Anal people, unite!

[cjsmith]

Saturday afternoon I took a short course titled "Become a Copyeditor or Proofreader." Amusing factoid: the guy who spoke to us is the person responsible for Hershey's Syrup spelling "recipe" correctly on their bottles. I knew there were rare other people who'd notice such a thing, but it was validating to meet a guy who writes to companies and gets such mistakes corrected!

As for my fellow students, I have never seen so much anal-retentiveness gathered in one room. Wow. I had found my tribe!

I was a little disappointed that no one there, including the speaker, could spell better than I could. :-)

I'm sure I could make a living at this if I spent a bit of time building up a resume and a portfolio. It won't pay what embedded OS work pays, of course, but if I went freelance it would be a fine supplemental job. I haven't yet decided to commit to it. I'm mulling it over.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

It's fun work, but after the dotcom crashiness, the expected wages plummeted. I quit because I couldn't make a living wage given how much time was spent marketing myself -- finding work, responding to queries, that sort of thing -- along with the time I could actually bill for my work, and the amount of work I could get when the glut of laid-off website copyeditors hit the freelance market. But now that the economy's picking up in general, there might be more work in both places. Having a course will help. Sunset magazine is usually hiring for their pool, which is very part-time and a good supplement for freelance work. If you're ever not working, you could check them out. (this post not proofread)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I am not surprised that marketing yourself was a large chunk of your time spent. Did you ever go take the test for Editcetera's placement pool?