A couple years ago, I was contacted by Sarah Cypher (pictured here), an editing colleague who is also an author. She was in the editing phase for her novel, The Skin and Its Girl (2023), and she was looking for a sensitivity/authenticity reader to help ensure that her book would be at its best before launching. She needed someone who could provide a subject matter (sensitivity) read regarding her representation of a fictional 1950s Palestinian-American family.
The world of professional editing includes a variety of services, most of which can be envisioned as a series of levels. At each step in the editing process, the editor approaches the text from a different level, providing a piece of its transformation from raw ideas into polished content. Some texts need more work in certain areas than others, but every text will benefit from some form of editing. In this blog post, I aim to provide an overview of the stages of editing, based on the process generally followed by publishers.
Starting in my student days, I often proofread papers for my colleagues. After completing my PhD, I continued editing for professors, just as friends. They kept telling me that I should be charging more for my time, but I just didn’t have a business mindset yet. Eventually, I recognized the value of my contribution.
When I launched my business, I made sure to include English editing services. When the COVID lockdown began, this is the sector of my business that increased most profoundly.
