaino, Semantic Web, 3-1-10).
• Metadata is the new most important thing to know about (Mike Shatzkin, IdeaLogical, 6-8-10)

MLA citation style for academic citations: Print no longer default citation style and URLs no longer necessary for Web citations, with 7th edition (Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, 4-12-09)

My Life with All Those Damn Editors (Tom Shales, guest-posting on Jack Limpert's blog About Writing and Editing, 4-23-13). See also All That Information; All That B.S.

Blogs and websites by and for editors and copy editors
• About Editing and Writing (Jack Limpert, who for 40 years edited Washingtonian magazine)
• An Eye for Editing (Camille DeSalme's copyediting blog--see this entry showing how editing in track changes, with comments works)
• Apostrophe Abuse
• BBC The Editors
• the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks
• Blogslot (Bill Walsh's blog, for The Slot)
• Copyediting (a sophisticated publication for professional copy editors)
• The Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (KOK Edit, Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's website, is an invaluable resource for copyeditors). See also her blog, EditorMom , on editing, medical editing, and the business of freelancing.
• The Editor's POV (a forum for freelance editors of fiction and creative nonfiction)
• Evil Editor (why you don't get published -- see his before-and-after examples)
• Marcus Trower Editorial (copy editing for fiction authors, especially crime fiction). He has an interesting series on Be Your Own Copy Editor (self-editing advice from the front line of fiction editing)
• Proofreaders' Parlour (British proofreader Louise Harnby's blog; she has her own good blogroll)
• The Subversive Copy Editor (advice for copy editors from Carol Fisher Saller, senior manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A, and author of The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself)
• This Crazy Industry (blog about the glamorous publishing industry: books, editing, writing, style, language, long hours, poor salaries (or no salaries), grant money, authors, and very few cocktail parties). See especially these entries: Becoming an Editor (3-26-05) and What We Do (6-28-11)
• WordPlay (helping writers become authors)
• You Don't Say (John E. McIntyre's blog language, usage, journalism and arbitrarily chosen subjects)

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Resources and tips for editors and publishing professionals

About Editing (Richard Nordquist, About.com)

• Harold Ross on Editing. "Editing is the same as quarreling with writers--same thing exactly"
• Lillian Ross on Helpful Editors. "Avoid the following kind of editor: one who does not like writers"
• The Editor of the Breakfast Table, by Charles J. Shields “The worst thing you can have a reader say is, ‘So what?’”
• An Editor's Five Rules of Thumb Gardner Botsford on Writing and Editing

Admitting mistakes to authors. Should you?
• Say you're sorry (John E. McIntyre, You Don't Say blog, April 2010). Skip the "If I offended anyone" bit.
• Pretty Apologies: For When You're Really Wrong (Carol Fisher Saller, The Subversive Copyeditor, 4-20-11).

Andrew Wylie: The superagent on upholding great literature in an e-reading world (Daniel Gross's edited interview with Wylie about the state of publishing, the need to get world rights right, and book publishers' early (wrongful) attempt to insist they already owned digital rights to backlist titles and wouldn't buy new titles without those rights.

An Editor (Who Helped 'The Help') and an Agent Talk About Revision. Listen to Alexandra Shelley (editor of Kathryn Stockett's "The Help") and literary agent Eleanor Jackson discussing revision, publishing, and how to know when a book is 'finished' (on She Writes Radio).

Bechtel, "The Editor's Desk " (old posts from Andy Bechtel's old blog columns, before it was moved to this new location. You'll find interesting entries in both archives.

Becoming an Editor (Jennie, 3-16-05), from the blog This Crazy Industry, a weblog about the glamorous publishing industry: books, editing, writing, style, language, long hours, poor salaries (or no salaries), grant money, authors, and very few cocktail parties. Really solid advice about the skills and training you need to be an editor.

'Be Wrong as Fast as You Can' (Hugo Lindgren, editor of NY Times Magazine, in the magazine, 1-4-13). Fascinating essay on how, in figuring out he was great on idea-making but not on follow-through, Lindgren came to accept as natural his role as an editor instead of as the writer-creator he dreamed of being.) Here's the wonderful Charlie Rose interview with John Lasseter (12-2-11, Lasseter being director and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studies), in which Lasseter attributes the "Be Wrong" quotation to Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, Wall-E, Finding Nemo).

Benchmarks for Estimating Editing Speed by David W. McClintock (originally published in Corrigo: Newsletter of the STC's Technical Editing SIG (June 2002), pp. 1, 3.

CONSORT statement. Guidelines in the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement are used worldwide to improve the transparent reporting of randomized, controlled trials.

Copyediting (formerly Copy Editor) Magazine. Request a sample issue. Copyediting Tip of the Week

Copyediting Online Training, taught in learning modules, for $50 each.

Dear Writer: Reasons to Love and Fear Your Copyeditor (Sally Fisher Saller, the Subversive Copy Editor, in Prime Number)

Defining an Editing Project (Erin Brenner, Copyediting Tip of the Week, 3-7-12). Companion piece to Setting Editing Expectations (Brenner, 4-3-12)

Dependency Calculator (Evaluating the complexity of a project--including such factors as how well I can depend on your getting back to me quickly with answers)

Digital Imaging Guidelines (guidelines prepared by the UPDIG Coalition, to establish photographic standards and practices for photographers, designers, printers, and image distributors). The guidelines cover Digital Asset Management, Color Profiling, Metadata, and Photography Workflow.

Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle (Elmore Leonard, NY Times, 7-16-01)

Edifying Editing by R. Preston McAfee (PDF file). Among the qualities of a good editor of a refereed journal, writes McAfee, co-editor of the American Economic Review:
• Having a vision on which to base decisions about what is published
• "Obsessive organization, processing work unrelentingly until it is done" -- a "clear the inbox" mentality.
• Having no personal agenda (no bias)
• Having thick skin (as authors will complain about your decisions)
• Being a super referee (respond quickly with thoughtful reports)-- a good quality in someone wanting to become top editor.
He also writes about common reasons papers are rejected.

Editing a Website: Extending the Levels of Edit (Steve Anderson, Chuck Campbell, Nancy Hindle, Jonathan Price, and Randall Scasny). This article describes lessons learned by an editing class at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology when they attempted to edit a website created by others. Far from being the simple text-editing project the students expected, their venture turned into a major overhaul of the site, dealing with screen design, coding, interface issues, and interactivity. The Levels of Edit concept, familiar to most editors, provided a framework to help the class organize the work.

Editing Checklists
***Editing checklist (Kathy Frost's invaluable 24-page compilation of points from other editing checklists--especially good for nonfiction)
• Editing Primer: Editing Your Own Work (Lillie Amman, PDF)
• Typographic Checklist (designer Greg Devitt)
• Barbara Dawson Smith's Self-Editing Checklist
• Jeffrey Chapman's Self-Editing checklist
• Lori Handeland's fiction self-editing checklist
• Editing Fiction by Lee Masterson and Tina Morgan (Fiction Factor)

Editorial skills, defined (EAC). Definitions covered: Developmental/​project editing; substantive or structural editing; stylistic editing; rewriting; copy editing; picture research; fact checking/​reference checking; indexing; mark-up/​coding (designer-written specs for typesetter or word processor); mock-up (rough paste-up); production editing. (The Editors' Association of Canada/​Association canadienne des rιviseurs)

Editorium, and Edit-Tools. See Macros for editors.

The Editor's Desk (posts from Andy Bechtel's old blog columns, before The Editor's Desk was moved to its new location (in 2008). You'll find interesting entries in both archives.

The Editor's Interest: Copyright or Not (An American Editor, 3-1-11, on claiming copyright for an edit, relinquished only on full payment for services rendered) "A question that sometimes arises, usually when an editor has difficulty getting paid for his or her work, is: What can the editor do to collect payment? I’ve been a long-time advocate of the position that the editor has a copyright interest in the edited version of the manuscript, a card that the editor should play in payment disputes."

Editors Only: The Newsletter of Editorial Achievement (discussing the changing nature of content delivery), sister pub to STRAT: The Newsletter of Print and Online Magazine Publishing Strategy

Edits -- it's just you and me, and we both disagree... (Behler's blog, an entry on how to make author-editor disagreements constructive)

Editors' role model: Robert Loomis, on his retirement from Random House (read these for great tales from publishing, for a glimpse at pre-corporate publishing, and for hints on editing well):
• Nurturer of Authors Is Closing the Book (Julie Bosman, NY Times, 5-8-11). Profile of Random House editor Robert Loomis (retiring after 54 years). One of the last of the gentlemen editors with power.
• Great Book Editors Are Not an Endangered Species (Peter Osnos, The Atlantic, 5-24-11)
• Bob Loomis Talks Cerf And Turf Ahead Of His Retirement (Dan Duray, New York Observer, 5-31-11)
• Robert Loomis, editor of Styron, Angelou, retires (Hillel Italie, AP, on ABC, 5-6-11)

EditTeach.org (resources for copy editing students and teachers)

Effective Editing (PDF, transcript of a training exercise for the Fish & Wildlife Service). Instructor Michelle Baker (Corporate Writing Pro) makes excellent points:
• In a substantive edit "you are looking at the strength of the argument, the organization of the document, and the correctness and completeness of the data." A copy edit is the real, detailed-oriented examination of tone, style, and grammar: "you look at the mechanics, the punctuation, and the wording." Make clear (to yourself and the author) which you are doing.
• "When you’re sitting alone in your office with the manuscript, your spotlight should be on the reader."
• To make meetings with the writer productive, "separate praise from criticism" and start with the praise. Structure your praise to the writer as "You" comments so the praise clearly goes to the writer: "You did a great job tackling a really complicated issue."
• Criticism goes to the document: “Section three gave me some trouble. I was confused when I read section three.” “Paragraph five didn’t seem to flow.”
• "If you’ve reviewed a document and you found 25 mistakes, go back through those 25 and try to group them into categories. None of us can process 25 errors."
• Carol Fisher Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor has three cardinal rules for editing: "be careful, be transparent, and be flexible."

18 strategies for brainstorming a title, an excellent guide to developing great titles, from Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton, posted on Scrib'd

Electronic Editing: With Your Computer, Not Just On It (Hilary Powers, as reported by Dawn Adams, BAEF, 3-16-04)

Excellent forum discussions (these summaries are excellent articles on various aspects of editing, Bay Area Editors Forum, or BAEF)

Evaluating a Manuscript (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 8-29-12)

Fact-checking sites:
• FactCheck.org (Annenberg site). See, for example, A Campaign Full of Mediscare, 8-22-12. (Obama and Romney both aim to slow Medicare spending. But each accuses the other of hurting seniors in the process. What are the facts?)
• The Fact Checker (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post column, The Truth Behind the Rhetoric).
• PolitiFact.com (nonpartisan political fact checker, whose truth-o-meter ranks findings from "true" to "pants on fire"), St. Petersburg Times service, and here are articles on current issues, events
• Snopes.com (E-mail story sound too good or scary to be true? Check to see if it's an urban legend)
• Truth or Fiction (another reality check on email hoaxes, rumors, viruses, and advisories)
• Miscellaneous research tools (SPJ, Journalists' Toolbox)

The Fallacy Files (wonderful analysis of various logical fallacies)

Female Editors-in-Chief Make $15,000 Less Than Men (Alexander Abad-Santos), Stat of the Day, The Atlantic Wire, 9-26-12)

Finding an editor (Pat McNees, Writers and Editors blog)

Five good reasons to hire an editor (Editors' Association of Canada)

Freelance copyeditors, directory of (listing maintained by the Copyediting-L listserv.

Freelance editorial agreement, standard (a template provided by the Editors' Association of Canada)

Freelancing as a fiction editor
• Fiction Freelancing: Part I – Proofreading for Trade Publishers (Louise Harnby, 5-29-12). " One of the dangers of proofreading fiction is getting so wrapped up in the story that you end up reading the book rather than proofreading it." And you won't be paid as much as if you were proofing technical material.
• Fiction Freelancing: Part II – Editing Fiction for Independent Authors (rather than for publishers, a different kettle of fish) (Ben Corrigan, on Louise Harnby's site, 3-6-12)
•
Fiction Freelancing: Part III – Editing Adult Material (Louise Bolotin, on Louise Harnby's site, 5-6-12))
• Fiction Freelancing: Part IV – Editing Genre Fiction (Louise Harnby interviews Marcus Fowler, 11-2-13).

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Google Docs (one way of writing in the cloud):
• Why Google Docs is a writer’s best friend: writing on the go, instant back-ups, advanced organization & tons of space
• Writing a book using Google Docs (Steven Daviss on how he and two co-authors collaborated on Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work
• Don't Lose Your Google Docs Data (Tony Bradley, PCWorld, 5-25-11, writing about what happens if Google crashes and my data disappears?)
• Microsoft Office vs.Google Docs: A Web Apps Showdown (Ian Paul, PCWorld 7-13-09)
• Publish Google Docs To WordPress To Twitter & Facebook ETC
• Google Docs tour and demo

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Grammar Freaks Really Are Strange (Dennis Baron, The Web of Language, reposted on Cultural Weekly)

How to become a developmental editor by Scott Norton, from his book Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers (excerpt posted on Scrib'd)

How Much to Charge

• Common editorial rates (Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), with "typical pace, per page")
• Folio's Five-Year Editorial Salary (infographic for 2008-2012, for top three editorial management levels, at consumer magazines, business-to-business magazines, and association magazines)
• Thinking About Money: What Freelancers Need to Understand: How to calculate your workday effective hourly rate (EHR) (An American Editor, 10-6-10)
• How to Charge: By the Project, by the Hour, or by the Word or Page? (Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, KOK Edit, 1-24-11)
• How Much Should I Charge? (Writers and Editors, Pricing Strategies, How to Set Rates and Fees, and Other Survival Basics---trends and rates for many types of work, in various fields)
• How to calculate your effective hourly rate, or EHR (American Editor, 10-6-10)
• Guidelines for setting fees (EFA)
• Rate Survey (Bay Area Editors' Forum, 2005)
• How Much Should I Charge? (Pricing Strategies, Setting Rates, for Writers, Editors, and Other Creative Professionals, Writers & Editors website)

An important factor in estimating a fee for a project is your productivity rate (how long it will take you to edit something, typically in pages per hour). These may be helpful:
• Estimated pace of editing (range, Common Editorial Rates, Editorial Freelancers Association)
• Productivity Rates in Editing (Adrienne Montgomerie, Catchthesun.net)
• Benchmarks for Estimating Editing Speed by David W. McClintock (originally published in Corrigo: Newsletter of the STC's Technical Editing SIG (June 2002), pp. 1, 3.

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Humor among peer reviewers. Cιsar Sαnchez, in his blog Twisted Bacteria, quotes from the annual December issue of Environmental Microbiology, which features humorous quotes made by peer reviewers while assessing manuscripts submitted to the journal.

In a Changing World of News, an Elegy for Copy Editors (Lawrence Downes, NY Times, 6-16-08)

In defense of fact checking (Laura Miller, Salon.com 2-8-12). A controversial writer, John D’Agata, and his fact checker, Jim Fingal, battle in a new book. Too bad neither gets close to the truth

Indexing, getting started. Study the Chicago Manual of Style on indexing, read Nancy Mulvany's book, Indexing Books (second edition), and attend workshops of the American Society for Indexing. Get started by specializing in a niche, a special area you are knowledgeable in. Join an editorial or indexers' listserv as you'll want a place to ask peers questions about problems that come up.

Online Portfolios for Editors (Dawn McIlvain Stahl, Copyediting, 8-20-12, Part 1)
• Part 2, Clean Capture (9-10-12)
• Part 3, A Venue (10-02-12)
• Part 4, Enhanced Graphics with ThingLink (10-29-12)
• Your Portfolio on LinkedIn (11-19-12)
• Part 6, Unify Your Online Presence (12-10-12, all in Copyediting)

Pay rates for technical, business, and trade editing (Megan B. Wyatt, Suite101.com, 8-23-09). Average payment for medical, science and corporate editors

PDF Editing Stamps (Copyediting-L's stamp tool for making proofreader marks on a PDF document. Go to "Resources" tab and under Miscellaneous you will find Diana Stirling's zip file of proofreading marks in red and black. Louise Harnby offers a set of stamps for UK proofreaders and editors.

Picture research and permissions: Adding to your editorial toolkit. Panelists Kris Ashley, Veronica Oliva and Tim Cox on a Bay Area Editors' Forum; notes by Micah Standley 3-24-09.

A Primer on Medical Copyediting, Health fellow Angilee Shah interviews medical editor Katharine O'Moore-Klopf (for the Reporting on Health blog, 7-1-11). Much of KOK's work is editing medical articles from ESL (or EFL) authors, of which the supply is increasing, according to this article: China poised to overhaul US as biggest publisher of scientific papers (Alok Jha, Guardian, 3-28-11). The subhead: Royal Society report shows China pushing UK into third place in scientific publishing

Proofreading tips and tools

• Proofreaders' Marks (Chicago Manual of Style). Operational signs tell printer to do something; typographical signs indicate type or font, punctuation marks are the ones authors should learn from)
• The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading (Mark Nichol, Daily Writing Tips, 4-2-11)
• Mark My Words: Instruction and Practice in Proofreading by Peggy Smith (exercises and answer keys help readers learn skills step by step)
• Is Freelance Proofreading the Job for You? (Kate Rosengarten, KateProof, 8-1-12)
• So what does a proof-reader/​copy-editor/​transcriber/​copy-writer actually do? (A day in the month of Liz Broomfield, Libro Editing Services, 2-9-11)
• Proofreading Stamps, free downloadable PDF (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour)
• How to Proofread your eBook Like a Pro (Corina Koch MacLeod, Beyond Paper Editing, 1-15-13)
• How to Proofread Like a Pro, Part 2 (Corina Koch MacLeod, Beyond Paper Editing, 1-22-13)
• How to proofread e-books on a Kindle (Corina Koch MacLeod, Beyond Paper Editing, 2-12-13)
• Proofreading eBooks *Candice Adams Roma, EditorMuse, 8-3-10)
• The Proofreaders Parlour (Louise Harnby's excellent blog, in the UK)
• Editor & proofreader blogs (Louise Harnby's excellent links)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby)
• Proofreading Case Studies (Proofreader Louise Harnby's helpful site includes case studies that illustrate the importance of professional training for getting proofing gigs in British publishing world)

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Publishing: A helping hand (Karen Kaplan, NatureJobs.com, orig. pub'd in Nature 12-1-10). Can the growing number of manuscript-editing services turn a mediocre paper into a publishable one? A plug for the legitimate editing of scientific papers, with sidebars on Opportunities in editing and How to choose a manuscript-editing service. Writes Kaplan, "Prices — which vary depending on the level of service, the length of the paper and the turn around time — can be anywhere from $250 for a 6,000-word paper with a 14- to 21-day turnaround to $5,000 for a 12,000-word paper with a 48-hour turnaround."

The Relationship Between Editors and Freelance Writers (Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, on Content Marketing, 4-17-08)

So You Think You Can Self-Publish an eBook? by Candice Adams, EditorMuse. See also her Proofreading Ebooks. Good info; varied spelling of e-book.

Speed reading vs. typography (Dick Margulis, words /​ myth /​ ampers & virgule, 5-29-06). See especially section on basic concepts for composing headlines and subheads, where to break, or not break, clauses and phrases, etc. For example, "If you have to break a phrase, keep modifiers (articles, adjectives, adverbs) with their targets."

Spell Checkers , software for spell-checking medical, scientific and technical, or legal documents (Inductel, which also produces definitions dictionaries)

Tangled Web. Victor Navasky and Evan Lerner report on a Columbia Journalism Review Survey, which finds that magazines are allowing their Web sites to erode journalistic standards. See also the full CJR report: Magazines and Their Web Sites (click on opening page to get text).

Thinking About Money: How to calculate your effective hourly rate, or EHR (American Editor, 10-6-10)

Thsrs (the shorter Thesaurus -- great for headline writing -- gives you synonyms for the word you enter, the same length or shorter)

Tips on Tact and Tone (Pat McNees on Editing That Makes Authors Want to Cooperate)

25 Commandments for Journalists (former Guardian editor Tim Radford's manifesto for the simple scribe, Guardian, 1-19-11--some are about ethics, and some about style and substance)

21 top tips to make the most of your freelance copy-editor or proofreader (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, UK)

Twitter, who's on:
• A directory of Twitter handles for book trade people
• Twitter lists for editors (KOK Edit). Follow the tweeters on Katharine O'Moore-Klopf's lists of good Twitter feeds. By category: Health and medicine, news media, science resources, scientists, freelancing resources, and edit-Long-Islanders.

The Typographic Oath (a set of copyeditors' commandments, Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 2-15-11). Do no harm. Respect the writer (some good sub-rules there). Don't be a search-and-replace editor. Look it up. He who pays makes the rules. That is some of them!

Unicode Standard, Unicode Character Code Charts (scripts), and Unicode Character Code Charts (punctuation, symbols, and notational systems)-- links to the formulas for Unicode characters in many languages

Wanna work in your PJs? Then be good (Meg E. Cox, Freelance Feast)

The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle by Steve Slaunwhite, Ed Gandia, and Pete Savage (available by Kindle or as paperback). The blog: The Wealthy Freelancer

What an Author Should Give an Editor (Rich Adin, An American Editor, 5-31-12). The things an editor needs to know about a manuscript to do the job well and efficiently, without a lot of back-and-forth Q&As.

• Why being on a publisher’s list might not be enough to get you work (Hazel Harris, Wordstitch)

Why Give a Sample Edit (Lillie Ammann 2-28-11)

Writing Tics: Now You See Them, Now You Don't (The Subversive Copy Editor, 7-22-10, an interesting way of framing a common problem)

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Where to find work
This is a very partial listing, for editors and other publishing professionals. If you are looking for an editor or proofreader, this might also be an indirect way to find someone.
• Finding Work Katharine O'Moore-Klopf (KOK Edit)'s) excellent links and descriptions --for finding work on sites where jobs are posted, or by getting yourself posted or showcased on sites where people come looking for subcontractors. A good place to start if you're looking for job postings.
• Websites for Editorial Freelancers – Why? How? What? (Louise Harnby, Proofreader's Parlour). Excellent collection of tips on setting up a website for your freelance business.
• Freelance Mailing List Job Links
• American Society for Indexing Jobs Hotline (free to ASI members, $100 a year to nonmembers)
• ACESjobs (American Copy Editors Society, for news and journalism editors)
• Bay Area Editors' Forum
• Bookjobs.com. All kinds of jobs in book publishing on site of Association of American Publishers
• Council of Science Editors Job Bank
• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). List yourself there, and members also get access to this EFA Job List
• Getting Noticed – Web-based English-Language Editing Services Listings (Louise Harnby's useful list)
• KOK Edit (Katharine O'Moore Klopf's Copyeditors' Knowledge Base)
• Journalism Jobs
• Preditors and Editors (P&E)'s guide to editing services (for editing, copywriting, ghostwriting, indexing, and software). Particularly useful for those seeking publishing professionals are the warnings about those who are "not recommended." P&E is a Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America site.
• Publishers Lunch Job Board
• Publishers Weekly Job Zone
• Society of Technical Editors STC's) Career Center for technical communicators
• Working for Academic Editing Agencies (Anna Sharman, guest posting on Louise Harnby's blog).
• The Write Jobs.
Remember, it often pays to join an organization that provides searchable listings of members that job-providers (or contract providers) can look through. (See Organizations for Editors and Publishing Professionals.) And sometimes it pays just to join an organization UNRELATED to publishing but about a subject you are passionate about -- and let everyone in that organization know that you edit or proof for a living. (You may be the only editor those people will ever hear about.) People with money to spend and specialized skills that don't include wordsmithing don't have time to go through gazillions of resumes from people with limited skills, so they like the winnowing out that a targeted membership or a specialized directory helps provide. As my old friend Alex Bespaloff used to tell me, "You have to spend money to make money."

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Why Editing Matters
• Why Editing Matters (microsite of the American Copy Editors Society, ACES)
• Why You Need a Professional Editor (Dave Bricker, 8-17-12). This is particularly good advice for writers who are self-publishing.
• (Harriet Evans, The Guardian, 6-16-11). Every good ebook needs a good editor. With the advent of ebooks, self-publishing has exploded, convincing some authors they don't need publishers. But they do need editors.
• Humbled by Copyediting (Elizabeth Fama, guest posting on Subversive Copy Editor blog, about how shamed and grateful she felt for a thorough copy editing -- 8-8-11)
• Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales (Sean Coughlan, Education and Family, BBC News, 7-13-11)
• The Price of Typos (Virginia Heffernan, Opinionator, NY Times 7-17-11). On a home page or a site offering commercial products, where there are concerns about trust and credibility, "In these instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue."
• Students armed with sub-editing skills are given tools for life (Tim Luckhurst, The Times, Higher Education, 3-5-09 on the immense value of the sub-editor, "the lowest caste of editorial personnel who earn their meagre livings correcting the style, grammar and accuracy of their 'betters' on news and features desks." Even the finest journalists make mistakes, and bloggers, you need sub-editors, too!
• Why Editing Matters (Jake Sherlock's amusing video slideshow of images of typos in public, at ACES regional conference--there's a whole page of related videos on that YouTube page)
• Mind if We Watch? Copy editors matter. (Karen Dunlap, Poynter 11-9-02)
• Review of a book that really needed editing (both developmental -- who is your audience? -- and copyediting)
• Why you need a copy editor (marked-up memo from Toronto Star about reduced need for copyeditors)
• Readers prefer edited news, research sponsored by ACES finds (American Copy Editors Society 3-17-11)
• Regret the Error on the issues of media errors and accuracy. This page contains links to excellent resources on the public's perception of the press, human error, studies of newspaper accuracy, studies of broadcast accuracy, fact checking, and more.
• Why are there so many errors in The Anthology of Rap? The editors respond. It Was Written. Paul Devlin (Slate, 11-10-10) on how so many errors crept into this Yale University Press publication. (They apparently "leaned heavily" on material full of errors.)

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What editors and copyeditors do.
Do you want to hire (or be) a developmental editor, substantive editor, copyeditor, production editor, assignment editor, or proofreader? Read up on the different functions:
• Kinds of editors and levels of edit--what every writer should know (with links to material on levels and types of editing; fiction editing; copyediting; proofreading; newspaper editing; technical editing; freelance editing; the editor-author relationship; whether editors are valued and valuable; and becoming an editor)
• Becoming an Editor (from the blog, This Crazy Industry)
• Endless Rewriting (Helen Hazen, American Scholar, Spring 2013). When a novice writer received a letter from Jacques Barzun, asking her to write a book, how could she have known what she was in for? A great example of a top book editor helping a novice think through the main points and structure of her book--though few editors operate at the level Barzun did here.
• The Odd Role of the Publisher/​Editor (Josh Sternberg, Digiday, 3-7-13). Jason Pontin, publisher and editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, is the digital media version of the player-coach. "Being a publisher and understanding the business realities has made him a better editor." Says Pontin: "I’m much more focused on the idea of a curve on my wall of where I want the digital audience to be 6-12 months from now, not just in traffic or page views, but in return visits. And that matters to us. I want a high degree of audience engagement, as it benefits us editorially and as a business.”
• Black day for the blue pencil (Blake Morrison, Guardian)
• The Business of Editing: A Rose By Another Name Is Still Copyediting (An American Editor, 6-27-12, writes about the trend for publishers to outsource copy editing offshore for very low fees, getting poorly edited work back, and hiring American editors to "proofread" PDFs, by which they mean copy edit the poorly edited copy at proofreaders' rates.
• What does a copy-editor do? and What does a copy-editor not do. (FAQs, Society for Editors and Proofreaders, SFEP)
• Classifying editorial tasks (Jean Weber, Technical Editors' Eyrie). When rules-based and analysis-based edits overlap, which editorial decisions are negotiable with the writer, and which are not?
• Clarity for Editing (Justin Baker suggests clearer names for levels of edit, STC Technical Editing Sig 4-20-07)
• A copyeditor's commandments (Erin Brenner, Copyediting Tip of the Week, 2-1-12)
• Copyediting: A Duty of Care (Corporate Writing Pro, 12-7-11). An excellent list of the things a good copyeditor does, well-phrased, including, "Revising sentences to bring subjects and verbs closer together," "Moving subjects to the front of the sentence," and "Discovering hidden verbs, otherwise known as nominalizations."
• Copy editing (Wikipedia's entry is useful; Wikipedia's entry on Editing contrasts editing roles (print media, executive editor, periodicals, and scholarly books and journals); its entry on business editing is slightly peculiar.
• Definitions of Editorial Services (Bay Area Editors' Forum)
• Definitions of editorial skills (Canadian Editors) on developmental/​project editing; substantive or structural editing; stylistic editing, rewriting, copy editing, picture research, fact checking/​reference checking, indexing, mark-up/​coding, proofreading, mock-up (rough paste-up), and production editing
• Developing New Levels of Edit (Judyth Prono, Martha DeLanoy, Robert Deupree, Jeffrey Skiby, and Brian Thompson, STC, revising levels of edit for technical editing, as originally spelled out by Van Buren and Buehler), PDF
• Developmental Editing (Kristi Hein, Pictures & Words) describes what she did on a couple of developmental editing projects--good examples of what this macro level of editing entails)
• The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading (Mark Nichol, Daily Writing Tips, 4-2-11)
• Do Editors Edit Anymore? (Caroline Tolley, guest blogging on Writer Unboxed, about the craft and business of fiction, 4-19-11). There are two kinds of editing, and most publishers don't have time to provide good editing anymore, so that fiction manuscript had better arrive already edited.
• Duties of an Editor & How Editors Help Writers (Fiction editor Beth Hill, on The Editor's Blog, who also wrote What Should an Editor Do for a Writer?
• Editing: What? (Delores Farmer and Sherry Southard on levels of editing)
• Editorial skills, categorized and defined (Editors Association of Canada)
• Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, a book that explains the publishing process and the special skills needed for particular areas, such as mass market and romance, edited by Gerald Gross
• Editors Roundtable: Introducing Nancy Wick and Julie Van Pelt (Kyra Freestar interviews two developmental editors of fiction, on The Editor's POV (a forum for freelance editors of fiction and creative nonfiction)
• Editors: Scourge of the Earth or Cheap Psychotherapists? (Rebecca Rosenblum, The Afterword, National Post, 12-6-11). An excellent explanation and appreciation of the differences between substantive or developmental editors, line editors, copy-editors, and proofreaders -- as distinct from acquisition editors and production editors.
• eLife: Can a Top-Tier Journal Run Without Professional Help? (Phil Davis, Scholarly Kitchen, 12-1-11). Davis predicts that a scientific journal with no professional editors will soon face the same problems PLos Biology and PLos Medicine did.
• ELSS Editing Requirements (Rick Weisburd on what's required for scientific editing and translation from Japanese, at one serious firm)
• An Evolving Model for Editing (Deborah Howell, Ombudsman, WaPo, on the changing role of the editor as newspaper staffs are cut)
• Five Ways to Recognize a Bad Editor (Popular Soda). With the recent ebook explosion, dozens of freelance editors have popped up, self-promoting, taking payment, and supposedly editing ebooks. How can you tell if you’re getting a good deal from a reputable freelancer or about to be screwed over by a misguided (potentially malicious) hack? Here are our five signs of bad editors.
• The Hidden Costs of Copyediting (Erin Brenner, Copyediting, 3-6-12). For publishers who think copyediting is too big an expense and should be cut.
• How (Freelance) Editors Operate (San Diego Professional Editors Network)
• How to Become a Developmental Editor (Scott Norton)
• How to Brief an Editor (Institute of Professional Editors Limited, Australia). Be clear about what you want an editor to do before you engage them. What level of editing do you require?
• Is Freelance Proofreading the Job for You? (Kate Rosengarten, KateProof, 8-1-12)
• Levels of Edit (San Diego Professional Editors Network)
• In Praise of Copy Editors (And Why We Need More) (Reid Norman, Communications Strategy 4-26-12)
• Lives and Letters, an interview with Robert Gottlieb. This Salon.com interview with the legendary editor is ostensibly about writing but gives helpful insights into the editing process (and the writer-editor relationship) inside a good publishing house. See also the Gottlieb collectionLives and Letters
• The role of the editor in the technical writing team (Jean Hollis Weber's excellent outline of what editors do, types of edit, and interactions with the writing team)
• Setting Editing Expectations (Erin Brenner, Copyediting 4-3-12). A checklist of possible tasks for a report manuscript; if the budget is tight, ask client to use this to specify which items are a priority -- create a triage list. The sample list of tasks to be done is help to show clients who think all that's required is a quick spell-check.
• 7 Common Myths About Hiring a Freelance Editor for Your Book by Nancy Peske. Explains the various basic kinds of editing.
• Showcasing the Work Editors Do (Bay Area Editors' Forum), links to many useful articles
• So what does a proof-reader/​copy-editor/​transcriber/​copy-writer actually do? (A day in the month of Liz Broomfield, Libro Editing Services, 2-9-11)
• So You Want to Be an Editor: Information about a Career in Editing (in one page, the Editors' Association of Canada provides a great overview of what being an editor involves and requires)
• Stop Editing Me (Scott Norton on the editor's natural bent)
• Unraveling the Mysteries of the Editing Process (Erin Brenner, The Writing Resource)
• The things editors do (John D. McIntyre, You Don't Say 2-15-12) Take this sentence: Please welcome the Hart’s into our Diocesan family.
• What a Freelance Editor Can Do for You (Kathryn Craft, Writania, 7-12). When to hire a developmental editor, a line editor or copyeditor, or a proofreader.
• What a permissions editor does (Julie Cancio Harper, Permissions Trackers, on Publishing Careers 1-31-08)
• What Do Editors Do? (Bay Area Editors Forum)
• What Do Hiring Managers Want? (Gail Saari's notes on a BAEF panel in 2003 featuring Lasell Whipple, managing editor at Jossey-Bass; Joy Ma, former managing editor for PC Games magazine, currently with Key3Media; Lorena Jones, managing editor at Ten Speed Press; and Walter Keefe, of Synergy Personnel Services, Inc.)
• What is substantive editing (Jean Weber, Technical Editors' Eyrie: Resources for technical editors). See also Classifying editorial tasks
• What Editors Do (Lynette Smith's useful chart, San Diego Professional Editors Network), PDF
• What exactly does a newspaper copy editor do? (Bill Walsh, The Slot, on "The Lot of Journalism's Noble Misfits." Check his other entries, too, including How a Copy Desk Works, How Can I Become a Copy Editor? , and What's a slot man?)
• What Editors Do and What Editing Can't Buy (Writer Beware, SFWA)
• What is substantive editing? Steven L. Kanter, MD, editor of Academic Medicine, interviews Albert Bradford, director of staff editing (YouTube video). Bradford explains that far beyond "comma chasing," structural editing is working collegially (not correctively) with an author with something substantive to say to carve away the bad stuff (like Michelangelo carving sculpture) to reveal the "David," to be sure the substance (theme, idea, argument) is clearly and compellingly enough stated that even someone not in that field would find it of interest, and the author will feel grateful for having a better piece.
• What It's Really Like To Be A Copy Editor Lori Fradkin, The AWL, 7-21-10)
• What It Takes to Be a Medical Writer (Susan E. Caldwell, on her helpful biotech ink spots blog). Subscribe free to The Biotech Ink Insider for job info;,archived articles.
• What to Look for in an Editor (Author-Editor Clinic, PDF)
• What We Want in a Copyeditor (Jossey-Bass Managing Editor Lasell Whipple, for a BAEF gathering, 2003/​4)
• Why Copy Editors Are Necessary: A Small Treatise on the Publishing World (Nancy Hanger, Windhaven Press, on why copyeditors are necessary for fiction)
• Why Editing Matters (American Copy Editors Society, or ACES, which invites your comments)
• Why Children’s Publishing Needs Freelance Editors Now (Emma D. Dryden, Publishing Perspectives, 6-20-12)
• Why You Need a Professional Editor (Dave Bricker, 8-17-12). This is particularly good advice for writers who are self-publishing.
• Your Copy Sucks: You Don't Even Know What "Edit" Means (TJ Dietderich, PRBreakfastClub)

Book Doctors: What They Do
Independent (freelance) consulting editors who help authors fix their books often call themselves "book doctors." Some are better than others and charge accordingly. Here are some stories about what to expect.
• Book Doctors: The Real Deal (Susan A. Schwartz on what to look for in an editor)
• The Doctor Will See You Now (interview with Lisa Rojany-Buccieri, who explains the difference between book doctors, editors, and ghostwriters and offers practical insights into what a book doctor can and cannot do)
• Common Rates for Editorial Services (Editorial Freelancers Association)
• Frequently Asked Questions about Editors (Tara K. Harper, who doesn't put much faith in book doctors)
• Independent Editors and Assessment Services (Writers Beware's excellent article and links, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America)
• A Professional Critique: What Should You Receive for Your Money? (Margot Finke)
• Nine Signs of a Scam Book Doctor (Jerry Gross, an old hand in the business, on Writers, Agents & Editors Network)
• What a Good Editor Will Do for You (Jerry Gross interviews Viking editor Beena Kamlani on what to expect from an editor in a publishing house, Writer's Digest, 2-11-08)

Indexing: why and how
Getting started indexing: Study the Chicago Manual of Style on indexing, read Nancy Mulvany's book, Indexing Books (second edition), and take online workshops of the American Society for Indexing. Get started by specializing in a niche, a special area you are knowledgeable in. Join at least one editorial or indexers' listserv as you'll want a place to ask peers questions about problems that come up. To get the work, be good at indexing.
• "An index is not an outline, nor is it a concordance. It's an intelligently compiled list of topics covered in the work, prepared with the reader's needs in mind." ~ Index Evaluation Checklist (American Society for Indexing)
• Human or computer produced indexes? Why have a human-produced index where full text searching is available? (Society of Indexers)
• Book Indexing, Part 1: Is a Computer the Right Person for the Job? An article by Carol Saller explaining that "indexers harvest concepts as much as words." (Chronicle of Higher Education 5-1-12).
• Book Indexing, Part 2: Infinite Loops and Easter Eggs (Carol Saller, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5-9-12). How indexers have fun.
• Index Evaluation Checklist (American Society for Indexing)
• Indexing the Web (American Society for Indexing)
• Every nonfiction book needs an index: Here's why (Alan Rinzler, The Book Deal)
• Editors, How Much is an Index Worth to You? (how indexes are valued by bookstore buyers, educators and institutions, librarians, reviewers, your production staff, your typesetter, and why they should be done by professional indexers)
• Salman Rushdie's memoir would benefit from a good index (John Sutherland, The Guardian, 9-26-12). Indexing is as necessary to (non-fiction) books as oxygen is to lungs – even if you're Rushdie and want us to read every page
• BBC Radio 4 "Front Row" program on indexing (11-11-03, listen to recording)
• FAQs about indexing (American Society for Indexing, so with an American slant)
• FAQs about indexes and indexers (Society of Indexers, so expect a British angle)
• Indexing software, about (American Society for Indexing)
• How to Contract with a Book Indexer (Dan Connolly, Word for Word Book Services, gives some idea of time needed and range of fees for various types of books)
• Indexer's Style Guide: Some Things to Think About (Cynthia Berman, BAEF,
• The definite article: acknowledging ‘The’ in index entries, Glenda Browne's article in The Indexer on the many ways "the" causes problems for those who try to put things into alphabetical order.
• Awards recognizing excellence in indexing (Society of Indexers links)
• ASI training course (available to members of American Society for Indexing)
• Training in indexing distance-learning course (Society of Indexers, UK)
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• The Indexer: The International Journal of Indexing
• American Society for Indexing (formerly American Society of Indexers, ASI)
• Indexing Society of Canada (Sociιtι canadienne d'indexation). Resources include links to indexing discussion groups.
• Society of Indexers ( (UK)
• Association of Freelance Editors Proofreaders and Indexers (AFEPI) (Ireland)
• Indexing societies, worldwide (Louise Harnby's helpful list)
• Index Cafe (Yahoo discussion group for indexer socializing)
• Indexer's Network (LinkedIn group for indexers)
• Indexers' humor (site hosted by Leverage Technologies, which sells Cindex indexing software)
• Index, America's Funniest, Back of Atlantic Monthly (Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 3-1-05)
• An Index for Thalia (PDF, Julian Barnes' index as a humorous extension to his book Letters from London 1990-1995, posted on The Indexer website)
• Amusing Index entries (on Futility Closet, An idler's miscellany of compendious amusements)
• The Games Played in Pale Fire's Index (anarchy is hyperbole, to be read only if you have read Nabokov's book)

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BOOKS FOR EDITORS:

The styles that clients may expect you to know (or have access to the style manual for) are primarily: Chicago, AP, APA, AMA, MLA, Microsoft, CBE/​CSE.

• AP Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (an essential style guide for magazine and newspaper writing and editing, but absolutely not okay for editing books)

• The Art of Literary Publishing: Editors on Their Craft by Bill Henderson

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, ed. by Joan Reardon. (See also the story about DeVoto's involvement with publication of Elizabeth David's Italian Food: Importing Italian Food (Laura Shapiro, NY Times, 11-18-11)

• Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein (based on series of lectures he gave at the N.Y. Public Library in 1999)

• The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read by Jason Epstein (a reality check for the idealistic)

• The Chicago Manual of Style by University of Chicago Press Staff (16th edition, baby blue cover: the style bible for books, geared to professional and academic authors. The Subversive Copy Editor offers a sneak peek at changes from the 15th edition. If you have the budget, you might also want Words Into Type). You may also sign up for FREE Q&A alerts (a free subscription to an informative monthly e-mail).

• Copyediting: A Practical Guide by Karen Judd (read the reviews before buying this one)

*** The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn (3rd edition, -- essential for learning the basics or fine-tuning your skills, with helpful exercises and answer key.
• Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton, posted on Scrib'd

• Editing by Design by Jan V. White (well illustrated book on graphic design through which even wordsmiths can learn the value of white space etc.)

• Editing Fact and Fiction by Leslie T. Sharpe, Irene Gunther, and Richard Marek

• The Editor-in-Chief: A Management Guide for Magazine Editors by Benton Rain Patterson and Coleman E. P. Patterson (have not reviewed this one)

• Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do, by Gerald C. Gross (these essays by various editors in book publishing explain how the book publishing business works, what various types of editors do, and, as someone else put it, "the different sensibilities required for different genres")

• Edit Yourself, by Bruce Ross-Larson (how to edit bureaucratic flab into clearer, crisper, and more effective sentences); Bruce also has a series of workbooks for writing courses at the World Bank and similar organizations

**• The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist, by Thomas McCormack. Tom was a mentor and is a friend, so I may be biased, but can quote someone else as recommending the book "because he is so good at explaining what makes someone a good editor for a particular manuscript. "

• The Fine Art of Copy Editing by Elsie Myers Stainton

• The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner

• A Freelance Editor's Guide to Book Production by Rachel Hockett (EFA)

• Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner (the very best guide to word usage, for such things as the difference between "historic" and "historical" -- an invaluable tool for wordsmiths)

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd (also good on the author-editor relationship). See The Special Relationship by Scott Stossel (WSJ book review, 1-17-13). A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and his longtime editor offer a guide to the craft of nonfiction -- and a look at an excellent author-editor relationship.

• The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson

• Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences by Nicholas J. Higham

• Levels of Technical Editing, by David E. Nadziejka (Council of Biology Editors)

• Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing by Claire Kerhwald Cook (line by line examples of how copyeditors fix sentences)

• Making Word Work for You: An Editor's Intro to the Tools of the Trade by Hilary Powers, download for $10.25, 80 pages, or order the book for slightly more.

• Mark My Words: Instruction and Practice in Proofreading by Peggy Smith (exercises and answer keys help readers learn skills step by step)

• Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg (Perkins edited F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe, among others)

• The NY Times Manual of Style and Usage by Allan M. Siegal

• Recipes Into Type: A Handbook for Cookbook Writers and Editors by Joan Whitman and Dolores Simon

• Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing by Vincent LoBrutto

*** Self Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King (teach yourself the basic principles of fiction writing AND editing)

• Side by Side: Five Favorite Picture Book Teams Go to Work, by Leonard S. Marcus

• Stet: Tricks of the Trade for Writers and Editors by Bruce O. Boston (for Editorial Eye)

• Stet Again: More Tricks of the Trade for Publications People, from the Editorial Eye

• Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams (an excellent book for deeply understanding the structure of a sentence and paragraph)

Substance & Style: Instruction and Practice in Copyediting (Mary Stoughton, for Editorial Experts). Instruction about, and a workbook in which to practice, proper copyediting and proper copyediting marks (a do-it-yourself workshop)

• The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) by Carol Fisher Saller, the woman who writes those witty, informative responses for the Chicago Style Manual Q&As.

• Technical Editing, by Carolyn D. Rude

*** Technical Editing, by Judith A. Tarutz (learn how to do this more highly paid kind of editing)

• Thinking Like a Designer: How to Save Money by Being a Smart Client, by Michael Brady (at least one copy editor buys this to give to his clients, so they understand the intersection between editing and design)

• The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers by Al Silverman (a delicious read)

• Words into Type (3rd Edition) by Marjorie E. Skillin (better organized that the Chicago Style Manual, and very useful for explaining the process of book editing and production, though way behind the times on technological changes)

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Courses on Book Publishing, Editing, and Proofreading
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby, Proofreader, 12-1-11). Louise's comments apply especially for British-based publishing professionals; there are definite differences between British- and American-style publishing but the principles of what she says are the same in both arenas.
• Why not a master’s in editing? (Anthony Haynes, Monographer, 2-18-13).
• Teaching yourself editing (John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun, 1-19-13)
• Maybe they could try to teach editing (John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun, 6-20-12)
• Author-Editor Clinic (Seattle-based online instruction in developmental editing of fiction and creative nonfiction--a structured approach to learning how to analyze manuscripts and to communicate with writers). See PDF FAQ about online classes .
• Columbia Publishing Course. Formerly a six-week summer course in which college trained in the basics of book editing, sales, design, and publicity, this year, writes Julie Bosman in the NY Times (7-15-11), the E-Book Revolution Upends a Publishing Course. Writes Bosman, "This year’s 101 students were chosen from more than 475 applicants, the highest number in years, showing that they were not deterred by the $6,990 fee for tuition and room and board on the Columbia campus — or by the limitations of entry-level positions that pay around $30,000 a year."
• Editorial Boot Camp (various locations) and Fiction Editing Boot Camp
• Copyeditors' Knowledge Base Katharine O'Moore-Klopf a/​k/​a KOK Edit's excellent and useful directory to venues for training (and certification) for editors.
• Editorial Freelancers Association, one-day workshops, seminars, and classroom and online courses for editorial freelancers
• Editorial Practices certificate, The Graduate School (formerly USDA, Washington DC). Certificate program, classroom training, online training
• EEI Communications Training (the publishing think tank, Washington DC area)
• NYU Summer Publishing Institute (book, magazine, and digital publishing) and NYU Continuing Education
• The Publishing Training Centre (this British-based organization offers our distance learning courses in Basic Proofreading, Copy-Editing and Successful Editorial Freelancing, among others, as well as Quickfire (four-hour online) courses and classroom-based short courses. Here's Louise Harnby on Editing Digital Products: What's in it for the freelance proofreader?
• Radcliffe Program (now at Columbia). See Salon.com article about the change of venue
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders (sfep) training , particularly helpful for British students. In addition to many onsite courses, SFEP offers distance learning (online) courses in proofreading, copyediting, editorial project management, and successful editorial freelancing, and Quickfire courses onsite.
• UC Berkeley Extension Professional Sequence in Editing. A four-semester sequence, either classroom and online training. Four required courses: grammar, mechanics and usage for editors; introduction to copyediting; intermediate copyediting; and either substantive editing or a professional sequence in technical communication (see also Professional Sequence in Technical Communication
• University of Chicago editing courses
• University of Denver (The Publishing Institute) (four-week introduction to book publishing)
•Yale Publishing Course, two versions of an intensive, week-long course for publishing professionals: Magazine and online publishing (July 10-15, 2011); Book Publishing, print and digital (July 24-29, 2011). Tuition: $4995. Earlier we ran this link to a story about Yale's course:Yale launches course for the magazine and book publishing industry (to fill the gap left by the closure of the renowned Stanford Professional Publishing Course (SPPC), which was offered from 1978 to 2009).
• Book publishing courses (Publishing Central, listed, but definitely not evaluated).

ON EDITORIAL TRAINING, GENERALLY:
• Training in Editorial Freelancing (Louise Harnby's roundup of articles on editorial freelance training in the U.K., published in her blog, The Proofreader's Parlour
• Editorial Training and Industry Consensus? A View from the UK (Louise Harnby, posted on Cassie Armstrong's blog, Accidental Freelancer 5-21-12)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby, 12-1-11)
• Proofreading: How to Choose the Right Training Course (Louise Harnby, 2-16-12)
• Proofreading: Case Studies (Louise Harnby, for The Publishing Training Centre, UK)

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Books on Design
• Brady, Michael. Thinking Like a Designer: How to Save Money by Being a Smart Client
• Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style
• Hendel, Richard. On Book Design
• Lee, Marshall. Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production, 3d edition
• Lupton, Ellen, and Abbott Miller. Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. See Ellen Lupton's website
• Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. See Edward Tufte's website, including PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports.


Books and Site on Indexing
• A Guide for the Freelance Indexer (April Michelle Davis, Lulu.com, 76 pages)
• The Art of Indexing, by Larry Bonura
• Beyond Book Indexing, edited by Marilyn Rowland and Diane Brenner
• Chicago Manual of Style (has a good section on indexing, and is an excellent reference tool for writers and editors)
• Indexes: A Chapter from The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition
• Indexing: A Nuts-and-Bolts Guide for Technical Writers, by Kurt Ament
• **Indexing Books, by Nancy C. Mulvany
• An Indexer’s Guide to the Internet, by Lori Lathrop
• The Indexing Companion (Website Indexing), by Glenda Browne and Jon Jermey
Sites and Articles:
• Find an Indexer (American Society for Indexing)
• So You Want to Be an Indexer (ASI)
• Online discussion groups for indexers
• Indexing courses and workshops
• Making an Index (Authornet, Cambridge University Press)
• Guide to creating an index for McFarland (PDF)

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Interesting examples of heavy editing in literature

Sometimes the editor helps create a piece, by carving away the flab and helping to find the artistic center within. Sometimes such heavy editing does not have such felicitous results. Among the most interesting examples of heavy editing in literature:

F. Scott Fitzgerald's heavy cutting of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Max Perkins' heavy editing and reorganizing of Thomas Wolfe's long, long novel manuscripts (including Look Homeward, Angel)

Ezra Pound's beautiful editing of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland (Eliot's title was He Do the Police in Different Voices

Gordon Lish's editing of Raymond Carver's short fiction (the subject of at least two fascinating magazine pieces, linked to below)

Setting Editing Expectations (Erin Brenner, Tip of the Week, Copyediting, 4-3-12)

The Seven Deadly Copy Editing Sins (Anne Glover, Poynter Online, 8-25-02)

7 Stages of Revision Grief (Jordan Rosenfeld, Make a Scene)

Seven ways to make your LinkedIn profile more appealing to editorial project managers (Hazel Harris, Wordstitch editorial services, 3-14-13)