Learn to Copy-edit and Proofread
Is there a market?
Well, yes, there’s a huge and growing market for copy-editors and proofreaders. If there wasn’t I’d become a late-starting, hands-off garden designer specialising in small Chelsea backyards and hard-landscaping in Hoxton. But I’m not devoting this post to a spiel on why the market for your services is growing wider and stronger by the year. That’s all on the website anyway. This little post is about an idea which sprang into my mind just this afternoon.
I have just finished reading John Sutherland’s excellent book A Little History of Literature. It does what the title suggests and traces the history of literature, mainly the novel and its predecessors, from Greek myth to the present in really digestible bite-size chunks. It’s written with younger readers in mind and adults who have an interest in how it all started and where literature might be going. Because it could be read by a fourteen-year-old, it takes nothing for granted. This I loved, having spent years reading books which assume I know quite a bit more than I do (or can remember!). So I do recommend the book. But this is not a review.
The Idea
Did you know that almost everyone with a reading age of more than ten is now writing a novel? This is an excellent thing. I’m not one of those curmudgeons who thinks that books ought to be written by those with talent. (And, lest you think it, I’m not ageist; if a major publisher wants to 
take on a brilliant novel by a eight-year-old, bring it on!) The more the merrier! The problem, as John Sutherland points out, is one of selection. We only have a small amount of time to devote to reading and there are millions of e-books now. How on earth do we find what we want? Won’t we spend all our time reading reviews of the tiny minority which get reviewed and then agonising, only to find it’s 2am and the alarm is set for 7?
Anyway, I’m sure there’s more than enough fodder in the whole “crystal ball and the book” debate to fill a dozen posts here. What about my idea? It’s very simple. And like most ideas which seemed good ten minutes ago it is already starting to lose some of that essential early glow. But here goes, otherwise I’ll have to junk the post. And I rather wanted to point you at Professor Sutherland’s gem of a book.
In my neck of the dwindling woods, personal trainers do very well. My local green (cap G or not?) has every available non dog-training space taken by personal trainers and their sweating band of acolytes. I’ve done the maths and it has to be good business especially in areas where free school meals don’t feature in the government statistics.
Personal Editors
So, why not personal editors? All novels need to be copy-edited. Certainly any novel which has not been well edited and proofread stands little chance with a literary agent, let alone a publisher. Well-established novelists with mainstream publishers have editors who work with them very closely. Often when an editor changes from one publishing house to another the author will follow them. So, why not treat freelance editors not as jobbing editors who move from one author to another, but as personal editors who have a stable of maybe half a dozen aspiring writers with whom they develop strong bonds? The market is now massive and more help is needed with editing than ever. The job would be the same as always, but the way it is viewed would be different. It’s a marketing idea, of course, but none the worse for that!
Maybe it’s no different from how many freelance editors operate anyway. But in business, especially the book business, new perceptions of the old ways are often more productive than brand new ideas. After all, I bet old PT instructors didn’t do quite as well as personal trainers on my town-village green!
