The chicken or the egg

Pamela Hewitt

How do you gain experience as an editor? Clients want to hire experienced editors but how does someone new to editing find those crucial first jobs?

It’s not easy to start out in business—any business. Even if the work is there, finding it is not a simple matter, particularly in the beginning.

My solution to the problem of starting out was to have two strings to my bow. I’m a qualified teacher, so I took a part-time job teaching English while I built up my clientele. As the business became established, I was able to cut down the teaching hours. After a year or so, I was a full-time editor.

Starting strategies

Other people have successfully used different strategies. One approach is to combine freelance editing with a part-time inhouse position. This has the added advantage of keeping your industry knowledge current. You will also gain invaluable experience in juggling multiple tasks and deadlines as you balance your inhouse and freelance roles.

The ability to manage more than one project is one of the hallmarks of the successful freelancer. If nothing else, freelancing is the art of treating every client as your number one priority.

Another possibility is to start with a voluntary job before applying for paid work. The world is full of text that needs editing and many will jump at your offer to polish their reports, submissions or publications. You can pick the ‘good cause’ that is nearest to your heart, a further bonus.

Let people know about the skills you have and the ones you are acquiring. When her boss discovered she was enrolled in an editing course, one of my students found herself looking over copy for her organisation’s newsletter. Pretty soon, she’d created a role using her new skills.

‘Relevant experience’ can include non-editing work. Over the years, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with professional editors. Although everyone’s experience is different, there was one fascinating characteristic all these people shared—they didn’t set out to be editors.

Before turning to editing, some had been journalists or researchers, there were many librarians and teachers, bureaucrats, scientists, university lecturers and administrators, journalists—among other professions. Their experience in special subjects brought valuable skills to their new trade. What’s more, their background in these fields often provided the initial springboard into that first editing job.

My own entrée to editing came through my knowledge of Chinese language and society. I found myself editing an academic journal and a monograph series in Chinese studies. One thing led to another and pretty soon, books and writing had taken over my professional life.

Skills audit

So, make a list of all your skills. You might be surprised at its length and diversity. What can you do? What have you studied? Your background as a singer, linguist, architect or librarian can be the deciding factor in being awarded a job.

Your life experience can be relevant too. Your travels, cultural background or sporting participation can put you ahead of the pack when competing for a project on those topics.

Just as important, you need to be aware of the skills you lack. Whether you’re new to editing or you’ve been out of the field for a while, it could be that you need to brush up your knowledge of current industry practice. Many new freelancers underestimate the skills involved in running a business. Your ability to manage the business is just as important as your professional expertise.

When you identify a skill deficit, there’s a range of steps you can take—you might enrol in a course, do some research or consult a professional. Working with a more experienced colleague is a fantastic way to combine the best of both worlds—the autonomy of the freelance life and the benefits of collaboration and teamwork.

Once your client base grows, it’s much harder to find the time to plan a marketing campaign or learn about copyright law, so look on any periods when you’re not swamped with work as opportunities to take stock and brush up on your skills.

Networking

Networking is an aspect of freelancing that is all the more important because it’s up to you, as a sole trader, to create and nurture them. In an office job, your networks are largely formed for you. You don’t usually choose your colleagues or the people you consult in other organisations.

Freelancers can’t afford to be isolated. You need to make connections with individuals and organisations. Again, take the time to make a list of all the groups that you are involved with. Are you a member of a quilting club, book group, editors’ society, writers’ centre, choir, residents’ action group? If you are a psychologist or lawyer, is your professional association membership current? Networks such as these are vital to freelancers.

Most people have a set of social and other informal networks—friends, colleagues, school or university contacts. Let them know that you’re starting a business. Everyone needs an editor, after all.

Professional registers are another great way to become known. Most societies of editors have a print and electronic freelance register. Participating on email listings and blogs can help you develop an online identity. Your own website can give clients more than a profile. It can showcase your work, highlight your versatility and skills and give people an idea of the person behind the professional persona.

Lately, I’ve been coming across younger students who are looking to a career in editing and publishing as their first career choice. This is bound to become more common as inhouse training declines and more people come to publishing via education and training. It will also make it even more important for editors to develop freelance skills outside the publishing industry.

When existing clients return with new projects or recommend you to colleagues, you can breathe more easily. It’s the best indication I know that you’ve started to make it in the world of freelance editing. You know things are going well when your chickens come home to roost.

©Pamela Hewitt 2005
www.emendediting.com

The Emend Editing courses most relevant to this article are On your marks An introduction to editing, Tricks of the trade Freelance editing and What’s it worth? Costing and quoting.

Please contact me if you have any comments on this article or if you'd like to reproduce it.

Editing—a moveable feast

Pamela Hewitt

Someone asked me the other day if it was possible to make a living as a freelance editor outside big cities. She had moved to a beautiful spot on the coast. It was a wonderful place to bring up her kids, but could she make a go of it in the editing business?

I remembered my last move, from Canberra to Sydney. I’d built up a successful freelance editing business and wasn’t looking forward to starting from scratch again in the big smoke.

I was glad to be back in inner-city Sydney. I loved living in a Victorian house again, not to mention the proximity to bookshops, the harbour and the fish markets. Despite careful planning, the move itself was hell. There were the usual minor disasters, frayed nerves and exhaustion. Amid the cartons and bubble wrap, I heard these words from a family member: ‘Let’s die in Glebe’. It sounded appealing.

Before I had a chance to unpack properly or get out the paint brushes, manuscripts began to land in my inbox—my electronic inbox, that is. I discovered that many of my clients didn’t know I’d moved and, for those who did, the distance was no barrier to email contact and the occasional phone call.

Before the move, I’d joined the local Society of Editors and my business was listed on the Society’s electronic register. New work found me and I never had to scout around for new clients. When I stopped to think about it, I realised that my authors were already far-flung. Their emails and attachments reached me from all over Australia and also from Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, the US …

These days I rarely meet my clients. The work comes through cyberspace and it is generated by referrals from satisfied clients and repeat work from existing ones. I think that my experience is common among freelancers. You don’t need to live in any particular place to achieve a good reputation as an editor. I have editing colleagues who live on Kangaroo Island, in Kiama and far north Queensland. One travels almost constantly, taking her work with her on her laptop.

Editors can live almost anywhere. And so can their authors.

It’s liberating to realise that the chief requirement to operate effectively as a freelance editor is a computer connected to the internet—and, of course, the skills, knowledge and equipment to do the job. Beyond that, it’s a moveable feast.

©Pamela Hewitt 2005
www.emendediting.com

The Emend Editing courses most relevant to this article are On your marks—An introduction to editing, Tricks of the trade—Freelance editing, What’s it worth?—Costing and quoting and Wired words—Onscreen editing (for MAC or PC).

Please contact me if you have any comments on this article or you’d like to reproduce it.

Editors on the move

Pamela Hewitt

Editors are getting younger and richer.

Well, only a little bit younger and only a tiny bit richer, but progress is progress. The third national survey of editors found that hard work and organisation are showing results.

I’ve been conducting these surveys for four years. In 2001, I was writing a paper for ‘Partnerships in Knowledge’, a national conference of editors and indexers held in Canberra, and I was dismayed to discover that there was little useful quantitative or qualitative information about Australian editors. It seemed that the only way I could get reliable information on what editors did, thought and charged was to ask them myself.

The result was a survey that asked editors for standard statistical information on age, sex and residence. It went on to find out about their educational background and employment experience. The survey contained questions about the challenges editors face and their professional priorities. It also provided, for the first time, reliable data on the rates Australian editors charge.

It came as no surprise to me to find that the profession is both experienced and well qualified. As I said at the time, editors are:

• highly skilled, combining generalist and specialist knowledge
• highly qualified, usually with a first degree, often with one or more postgraduate qualifications
• highly experienced, often with a track record of ten or twenty years in the industry
• working in industries at the forefront of technological change, at the very heart of the information revolution.

This is looking promising. Surely here we have the cream of the knowledge society, highly prized specialists for the industries of the future. It should go without saying that, as employees, we should command high salaries, a company car and generous executive packages. As freelancers, the sky should be the limit. What wouldn’t a corporate client pay for the services of such people?[1]

Anyone in the trade will be rolling their eyes by this point. It’s well known in the industry that editors are not at the top of the publishing tree in this country.

There have been enormous changes in the publishing industry worldwide, and editors work in a globalised economy, along with everyone else. Desktop publishing, email and the internet have transformed the way we work. Editors haven’t been slow to see the possibilities technological change offers for freelancing. Many set up small businesses, typically one-woman shows, and publishers were also quick to take advantage of the cost benefits of outsourcing a large slice of the editorial role.

There has been sometimes heated discussion about the declining editorial standards in Australian book publishing, with Frank Moorhouse, Hilary McPhee, Nikki Christer and others weighing in from different perspectives.[2] I won’t revisit that debate here, except to consider the role of freelance editors, and to suggest some possibilities for cooperation.

For editors, the results of changes to the editorial function in publishing houses have been mixed. What they gained on the swings of autonomy, they often lost on the roundabout of running a microbusiness, hunting for work, juggling deadlines and the flood and famine of publishing projects. All the same, there is a cadre of freelancers with experience of inhouse production processes who make a mostly modest living by offering their skills on the market.

Education and training

Some of the gaps left by the reduction in inhouse training have been taken up by the higher education and TAFE sectors. Most universities and many vocational colleges now run courses that include editing and publishing, sometimes as specialist qualifications and sometimes as components in communications, journalism and creative writing courses. The industry has stepped up its training, with the APA running courses and now offering accreditation to external providers. Societies of editors, writers’ centres and private providers also offer a range of short courses.

My surveys show a continuing and growing interest in education and training. The greatest demand is for professional development programs. In 2001, 30% of respondents wanted to see more professional development programs as a matter of priority and this jumped to 79% in 2003. In the latest survey, 68% of editors rated the need for professional development highly, second only to the need to establish a national organisation for editors.[3]

An ageing profession?

Despite the fact that many people still come to editing after a career in areas such as teaching, librarianship and academia, there are now younger entrants with newly minted publishing and editing degrees and the intention of making a living as editors, not merely subsidising the production process.

When I conducted the first survey, some people expressed concern at the ageing of the profession. In 2003, 63% were over 45 and this is now a slightly lower 58%. As one survey respondent commented, ‘We are not dowdy housewives filling in time while hubby’s at work, but strong, committed, dynamic professionals with a specific view of publishing… not an “add on” but a specialised, powerful group with “insider knowledge”.’

As editors with inhouse experience leave the industry and younger people with professional qualifications take their places, the cottage industry model of freelance editing will be increasingly unsustainable. Lots of experienced book editors have moved into more viable areas — government and corporate work, website and electronic editing (fields where you make a lot more with the same essential skills by calling yourself a communications consultant, knowledge content provider or information architect).

Rates

The significant increase in reported average hourly rates in this year’s survey is a pleasing development. The national average of $61 an hour is a step up from the $50 mark that the first two surveys reported. Even so, it masks huge variations. The lowest rate was a paltry $25 an hour. Survey respondents made wry comments, including the words ‘slave labour’ and ‘ridiculous undercharging’ about the amounts that their work commanded. The highest reported rate in this survey was $120 an hour, a rare outlier in the data but not too different from the recommended MEAA freelance rate for book editors.[4]

To run a small business, as freelancers do, this hourly rate needs to be raided for equipment and home office costs, including internet and phone charges, software, holiday and sick leave, education and training, IT maintenance, supplies, the daily administrivia of emails, phone calls, banking, postage and advertising. And this is without even thinking about superannuation or insurance. After all, most freelancers don’t.

Too many freelancers don’t charge enough to do much more than pay for their overheads. There are exceptions to this sad rule, but most of these people don’t work as book editors but with more lucrative government and corporate clients.

Working together

I provide summaries of the survey findings to IPEd and editors’ societies. I’ll be making my findings available to the MEAA and there are signs of a renewed phase of cooperation between editors and their union. Many former union members have drifted away from an organisation that they felt didn’t understand or represent them, but there seems to be a new willingness on both sides to work together. As we move into a grimmer industrial relations era, everyone in publishing has much to gain from joining forces and finding common ground.

I’m aware that many professional writers would be glad to earn anything like $60 an hour for their work. Before you frame retorts about relative value and wage justice for authors, let me say that I’d love to see writers properly paid for their work. I’d add that many writers engage in editing as their day job and, indeed, many editors are also published writers. We have a lot in common.

Both groups want the publication they’re working on to be as good as possible. We also want publications to sell, giving us common cause with publishers. We all want to be part of an Australian publishing industry where good writing and good editing are valued and nurtured.

If my bookshop spending is anything to go on, paying editors properly might be the start of an editor-led recovery in the Australian publishing industry.

Notes

[1] ‘Valuing our services, valuing ourselves’ paper presented at ‘Partnerships in Knowledge’ conference, Canberra, April 2001.

[2] Frank Moorhouse, Australian Author, Hilary McPhee, interview with Ramona Koval, Books and Writing, Radio National, broadcast 12 May 1999, For Nicki Christer’s and others' comments, see Jane Sullivan, ‘Publish and be damned’, Age, 14 December 2002.

[3] The new Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) was announced, to fanfare and song, at the Melbourne conference. See Jane Sullivan, ‘Letters to the editors at the typeface’, Age, 16 October 2005 and www.case-editors.org.

[4] The current hourly freelance rate for book editors and proofreaders is $189, and the daily rate is $756.

©Pamela Hewitt 2005
www.emendediting.com

The surveys are used in Emend Editing online courses, along with many other current industry sources. The courses most relevant to this article are On your marks An introduction to editing, What's it worth? Costing and quoting and Tricks of the trade Freelance editing.

Please contact me if you have any comments on this article or if you'd like to reproduce it.

Third national survey of editors

Pamela Hewitt

The third national survey of editors was conducted at the conference, ‘Editing in Context’, held in Melbourne in October 2005. There were 108 responses to the survey, a slight increase on the responses to the second national survey of editors, carried out in July 2003 at the Brisbane national conference.

These surveys are the only comprehensive, national collection of information about editors. Although participation at national conferences is not necessarily representative of all editors as a whole, they are excellent opportunities to gather national data and views, and they provide a snapshot of the profession. To allow comparison over the three surveys, the same questions were asked, where possible. Much has been achieved on the national front in the past four years, so the survey has been refined to take into account changing national issues.

As the conference was held in Melbourne, there is a disproportionate representation of Victorian editors. Some 40% of respondents were from Victoria. Even so, there is an encouraging continuity of response, which suggests that we can have confidence in the findings. The most variable responses are found in the area of rates and charges so I conducted a state-by-state analysis to allow comparison.

Who is an Australian editor?

• It comes as no surprise that women continue to outnumber men in the profession, with 87% female respondents and 13% male.
• Editors are getting (a little bit) younger! While 58% of respondents are over 45, this is down slightly from 63% in 2003, and 42% are under 45.
• We’re a well educated bunch. 92% of editors hold at least a degree. Most (58%) hold more than one higher education qualification, and just over a quarter have a Masters or Doctoral degree.
• Editors are working harder to extend their skills, with 95% participating in professional development programs. This continues the increasing trend for professional skills upgrading noted in the previous survey.
• Almost 70% of respondents had more than 6 years’ experience as an editor, and the remaining 30% had been in the profession for up to 6 years.
• Most editors bring to their work previous experience in relevant professional areas. The most commonly mentioned fields are teaching, administration, journalism, librarianship and writing. Many bring subject specialties to their editing work, such as science, law, linguistics and management. Experience in bookselling, policy, archives, computing, communications, university lecturing and business are just some of the other areas of relevant work experience that editors listed.
• There was an increase in the proportion of full-time editors (60% compared with 51% two years ago), with 27% working part time and 13% working in the field in addition to other employment.
• Mapping the changing boundaries of the profession is vital to our continuing relevance to a changing workplace. The nomenclature editors use is an important indicator of shifts in the industry and of the ways we see ourselves. In previous surveys, I asked respondents if they described themselves primarily as copyeditors and/or proofreaders, substantive editors, project managers or whether they used some other title. Many indicated that these boundaries were impossible to delineate in their working lives, so this time I framed the question differently. The changing role of editors in the publishing industry is now more accurately reflected in the findings. In 2005, 19% of respondents described their role as copyediting or proofreading, 11% saw themselves primarily as substantive editors, 16% described themselves as project managers while 37% agreed that it was impossible to distinguish between combinations of these activities. Among the other 17% of responses, many used different job titles: communications manager, onscreen and website editor, editorial consultant, managing consultant, content developer, project editor as well as knowledge management professional and others.
• Compared with the 2003 survey, a higher proportion (46%) of respondents worked as employees, reflecting the greater levels of in-house employment among editors in Victoria. Just under half of respondents were freelance, with the other 5% describing their employment status as contract, volunteer or a combination of employee and freelance.

Rates

Now for the news we’ve all been waiting for. There has been a significant increase in the reported rates editors charge. The national average hourly rate is now $61, a marked increase on the $50 average reported in the previous two surveys.

Even better, this is not merely a result of the over-representation of Victorian editors. A breakdown by state and territory follows: average hourly rates for editing were $67 in Victoria, $63 in the ACT, $60 in NSW, $55 in South Australia and $49 in Queensland. The Tasmanian, Western Australian and Northern Territory figures provided too small a sample from which to generalise. For the first time, we can report on rates in New Zealand, which average $45, albeit against a small sample.

As we know, these averages mask huge variations. The highest reported hourly rate for editing was $120 and the lowest was $25. As in the past, many editors charge different rates for different services. Proofreading rates averaged $38, indexing was $45, thesis editors averaged $39 and manuscript assessment rates were $36 or $325 per manuscript. Higher paid services were project management, which commands an average hourly rate of $82, and document development, at an average hourly rate of $56.

There was a great deal of discussion about rates in the space provided for comments. It comes as no surprise that the most common remark was ‘these rates are too low’ (10 respondents said this, some using terms such as ‘slave labour’, ‘ridiculous undercharging’ and one commenting ‘I can’t believe people are working for $35 an hour’). A repeated suggestion was for societies to provide guidelines on rates, hold seminars on the topic and work to improve the way clients value our work.

Another familiar response was that some editors charge different rates according to what they believe the client will pay, or can afford. Several people also raised the problems of undercutting by colleagues and lack of information about what to charge. Here is a typical response: ‘I would like some more guidance about professional rates because I don’t know the range in which it is reasonable to negotiate; at the moment I’m at the mercy of what the publishers suggest as an hourly rate.’

In contrast to the practice of charging differential rates, others commented that their time is just as valuable to them and the client, regardless of the service performed, and so they did not vary their charges. Others said that they resisted quoting an hourly rate in favour of quoting on the job.

To summarise, there has been progress on this front but it is clear that many editors would like to increase their charges and that they look to societies and the profession nationally to help them achieve this.

Challenges

Extending skills was the challenge most frequently cited as the most important and it was the most commonly listed item overall, followed by keeping abreast of technology and increasing income. This response is much the same as those of previous surveys. Several individuals said that they saw improving the way editors are valued as important.

Other priorities were becoming more time efficient, keeping up with administration and balancing lean periods with times of oversupply of work. One editor listed ‘refusing tempting jobs’ as a challenge, while another remarked that these things are not ‘challenges’ but ‘all in a day’s work’.

Priorities

The groundswell of support for the establishment of the national organisation (the Institute of Professional Editors, or IPEd) was clear, with the highest number of people listing this as their number one priority, followed closely by the need for the provision of more professional development for editors and a desire for a greater advocacy and promotions role on the part of societies. There is growing support for societies to take on an employment brokerage role, the next most popular choice of priority.

Individuals also stressed the need for a mentoring scheme for newcomers to the field. This was spontaneously raised by several respondents in the last survey and I will include it as a separate item in Hobart in 2007. Some other suggestions were an online e-list, stronger partnerships with writers, publishers and other industry organisations, and accreditation of courses.

Subject areas

Rather than listing subject areas, this year’s survey merely asked respondents to nominate their own fields. The results were remarkably compatible. Once again, most editors either described themselves as ‘generalists’ or listed a range of subject areas. Education was by far the most common subject area (42 responses). When you add higher education (11), vocational education (4), curriculum and assessment (1 each), this confirms the broad field of education as the largest single subject area for editors. Science accounted for 20 responses, with a further 6 specialist scientific areas mentioned. The humanities, broadly defined to include social sciences, history, ancient history, anthropology, politics, philosophy, critical theory and archaeology was the next on the list, with 25 responses. Twenty respondents listed trade fiction and non-fiction, including children’s books, biography and poetry. Business, finance, marketing, human resources and accounting, when grouped together, amounted to 18 of the listed subject areas, while 15 respondents listed government and corporate editing among their subject areas.

Small numbers of respondents listed many additional subject specialties. These included language and linguistics (7), law (4), information technology (3) and indigenous affairs (3). The many single-item responses were too numerous to list in a summary but I am happy to provide them on request.

Many people added some final thoughts at the end of the survey. A couple suggested that the accreditation system be altered: ‘I believe editors with tertiary qualifications in the field should be accredited via a different pathway than those with experience only’ and ‘while I support accreditation, I think there should still be room for recognising in-house qualifications’. Here are some more parting comments:

Specialist knowledge can be an advantage when looking for a niche in publishing.

I would be interested to see ‘tests on editing’ on the websites.

an important part of my contribution is in developing processes and briefs, in addition to editorial activities — this is an area often referred to in a general way … but very necessary for smooth production process.

Editors are too passive. We need to be entrepreneurs — in-house or independent. Editors must be able to describe what they do, how they will work with the client and demonstrate VALUE, VALUE, VALUE (not just pedantic correction — although that is critical).

An overarching challenge … is to continue to define for ourselves and others how we add value to published texts.

It would be great to see the development of a national professional association run by paid office-bearers. The voluntary work by current CASE reps is fantastic but vulnerable as it rests on those who are passionate enough to devote their spare, unpaid time to it.

Would be helpful to have more professional development or mentoring systems to ‘open up’ specialist/niche areas.

Editors need an image makeover. We are not dowdy housewives filling in time while hubby’s at work, but strong, committed, dynamic professionals with a specific view of publishing… not an ‘add on’ but a specialised, powerful group with ‘insider knowledge’.

Would be good to make your findings available to the MEAA so they can be more effective on behalf of editors.

I’ve taken up this final suggestion and will be making the survey findings available to the MEAA as well as IPEd, individual societies and other players in the industry. I hope that many of the other suggestions that emerged will also come to fruition between now and the next survey in 2007.

The stand-out issues from this survey are the collective wish to:

• establish a strong national organisation
• move on increasing rates
• develop an effective mentoring scheme
• expand the opportunities for professional development
• improve the status of editing within the industry.

A number of people thanked me for conducting the survey and thanked the people who have taken a leading role in national developments through IPEd’s working groups. I’d like to thank respondents for taking the time to complete the survey and to express my pleasure at seeing editing develop as a profession that has a greater sense of where it is going and how we intend to get there.

©Pamela Hewitt 2005
www.emendediting.com

The surveys are used in Emend Editing online courses, along with many other current industry sources. The courses most relevant to this article are On your marks An introduction to editing, What's it worth? Costing and quoting and Tricks of the trade Freelance editing.

Please contact me if you have any comments on this article or if you'd like to reproduce it.