Good News

I've just received an email asking if I'm interested in assisting with copy edits on 7 manuscripts to assist with the process of turning them into ebooks.  To that, my answer was, "Absolutely."  I've done editing for this publisher before, for a different pay model.  This one, though, would pay up front for the completion of the editing work.  It wouldn't be enough to make a huge difference in my taxes, but it's editing for pay, and I'm very excited.

I got the job through a series of odd circumstances.  I befriended the publisher (and the author the publisher represented) for no reason other than that they were cool people who were receptive to having me talk at them. Three years ago, I'd just lost a job, and, in my despair, asked if there was some kind of editing job they knew of.  I was mostly joking, but the publisher gave me a "tryout," where I found errors in something that was up for a new edition.  I'm told that, not only did I spot the greatest number of anyone doing the tryout, I also didn't pick out anything that wasn't an error.

You may have noticed that I'm refraining from naming anyone in particular.  That's because I know so little about the publishing industry that I could easily say something offhand that sounds like I'm bad-mouthing them, and the last thing I'd want to do is be perceived as saying anything negative.  I'm extremely happy about this opportunity, and I'm looking forward to the experience.

The level of editing I'm going to be doing, though, is incredibly detailed.  When I did this under the alternative pay model, I had to make myself a glossary of terms to make sure names and places and other made-up words were all spelled consistently.  I alphabetized it so I could consult it to make sure the word hadn't already shown up under a different spelling.

I also read over each story several times.  Were it a full novel, I would've had to jot down notes about plot points, too, but I lucked out in that it was short story collections.

This is not the level of edits I would give my writing group in a critique.  This is polished, ready-for-publication works, needing a fine tooth comb approach.  I wouldn't give my fellow SWAGers this level of edits unless they were about to submit to an agent or a publisher.

I might not be able to get much of my own writing done in the meantime, but, knowing how vague I have to be, do you want to hear about my editing progress as I work on it?