There is much more to being a successful editor or proofreader than understanding grammar and knowing how to use Microsoft Word. From tagging choir robes to seeing how parcels are packed for air-freighting, I got some of my editorial skills from unexpected sources.
In the middle of my English Literature degree, I didn't really know what I wanted to do afterwards. I applied and was accepted onto a law conversion course with the University of Birmingham (UK), but in the end I turned that down as I wasn't fully convinced law was for me. Looking for ideas, I took the UK government's careers quiz, and a whole new world opened up. I learned that there was such a thing as a proofreader and that I might be quite well suited to the job. I began to look into the editorial skills I'd need to acquire.
Fast forward to today and I've moved beyond proofreading to copyediting, developmental editing and editorial project management. I'm enormously grateful to the Prospects quiz for pointing me in this direction, because as a freelance editor I really feel I've found my groove. Now, after 16 years as a full-time freelance editor, I'm thinking about the other jobs I had early on, and how they helped to get that groove going.
Musical dogsbody: organizational versatility
My first job wasn't really a job. It was helping my parents with the administration of a huge variety of musical activities at the school I attended and they taught at. These activities included checking choir robes in and out at the starts and ends of the school year, marking breathing and bowing onto musical scores, lugging equipment across the campus, cross-checking lists of data, and much more. Among other things, I learned how to coil a wire so it lies flat (the trick is to twist it with each coil) and how to convey about 60 children and adults around Europe on a breakneck schedule (think two or three concerts every day plus sightseeing) without losing anybody in a Venetian canal or up a mountain.
I had no idea at the time, but I was probably laying the groundwork for the part of my brain that enjoys editorial project management. Keeping track of multiple parts and enhancing their quality is something I love doing, and that's essentially what I learned as a musical dogsbody.
Assembly line worker: nothing happens without the right inputs
My first real job was holiday work at a local medical factory in my university years. Here I saw how a streamlined workflow is operated. Once again, I didn't really realize it at the time, but I was witnessing input and output being managed: the desired output of products couldn't be achieved if the required input of labour and parts wasn't in place.
Purveyor of alcoholic beverages (assorted): teamwork gets things done
I also had various holiday jobs that somehow coalesced around serving or selling alcohol. During term time I'd work in a pub in Durham and during the holidays I'd work behind the counter in an off-licence (liquor store).
In the pub, I'd listen to oddly cheerful stories about how people's houses had just burned down (this might in reality have only happened once, but such was the incongruity of the customer's cheerful nature that it stuck with me) and pretend not to notice the landlady pilfering her own stock.
In the off-licence, I'd eat many cream cakes and then burn them off moving crates of beer around. The cakes were bought by a manager in a nearby branch who never seemed to have any other staff and so was grateful when I'd take a few shifts off her. I'd sometimes work in three different branches in a day, coordinating with colleagues to make sure people were in place to get all the essential tasks done.
I worked hard and enjoyed the feeling of being part of a team that rewarded that work (even if much of the reward came in the form of cream cakes!). And I was experiencing what I've now seen numerous times as an editorial project manager: that people who feel valued and supported are better equipped to get difficult things done.
Children's bookseller: self-management
After university, I moved to Ottakar's, my local bookseller (now sadly taken over by Waterstones). I was the sole children's bookseller so I had a section to manage all on my own. This involved:
- buying stock according to customer demand and market trends
- building window displays (on one enjoyable occasion, using a crรจme brรปlรฉe blowtorch to age some Pirates of the Caribbean posters)
- transferring my beer-carrying skills to lugging piles of 20 or more books up and down two flights of stairs
- developing the ability to sensibly respond to customers who said things like 'I'm looking for a book โ I think it's red' (asking the question 'Did you see it on Richard & Judy?' was usually the best place to start).
Probably my most valuable lesson from this job was how to work independently, deciding what should be reported to my boss for his input. I haven't forgotten how proud I was when he told me I was good at choosing 'salient information' to pass on to him (I believe this was also when I learned what 'salient' meant). This is now something I do on a day-to-day basis: I aim to show my clients that they can trust me to make sensible decisions about their texts independently, but that I will report back to them and ask for their input when necessary.
Publisher's shipping coordinator: never forget about the reader
By now I had completed the Prospects quiz and started learning to be a proofreader, so a move into publishing seemed the logical next step. I got a job at Elsevier in Oxford, working in the Inventory Management department as EMEA Shipping Coordinator (my first task was learning that EMEA means Europe, the Middle East and Africa). It was here that my business education went into orbit (relatively speaking: my degree had been in English Literature, after all!).
Much to my surprise, I learned that spreadsheets are one of the best things humans have invented. I also enjoyed creating a massive flowchart to summarize the shipping processes I oversaw. My boss and I were both surprised to learn from this that what had previously seemed like a massive tangle of processes could actually be boiled down to eight clear options.
I also arranged special deliveries of books to conferences and other events all over the world. I was simultaneously working next to colleagues who were commissioning and producing the books, and I was liaising with marketing and sales colleagues to fulfil their needs, so I saw the whole publishing process from beginning to end. I even got to visit an airport and see how parcels are tightly stacked into crates for air-freighting. This established in my head a clear path from commissioning to reader.
Years later, the same idea would echo in my PRINCE2ยฎ training, specifically in the principle 'focus on products'. If a product (text or otherwise) isn't created with the end user in mind, it is pointless (or at best sub-optimal). I have retained this focus on the final user โ the reader โ in all my editorial work since.
An actual editor: baptism of fire
Finally, I moved to a job (still at Elsevier) with 'editor' in the title. I became a production editorial project manager, working on MRWs (major reference works). These are giant encyclopedias, usually consisting of at least four or five weighty volumes and often stretching to eight or more. Nowadays they are also published online, and I have continued to work on both online and print MRWs as a freelancer.
It's probably not necessary to explain how a job as an editor prepared me to be an editorial freelancer, but let's just say that the scale of these works made this something of a baptism of fire. I've written about how I tackle these giants, and my Handling Large Editorial Projects course distills everything I've learned from their unique challenges.
In this job, I also continued to develop my business instincts and my understanding of resource management. I had plenty of opportunities to refine my communication skills. And I got to work with a lovely team of people who introduced me to clever and creative ways of actually getting a project over the finishing line.
Sailing off into the freelance sunset
I was initially prompted to consider freelancing because my commute was becoming too much, but it was absolutely the best path for me. I am in my element running my own business (you can read about the essential documentation I've developed to keep my business robust and fulfilling). I enjoy using all the skills I developed early on in my career โ and many more โ in service of my clients every day.
Essential editorial skills don't necessarily come from editing qualifications, and there is much more to being a professional editor than polishing your grammatical knowledge. What skills have you picked up in unexpected places? Let me know in the comments!
Such a fantastic post! This is exactly what I discuss with my mentees during my business mentoring sessions for editors and proofreaders.
My mentees have all had different previous careers and interests (law, dance, medicine, to name just three), but these unique aspects to their “previous lives” make them special as editors. It’s all food for their marketing and how they appeal to their target audience.
It’s always so rewarding to see the penny drop when they realise they don’t have to burn the bridges to their past; they can hold it up as proof that they are offering something special to meet their clients’ requirements, standing out among the crowd.
I’m in good company if the post chimes with your mentoring advice, Debbie! Absolutely: if anything, I often feel disadvantaged for not having more of a pre-editing background. You’ll have noticed that most of my examples are from my university days and before, and that’s simply because I only did four years of full-time employment before I went freelance. I learned a huge amount in that time (and before), but editors who come to the profession with years of prior expertise have a wealth of insights and learning to draw on, as you say.
Please feel free to share the post with your mentees if they’d find it useful ๐
Thanks so much for the encouragement with your examples, Hazel. My undergraduate major was officially Undecided (if I think hard enough I might even remember the code) until my junior year. But I don’t regret a minute of it because the exposure to many subject areas still serves me well, and perhaps more importantly, it taught me a lot about myself. And the years I waitressed (some of those full-time) taught me more than any institute ever could about business transactions and customer relations!
What a fantastic university experience, Deborah. As far as I we know, we don’t have that option in the UK. And I totally agree with what you say about waitressing. It’s so valuable having to make decisions in real time, with the actual customers right in front of you, responding to whatever you’re doing to try to meet their needs.