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Thinking of creating and delivering online editorial training courses? Here’s some guidance for editors and proofreaders on the tax implications and choosing a platform.
What’s in this post …
Your online course and the tax authority in your own jurisdiction
When we sell online training courses, we’re entering the world of digital services and products, as defined by the various tax authorities in jurisdictions all over the planet.
Not all digital services and products are created equally, and the rules in one country might be different in another. Even within a single jurisdiction, your online course might be treated differently in terms of tax depending on how you provide access to the content. 5 examples of online courses Imagine you’re me, a UK resident offering online training courses. Here’s what the classifications might look like (though I’m no tax specialist) in 2022.
Example 1
What the online editing training course comprises
Example 2 What the online editing training course comprises
Example 3 What the online editing training course comprises
Example 4 What the online editing training course comprises
Example 5 What the online editing training course comprises
Your online course and the tax authority in other jurisdictions
So you’ve worked out what the deal is for your own jurisdiction. However, when it comes to selling globally, where you live is irrelevant when it comes to consumption taxes like VAT.
Anyone offering online courses in a global market must know where their customer lives. And it’s the tax authority’s rules in the customer’s jurisdiction that determine whether we need to add a consumption tax to the price. Which can be a monumental barrier for sole-trading editors and proofreaders. Why? because here's what we need to take responsibility for. Our consumption tax responsibilities Small-business owners selling digital products and services internationally must have a mechanism in place to:
That list is enough to deter any small-business owner from sharing their knowledge and charging for it. Which is a crying shame because the editorial community is passionate about training and CPD. And the fact is that most of us don’t have the time or skills to do this work – unless we decide we're not actually going to be editors and trainers anymore, but full-time accountants instead. Nor can we afford to hire an expensive specialist tax accountant who will do this for us – unless we want the entire exercise to become unprofitable. So what do we do? The solution: Find a taxation-friendly training platform
There is a solution. Training platforms are increasingly offering tax support to their trainers. When evaluating a training platform for its taxation-friendliness, it’s critical that we understand the concept of the Merchant of Record.
What is a Merchant of Record? A Merchant of Record is the legal entity that usually:
When we choose a training platform that acts as the Merchant of Record, or includes a third-party integration that does the same, that leaves us free to get on with the business of editorial training rather than worrying about whether we’re tax compliant in every part of the world we’re selling to. If the platform doesn't offer that, we're the Merchants of Record, and the buck's back with us. What’s on offer? Some training platforms are partial Merchants of Record. PayHip, for example, calculates, collects and remits VAT in the UK and Europe for me as a UK resident. However, I’m responsible for the tax compliance in all other jurisdictions ... Cue the worry. Some training platforms include integrations that calculate the tax but don’t collect or remit it. That’s on us or our (expensive) specialist tax accountants. LearnWorlds is an example. The Quaderno app calculates what we owe to whom, but we have to do the rest ... Cue the worry. Some training platforms act as full Merchants of Record, meaning they calculate, collect and remit all the tax for all jurisdictions. Teachable is an example ... And relax! Where I host my editorial training courses
I now host my editorial training courses with Teachable for seven reasons:
Note that at the time of writing, trainers wanting to offer PayPal as a payment gateway in Teachable must set their course prices in US dollars. Teachable is right for me, but any editor or proofreader embarking on online course creation should do their own research. Most platforms offer a free trial so you can get a feel for the setup, functionality and branding options. Summing up: What to consider
Related resources
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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Find out what narrative distance is and why fiction editors and authors need to pay attention to it.
What’s in this post ...
What is narrative distance?
Narrative means story. It’s the part of a novel that isn’t dialogue.
A narrator is the person who tells the story. They can be a character in the book or an entity that stands outside it. There can be multiple narrators in a book, too. That allows the author to present events from multiple perspectives. ‘Narrative distance’ describes the space between a novel’s narrator and the reader.
Are narrative distance and psychic distance the same thing?
Yes, narrative distance and psychic distance are the same thing. Some writers and editors use one term, some the other. They’re interchangeable. Use whichever you feel comfortable with.
You might find one or other useful depending on what issues you’re dealing with when you’re writing or editing. I like the word ‘narrative’ because it reminds me what part of the prose I’m dealing with. Then again, I sometimes use the word ‘psychic’ because it reminds me that although I’m dealing with fiction, and therefore something that’s not real, the narrator within that creative realm still has their own lived experience and a raft of emotions that come with that. How is narrative distance related to narrative style?
Narrative style refers to the way in which the narrator offers their perspective. Common narrative styles include:
Each of those narrative styles come with a certain degree of distance between the narrator and the reader. For example, first-person narrations always feel a little more intimate because the pronoun ‘I’ is used. Second-person narrations can feel equally intimate, but in a voyeuristic way. Third-person narrations – and the pronouns that come with them – are what we’re used to using for those not being directly addressed, so in prose they naturally put space between readers and narrators using the third person. When we move beyond a framework of narrative style and start to think specifically in terms of narrative distance, we’re able to analyse the effectiveness of prose in a more nuanced and flexible way. Why writers and editors need to learn about narrative distance
Take a book off your shelf and read a couple of pages. Even though the entire section might be written in a single narrative style – for example, third-person limited, it’s likely that the narrative distance still changes.
Perhaps you’ve never noticed before, and if that’s the case, the author and their editor have done a great job because the movement is seamless. If that movement is jarring and too obvious, it could be an indication that narrative distance isn’t being controlled sufficiently. Editors and writers who can recognize narrative distance and evaluate its effectiveness are better equipped to solve the problem, and justify their solutions. Using a visual framework to understand narrative distance
Are you confused by narrative distance? Don’t worry – you’re not alone! It’s a complex topic. Even experienced line editors and authors can struggle to get their heads around it.
My solution was to structure my own learning as a visual framework. I presented that framework at the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading’s annual conference in September 2021 and then for the Society of Authors in October 2021. The framework I shared at those two events garnered fabulous reviews and convinced me to record a webinar that everyone could access. Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors is available now to anyone who wants to lift the curtain on narrative distance and use it to craft prose that offers a better reader experience. Use the button below to find out what’s included in the course.
Related resources for you to dig into
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Learn about problematic language, the messages it might unintentionally convey, and how we can talk about the editorial conundrums we come across without judgement.
Embedding the language of preference in editorial discussion
Words are the professional editor’s business, yet the ones we use in the course of discussing how we apply our craft are all too often prescriptive.
Most editors, however experienced, encounter conundrums in their work that lead to their seeking advice from colleagues. Too often, the language of prescription is used to frame questions:
The problem with notions such as ‘right’, ‘correct’ and ‘rule’ is that they’re loaded. The implication is that there’s one way – a best way – to write and to edit. In reality, there are multiple ways to punctuate a sentence, each of which could alter its flow and rhythm in nuanced ways. There are multiple Englishes, too, each with grammatical and syntactical structures that vary from region to region within nations as well as from country to country. And there are multiple style guides that express particular preferences. All of which means there is no ‘correct’ way to punctuate a sentence, no ‘right’ grammar, and no ‘rule’ on hyphenation. What there are instead are conventions and choices that that can be implemented or ignored. Instead, we could ask:
The artistry of editing lies in helping the client craft prose in which the meaning is clear and interpreted as intended by readers. Embedding that principle – rather than the language of rights and rules – in the way we talk about our work means we’re more likely to think descriptively rather than prescriptively. Whose standards and conventions are in play?
There are myriad standards and conventions in language, ones that determine the following for example:
When we come across writing that doesn’t conform to these standards and conventions, some of us choose to refer instead to ‘non-standard’ language and ‘breaking from convention’ so as to avoid the judgement embodied in terms such as ‘right’, ‘best’, ‘correct’ and ‘rule’. It’s been my preference because I felt it was more neutral and framed the issue around reader expectation rather than my own lived experience of language. And that’s something I’ve been thinking about. Why? Because these terms, too, need to be used with caution. We need to be aware that while standards and conventions help readers make sense of the written and spoken word, they are created and enforced by those with advantage, those who have the power to deem them as standard and conventional in the first place, and to assert their primacy. That doesn’t make those standards and conventions better; it just means those who define them are in a position to do so. It also means that prose can be just as rich when those standards and conventions are ignored or flexed. What about style guides?
Individuals and organizations have preferences. For example, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), the University of Chicago Press and the American Psychological Association each have style guides that record their preferences for myriad stylistic decisions.
Mindful editing means remembering that these preferences aren’t ‘right’ or ‘better’. They’re certainly not rules. Even Oxford’s New Hart’s Rules isn’t a rulebook! Rather, these are useful guides that help editors and authors bring clarity and consistency to writing. However, editors – particularly those working on creative texts – need to be ready to bend when character and narrative voice would be damaged by prescriptive application of a style guide. As for those of us working on texts that deal with identity and representation, we need to be ready to question the advice in a published style guide; it might be behind the curve. Transferring judgement to the client
If we use the language of ‘right/’wrong’, ‘correct’/’incorrect’ and even ‘standard’/’non-standard’ when we talk to other editors about our work, there’s a risk that this will leak into the way we convey solutions to our clients, even into the way we edit their work.
An author might not write in sentences that follow grammar, spelling and punctuation conventions, but that in no way means they’re a poor crafter of prose. Perhaps the way they lay down words is because they haven’t learned our conventions. Or perhaps they’ve actively chosen to ignore those conventions because that style of language doesn’t suit their character and narrative voices. The mindful editor needs to recognize and respect both scenarios. Understanding which one is in play is critical because it will determine whether and which amendments are suggested, and why. ‘Wrong’, ‘non-standard’ or authentic voice?
Here’s an example that demonstrates how an author has chosen to craft a narrative that favours voice over ‘standard’ English now and then in order to reduce the distance between the narrator-protagonist and the reader.
These excerpts are from the opening chapter of Imran Mahmood’s You Don’t Know Me (pp 4–5; Penguin, 2017).
Are the words I placed in bold ‘incorrect’ or ‘wrong’? That’s a judgemental approach that implies there’s a single perfect, right way to write and speak English. There isn’t.
Are the terms ‘non-standard’? To my ear, yes, some of them are, but that’s because I’m a 50-something middle-class white woman raised in Buckinghamshire, England, who was taught how to write and speak according to a standard dreamt up by … actually, I’m not sure who dreamt up the standard but it was probably someone who looked, spoke and was educated quite a lot like me and had the advantages I have. Rather than thinking about these excerpts in terms of whether some of the words are non-standard or standard, instead we can evaluate them in terms of voice. Rich, evocative voice. Our first-person narrator has been accused of murder and has elected to defend himself. As the blurb on the back cover says: ‘He now stands in the dock and wants to tell you the truth. He needs you to believe him. Will you?’ Actually, it’s his authentic voice that draws me – a 54-year-old middle-class white woman raised in Buckinghamshire, England – deep into his psyche so that I can see and hear him as if we are one. And that means I can root for him, invest in him, care about him, believe him. Thinking about that narrative in terms of whether it’s ‘correct’ or ‘right’ would be butchery. To apply a digital red pen to it would be a crime. And even those of us who might apply the term ‘non-standard’ to the emboldened words must acknowledge that such prescription is based purely on our own lived experience of English – how we write, how we speak, and what we were taught. That doesn’t make our way of speaking and writing better or worthier. When story and characters drive language, readers will come along for the ride, regardless of their lived experience. When prescriptivism is behind the wheel, readers will disengage and find a different journey to take. Framing errors in terms of author intention and reader expectation
An error is a mistake. We all make them when we’re writing – because we don’t know what the conventions are, because we’re focusing on meaning rather than mechanics, or because our fingers are typing so fast.
Regardless, the focus here is on intention, and for that reason there are times when it’s appropriate for the editor to use the term ‘error’. When editors are tasked with finding errors, they’re looking for what wasn’t intended in that particular project. Take a look at these four examples:
We can say without judgement that there are four ‘errors’ in the above examples because in each case the author likely made a mistake – they meant to use a consistent style of speech marks in the first example, meant the pronouns to be consistent in the second, meant to use ‘they’re' in the third, and meant to use an alternative style for the nested quotation marks in the fourth. When we’re querying potential errors, however, we can still use the language of intention and reader expectation in our comments, thereby avoiding a more critical tone:
Summing up
As professional editors, we need to think about the language we use about language!
Instead, we can frame our discussions and queries around meaning, author intention and reader experience. That way, we’re putting the prose where it belongs – front and centre. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Want to copyedit fiction for indie authors? Even if you have extensive experience of working for publishers, there are skills and knowledge you might need to acquire before making the shift.
Publishing has its own language
Fiction copyediting means something specific in a publishing company. It’s usually (there are always exceptions to the rule) the corrective work that focuses on spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency and logic.
It’s important work – meticulous and detailed. It stops a character giving birth two months before she got pregnant; it spots when your protagonist’s eyes have changed colour; it flags up the trigger safety that doesn’t exist on the model of gun being described. In the wider world, ‘copyediting’ can mean all sorts of things. It will include all of the above but might include a deeper level of stylistic work. Some editors will use different terminology to describe their services, such that this middle-level editing – further down the chain than developmental or structural work but higher up than the prepublication proofread – is more intense. Some editors even include developmental/structural work in their ‘copyediting’ service because their target clients fall into one or both of the following categories:
The mismatch between language and need
Some editors work only for publishers. Some work only for indie authors. Some work for both.
That messy publishing language becomes problematic when everyone’s using one term – ‘copyediting’ – to mean different things. Plus, none of us knows what we don’t know. If an editor has copyedited fiction only for publishers, and then moves into the indie-author market, there’s a risk that their knowledge and skills match the needs and expectations of mainstream publishers, but not those of indie authors. Many indie authors are self-publishing for the first time. They’ll expect a professional editor to know what they don’t. But a fiction copyeditor, just by virtue of having done something called ‘fiction copyediting’ as defined by publishers, might not know how to handle the stylistic issues in a book. That doesn’t mean they’re a bad editor. It means they have a specific skill set that might not be what the indie author needs or asks for. Case study: Good editor but bad fit
The author
Jo Pennedanovel is navigating the independent publishing world for the first time. She’s never gone it alone so she’s working from scratch – writing, finding editorial support and a cover designer, building a promotion strategy, and learning about sales and distribution platforms. The brief Jo knows that more than a proofread is required, but she’s happy with the big-picture aspects of her novel. She needs something in the middle: ‘copyediting’, she’s heard it called. So that’s what she looks for. Jo goes online and searches for a copyeditor, finds someone who has over a decade’s worth of experience of copyediting fiction for some of the big-name publishing houses. If that editor’s good enough for them, they’re good enough for Jo! Jo hires the copyeditor for her book. The outcome Jo’s a professional and takes her writing seriously. She knows there will be outstanding glitches that were missed at copyediting stage, so she hires another editor to proofread her book. All well and good so far. The editor fixes the outstanding proofreading glitches but notices the following:
The fix The proofreader could ignore all the line-craft issues. After all, he’s not been commissioned to do this work and it will cut into his hourly rate. And anyway, shouldn’t the previous editor have fixed this stuff? Still, he’s committed to editorial excellence, wants a cracking book in his portfolio, and would like to work with that author again, so he decides that ignoring these problems isn’t an option. He could do one of the following:
I’ve done all three in my time. My choice was based on the author, my schedule, and the connection I felt with the project. There’s no wrong or right, just informed decision-making. What’s gone wrong in the editing process?
So what went wrong in that case study? This problem arises because of flawed assumptions about language and responsibility.
Language
The author and the editor are using the same language to describe different outcomes.
What Jo needed was an editor who recognizes that ‘copyediting’ could mean something different in the author’s head – something like: Do what’s required to make my prose sing! I don’t know what those things are, but that’s why I’m hiring you. What she got was a traditional high-quality copyedit as defined by a different client type. It’s work that she needed, but not all the work she needed. Responsibility
A frequent fallback position on the editor’s part is this: it’s the author’s fault because they didn’t hire the right service. Jo shouldn’t have commissioned a copyedit when stylistic work was required.
That’s flawed. She hired a professional editor precisely because they’re a professional editor. She wanted them to show her what she didn’t know. The situation is complicated further by the fact that editors define their services differently. I offer ‘line-/copyediting’. Some of my colleagues offer the same level of intervention but call it just ‘copyediting’. Others offer two distinct services: ‘line editing’ and ‘copyediting’. Yet others don’t even call line editing ‘line editing’. It might be called ‘substantive editing’ or ‘stylistic editing’. It is any wonder that an indie author chooses to ignore the tangled terminology and focus on collating a shortlist of editors who have extensive experience of working for traditional industry gatekeepers – publishers? That works splendidly when the editors have the skills and knowledge to go beyond what a publisher might expect from a fiction copyedit. But it can fall of a cliff when the rigidity of the terminology restricts the depth of editing required. How can editors help fix the problem?
Editors must take responsibility for the language they use and the skills they have so that they’re fit for a diverse indie-author market. That means learning and educating.
Learn line craft
Fiction editors serving indie authors should learn line craft – the stylistic sentence-level editing that might be required. If we don’t understand the likes of show and tell, narrative viewpoint, tense, holding suspense, dialogue craft, and so on, we should question whether we’re ready for this market. And if we do still want to serve this market with publisher-defined copyediting, we must be explicit about the fact that we don’t offer solutions to stylistic problems in prose. Still, being able to say we don’t offer those solutions means understanding what they are in the first place. Not recognizing them is not an option.
Educate authors
We must go the extra mile to ensure that our online and direct communications with authors explain the different levels of editing and how we define them. A website that boasts of our achievements but doesn’t show our understanding of the craft of fiction editing doesn’t help a beginner author make informed decisions. It serves only us, not them. That can lead to disappointment on the author’s part. And disappointment leads to mistrust, not just with the editor who did the work but with the global editorial community in general. Editors frequently report that editing is ‘undervalued’ and ‘underpaid’. But value and worth have to be earned. So does trust. When an editor works with an indie author, but doesn’t have the skills to offer what’s required, or is ignorant of the fact that they don’t have those skills, it’s they – not the author – who is bringing down value and worth in the editing industry. How can authors help fix the problem?
Writers can help themselves too. If you’re an indie author, and you’re not one hundred per cent sure about what you need, do the following:
Author checklist: Finding a good-fit editor
CLICK IMAGE TO ACCESS BOOKLET AND FREE WEBINAR
Summing up
What publishers expect from a fiction copyeditor is often very different to what indie authors will want or need.
If you’re an editor who wants to offer sentence-level work for indie authors, think about the following:
Even if you have an extensive fiction copyediting background by virtue of having worked for a ton of mainstream publishers, there might still be a mismatch between what’s required or what’s asked for and your own definitions and experience. Be prepared to learn, and to show what you’ve learned when you communicate with indie authors. That’s how we build trust, value and worth. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Find out more about the 7 goals we should achieve with every editorial report we write for our authors.
The report goals in brief
Every editorial report we write for our authors should achieve 7 goals. Some benefit us, some benefit our clients, but they’re all connected. If you feel your report-writing skills could do with a boost, use this goal-based framework to pep things up.
Goals that benefit the editor
Goals that benefit the client
Goal 1: Create the report efficiently
Efficiency means achieving the three goals that benefit the client without compromising on one iota of quality and without damaging our productivity. We are in business, after all.
Creating detailed editorial reports can eat into an editor’s hourly rate. It’s easy – even for experienced sentence-level editors – to omit the time for report-writing when creating a quote; I’ve done it myself. We focus on the number of words per hour we edit, based perhaps on a sample. Or perhaps we have included the report-writing component in our calculations but the author wants to negotiate on price. Every efficiency we incorporate allows us greater choice about whether to accept or reject a client’s proposal. Goal 2: Demonstrate editorial excellence
Our second goal is to demonstrate editorial excellence. Those of you who are members of a national editorial society might well be bound by a code of practice that demands this.
That’s the case for members of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), which says in its CoP: ‘Good communication between client/employer and freelance/employee is essential.’ Editorial excellence isn’t just about being an expert in typo hunting, grammar correction and stylistic revision. Neither does it end with clarity on the project brief or issues of privacy, confidentiality and security. It’s also about communicating the why of our edits. Comprehensive editorial reports are the perfect communication tool, and the reason why we shouldn’t skimp. Goal 3: Build trust
When we communicate the why of our decisions, we build trust.
If a client is anxious about how we’ve edited their work because they don’t understand the changes we’ve made and/or because we’re new to them, trust is low. Part of our job is to earn it. A comprehensive editorial report that demonstrates a deep knowledge of our craft creates author confidence. And that’s the key to a healthy business relationship. Goal 4: Compel future commissions and recommendations
A client with a detailed editorial report that demonstrates excellence and builds confidence in your ability is more likely to do the following:
Now let's look at the benefits for the author. Goal 5: Offer a comprehensive learning tool
Our fifth goal is to provide our authors with an outstanding learning tool, rich in problem/solution-focused detail, which they can use to hone their writing craft.
The independent-author market is huge, and many in the community lack experience – they’re right at the beginning of their writing journey. They might well have talent by the bucket load but the line work we do is nevertheless extensive. An editorial report gives us the chance to offer our guidance in a format that’s accessible and clear. And because it’s separate from their book file, they can refer to it time and again. A comprehensive learning tool includes strengths, too. Writers can learn as much from knowing what they’re doing well – and should continue doing – as from knowing how they can up their game. Goal 6: Take a mindful approach
Our penultimate goal is to show mindfulness. As editors, we can never forget that every one of our author clients has a choice – and they chose us. They also have a passion – their book.
It takes commitment to write a story, and sometimes not a little courage to place it in the hands of a professional editor, particularly one they haven't worked with before. That decision comes with risk. For the editor, being selected is a privilege rather than an entitlement. We must respect that choice, the risk taken, and their investment (time and money). Yes, we should report on weaknesses; that’s how they’ll improve their sentence-level craft. But we must do so gently and respectfully, and complement that analysis with reflection on their strengths. Goal 7: Provide a solution-based critical review
Many indie-author book files end up in our editing studios without having been evaluated by a developmental editor, a critiquing editor, an experienced beta reader or even a colleague or friend in a writing group.
Our reports need to offer a critical review that explores the book’s sentence-level strengths and weaknesses. What’s essential is that we offer solutions to any weaknesses we identify. Without those, we risk creating a shopping list of what was good and what wasn’t. That kind of analysis won’t help the author grow as a writer. Neither will it reflect our editorial excellence. Want to learn how to do it, and love it?
If you’re a sentence-level editor and think your reporting skills could do with a boost, or a new editor who wants to nail it from the start, take a look at my new course, How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Story-level critiques focus on the big picture – plot, pace, characterization, voice. Line critiques evaluate a book at a micro level, focusing on sentence construction, word choice, and readability. Here’s an overview of what to expect.
First step: the story
Think of your book as a construction project.
First you lay the foundations and build the walls – writing and redrafting to ensure the structure of your storytelling is sound. It’s where you and your editor (if you have one) focus on the big-picture stuff such as:
At this macro stage, you might end up adding, deleting or shifting sections of your prose. Some authors do their own structural editing because they’re good at it and have studied story craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek professional help, either because they’re at an earlier stage of their authorial journey or because they feel they’re too close to the book to see the problems. One thing’s for sure – there’s no right or wrong way. Every writer has to make their own choices. If a full, done-for-you developmental (or structural) edit isn’t the path you take, you might still decide to work with a specialist editor who analyses your book and provides a detailed report on its strengths and weaknesses at story level, and offers suggestions about how to improve your writing. That’s where story-level critiques come into play. You might also hear them called manuscript evaluations and manuscript assessments. Second step: line level
Once the foundations and walls are in place, it’s plastering time – smoothing at sentence level to ensure that a reader’s journey through the pages is satisfying. In a sense, it’s still structural work but at a micro level. This is where you (and your editor if you have one) focus on nuances such as:
Again, some authors do their own line editing because they’re good at it and have studied line craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek help. If a full, done-for-you line- and copyedit isn’t an option, a line critique could be just the ticket. A line critique, like its story-level sister, is an assessment or evaluation of your story but at sentence level. Your report will include examples from your novel that show what’s holding you back. You’ll also be offered suggestions on how you can fix any problems identified. Then you can implement what you learn throughout the rest of your book. Critiques are about learning, not being criticized
Some authors are nervous about critiques. Pro editors get it – it can be tough to put your book in the hands of another and ask them to tell you what’s working and what’s not, especially when you’ve put in so much hard work.
The thing to remember is that a critique (whether at sentence or story level) is not about criticism. It’s about identifying strengths and weaknesses, and offering solutions so that you can move forward to the next stage of your publishing journey with confidence. And critiques are a long-term investment. They enable you to improve your self-editing skills. That’ll save you time and money further down the line because anyone else you commission will have less to do. The line critique: the process and the report
What follows is an overview of the way I handle line critiques. Every editor has their own process, but the basic principles will be similar.
1. The service: Mini line critique Authors email a Word file comprising, say, 5K words of their novel. It’s in a writer’s best interest to include a section that includes both narrative and dialogue. That way we can assess whether both are working effectively. Furthermore, if there are multiple viewpoint characters in the novel, and different viewpoint styles and tenses have been used, a sample that represents these choices will enable us to provide a report that evaluates the success of those decisions. 2. First readthrough The first stage of the process is a complete readthrough of the 5K words. It’s not about micro-level reporting, not yet. Rather, we’re getting a sense of the author’s writing style, the characters’ voices, and the flow of the narrative. 3. Second pass: Identification tagging We go back to the beginning and start the analytical process, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s line craft. We work through the sample, tagging sections of the text with Word’s commenting tool. The author won’t see these tags – they’re just a tool that allow us to locate the sections we’ll pull from the text and into the report for demonstration. The text in the image below has been blurred in order to respect confidentiality, but you can see the tagging process in the margins of just one page of one of my reports. 
TAGGING IN A MINI FICTION LINE CRITIQUE
4. Writing the report
Now that we’ve tagged the sample, we can create a report. Line critiques are usually between 20 and 30 pages long, depending on the length of the text samples the editor is pulling in and offering recasts for. Each report is divided into sections that address the strengths and weaknesses of the following: NARRATIVE
DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS
TECHNICAL ELEMENTS
FORMATTING
The tags in the sample allow editors to search for and locate the text we want to use as examples of good practice and to highlight areas with improvement potential. 5. Wrapping up and emailing the report When the report is complete, we save it as a PDF and email it to the author. PDF is the tool of choice for many editors because it can’t be edited. If the client wishes to refer back to it during future writing projects, they can do so safe in the knowledge that nothing’s been accidentally removed. Example of one section of the report
Here’s an example of one of those sections (I’ve disguised the identifying traits of the original in order to respect the author’s confidentiality):
CLARITY OF NARRATIVE VIEWPOINT What worked You held narrative viewpoint well and I commend your decision to separate the two viewpoint characters with chapters. This ensured the narrative voices remained distinct. Using a present-tense second-person POV for your transgressor and a past-tense first-person POV for your protagonist worked extremely well. Have you read Complicity by Iain Banks? He does the same thing! It’s effective because it makes us wonder whether that first-person narrative is reliable, though you don’t give the game away until the denouement, which I loved. The second-person POV also lent a rather creepy voyeurism to the transgressor chapters, and though these were demanding to read, you did give your readers plenty of breathing space with the contrasting protagonist chapters. Nicely done! What could be improved Your protagonist narrative was laboured at times because of the abundance of ‘I’. Overusing this pronoun can lead to an overly told narrative in which the reader is forced to experience everything via the character’s experience of it. This can be distancing. I’m not suggesting you remove every instance of ‘I’ plus the verb – not at all. Instead, consider toning it down and removing some of the filter words so that the reader can experience some of the doing with the character rather than through the character. Here are two examples and suggested fixes:
Notice how I’ve suggested removing ‘I saw’, which feels redundant given that we already know that Marcus is looking up, and only tells us of more seeing being done. Instead, you can focus the reader’s attention on the immediacy of what’s seen once the looking up’s happened: the movement of the shooting star. That allows you to show readers what Marcus sees rather than telling them.
Notice how in the original there’s a lot of telling of what ‘I’ did. I like your use of a strong verb to introduce tension – ‘scuttled’ – but that tension dissipates with the more distant told narrative that follows. There’s telling of sound, smell, and realization. I’ve suggested you tighten up the paragraph by retaining the original anchor in which Marcus hides; perhaps follow that with a shown narrative that, again, allows the reader to experience the sounds and smells at the same time as Marcus rather than through his ears, nose and brain’s doing hearing, smelling and realizing. Recommendation Bear in mind that a first-person narrative, by definition, puts the reader in the character’s head. If you keep that in mind, you’ll save yourself a lot of work because you’ll need fewer words on the page. Have a read through all the protagonist chapters and consider where you can tighten up the prose in order to limit some of the telling of doing being done. You can still anchor the first-person viewpoint with ‘I’ in places, of course, but you might recast some of writing that follows with shown action. Summing up
If you want to hone your line craft and polish your book at sentence level, but a full line- and copyedit is beyond your budget, consider a more affordable alternative: the line critique.
Think of a critique as another form of authorial development, of book-craft study. And what you learn from your critique won’t be something you can apply just to the current book. It’s a tool you can use with every story you write thereafter. And here’s a free booklet that outlines the various levels of editing. 
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Here are 10 tips to help you prepare the way for editing and proofreading fiction for independent authors and self-publishers.
Tips for specializing in fiction ...
If your editorial business is relatively new and you’re keen to specialize in fiction editing, there are some core issues that are worth considering. Some of these certainly apply to other specialisms, but fiction does bring its own joys and challenges.
1. Untangle the terminology
You'll need to be sensitive to the fact that your clients may not be familiar with conventional editorial workflows or the terms we use to describe them!
Clarify what the client expects, especially when using terms like ‘proofreading’ and 'editing'.
2. Discuss the revision extent
Clarify the extent of revision required before you agree a price.
3. Manage expectations
Find out how many stages of professional editing the file has already been through.
4. Put the client first – it’s all about the author
What’s required according to the editorial pro and what’s desired by the client (owing to budget or some other factor) could well be two very different things.
5. Be a champion of solutions
The authors we’re working with are at different stages of writing-craft development.
Some are complete beginners, some are emerging, others are developing and yet others are seasoned artists. If they’re in discussion with us, it’s because they think we can help.
6. Be prepared to walk away
Sometimes the author and the editor are simply not a good fit for each other. In the case of fiction, this can be because the editor can't emotionally connect with the story.
7. Decide whether fiction’s a good fit for you
There are challenges and benefits to fiction editing and proofreading.
8. Do a short sample edit before you commit
Unless you’ve previously worked with the author, work on a short sample so that you know what you’re letting yourself in for.
9. Query like a superhero!
All querying requires diplomacy, but fiction needs a particularly gentle touch.
10. Keep your clients’ mistakes to yourself
Some of our self-publishing clients are pulled a thousand-and-one ways every day. And, yet, they’ve found the time and energy to write a book. We must salute them.
Some are right at the beginning of the journey. There’s still a lot to learn and they’re on a budget; they’ve not taken their book through all the levels of professional editing that they might have liked to if things had been different. Some haven't attended writer workshops and taken courses, and they probably never will – there’s barely enough time in the day to deal with living a normal life, never mind writing classes. They’re doing the best they can. With that in mind, respect the journey.
We must always, always respect the writer and their writing, and acknowledge the privilege of having been selected to edit for them. Those are my 10 tips for working with indie fiction writers! I hope you find them useful as you begin your own fiction-editing journey! Learn more about fiction editing
Visit the fiction editing section of my resource library. You'll find books, booklets, webinars, courses and podcast episodes.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If we’re serious about setting up an editing and proofreading business, free resources will get us so far, but only so far.
What free is good for
Free is brilliant when we’re starting out, particularly in the following circumstances:
Free is equally great when we’re experienced but looking to shift the goalposts:
Free stuff is about discovery, so that when the time comes to reach into the coffers we’re spending money in the right place. Free helps us to turn expense into investment. What free is not good for
Free isn’t great in the long term because the offering usually comes with limitations. It will give us a glimpse, enough to help us on the journey. But that’s all.
The reason free has its limitations is because even creating free stuff and offering free help takes time, and time is money. Imagine the following scenarios:
CASE STUDY 1
Jane wants to offer developmental editing but has no experience. She does some research and finds the following:
CASE STUDY 2
Jack has identified a skills gap. He’s a great editor but a poor marketer and is dissatisfied with the rates he’s earning from his existing client base. Currently, he works with project-management agencies who find publisher work for him. And those publishers find authors for the agency. There’s a cost to that author-acquisition work – those agencies and publishers take a cut of the fee at each stage because they have to invest their own time and expertise in making themselves visible. It's that visibility that puts the editing work on Jack's desk. He starts a discussion in a large editorial Facebook group about his concerns and is offered the following:
What tasters teach us ... and what they don't
In both cases, the freebies are of exceptionally high quality and Jane and Jack learn a ton from them. Creating that content must have taken time and effort.
However, free articles, blog posts and webinars are tasters. Those kinds of things help us understand the lie of the land, and give us a deeper sense of what more we need to learn. What they won’t do is teach us everything we need to know. We can’t learn how to become professional developmental editors from those resources alone ... any more than we could learn to cut hair or wire a house to acceptable standards without proper training and guidance. Same goes for marketing. Take me, for example. It’s not luck and Google that made me a strong marketer. I pay a monthly sub to learn how to do it well from professional marketers, and invest time in implementing the strategies I’m learning. If Jane wants to become a professional developmental editor and Jack wants to become a strong editorial marketer, both need to take all those freebies and use them to make informed decisions about the money they will invest to turn their investigations into reality. Examples might include:
Free will help Jane and Jack make decisions. Investment will make them fit for professional purpose. A better money mindset
It’s perfectly okay to decide that you can’t afford to run a professional editorial business ... but only as long as you decide not to run a professional editorial business.
No one on the planet owns a business that doesn’t have operating costs. Business owners have to take responsibility for training, equipment, invoicing, money transfer, software, marketing, client acquisition, office space, pension provision, taxation responsibilities, and more. It’s true that the international editorial community is incredibly generous, which means that free resources and guidance abound on multiple platforms. However, those who are serious about running an editorial business know they have to avoid hobbyist and employee mindsets.
The shoe on the other foot – when you’re asked for a freebie
We can’t have everything we want when we want it. We have to make choices. Freebies help us make the right choices so that the money we spend actually increases our prospects and income in the longer term.
And imagine yourself on the other side of the fence for a moment. A potential client calls you. They have a book that needs copyediting. ‘The thing is,’ they say, ‘I can’t afford professional editing. How can I get out of paying you? To be honest, I’m just looking for free stuff.’ How fast would you hang up? Now imagine another writer calls you. ‘I’m in the middle of doing as much self-editing as I can using some free tutorials I found online and some advice from my writing group. There’s a fair way to go,’ they say, ‘but I figured I’d start saving now. Can you give me a rough idea of how much it might cost and how much notice you’d need? That way I can start planning my book budget.’ That’s the kind of client I’m excited about working with. The editor with the same mindset will be rewarded with guidance and help because they deserve it. The editor who wants it all for nothing won’t and doesn’t. By all means, grab all the freebies. The creators of those resources want you to have them. Making free stuff that’s invisible and unused is a waste of time and effort. Just don’t forget that free is the starting blocks. Investment is what gets us to the finish line! Further reading
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
What's different about fiction editing, and is it for you? This post explores emotional responsiveness, mindfulness and artistry.
A line editing and copyediting focus
To keep things tidy, I'm talking in the main about line editing and copyediting fiction because I specialize in sentence-level work, but some of the key principles will apply to developmental fiction editing too.
Why fiction editing is a different kind of artistry
Have you ever tried something for the first time and found it difficult?
Did someone review your initial effort? Did they outline problems before celebrating your achievement? If so, how did you feel? I suspect most of us have encountered this scenario at some time or other. I have, and it feels just awful. A review of anything that focuses only on the negatives – however kindly those negatives are offered – is a poor review. It matters not whether you’re an editor, a business executive, a marketer, or a parent; if you can’t find a single good thing to celebrate in the work in front of your nose, then you’ve not done the job properly. When editing fiction, the ability to celebrate first is critical – more so, I think, than with non-fiction. Note that by non-fiction I’m referring to academic, technical and journalistic works, not narrative non-fiction (sometimes called creative or literary non-fiction) such as memoir or biography, where I think the editing challenges are similar to the fiction specialist’s. In a nutshell, editing criminology requires a different touch to editing crime fiction. It’s personal for writers
Every writer’s book is their baby, and most writers will infuse their tomes with their own experiences. But when those experiences concern matters of love, grief, sex or despair, the process of writing – and of being edited – takes on a whole new level of intimacy.
I’ve lost count of the number of authors who’ve told me they felt physically sick at the thought of contacting an editor, never mind emailing me the file. Many feel vulnerable, exposed, embarrassed. And why wouldn’t they? Imagine handing over hundreds, even thousands of pounds to a stranger to look at an image of you and suggest how to make it better – not just any image, mind. You’re naked in this one. For many, that’s what it feels like to be edited. And so the fiction editor is charged with a responsibility. And it’s huge. Best versus best-fit editors
Put 10 fiction editors in a room and ask them to work on the same 2,000 words. You’ll likely come back with 10 very different samples. That’s because fiction editing is subjective.
It’s not that the rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation don’t apply. It’s not even that they apply less rigidly. It’s rather that they apply differently. Just a single change to a punctuation mark can affect tension, pace, mood. One of my regular authors has a mantra: ‘Louise, as always, keep it lean and mean.’ He’s a crime writer. It’s high-octane stuff. Low on adverbs. Low on conjunctions. Short, choppy sentences. The protagonist looks over his shoulder a lot. And if the punctuation is sympathetic, the reader looks with him. Compare this with another recent project. It’s essentially a love story – a woman’s search for her exiled family. The tale is one of heartbreak, abandonment, reconciliation and redemption. The author’s style is more fluid, prosaic. The protagonist isn’t looking over her shoulder but searching her soul. Every change needs to reflect this. How I go about reflecting these authors’ intentions will not necessarily be the same as one of my colleagues. It’s not that one of us is better at editing than the other. Rather, it’s how we interpret those intentions – and seek to mimic them – that’s different. We’re not talking about who’s the best, but who’s the best fit. That’s something the author must decide. And it’s tricky. How does a writer search for best fit on Google, or in an editorial directory, or on social media? How do they find that elusive emotional responsiveness to their writing? Assessing emotional responsiveness – the sample edit
Fiction editors don’t have a monopoly on sample edits, but there is, I believe, an added dimension here in which samples really come into their own.
Physically working on a piece of text helps every editor get a sense of the writing style, where the problems are and whether they’re capable of solving them, how long the job will take and how it should be priced. For the fiction editor, there’s something else, though – the feel of it. It’s our first opportunity to find out whether we can get under the skin of the author. And if we can’t, it might mean walking away. If we can’t respond emotionally to the author’s intentions – feel our way through the words and into the characters and the world they inhabit – the edit could be impaired. You can’t mimic an author seamlessly if you’re unmoved by what you’re reading. There’s a lot of talk about authorial voice in the editing world. In fiction editing, the concept can be a tad limiting.
A sample edit has its limitations, of course, by virtue of size. But it gives the author and the editor a glimpse of whether that emotional responsiveness is present and how it’ll be managed on the page such that the fit feels right. Ultimately, fiction editing is as much about the heart as the head. The mindful rules of fiction editing
Once the author and editor have found each other, the mindful rules of fiction editing will come into play ... during the edit, and in the post-edit summary or report. Here are mine:
The author should leave the editing studio feeling empowered to move forward, not reaching for a mop because their self-confidence has leaked all over the floor. Fiction is a specialism
Fiction editing isn’t for everyone. If you’re keen to specialize in this kind of work, ask yourself where you lie on the empathy scale.
Many specialist fiction editors I know describe themselves as being a little on the oversensitive side. Terms such as introspective or contemplative are never far away. I cry at some adverts, so it’s no surprise to me that I ended up in this line of work! This emotionality can serve the fiction editor well, but it’s not something that can be learned on a training course. That’s not to say that specialist fiction editorial training isn’t worth doing – far from it. But mindfulness is your friend, too – don’t be afraid to embrace it in your editorial practice! About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you’re new to fiction copyediting (or proofreading), you might struggle to find the balance between changing, querying and leaving well enough alone.
Don’t beat yourself up – even experienced editors labour to find an equilibrium at times, especially those who work with a stream of new-client authors. 
Here are 5 tips to help you be a query superhero! And if you fancy downloading them to your preferred device, there’s a PDF at the bottom of the post.
1. Is it meant to be real or imagined?
By definition, fiction is made up.
There might be people, places, landmarks, buildings, even entire worlds that rest entirely in the mind of the writer. In that case, the author gets to make the rules (e.g. on spelling, environment, even physics) and our job is to check for consistency. Sometimes, though, the people, places, landmarks and buildings exist in the real world. And when there’s a discrepancy (Obama vs Obamah; Elizabeth Tower vs Big Ben) two possibilities emerge: (1) the author has slipped up; (2) the author has deliberately decided to bend reality a little, for any number of reasons. Querying, rather than changing, is essential.
Here’s an example from one of Amy Schneider's fiction-editing master classes:
Example
Schneider tells of a book she edited where the author had included mention of a New York newspaper. She fact-checked it; it had been a real newspaper, but had long ceased to exist by the time the year in which the novel was set had come around. It turned out that this was a deliberate decision on the part of the author, who for personal reasons wanted to keep the paper going in his fictional world. Tactful querying and discussion prevented embarrassment and harm.
LESSON: There’s real, and then there’s really real! Either may be required.
2. When the facts have changed
Editors have a wealth of free online research tools at their fingertips. I can’t imagine doing this job thirty years ago! Still, even if we fact-check we might not access ALL the relevant information.
Again, tactful querying rather than changing is usually the best way forward. Here’s an example of how my due diligence wasn’t diligent enough. Querying rather than changing saved me:
Example
I copyedited a crime novel in which a character was arrested and his rights were read out to him by a police officer. The wording seemed off to me so I fact-checked. I found what I thought was the correct wording and suggested (rather than changed) a possible recast for the author to use if he thought it appropriate. Good job, too. The author came back to me saying that the wording of the rights had changed in 1994, and that the original was correct given the year in which the scene was set. A big whoops moment for me and a lesson learned. Still, he thanked me for asking first. I still get the shudders thinking about the harm I would have done if I’d actually amended the text directly.
LESSON: Watch your historical context – your diligence needs to be deep enough to take account of it.
3. Be a problem solver
Many of my indie authors haven’t taken their books through editorial review, developmental editing and substantive line editing before the file hits my inbox.
I do make it absolutely clear what’s included in my service, but sometimes a client might not realize where some of the problems are, or, even if they do, might be stuck on how to fix them. This is where the query needs to go beyond a question and offer a solution. Fiction copyeditors are a little like mechanics, though I have a car so I know what it’s like to sit on the other side of the fence. When I take my car into the garage, I don’t expect to hand over 500 quid (or whatever) in exchange for a list of what’s wrong with my car. I do want to see that list, but I also want to know that the mechanic has solved the problems. For that reason, I think it’s good practice to explain the problem and offer a recast in the comments if we come across a sentence that we feel could do with tightening up or smoothing out. That way, the author can do a simple copy and paste if they like what we’re offering. Even if they don’t like it, it gives them another way of thinking about the text and how they might revise it to solve the problem in their own way (though see ‘Consider your own voice’ below for a cautionary tale!). Example
This example from Erin Brenner (‘Writing Effective Author Queries’), with her author’s hat on, is frightening but illuminating:
'I had a lot of comments that simply said: AU: Revise? No text was changed. No specific words or phrases were highlighted. The entire sentence bore the comment “AU: Revise?” It drove me mad. Revise what? In what way does this sentence need help? For each “AU: Revise?” I had to guess what the copyeditor might have taken issue with. Was everything grammatically correct? Had I missed a style point? A usage rule? How was the sentence not right? As copyeditors, we must remember that when we query, we have a goal: to get the author to make a change we think will help the text. Some authors will easily do so, others won’t. But no author can make corrections if he or she doesn’t know what corrections are wanted.'
LESSON: Problems without solutions (or even explanations) are next to useless for the author. Avoid!
4. Or be an adviser
Back to the garage. Sometimes there are problems on the list that the mechanic can’t handle. Again, the same thing can happen to fiction copyeditors whose indie authors would have benefited from developmental work beforehand. And in that case the best we can do is suggest where to go for help.
Here’s another example from my own back yard:
Example
I was hired to copyedit what turned out to be the most gorgeous thriller with a generous dose of humour included. The author made me laugh out loud several times in the first four chapters, and in the fifth he made me cry (not with laughter, but because the scene was so moving). I mention this because it’s an indication of how strong the writing was. Most of my edits were mechanical – standardizing dialogue punctuation, dashes, number treatment, spelling, punctuation and grammar. But, every now and then, his point of view got a little sticky. I was able to solve the issue elegantly at line level on several occasions because of the context in which the problem arose. However, there were several occurrences that I couldn’t fix. All I could do was flag them up for him, explain why I thought there might be a problem, and offer advice on where to go for help. It wasn’t an ideal situation for either of us, but at least I’d offered guidance. Sometimes that’s the best we can do.
LESSON: Second best sometimes has to suffice. If you can’t fix it, suggest who can.
5. Consider your own voice
Given that we’re being paid for our services, our authors need to know that we’re their advocates, and that we’re there to elevate their writing, not criticize how they write. Says Sheila Gagen (‘The Art of the Editorial Query’):
'… the editor’s task is to serve readability (not, as some authors might think, to hack away at text or, as some editors might think, to point out where an author is wrong). The author wrote the text; he or she must have thought that it did make sense.'
Queries therefore need to have a tone that shows respect and advocacy.
Gagen also makes an important point about authors’ varying preferences – how not everyone wants to be hugged and handheld. The thing is, this is tricky to manage unless you’ve worked with the client on previous occasions. Here’s her story:
Example
Says Gagen: 'Twice in my career, authors responded to my queries with the same word: “Duh.” (One even took the time to handwrite it in all caps with a few exclamation marks.) Both of those suggested changes were valid, but the authors were sick of my queries and gave up. As a result, they didn’t just lash out at the particular remarks they didn’t like … they ignored other, indisputable edits.'
LESSON: Be an advocate and watch your manners! Choose elevation over criticism.
Gagen recommends discussing the issue before the project starts. It may be that a writer will prefer you to just go ahead and make a substantive edit to the text. Others may want a nudge. Others will prefer a more detailed explanation in the comments.
And given that we’re trying to help our authors avoid reader disengagement, it would be a shame if, through hitting the wrong tone, we ended up disengaging our clients. Adrienne Montgomerie offers further food for thought: ‘When you’re worn out, incredulous, and exasperated, it can show in your queries.’ Eek! To think that, despite our best efforts at advocacy, we might have made our author feel we’re no longer on their side, is unthinkable, and yet it can happen. She offers a handy list of different phrases you might consider when querying to keep your author engaged and your tone on track (‘10 Ways to Word a Sensitive Query’). Get your free booklet
I hope you’ve found these tips useful. Here’s your PDF mini-booklet if you fancy downloading the post to your device. Just click on the image to get your copy.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Does quibbling over the cost of professional editorial training miss the point?  Focus on skills, not moneySome years ago, a reader emailed me to ask my advice about returning to the world of editorial freelancing after a break. In particular, they wanted to know whether free courses were worthwhile, and, if so, which one they should take. My answer was that the issue of free versus paid missed the point. Rather, it depends on what is required by the individual. What do you need to know? If your skills are sound with the exception of one particular gap in your knowledge, e.g. how to use proofreading markup symbols, and you find a free course that teaches this, then it’s going to be a great course for you, one that's worth doing despite the fact that it costs nothing but your time. If, however, you need a comprehensive tutor-based course that teaches you how to use markup language, make sensible decisions about when to mark up and when to leave well enough alone, how to work with paper and onscreen files, and provide you with a solid grounding in how publishing and production processes work (and your place within them), then this free course, which only teaches you how to use markup language, will be next to useless. Why paid-for and free can both be worthwhileWe all have budgets. I love a freebie as much as the next person and I've taken advantage of several free or low-cost tutoring programmes over the years. I've also forked out hundreds of pounds in the process of learning new skills. Which of those courses were the most worthwhile? The freebies or the bank-account drainers? The answer is, all of them. That's because I picked the courses that I felt would teach me what I needed to know. When training for professional business practice, the primary indicator of whether the training is worthwhile is not the price; rather, it is the degree to which the course content fills our knowledge gaps. Fictive case study 1Jenny is a social worker from Dublin who is thinking about transitioning to freelance proofreading. She has no previous editorial experience, though her academic and career credentials are outstanding. As I said, she's thinking about transitioning – she hasn’t yet made up her mind whether this is the right move. She contacts the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders & Indexers (AFEPI), Ireland’s national editorial society. One of the joint-chairpersons tells her that the society is running a half-day “introduction to proofreading” session. The course is a bargain at only 40 euros. She also finds a free online proofreading course that takes about an hour to complete. Are these worth doing? In Jenny’s case, they are excellent opportunities that will give her a taste of what professional proofreading involves but won't require her to invest large amounts of her hard-earned cash before she's made up her mind about her future career steps. Will they make her ready to hit the ground running in the world of professional proofreading practice? No, but that's not what she needs at the moment. Fictive case study 2Dan is former experienced and highly recommended copyeditor and proofreader from Toronto. He put his career on hold while he took on the full-time care of his partner, who'd been diagnosed with a long-term illness. Dan’s been out of the editorial freelancing world for 15 years and is now ready to re-enter the marketplace. He's no newbie but he does feel very rusty. The editorial environment has changed somewhat in the past decade and a half. More work is being done digitally than was the case when he was previously in practice, so his tech skills are out of date. His research enables him to identify the gaps in his technical knowledge. He's located a series of free online tutorials that will enable him to develop these tech skills. Dan is also concerned that because he hasn’t worked on professional material for a long time he's forgotten some of the foundational principles that underpin his practice. He decides that full Editors Canada (EC) certification in copyediting and proofreading might be overkill at this point. However, the Toronto branch runs a number of brush-up seminars that will be useful to him. In addition, EC offers two relevant study guides for a total cost of CAN$140. Price-wise, the investment is not insignificant by any means, but he thinks that the curriculum covered will bring his knowledge up to date. Later, he may use this study programme to become certified. Fictive case study 3Mati is a successful London-based professional English/Italian translator. She wants to extend her service portfolio to include proofreading. In addition to working with independent authors and academics, she wishes to proofread for publishers. She decides to source an industry-recognized and comprehensive course that will train her to professional standards. She's short on money because her London flat costs her a fortune each month. She's identified a number of free online proofreading programmes, and a couple of books dedicated to the subject. None of them offer her the depth of content that she feels will give her the confidence to enter professional proofreading practice; plus, she’d really like to have a tutor for mentoring purposes. The course she thinks will be perfect for her is the run by the Publishing Training Centre (PTC) but it costs £348. The free course options or the books will solve her financial issues, but they won't give her the detail or the mentoring. The PTC option will give her the detail and the mentoring but will leave her unable to pay next month's rent. She decides to save up for the PTC course over six months. In the meantime, she continues to focus on her translation work, and uses the time she’d set aside for the PTC proofreading course to develop a marketing strategy aimed at building a proofreading client base that will complement her existing translation-client work. Curriculum before cost ...Free or cheap can be superb or it can be useless. Expensive can be comprehensive or overkill. That's because the cost of the course is not the right indicator. Rather, the content of the course, and the degree to which that content addresses a particular skill gap, is what counts. Certainly we must not ignore free or low-cost tutorials, webinars, books, courses and conferences – if they teach us what we need to know they'll be a boon for our business development. On the flip side, we shouldn’t dismiss training that we consider to be expensive if that training is what will enable us to compete in the editorial freelancing market effectively. When we find that the training we need costs more than we can currently afford, we need to develop a plan to finance that training. If I can’t afford the course that I’ve identified as the one that will fill the gaps in my professional knowledge, I might decide to save up for it, just as Mati did. Imagine that your child’s nursery teacher, your electrician or your dentist told you they couldn’t afford to do the training they'd identified as making them fit for purpose and so they’d opted not to bother, instead turning to cheaper or free courses that only taught them a few of the things they needed to know. Would you let them near your kid, your fuse box or your mouth? Our clients are no different. They want us to be fit for purpose. Curriculum is always the primary indicator that we should focus on when evaluating how worthwhile a training course is. Using content as the basis of selection will drive us into a position where we acquire the skills we need to solve our clients’ problems such that they will hire us repeatedly and recommend us to their colleagues. Some of that content will be free, some of it will cost a pretty penny, and some of it will sit somewhere in between those two extremes. Take your pick but base your choice on what you need to learn, not on what you'd like to pay. Ask an association for adviceIf you want advice on the editorial training that's most appropriate to your circumstances, talk to your national editorial society. Most associations offer a range of learning opportunities within different environments to suit people's varying needs, skills and levels of experience. The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading is an excellent example. Membership gives you access to a range of free-to-members and paid-for professional development opportunities including:
About Louise HarnbyLouise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Discover why a style sheet is one of your best friends when proofreading and editing for independent, self-publishing authors.
Read on to find out about ...
Working with independent, self-publishing authors
To date, I've never received a style sheet from a self-publisher. I suspect this is for one of several reasons:
Whether I'm proofreading or copyediting, I always like to create one for my customers. Why? Because it helps me and it helps them. Why create a style sheet?
Professionalism
I make a promise to my independent author clients that I’ll professionalize their work to publishing industry-recognized standards. However, I can’t assume that my clients know what these are – after all, it’s not their job to know. Some of my clients write full time but most have day jobs; many are producing their first books so the world of publishing is new to them. They need to be able to rely on the editorial professionals with whom they are working to amend their writing in a way that does no harm and that can be defended by reference to understood and industry-recognized conventions. The bigger picture Even if the author worked with a copyeditor before the proofreading stage, a proofreader’s style sheet shows that I am still looking at the bigger picture – making decisions based on publishing standards, or author choice, or consistency, or for ease of readability. It's not just about finding spelling errors – it’s about providing a professional service that acknowledges that the client is publishing a book, and that their book should look professional. Clients appreciate them I've had really positive feedback from indie authors about my style sheets. Clients have told me that it helped them to understand why I've amended as I have; that it acted as a reminder of the decisions they can implement in future projects at the self-editing stage; and that it's a useful template for recording their own style preferences. At-a-glance The style sheet provides the author with an at-a-glance summary of what I've done and why I've done it. This provides clarity as well as an understanding of the proofreading or copyediting process. Appropriate focus A style sheet allows the author to focus on what they’re good at – the writing – and me to focus on what I’m good at – the proofreading and copyediting. Tracking Style sheets help me to keep track of decisions and spot any problems. I may be the first person to work on the project – proofreading for indie authors can turn into more than a prepublication check, and the boundary between copyediting and proofreading can blur. And, even if the text appears to be in great shape (in terms of spelling, punctuation, and grammar), there may still be logic flaws that everyone else missed. Laying things out in our own way We all design our style sheets in ways that make sense to us – so even if I'm using a copyeditor’s as the foundation, creating my own (and embedding my colleague’s decisions into it) sharpens my senses and enables me to lay out the decisions in a way that makes the best sense to me. Reducing queries The style sheet shows my author why I've made certain decisions. I can validate my amendments by citing the resources I've used. Authors won’t ask themselves, or me, why I removed the quotation marks around the name of a pub, or why I changed a set of nested single quotation marks into doubles – I've already told them. What is a style sheet?
Those new to proofreading and copyediting, or who are considering whether it is a viable career choice, may not be familiar with what goes into a style sheet. And if you’re an author, you might not be either.
Broadly speaking, a style sheet is a record of preferences – the author’s or their publisher’s; a style manual's; or some other agency's. In many cases, authors are happy for me to make the decisions based on my publishing knowledge and my use of recognized style manuals (e.g. New Hart's Rules and The Chicago Manual of Style). Ultimately, style sheets aren’t about rules but rather about tracking choices for the purposes of consistency and professionalism. They enable the editorial professional to keep track of decisions about spelling, punctuation, grammar, text layout, idiom usage, and (in the case of fiction) characters’ key features. Tracking these elements helps the proofreader to minimize inconsistency, spot flaws and attend to problems with regard to how the words in the book actually work on the page. Looking for a template?
If you’re a proofreader, editor or writer who'd like a customizable Word template for your personal use, check out my course Style Sheets for Fiction Editing. You can download a done-for-you template that will save you a ton of time.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
There's no consensus about the best order in which to complete a proofreading project, but I thought I’d share some tips about how I choose to structure the process.
Designed page proofs
My structure is based on my work with page proofs supplied by project management agencies and publishers. If you don’t know what page proofs are, take a look at Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs.
My job is not only to check for any final grammar, spelling or punctuation errors that have slipped in during the production chain; I'm also tasked with ensuring that the appearance of the book is consistent and correct according to the instructions given to the typesetter by the client.
So I’ll need to carry out a range of checks to ensure the following:
The above are examples of just some of the issues I look out for – in no way do they represent a comprehensive checklist.
Riveting versus routine proofreading tasks
I tend think of the tasks involved in proofreading as falling roughly into two categories – riveting and routine.
The riveting element is the reading bit – I get paid to read the text word by word, line by line, page by page. I’m engaged with the text and that’s the exciting part of my job. Whether I’m proofreading a short science-fiction novel, a gritty non-fiction piece about martial arts, or a dense tome about pharmaceutical patent law, there’s always something new to learn. For me, this is the best part of the job. The routine element comprises the kind of checks listed above – the word breaks, the running heads, chapter and part title consistency, positioning of page numbers and chapter drops, and so on. For me, this is the dullest part of the job. Hardest versus easiest
The riveting element is the hardest part of the job for me – that’s because context is king and because every change I make in the main body of the text could have knock-on effects elsewhere.
Furthermore, I need to take a different kind of care not to proofread too fast when I’m working on fiction. I’ve been lucky enough to proofread some absolute corkers – Jonathan Pinnock’s Dot Dash, James Herbert’s The Rats, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, and Donn Pearce’s Cool Hand Luke, to name but a few – and it requires discipline not to get so engrossed in the story that one becomes a reader rather than a proofreader. The routine element is the easiest part of the job for me – that’s because the problems are usually obvious and easy to make decisions about. I might headscratch over whether to leave well enough alone, query, or mark up in the main body of the text, but if a page number is wrong in the contents list, it’s a no-brainer. A mislabelled table needs attending to. Same thing with inconsistent half titles and book titles, missing tables, incorrect running heads, and odd page numbers placed on versos (left-hand pages). Tricky first, easy last?
I’m not sure why but when I began my proofreading career I’d carry out many of the routine elements of the project at the end. I imagine that my thinking was something on the lines of “I’ll get the tricky bit out of the way first – then I’ll do the routine stuff and close the project”.
That worked just fine for a while and I carried on that way until one of my PMs contacted me with some feedback that said I’d done a great job with the main text but could I take care in future to double check that the book title and half title matched? I’d missed something so ridiculously obvious – something that stuck out like a sore thumb. How could that have happened? It's on my checklist. I was sure I'd done it; I'd just not seen the error. I apologized profusely (she forgave me!). Then I grabbed a coffee, sat back, and considered my method. The routine bit is supposed to be the easiest bit – it’s supposed to be the bit I can’t get wrong, but it’s also the dullest. Was that the problem? The mindset of project closure …
I came to the conclusion that when I’ve finished the riveting part of my job, my brain goes into project-closure mode.
The problem is that the routine element can take me an hour, even several hours if the project is large. So if I’ve finished reading the text, my brain’s saying, “You’re nearly done”, when in fact that’s far from the truth – there’s still some really important and routine tasks to complete that my publishers expect as standard. I was doing what for me was the dullest and easiest bit of the job when my brain was at its least attentive. The risk of a miss was higher given this mindset. I therefore decided to revise my method – I’d do the bulk of the routine work at the beginning of the project and commence the fun bit afterwards. The decision reminded me of when I was a kid and my mum would tell me that I needed to eat my green veggies before I stuffed my face with a third helping of her rather excellent roast potatoes! Scouting out the lie of the land …
My decision had some unforeseen benefits. Few of my clients pay me for more than one pass. And yet by doing the routine work first I give myself the opportunity to get an overall of sense of the book – its layout, its various different elements, its themes, its overall structure – by working through my checklist one step at a time before I start the actual read itself.
And each time I go to the beginning and start a new check I'm doing a tiny pass, over and over again. I like this method because it allows me to scout out the lie of the land. It often means I pick up on little oddities that I can make a note of to watch out for once the actual reading process begins. But, more importantly, my mindset is in start-up mode and that’s exactly where I want it to be when I'm attending to the more mundane aspects of the project. I don’t have to worry that my miss rate will be higher by the end of the riveting bit as a result of boredom, precisely because it’s the riveting bit, not the boring bit. I still go back and do some double checks when I've finished the riveting stage. And I like to take a look at each page one final time and review any notes that I was given by the copy-editor or PM – just to reassure myself that I've done what I was asked to do. But, broadly speaking, I've reversed my method. Something to test?
My method may not be your method because you may be wired differently to me.
But if you are the sort of person who does most of your routine tasks at the end, and you find yourself in project-closure mode a few hours ahead of schedule, don't be afraid to consider testing a revision of the order in which you do things. You might just find your new process works better for you. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you're tasked with proofreading designed page proofs, annotating for change is not always the best course of action. We're into the realm of when to mark up, when to query and when to leave things be.
A tricky nut to crack
A Facebook discussion about the role of the proofreader working on copyedited proofs got me thinking about the issue of leaving well enough alone.
This was something that was addressed by my proofreading training course (via The Publishing Training Centre), and it’s a tricky nut to crack, one that on occasion still stumps me, even though I have years of practice under my belt. To clarify, this article is framed within the context of the proofreader who is working with page proofs, because this is the case where the artistry of sensitive and sensible proofreading practice really comes into play. What are page proofs?
The mainstream publisher will usually require the proofreader to work on page proofs.
Page proofs are so called because they are laid out as exactly as they will appear in the final printed book. If all has gone well, what the proofreader is looking at will be almost what the reader sees if they were to walk into a bookshop, pull this title off the shelf and browse through the pages. The layout process has been taken care of by a professional typesetter who designs the text in a way that is pleasing to the eye and in accordance with a publisher’s brief. Why is proofreading an art?
Proofreading entails finding solutions to any final problems that have escaped the author’s, copyeditor’s, and typesetter’s attention. These professionals are only human, and it’s unusual not to find at least a few problems in a set of page proofs, despite the fact that the manuscript has been reviewed multiple times. In fact, precisely because there are so many rounds of review, the opportunity for errors to be introduced is higher.
The artistry comes in because it’s not enough to be able to spot those final pesky typos, misplaced apostrophes, incorrect running heads, missing captions, poorly aligned table figures, and so on. The good proofreader needs to know when to leave well enough alone. The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) says: “… Part of the job is light editing within tight limits, but professional proofreaders do not re-edit the material. They intervene only with good reason [my emphasis]” (CIEP, n.d. FAQs: Proofreading). Here’s a brief summary of why proofreaders need to take care with the extent of their mark-up:
Intervention can be expensive
Some publisher clients will ask for “minimal” mark-up for reasons of cost. Depending on what arrangements they have with typesetter, amending page proofs can be an expensive business for a publisher. For example, one of my clients is charged per line for any amendments to page proofs; others are charged per amendment; and still others negotiate a fixed price for the job. Thus, in the case of the per-line deal, one change in each of five separate lines will be five times as expensive as five changes in the same line. It’s not necessarily the proofreader’s call Copyeditors will have worked extensively with the author on the pre-proof manuscript. Certain decisions will have been made, such as how deep to edit, grammatical preferences, and overall style. Even if the proofreader doesn’t agree with the preferences, she needs to mind our own business and get on with the job in hand within the framework of these agreed decisions. If these preferences jar with the brief supplied to the proofreader, she should query the issue with the project manager or the copyeditor rather than making assumptions. Of course, as an editor colleague commented when reviewing this post, this is a clarion call for the proofreader to be supplied with a detailed style sheet, and I’ll be taking a look at this issue in more detail in the near future. There could be serious knock-on effects Here’s the CIEP again with some wise advice: “Judge the need for changes in view of the budget and schedule. Changing just one word can have drastic knock-on effects” (CIEP, n.d. FAQs: Proofreading). For a more detailed discussion of the issue, take a look at Proofreading designed page proofs: knock-on effects. There isn't always a simple solution At some stage or other, and even when working with the finest of editors, every proofreader will be faced with an inelegant piece of writing. Perhaps the subject–verb agreement is a little confusing in a complex sentence; perhaps the sentence is structured such that its meaning is cloudy; perhaps the author’s meaning is clear even though one could argue that the way it’s been expressed is grammatically “sticky”. Given that we’re not supposed to re-edit, that decisions have already been made by the copyeditor and author, and that there could be expensive knock-on effects as a result of our changes, we’re looking for simple but elegant solutions. However, it may be the case that a simple, elegant solution to the problem is impossible to achieve by, for example, simply adding/removing a letter or changing the punctuation slightly. Indeed, the proofreader might think their simple amendments have made things better, but if their solution is equally (or even more) uncomfortable for the reader, or the author’s meaning has been clouded for the sake of pedantry, then they've done more harm than good. A cautionary tale and a lesson learned
Have I ever over-marked? Have I intervened when I should have left well enough alone? Alas, yes. And I wasn't an inexperienced proofreader when it happened. I’ve elected to share my tale of shame in the hope that any over-enthusiastic proofreaders reading this will be able to learn from the mistake I made!
Some years ago, I proofread an academic book for a regular publisher client. The book had been copyedited by an editor with whom I’d worked on several occasions. She always does a super job. And, really, that should have been the only alarm bell I needed. The page proofs arrived and I noticed that the book was littered with whiches – rather than thats – being used for restrictive relative clauses. I changed them all. In pen. After all, I reasoned, even though in British English this usage is acceptable (though not always preferred), my publisher client is a stickler and the book’s market is international. Satisfied that I’d done a very fine job indeed I posted back the proofs to the copyeditor, who went on to collate my changes with the author’s. A week later I received a very polite email from a frustrated copyeditor. She informed me that though she, too, would have preferred to change every appropriate “which” to “that,” the author was particularly sensitive to having his copy amended and she’d had to settle for a lighter edit. She’d notified the in-house project manager and the decision had been agreed. “In future, if any extensive changes need to be made, would you be kind enough to check first? I'm going to have to stet a lot of your mark-up.” On an embarrassment scale of one to ten, I rated at least fifteen. My face was redder than my proofreading pen. I’d wasted my time and I’d wasted hers. And if I’d simply checked with her (or the in-house project manager) before I’d let my pen run wild, the problem could have been avoided. I still work for that publisher and I still proofread books for that copyeditor. But I learned my lesson. A note: A colleague who reviewed this article argued persuasively that the embarrassment shouldn't have been mine alone – in this situation I wasn't given a comprehensive style sheet detailing the decisions made. Either the copyeditor or the publisher could have supplied one – certainly many professional editors consider this to be not only good business practice but proper business practice. At the very least, someone could have emailed me with a brief heads-up. Nevertheless, since the proofreader cannot guarantee that they’ll receive such a style sheet, and busy editors and publishers are only human and sometimes forget things, my point about querying stands. It’s always, always better to clarify than to assume. Amend, query or move on?
Editing is an art. But proofreading is, too. Sometimes we need to stop and think before we amend; sometimes we need to put down the pen and either query or move on. Knowing when to leave well enough alone can be a tricky call to make.
We’re not here to re-edit. What we do sits in the context of a chain of decisions that have already been made by other professionals – decisions about budget, schedule, style, brief and design. Failing to acknowledge this fact can lead to time wastage at best, and harm at worst. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you’re thinking about becoming a proofreader, it’s important to understand that this term can mean different things in different contexts and with different client groups. This article focuses on working with raw text.
Who are your clients?
What type of proofreading you want to do and which group of clients you want to be work-ready for will determine the choices you make with regard to training.
Some proofreaders work directly with the creators of the written materials – independent authors, students and business professionals, for example. These clients send Word files and the proofreader amends the files directly (often with Track Changes switched on so that the client can see what’s been changed). Others work for intermediaries such as publishers and project-management agencies. Here the author supplies the text files; then the in-house project manager (PM) organizes the various elements of the production process – including copyediting, proofreading, typesetting and printing. After copyediting and typesetting, the PM supplies page proofs to the proofreader, who makes annotations that identify where there are problems to be attended to. The proofreader does not amend the text directly. In Part I, I gave the new entrant to the field an overview of what it’s like to be a proofreader working with page proofs. Here in Part II, I consider proofreading that involves working directly with the raw-text Word files. Which clients prefer to work in Word?
Most of the proofreading done in Word stems from having been commissioned directly by the content creator – a business executive, a self-publishing author or a student.
Academic writers, particularly those submitting articles to journals and for whom your first language is their second, are also likely to send Word files. Only one of my publisher clients would ask me to proofread in Word. What is the proofreader looking for?
It depends on the client's expectations (see below: Disadvantages) and your terms and conditions. Certainly, when it comes to proofreading for non-publisher clients, the definition of proofreading starts to look unclear and the boundaries between this and copyediting become blurred.
Unlike with page proofs, we can't check the final designed layout of the file but we still need to read every word. Some of the issues dealt with in the list below would be acceptable to the proofreader working for an academic author but not when working with a Master's student. (Some clients might even want/expect a level of restructuring, rewriting and checking that a proofreader wouldn't consider to be within their remit.)
What are the advantages?
What are the disadvantages?
There are still legal issues to consider …
Even if you are working directly with the primary authors of the content, you still need to get their permission to upload their text to third-party sites if you want to utilize software that's not on your computer.
The files you've been sent from Indie authors, students and businesses are their property and they send them to you in good faith, so you must get permission for their content to leave your computer. What does this mean for training?
Knowing the software ...
If you want to proofread in Word, you'll need to be proficient in using it. Word is one of the most powerful pieces of word-processing software available, and there's a huge amount you can do with it if you want to proofread (or edit) efficiently. You might therefore need to supplement your proofreading training with learning that focuses on using macros, making the best of Find/Replace and wildcards, using Track Changes, and Microsoft Word usage in general. There's still the issue of how much to interfere ... If you do end up proofreading for a publisher client who wants you to work in Word, it will be necessary to consider the issue of when to leave well enough alone, as discussed in Part I. However, independent authors looking for a proofreader may actually be expecting a deeper edit and will be disappointed if you're not prepared to rewrite sentences for them. If you've not had experience of, or training in, editing, you may find that a 'proofreading' project ends up being a bigger bite than you can chew. One of my colleagues feels that specific training in editing isn't always critical when working with business clients, whereas for self-publishing novelists it would be very important. I'm inclined to agree. One person might be relatively comfortable suggesting improved sentence construction to a business client but very wary of doing so with an author of fiction. What this shows is how blurry the edges can become and how important it is to have a detailed conversation before you begin a project. I often encourage independent fiction authors looking for a proofreader to consider commissioning editing first. Editors with both editing and proofreading skills are better placed to take on jobs for non-publisher clients that fall in the editing camp, or somewhere between editing and proofing (proofediting). If you think you'll end up straying beyond the realm of proofreading, you might consider adding copyediting courses into your training mix. Think about what type of client you're going to be working for to help you decide what's appropriate. Summing up …
Proofreading isn't some catch-all phrase that means the same thing to every client group. What you actually do, on which medium, how much you interfere, the extent to which you can use complementary tools, and the expectations of the client will differ greatly.
This means a range of competencies will need to be acquired depending on whom you’re working for. Your training will need to match the requirements of various client groups – a publisher’s expectations in terms of industry-recognized standards will be different from a business executive’s or student’s, so take care to research any proofreading training syllabus carefully to make sure it’s providing you with the skill set relevant to your target client group. Your training should suit your needs, your business plan, your objectives – and what will be right for one person may not be right for another.
Read this article's sister post: Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Professional proofreading training provides you with more than just technical knowledge and skills. It also gets you into the mindset of good business practice: pacing, taking stock, and focusing on the detail.
The necessary mindset
Perhaps one of the most important pieces of knowledge I acquired when I was doing my own professional training, and that I needed in order to make an editorial career viable from a practical point of view, was the necessary mindset.
In-house vision, creativity and detail
I come from a publishing background. My first job was in the European marketing, sales and distribution office of Williams & Wilkins, the Baltimore-based STM publisher. I was a sales promotion manager.
From there I moved to SAGE Publishing, a well-known independent social sciences and educational publisher (though their publishing programme has expanded somewhat since my day). I was employed as a senior journals marketing manager and remained so for the rest of my office-bound career. The colleagues with whom I worked most closely were commissioning editors, fellow marketing execs, and editorial production managers.
Commissioning editors
Marketing managers
Editorial production editors
Learning from editorial production …
I finally left SAGE to dedicate a couple of years to child-rearing. My little family moved to the Norfolk countryside and we revelled in the stunning rural views from the windows of our home and enjoyed the space, the grass, the deer, and the short drive to the beach.
And then I got itchy feet. I wanted back into publishing but I wanted it on my own terms – freelance proofreading seemed like the solution. But my editorial production colleagues had already taught me to ask an important question: Do I have the right mindset for the actual practice of proofreading? My background was in marketing. I was used to being in a work environment that was about ideas and experimentation. I'm not saying that there were no processes to attend to or that I didn't have certain business parameters to work within. I did, of course. But following a brief, pedantic punctuating and a careful, methodical, almost plodding attention to detail weren't the criteria at the top of my job description. If I was going to transition to a proofreading career, I would need to ensure that the appropriate mindset was embedded in the way I approached my work. I knew I had a tendency to get a bee in my bonnet and jump in without looking where I was going. It’s in my nature! To be a proofreader I needed to slow down. I needed to be a detail person. Left field needed to be left behind! Learning from professional trainers …
I wanted a comprehensive training tool that would make me practice-ready, but I wanted to be assessed, too. I needed to be able to see where my weaknesses were, as well as my strengths.
And I needed to practise being a detail person – to embed that mindset of attending to the method, the process, the instructions, so that I could do what the client wanted. A target market for me was always going to be social science publishers – I have a politics degree and in-house experience, so it made sense right from the start. I knew these publishers would have demanding expectations of their proofreaders and I wanted to be ready. Ready for the house brief, ready for the method, ready for the deadlines. It's for that reason that when I'm asked to recommend UK-based editorial training courses, I always recommend the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading and the Publishing Training Centre. Those two organisations provide that readiness. Practising the mindset …
How did I prepare? I read each chapter of the course's theory several times. I photocopied the exercises several times. I’d do them, trying my best to mark up in the way the chapter had advised.
I’d mark my own efforts, make notes about my weaknesses, re-read the appropriate course material, and then put the exercise away for a few days. Then I’d do it all over again – this helped me see if I’d learned from my previous mistakes or whether the information had gone in one ear and out of the other. Then I’d do it a third time – leave alone for a few days and then repeat the exercise. When I was confident I’d nailed it, I’d photocopy the assessed test so that I had three copies. Then I’d do the test, put it away, re-do the test, compare, see if I was consistent, put it away, go through it one last time, attend to anything I’d missed, and then submit. It was laborious. But I learned to slow down; I learned what my weak points were; I learned a systematic method of working practice that focused on my client's instructions and objectives. I became so used to working like this that it embedded this careful attention to detail in my mind – something that I rely on every time I'm commissioned to work on a project. Of course my publishers don’t budget for me to do multiple passes on a piece of work, with several days of quiet reflection in between! Now that would be a luxury! But I'm glad I had the space to do this, to learn that mindset, to get used to being a detail person. So, if you fancy proofreading as a career, ask yourself the same question: Do I have the right mindset for the actual practice of proofreading? If you’re not sure, use your training* space to practise the careful, methodical process of attending to detail, according to the instructor’s brief. You won’t regret it and the time taken will be an investment that you can carry with you throughout your future career. * If you're still deciding which course to take, your national editorial society will be able to offer advice about the training options available in your region. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
If you’re thinking about becoming a professional proofreader, it’s important to understand that the term 'proofreading' can mean different things in different contexts and with different client groups. This article focuses on working with designed page proofs,
Who are your clients?
What type of proofreading you want to do and which groups of clients you want to be work-ready for will determine the choices you make with regard to training.
Some proofreaders work directly with the creators of the written materials being proofread – independent authors, students and business professionals, for example. These clients send Word files and the proofreader amends the files directly (often with Track Changes switched on so that the client can see what’s been changed). Others work for intermediaries such as publishers and project management agencies. Here the author supplies the text files; then the in-house project manager (PM) organizes the various elements of the production process – including copy-editing, proofreading, typesetting and printing. After copy-editing and typesetting, the PM supplies page proofs to the proofreader, who makes annotations that identify where there are problems to be attended to. The proofreader does not amend the text directly. Here in Part I, I give the new entrant to the field an overview of what it’s like to be a proofreader working with page proofs. In Part II, I’ll consider proofreading work that involves working directly with the raw Word files. What are page proofs?
Page proofs, traditionally defined, are so called because they are laid out exactly as they will appear in the final printed book. If all has gone well, what the proofreader is looking at will be almost what the reader sees if they were to walk into a bookshop, pull this title off the shelf and browse through the pages.
The layout process has been taken care of by a professional typesetter or interior formatter who designs the text in a way that is pleasing to the eye and in accordance with a publisher’s brief. Page proofs from publishers and project management agencies are usually either in paper or PDF format. When working on paper, you'll likely still be supplied with a PDF (which comes in useful when using digital tools). In addition to the bulk of the typeset text, page proofs include the following elements: page numbers; running heads; a contents list; copyright information; cataloguing data; figures, tables and any other finished artwork; bibliography; and perhaps an index. The jacket may or may not be included, but there’ll usually be a title page and a half-title page. To reiterate, the pages have been professionally designed, so your job is not only to check for any final grammar, spelling or punctuation errors that have slipped in during the production chain; you're also tasked with ensuring that the appearance of the book is consistent and correct according to the instructions given to the typesetter by the client. Thus, you'll need to carry out a range of checks to ensure the following:
This isn't a comprehensive list but it gives you an idea of how this type of proofreading goes beyond just checking the text for typos. Download this free proofreading checklist if your client doesn't supply you with one. 
Where are you in the chain?
The proofreader is one person in a fairly lengthy chain. Different clients work in different ways but the following is not uncommon:
The process is often further complicated by the ebook creation process. Text might be digitized at different stages of the process. What does this mean for your working methods?
You're not actually changing anything … You can use digital tools to complement your eye – various scripted macros, consistency checkers like PerfectIt, and reference-checking software like ReferenceChecker.
To use these tools you need to strip text from a PDF of the page proofs, place it in a Word document, and then run your digital tools. Any mistakes flagged up, however, need to be marked up on the page proofs – that is, on paper or PDF (as agreed with the PM). You don’t get to change the actual text – you only get to make marks on it (usually those little hieroglyphics that constitute, in the UK, the BS 5261C:2005 proof-correction symbols). But you're checking everything … Recall, too, that you're paid to check every word and every page. Relevant software is a brilliant addition to any proofreader’s tool kit, but it will only go so far because the proofreader’s job goes beyond error-checking. We’re looking for layout problems, too, because we’re working on designed text – the first draft of the final page proofs. There are legal issues … you can only use software tools that are already sitting on your PC. This is because of confidentiality issues. All my publisher PMs consider it unacceptable business practice for me to send the page proofs (or the text stripped from them) to a third party, as the following direct quotes demonstrate:
What does this mean for training?
If you want to proofread for publishers, it’s likely that you’ll be working on page proofs. This means you’ll need to learn to use the industry-recognized mark-up language effectively and efficiently, and you’ll need to be able to carry out the necessary design and layout checks.
If your training course doesn't teach you how to mark up using the relevant symbols or what to look out for in terms of layout problems, it’s probably not the right course to make you fit for publisher work. Furthermore, you’ll have to learn not to interfere beyond your brief. Not all publishers want every single inconsistency attended to. Amendments made at page-proof stage are expensive to implement so many publishers ask for 'minimal' correction. How they define 'minimal' will vary so you’ll need to work according to a clear brief. And if you’re not given a clear brief, you’ll need to ask for one. Assumptions about your remit are to be avoided – what one PM considers unworthy of change will be considered an essential error by another! The business of knowing when to leave well enough alone and when to interfere is one of the trickiest issues to deal with, so doing a course that has an assessment element is a good idea if you are working with page proofs and publisher clients. Summing up …
Proofreading isn't some catch-all phrase that means the same thing to every client group. What you actually do, on which medium, how much you interfere, the extent to which you can use complementary tools, and the expectations of the client will differ greatly.
This means a range of competencies will need to be acquired depending on whom you’re working for. Your training will need to match the requirements of various client groups – a publisher’s expectations in terms of industry-recognized standards will be different from a business executive’s or student’s, so take care to research any proofreading training syllabus carefully to make sure it’s providing you with the skill set relevant to your target client group. Your training should suit your needs, your business plan, your objectives; and what will be right for one person may not be right for another. In Part II ...
In Part II, I look at proofreading for clients who want you to work directly on the text in Word; how the line between editing and proofreading can become blurred; and how this might influence the type of training you do or the work you choose to take on.
About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
A short question on this blog about which training course I would recommend for someone considering a career in proofreading prompted a rather long reply from me. It made me realize that the issue deserved a post of its own.
Professional proofreading training
Please note that this article isn’t designed to recommend one particular course over another. What you choose will depend on a number of factors, e.g. location, career stage.
Readers of this blog who’ve searched my training archive will know the course I chose – the Publishing Training Centre's Essential Proofreading. While I found this course to be outstanding, this accolade is based on my business plan, my place of residence, my knowledge of the market I chose to focus on, what else was available in 2006, and my training budget. It won’t necessarily be the right choice for, say, a Belgian with a different niche market in mind, or a Canadian whose pockets are feeling a little shallow at the moment. Instead, the aim here is to give voice to some of the basic issues that are worth considering when choosing what, where and how to train for a career as a freelance proofreader, wherever you live and whatever your budget. What’s on offer?
The options are numerous. Distance learning and on-site; online and book-based; and DIY and professionally assessed.
Some cost hundreds of pounds while other options cost less than the price of a family cinema outing. Googling for proofreading training courses throws up lots of information but little guidance on how to make a choice. Here are some ideas to get you on the right track. Is there a national or regional professional society you can contact?
This is probably the best place to start. Get in touch with your national editing/proofreading society and see what they recommend.
Their membership is full of people who were once in your position, so they will have some great advice to share, and at no cost. Visit my Editing & Proofreading Societies page to locate your national association or regional chapter. At what stage are you in the process?
Consider what point you’re at in the process of your career change.
Are you definitely looking to become a professional proofreader or are you at the earlier stage of considering it as one of several options? If the latter, you might opt for a cheaper, preliminary short course to see if the work suits you before you invest a larger amount of money in a more time-consuming distance learning course. If you've recently completed some training you might want to consider a mentoring programme. The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) runs peer-to-peer mentoring events in the UK. Contact your national editing and proofreading society for more details on mentoring opportunities in your own country. What kind of client are you hoping to target?
Case study 1
You’re an ex-solicitor/attorney who’s decided that the law’s not your bag after all. You decide you want to focus on publisher clients, possibly those with lists in criminology, law and policing. Do some research to find out which houses publish in these fields and give them a call. Ask to speak to the production manager, or the person in charge of hiring freelance editorial staff. Ask that person what their criteria are for freelancers. They'll be able to tell you the training providers they recognize. They’ll also be able to give you some ideas about any experience or expertise they are looking for. You may be surprised to find that they accept a qualification that you hadn’t considered. And it may not be the most expensive one on the market. Even if you do find out that you would be better off going for one of the more expensive training courses, at least you know that it will be money well spent and that you’ll get the return on your investment once you start applying for paid work. Getting a feel for what publishers want is a good start because they are one type of client that is in a position to offer you repeat work. Case study 2 You’ve worked as an English-language teacher for years in a school or college, helping young adults improve their literacy skills. You decide to focus on independent fiction and creative non-fiction authors who are looking for the final polish before they submit their manuscript to an agent, in-house commissioning editor, or custom-publishing organization. You need to do the same research. Start networking with writers’ groups and online networks and ask the people themselves what training and experience they expect a proofreader to have. They may have a set of very different preferred externals based on their experiences of commissioning freelance editorial services. Join social networking forums such as LinkedIn where existing freelancers congregate and ask what training routes other freelance proofreaders in your country, who work with the type of client you’re interested in, took to get their careers off the ground. The point is to research your market and find out what people want and expect. Every training provider on the market will tell you that their course is the best, and they wouldn’t be doing a good job of marketing themselves if they claimed otherwise. Asking the end-users, however, is the key to ensuring you make the decision that best suits your business strategy. Assessed or not?
Assuming you’ve decided proofreading is the job for you, and you need a training course that is going to give you the confidence and readiness to do the job to a professional standard, find out whether your training provider offers an assessment element.
It’s best to iron out the creases while you are training, rather than alienating unhappy clients further down the line. Or to quote an old proverb: What the fool does in the end, the wise man does in the beginning. About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
Find out what publishers think about professional editorial training courses, to help you decide how best to invest.
A note on when this post was originally written
I wrote this post about editorial training in 2011. However, I'm confident that the advice should still stand. While these days I line edit for indie fiction authors who find me via organic search, publishers are still and incredibly valuable source of work for many editors and proofreaders, so it's useful to understand how they assess the freelancers who work for them.
How far will training get you in the editorial freelancing market?
Publishers and editorial freelancers understand each other. We have the same expectations regarding the level of editing being undertaken (e.g. developmental, line/copy, proofreading), which saves both parties time.
Publishers are in a position to offer repeat work, thus taking some of the stress out of marketing. Plus the portfolio- and testimonial-building opportunities are excellent. And so while the rates are sometimes an issue (though not always by any means), publishers are a brilliant client group to target. It's therefore important to bear in mind where they see the value when hiring editorial freelancers. Here's what I found out ... Is training useless?
Somewhere out in the ether is a blog where the author calls proofreading courses a "scam" and "unnecessary", and the qualifications "useless". The rant continues, the author arguing that they’ve never been asked to produce evidence of any qualification or completion of a course by an "official" body.
And luckily for anyone looking to enter this extraordinarily crowded and competitive field, said author offers a far cheaper alternative to all those "rip-off" courses: their very own proofreading course in the form of an ebook. Back in 2005, I spent seven months doing just the type of course this author was decrying. I opted for Essential Proofreading, a distance learning course run by the Publishing Training Centre (PTC), an industry-recognized body. I also joined the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), formerly the SfEP, and did the necessaries to qualify for membership. So did I waste my money? Was I ripped off? Did the training I took on help me get to where I am now or was I kidding myself? Should I have instead invested in an ebook course that would have given me change from a twenty-pound note? I discussed this issue with some of my clients, all of whom are established and respected publishing houses or packagers in the UK. What came out of the conversation led me to conclude that the training I undertook was definitely worthwhile, and membership of the CIEP/SfEP has provided me with wonderful information-sharing opportunities as well as the right to advertise in their Directory of Editorial Services. Nevertheless, there was much food for thought in the responses I received. Thumbs up for training courses …
Out of House Publishing (now Newgen) consider only the CIEP/SfEP and PTC courses to be "useful and relevant" and then Managing Director Jo Bottrill stated that he "certainly consider[s] freelancers who have completed such training much more seriously".
Constable & Robinson’s website states, "Please note our minimum requirements include training from recognized establishments such as SfEP or the Publishing Training Centre." Aimée Feenan from Ashgate concurs, saying that most Ashgate staff have undertaken some sort of training at the PTC, and knowing that freelance staff are able to work to the same editorial standards means they are more likely to be hired. They also recognize the CIEP/SfEP as a trusted source. And at SAGE Publishing, training is considered important, with the CIEP/SfEP and PTC again being the two most trusted external suppliers. Elizabeth Clack at Edward Elgar felt "that the Publishing Training Centre and CIEP/SfEP courses are good quality and are well-regarded, so it would be a plus point if someone had taken courses with them, although that's not to say that we would only consider freelances who had taken courses with these bodies". She added, "it indicates to us that the freelance has reached a certain level of proficiency and has some understanding of editing/proofreading procedures and 'best practice'. Training is especially relevant if the freelance does not yet have much work experience." Also of note here the fact that she felt that proofreading courses took away some of the risk of the unknown when taking on a new or inexperienced freelancer. Why training in itself is not enough …
Training in itself is not always enough, and some publishers feel they have had their fingers burned by relying too much on freelancers’ training credits. Increasingly publishers are using their own tests in order to evaluate competence.
Jo Bottrill was cautious of advanced membership and accreditation status within the CIEP/SfEP, feeling that these did not always ensure that a freelancer met his exacting standards. Instead, he's "put[ting] more emphasis on the assessment of our own tests and analysis of live jobs. Our quality control and reporting procedures have developed over the last couple of years to ensure we have an appropriate safety net." For Edward Elgar, "another factor when considering whether to work with a freelance is whether they have experience in a particular subject area, because many of our books are quite specialized. For instance, freelances working on our law books may have law qualifications or a background in legal work." Ian Antcliff, one of SAGE Publications’ senior production editors, stated that training, though important, is seen as an add-on. For him, in-house experience makes for an attractive prospect, not because the editors/proofreaders are better, but rather because "it usually ensures that they are sympathetic to and understand the pressure that in-house staff are under (especially with regard to budgets and deadlines)". Ashgate acknowledge that not every freelancer on their books has received formal editorial training – they do have people who were just exceptionally good at learning on the job and being an expert in a particular subject area is also a real plus. Polity’s production manager, Neil de Cort, takes a stronger line. For him, a speculative letter with a list of training courses is of no relevance. Like most publishers, Polity receive a large number of speculative letters every year from freelancers looking for work. Experience counts every time – Neil wants to see that a freelancer has experience of working in the social sciences, and references from other publishers are key. Completion of a training course alone simply won’t get you on their books. Confidence to take on the task
The training I’ve completed to date did indeed get me looked at by several clients when I was starting out. Polity, though, gave me work because of my knowledge of their field of publishing and a good reference from Salt Publishing. Constable & Robinson noticed me, despite the fact that I already met their minimum requirements, because of a recommendation from the Edward Elgar production team.
However, proofreading books published by the likes of Cambridge University Press, Polity and SAGE, who, like all of my clients, have precise and exacting publishing standards, can be daunting to the newbie. And expanding into new publishing genres, in my case from the social sciences to trade, is a different type of challenge. Externally assessed training under the wing of a skilled industry-recognized body gave me the confidence to take on these challenges and feel assured that I was ready for the task in hand. On-the-job CPD and upgrading skills
I’ve no doubt that further courses will provide me with new knowledge and provide excellent networking opportunities. But will I get more work? It depends on what that training is – if it involves ensuring that I can hone my stylistic line craft, then yes.
Ian Antcliff at SAGE emphasizes how essential it is for freelancers to have up-to-date skill sets "with regard to both onscreen editing and Word, and also with ancillary software generally – Adobe, etc. – increasingly so as we move towards onscreen mark-up of proof PDFs". Talking to clients (or reading their blogs and tweets) about what their needs are, how the market is changing, and new ways of delivering our service may be just as informative as any course, and is probably the first thing we should do before deciding where to spend our hard-earned training cash. Summing up
So all in all, the message from my clients was that initial basic editorial training is more likely to get us noticed by publishers, but that it’s not the sole factor in determining whether they place us on their books.
Experience counts for a lot, but so does flexibility over the formats in which we work. Continuing to update our skills in whatever way best suits the needs of our clients will give us the best chance of remaining their freelancers of choice. As for that £19.99 ebook course? It simply wouldn’t have cut the mustard. (With thanks to Edward Elgar, SAGE Publications, Ashgate, Polity, and Out of House Publishing for their generous contributions.) About Louise Harnby
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.
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