My editing colleague Vivek Kumar shared last year that on behalf of the Indian Copyeditors Forum, he had curated a volume designed for the new editor or person considering a career in editing, so of course I rushed to buy it, and then of course it’s been over a year until I’ve got it read (but this is also fortuitous: see below).
In that time, I have to say, the development of Artificial Intelligence has leapt forward and I do worry that many of the processes of our profession are going to disappear as human processes, but for the time being you can get a good grounding in the career from this book.
Incidentally, talking about careers, I am publishing this review on the 15th anniversary of my issuing my first invoice, the basic start of my copyediting, proofreading and (slightly later) transcribing career!
Vivek Kumar (ed.) – “Discover the Editor in You: Copyediting as a Career”
(27 July 2023)
This is a great resource for new-career editors or those considering a career in the profession – or, indeed, in related professions.
In shortish articles written by a great collection of editing colleagues from India, the US and the UK, professional editors (etc.) share their lessons and recommendations, covering the skills and mind-set needed, gaining training and credentials and the nuts and bolts of editing in different niches (academic, school textbooks, fiction, newspapers and magazines and technical documents).
The Techniques and Craft section digs deep into clear writing, style guides, querying authors and fact-checking, and a fourth section on Allied Services gives a good flavour of the associated careers of proofreading, alt-text writing and indexing. Appendices offer a list of courses and a useful glossary.
There is some India-centricity, as befits a book written by the Indian Copyeditors Forum, but also has an international reach, covering associations, practices and training across the world.
A really good resource that I’m sure will help many develop the skills and confidence to work in this field professionally.
LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation 