Becoming a Writer-Editor
How can someone effectively combine writing and editing skills to make a good living? By establishing what I call a “hyphenated career”: becoming a writer-editor!
Combine Writing and Editing Skills
In my book The Business of Storytelling, I talk about how to create a writer-editor career, where you use what you learn as a writer to reinforce the editing side of your career and vice versa.
For those of us who enjoy taking on a variety of projects in our work, a hyphenated career can be a source of fulfillment and growth (both personal and career-related). I’ve always said I’m a better editor because I’m a writer, and I’m a better writer because I’m an editor.
The other day, a reader contacted me and said she was a different kind of hyphen: a bookseller-writer. I loved that! Her deep understanding of what readers enjoy reading makes her a better writer, and her understanding of writing and literature makes her a better bookseller.
A friend of mine is a great beta reader/big-picture editor because she’s also a visual artist (“Even painters info-dump,” she says.) I love the idea of there being all kinds of hyphenated careers possible for writers and editors.
In the end, it’s the interplay between your skills that can help you earn more money both as a writer and as an editor.
Tips for Editors & Writers
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Making Editorial Decisions in a Copyedit
A book editor needs to get comfortable making editorial decisions in a copyedit. Don’t shift the editorial burden back to the author. Copyediting Requires Decision-Making Obviously, we can’t ask the author to make decisions about every question we have when we’re editing. This is inefficient as it takes time to ask the question and get
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Why You’re Not Making It as a Freelance Editor
As the main instructor at Club Ed, my goal isn’t just to help people learn the craft of editing but to help them learn how to run a freelance editing business. Running a freelance business is hard – I’ll be the first to say so. But there are some common reasons people don’t succeed, if
