Anyone do freelance editing?
December 122009
I am going to graduate high school this year. I’d like to try and make my living (or most of it) off of freelance writing and editing. I am already doing the writing bit and I am wondering how to get started with editing.
Anyone here do it? I am open to further schooling if it is necessary. What kind of qualifications do people look for in editors? How does one get started?
Thanks.
I have done and occasionally still do freelance editing, though not for free.
I’m usually retired.
I took English Literature at UCLA and post-grad writing courses in everything from journalism to creative writing to writing plays and more.
I also held a writers’ group (from 8 to 10 people) for two years, meeting twice a month to help each other with constructive critiques on works in progress and on how to get published. Nearly everyone in that group had a piece published then, or shortly after.
And I took writers’ seminars, not inexpensive but extremely helpful.
Studying "The Writer’s Market" – especially "How To Publish" – is a must as well.
Hope you are introduced to "Strunk and White: The Elements of Style" too.
This is what I advise: Take English, Eng. Lit., or Amer. Lit., and also at least a minor in Reading at a good school.
Then try to find a job at any kind of newspaper or news magazine or show or online: as an editor. After that, go freelance.
But this is only likely to happen if you actually have been published (by the time I became an editor, I had many things published, from short fiction to bad poetry to a successful play to journalism), then it is a fairly short hop (with your school credentials as well) to become an editor, freelance or not.
Best of luck.
You can do it with enough willingness to work at it.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I have done and occasionally still do freelance editing, though not for free.
I’m usually retired.
I took English Literature at UCLA and post-grad writing courses in everything from journalism to creative writing to writing plays and more.
I also held a writers’ group (from 8 to 10 people) for two years, meeting twice a month to help each other with constructive critiques on works in progress and on how to get published. Nearly everyone in that group had a piece published then, or shortly after.
And I took writers’ seminars, not inexpensive but extremely helpful.
Studying "The Writer’s Market" – especially "How To Publish" – is a must as well.
Hope you are introduced to "Strunk and White: The Elements of Style" too.
This is what I advise: Take English, Eng. Lit., or Amer. Lit., and also at least a minor in Reading at a good school.
Then try to find a job at any kind of newspaper or news magazine or show or online: as an editor. After that, go freelance.
But this is only likely to happen if you actually have been published (by the time I became an editor, I had many things published, from short fiction to bad poetry to a successful play to journalism), then it is a fairly short hop (with your school credentials as well) to become an editor, freelance or not.
Best of luck.
You can do it with enough willingness to work at it.
References :
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