Five Days in the Life of an Editor

My incredibly glamorous work life

Welcome to Coffee Break Friday, where I offer tips to new and aspiring editors.

Are you thinking about becoming a freelance editor?

When I was in university and first considering editorial work, I sometimes felt frustrated because it was easy to find resources on how to edit but it was impossible to learn about what being an editor was like.

How would I spend my days, exactly? None of the courses I took covered this; my teachers at UC San Diego never brought it up.

So, for anyone who might be curious as I once was, I thought I’d give you a glimpse into my last week—a very typical week in my life as a fulltime freelance copyeditor and developmental editor.

First: My life isn’t your life (and that’s great!)

This is a topic for another post, but I want to briefly mention: If you’re considering editorial work and you think wow, Hannah’s life sounds like the worst, keep in mind that the world of editing is vast. I enjoy taking on long, complex projects—namely, books—and reading academic nonfiction, but plenty of editors do plenty of other things. Maybe you don’t want to edit long manuscripts. Maybe you want to edit picture books or blog articles or the backs of cereal boxes. All this and more is a possibility.

So without further ado, my life:

Sunday

Sunday was mostly a day off for me. I moderated my developmental editors’ book club in the afternoon. Editors from four different continents got together to discuss Matthew Salesses’s Craft in the Real World, and I loved hearing everyone’s different perspectives. I started this book club last spring and it’s been a blast.

Monday

In the morning, I spent about three hours on the phone with customer service because I’d lost access to my Google Workplace. It was frustrating, and the problem wasn’t solved. I’m including this because we call this kind of stuff non-billable hours, and your goal as a freelancer is to minimize non-billable hours. But it’s not always possible.

Later, an 80,000-word nonfiction book I’d copyedited last month was returned to me for cleanup.

What’s a cleanup?

The process of copyediting a book for a publisher typically goes like this:

• Receive and review the files. You might ask the publisher some initial questions or adjust your quote if necessary.

• Edit the files. Create a style sheet as you go.

• Return the files to the publisher and/or author.

• Author review: The author is typically given two weeks to review the copyedits that were made, address concerns and voice their own concerns, and sometimes fiddle with the text a little more. Two weeks occasionally turns to three weeks, or five, or months. The more people involved in an author review (think coauthors and translators), the more unfathomably long it will take. Fortunately, this affects my life virtually not at all, so I don’t mind if authors take their time.

• The cleanup: The author returns the files, and the copyeditor tidies them up. This means making sure the author responded to all the queries that were made, editing the parts that were awaiting author feedback, accepting the tracked changes in Word, and finalizing the style sheet.

Cleanups for books can take me anywhere from one hour to a week. This one took three hours. I didn’t return it to the publisher right away; I prefer to review my work in the morning, when I’m most clearheaded, before sending it off.

In addition to the cleanup, I had a sample chapter to edit. Some publishers ask that you edit one chapter and turn it in to them to receive feedback. I edited 3,500 words for the sample.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I had a long breakfast at a local diner I really like. My friend texted me to complain that her office doesn’t let her open any windows. I walked outside in the sun and reminded myself to be thankful for the freelancing life.

I reviewed the cleanup and sent it off. I reviewed my sample copyedit from the day before, doing a second pass, and sent that off too.

I spent more time on the phone with customer service. I continued to make no progress. This continued to be non-billable time. I felt so frustrated I took an hour off to go to the beach—another perk of being a freelancer.

Then I spent the rest of the day reading a romance manuscript for an indie author who needs a manuscript evaluation. When I do a first pass with my developmental editor hat on, I truly just read, taking no notes. This was a nice cool-down task.

Wednesday

Customer service mysteriously gained the ability to help me. Huzzah! My Google Workplace came back online!

Technically, Wednesdays are supposed to be my day off, but I spent most of my afternoon answering work emails, updating my finance spreadsheets, and writing a blog post. Finding true time off as a freelancer has been hard for me; there’s always something else that ought to get done.

Thursday

I received another manuscript ready for cleanup. This one was straightforward; the cleanup probably took about an hour.

I did volunteer tutoring with an ESL student, helping them with their essay writing. When I was a teacher, I was usually too tired to volunteer, but as a freelancer, I’m able to spend a couple of hours volunteering every week.

I copyedited a chapter of the current book I’m focusing on. This author has voice—a very in-your-face, you-can-hear-their-dialect-on-the-page voice, and I’m focusing on retaining its zing while ensuring that all intended readers will be able to understand what’s being communicated.

I received fast feedback from the publisher for the sample chapter I’d sent them; all looked good to them, so I’ll proceed editing at the same level I showed them in the sample.

At 4:30 p.m., I tuned in to Kathryn Jepsen’s awesome EFA webinar, “Effective Science Editing: Lessons from Fiction and Academia.”

That’s a wrap

And that’s it! I hope it’s clear that I didn’t try to impress you with this post. Is it a glamorous life? Nope. But it’s one spent with books—books I enjoy and learn from—and other people who care about books. The authors and publishers I’ve worked with have all been immensely kind, and my deadlines have been reasonable this month. It won’t necessarily be the same next month, but that’s the life of a freelancer.

Until next time,

Hannah Varacalli

Copy & Developmental Editor
www.hveditorial.com