Two Simple Ways To Become a Freelance Editor

A few people have weighed in on my little poll, indicating you would like to hear more about freelancing. No problem! I’m regularly asked how to do what I do: freelance editing. Well, there are many ways to go freelance (the easiest involves the insertion of your full-time gig into a bodily orifice of your boss), but here are a few tips I hope will give you a solid start. Please note that I am still only freelancing part-time while I stay home with my daughter, so I can’t be your shining example of how to “make it” as a freelancer–not yet, anyway. These are just tips to get your foot in the door of the publishing world, which really is the hardest part.

Route #1: Create your own internship.

I schmucked around trying to find paid gigs even while I was still IN college, because back then we all still thought we could find paid work in our field of interest, with minimal experience. Not so much. My first paid gig dried up after college, and by the time I started looking for internships (because publishers wouldn’t even call me back about paid jobs), the window of opportunity had closed. That = several years wasted time. If I had known then that it would take me so long to find a paid job without internship experience, I would have viewed 6 months or a year of indentured servitude as an investment rather than an insult.

Problem is, LOTS of folks know better than I did and are clamoring for just a few internships, so what you should do is find a small publisher you like and offer to work for them for free so you can gain experience. You just found an internship with zero competition, and you made the overworked editor an irresistible offer: free help. Just set a time limit on your internship and be ready to say goodbye (and thank you!) if they can’t offer you paid work after that time.

Route #2: Start small.

This is what I ended up doing: I tried my damnedest to get jobs in publishing or as close to publishing as possible in order to pay bills and keep myself occupied. On the side I was working for one or two small book publishers at a time, doing occasional work. Yup. I had to cold-call a lot of people to get those gigs, too. S’just the way i’tis. There are oodles of online lists of publishers. Start there and research each one until you find one you like. It would help your case if you knew something about the genres they publish, too.

Over time my part-time experience looked better and better on a resume, until I was able to land an in-house, full-time, pull-your-hair-out-stressful, gloriously satisfying copyediting job, which in turn bolstered my credibility when I went back to freelance.

All these ideas take some guts, because you have to pick up the phone and call people (gah! anything but cold-calling!). If you want to freelance, though, you’re probably the ballsy sort anyway, right? Anyway, I hope these tips give you some new ideas. Good luck!

Your Favorites

I have a little more time and energy lately to read blogs and look for new media outlets I want to follow, but it’s hard to cut through the noise online and find the good stuff. Today I want to know what your favorite sites are for writers, editors, or just news/fun/business in general. Here are a few of mine:

mediabistro.com (media news, job postings)

inhabitat.com (Green and fabulous stuff)

digg.com (social news site: mostly 12-yr-olds, geeks, and PR staffs voting stories up)

autoblog.com (interesting cars)

jalopnik.com (funny cars)

mastheads.org (find the right contact at a magazine)

ed2010.com (Psst! They didn’t tell you, but so-and-so is hiring.)

freelancefolder.com (freelancing)

thesimpledollar.com (frugal tips)

writetodone.com (about writing… till you’re done)

lifehacker.com (how to hack your life)

freelanceswitch.com (also self-explanatory)

hulu.com (free movies and TV! Lots and lots of 30 Rock episodes )

Okay, your turn. Give me some new sites to visit! I must have more media! What are your favorite blogs, news sites, etc.?

Ann Arbor Editors

I recently transitioned from a full-time copy chief job at Winding Road magazine, under the illustrious David E., to full-time freelancing. I made one teeny tiny comment out loud about deciding to write (finally!), and the universe rearranged my life within the week to allow me to pursue that decade-or-so-procrastinated goal. So… I procrastinated a little more and went looking for editing and writing blogs with topics that interested me–things I would geek out with my managing editor about over lunch–and found nothing. There are great blogs on time management (ahem), creative writing, and how to start your own home-based business, and several rather stagnant networking sites for editors, but really nothing I found would support my now isolated professional self the way I wanted. I’m being the change I want to see, or the support, rather. Please join me as I discuss the real nitty gritty of being a professional editor and writer: freelancing in a shitstorm economy, difficult editorial decisions, how editors and writers fit into new media business models, how to get unstuck when you’re writing, finding your life’s work, and so on.

I’ve called this blog “Ann Arbor Editors,” because I really wish there were a local networking group in my beloved Ann Arbor, Michigan, that I could lazily attend and benefit from. But the universe is not in the habit of allowing me to be lazy, at least not these days, so why don’t we create a space for all editors and writers to discuss the craft(s) and support one another’s careers and life work? Welcome!