Writing and Editing Skills: How do you hyphenate your career?
How can someone effectively combine writing and editing skills? By establishing what I call a “hyphenated career,” precisely that of a Writer-Editor!
Combine Writing and Editing Skills – Become a Writer-Editor
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.
If you’re considering extending your editing (or your writing) career in a new direction, you might enjoy exploring book doctoring and ghostwriting, and I have just the class for that starting October 7: Editorial Toolkit: Book Doctoring and Ghostwriting!
Tips for Editors & Writers
The Editorial Blooper Reel
Back when I edited a custom magazine, I assigned and edited a package about an upcoming event (similar to a business conference) which included profiles of some of the attendees and speakers, a how-to-get ready checklist, a travel piece on side trips to take at the location, a celebration of highlights of the event over…
Using information products to boost your bottom line
People like to pretend that you can write a book and make passive income from it. You can’t. If you write a book and stick it up on Amazon and never do anything to promote or market it, you’re not going to sell any copies. Okay, you might sell three or four to people who…
The Fine Art of Copyediting Fiction
When copyediting fiction, it’s common to run up against issues that pit author preference against standard editing approaches. For example, in a story I wrote some years ago, the main character’s neighbor is referred to as “3-B” as that is her apartment number and the MC doesn’t know her name. Fine. She can be referred…
