Publishing work is changing faster than ever before, but for people with the right skills and agility, it’s still a great industry to be in.

Those were two of the headline messages at the IPG’s Spring Conference in mid-May, which welcomed nearly 600 people to hear from over 45 speakers, with the opportunity to network—albeit virtually..

The Conference looked back on the host of disruptions that publishers have faced since early 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has dominated of course, but macro issues like Brexit, urgent cross-industry questions around sustainability and diversity, and sector-specific concerns like Open Access and budget cuts have all forced businesses to think afresh about the way they operate.

The evolution of tech

Another challenge, and a big theme of the Spring Conference, has come from technology. Keynote speaker Azeem Azhar suggested we are in an “exponential age”, with technologies evolving faster than we have ever known. Sessions on ecommerce, social media and audio all confirmed the massive changes that have emerged in the way we produce, promote and sell content now.

Tech has also altered the skills required of publishing professionals and the way they operate—not least during the pandemic, when home working and video calls have become routine. As Publishing Training Centre tutor Alysoun Owen said in a session on publishing skills, digital expertise is now essential.

Wellbeing matters

Peter Cheese of the Chartered Institute of Professional Development questioned whether our working lives would ever return to their pre-pandemic ways, and said employers had been prompted to reconsider how they look after their staff. “Covid has forced us all to pay more attention to how we connect with people… and to look after their wellbeing better. We’ve got to carry that forward.”

In an important follow-up session on mental health, coach Paul Bulos said the stresses of juggling home and work lives had taken their toll on many people. “Burnout is a serious mental health issue, and it’s important we all know the signs and how to respond. It’s increasing, and the impact can be devastating.”

Reasons to be confident

Amid all the personal and professional challenges facing everyone at the moment, several top independent publishers suggested there are lots of reasons to be confident. “It’s an exciting and optimistic time, despite the worries we’ve been through, said SAGE’s Ziyad Marar, who said the pandemic has shown independent publishers at their most creative and innovative. “I’m very optimistic about the future for indies,” agreed Kogan Page’s Helen Kogan. “There’s never been such a level playing field between small and large publishers.”

A Conference session with a couple of new publishers showed it has been possible for start-ups as well as established companies to thrive. “We’ve all learned to be agile, and to find new ways to do things,” said Diana Broccardo of Swift Press. “It’s been encouraging to see how resilient publishing has been… we should embrace the chaos,” added Rachel Williams of Magic Cat Publishing.

The value of bookshops

Faber & Faber’s Stephen Page said the pandemic and lockdowns had reminded everyone that publishers contribute a great deal to the cultural and educational life of the country. “People have reached out to us for consolation and inspiration during the pandemic… What we do really matters.”

A retail-focused Spring Conference session showed that Covid has had a similarly positive effect on people’s perceptions of bookshops. Waterstone’s’ James Daunt said that while consumers had been buying books online during lockdowns, they had badly missed their visits to physical stores. “People have been craving the inviting atmosphere of bookshops… they’ve realized that they need to use independents or lose them,” added Andy Rossiter of Rossiter Books.

Facing the future

With pandemic restrictions and Brexit-related challenges easing, publishing can hopefully look forward to more settled times – as well as physical rather than virtual conferences, book fairs and training at long last. But it is already clear that some things will never return to pre-Covid norms. The last year has led publishers to think deeply about their purpose and identity, said Stephen Page. “The pandemic has made us all consider what matters… and how we become the best version of ourselves in the future. It’s incumbent on all of us to lean in and bring to bear the opportunity we have to create a world in which we all thrive.”

The IPG provides a wide range of events, resources and services to help independent publishers do better business. It has around 600 members with combined turnover of more than £1 billion.

For more about its work, visit its website or follow on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn  and Twitter.

If you are working as a copy-editor, or training to be one, you are probably aware that there’s much more to the job than reading a text and correcting the odd typo. Copy-editing is a multi-faceted discipline that requires simultaneous focus and competence in several skillsets.

These top tips will ensure that you start each editing job well, remain organised and efficient throughout, and always stay on the right side of colleagues and authors.

1. Assess the job

Aim to find out as much as you can about the job before you begin, preferably before you accept it if you are freelance. Make sure you know what is being asked of you: what’s the word count, what’s the deadline, what’s the budget/hourly rate, what level of editing is required?

Next look at the text and estimate what level of edit it will require, whether you can comfortably complete it in the time available and whether you’re happy with the remuneration offered. Issues with any of these points are better dealt with early on.

2. It’s all in the brief

Read the brief two or three times before you begin your edit; you could print it out and take a highlighter to the most important bits. Make sure you really understand it and query points that aren’t clear.

Keep referring to the brief throughout the job, especially if you have taken a break to work on a different text; it’s too easy to forget or confuse instructions only to find out later that you edited half a text following a different publisher’s brief and house style because that’s what was in your head!

Before returning an edited file, check the brief one last time – just in case.

3. Divide and conquer

Work out the tasks required for the edit, compile a checklist and undertake them one by one, ticking them off as you go. Don’t set out to edit in one fell swoop from start to finish – you will miss things!

Coding or styling the whole document first is a great way to get an overview of the text, and a huge tick on your to-do list. Get time-consuming or fiddly tasks under your belt early too, such as editing bibliographies or standardising particular terms or spellings. Check and edit tables and figures and their numbering and text mentions in one go.

The more tasks like these you can get out of the way, the freer you are to focus on sense and expression when you complete your full read of the text.

4. Listen to the author

It is essential in fiction editing to connect with the author’s ‘voice’ and edit sensitively and respectfully. Even in non-fiction texts, you can pick up on an author’s preferred style of expression and turn of phrase.

Within the parameters of the brief and house style that you’ve been given, work with the author’s voice so that their text remains theirs and isn’t stripped of their personality. Follow grammatical rules and conventions, and improve syntax for sense and clarity, but hold back from altering expression for the sake of it – it’s the author’s book, not yours!

5. Know your place

Whether you’re working on trade, academic, corporate or web content, understanding the role you play is fundamental, but so too is knowledge of and empathy with the parts played by others.

When you query the author, be polite when you mention problems with the text; it is their intellectual property, their sweat and tears, possibly their life’s work that you are dealing with, after all. It’s not the author’s job to know about style issues or to make decisions about display, so don’t trouble them along those lines.

When you contact the publisher, you can be direct and assume knowledge of editorial conventions and practice; be careful not to sound forthright or bossy, though. The publisher gave you the job; they won’t give you another if they feel you don’t respect them.

Make sure that typesetter and proofreader instructions are fit for purpose. Style sheets are a great aid to the copy-editor while working, but what you send in with your edited file is for others to use, so make sure it’s user-friendly, clear and concise, without repetition or room for misinterpretation.

The copy-editor sits in a privileged position between those who originated and own the text and those who will turn it into a finished product – that’s a wonderful, and responsible, place to be.

Bonus tip!

Don’t attempt to survive on coffee and biscuits! Screen work requires regular breaks, and a sedentary work life requires an active antidote. Even at your busiest – especially at your busiest – make some ‘me time’, grab a refreshing drink and a healthy snack, and walk round the block (or whatever your exercise of choice may be) for 10–30 minutes at least once a day to clear your head and wake up your body. Your wellbeing is much more important than any book!

Heather Rawlin is a freelance editorial project manager, an Advanced Professional Member of the CiEP and a tutor for the Publishing Training Centre’s Essential Copy-Editing and Essential Proofreading courses.

Visit her website, Future Perfect, and follow her on Twitter @perfect_heather.

A career-shaping passion for reading

I grew up as a bookworm in a multilingual household where storytelling was the norm. This early fascination with stories and language led me to pursue English Literature and English Language & Communications at university. Literature reading lists and seminars fed my obsession with books, grammar and language development theories. I wanted to work with books, but didn’t know how or where…

A taste of publishing

I knew nothing about publishing at the time. I figured there must be someone making all those books, but wasn’t sure what the major publishing houses actually did. After some internet searches, I came across the publishing industry.

My placement year offered the opportunity to intern as a publishing assistant at an independent press, to learn more about the business of publishing and whether it was for me – it was!

After graduating, an editorial career beckoned. I applied for publishing roles but didn’t get very far; there were fewer entry-level schemes back then. I eventually got a job as a copy-editor at a market research business where I worked for five years. In that time, I switched to remote working (pre-Covid!) to pursue a master’s in creative writing, to learn more about the craft of storytelling and fuel my ongoing obsession with books and language.

While studying at the University of Edinburgh, I teamed up with some course mates and co-founded The Selkie Publications CIC, a non-profit literary magazine that supports and promotes work by under-represented writers (another passion of mine).

The impact of Covid-19

My master’s degree and experience with The Selkie reminded me how much I missed publishing. So after finishing my degree, I continued to apply for editorial roles, when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

It had a huge impact on the small business I worked for, including redundancies and the startling realisation that I didn’t know what to do after losing my job. My applications for publishing roles saw little success. Why, despite five years of copy-editing, and plenty of admin, experience was I was being turned down for entry-level editorial roles?

A turning point in my career

Then I discovered The Literary Consultancy’s Editorial Skills Training Scheme, in collaboration with the Publishing Training Centre. Curiosity led me to apply, successfully, for the chance to develop more specialist editing skills. It was through this programme that I learnt about freelancing and how different editing books is from business reports.

The programme was an excellent introduction to different types of editing, and it prompted me to think hard about investing in further training. Other freelancers advised taking a proofreading course to gain the necessary skills and understanding of proofreading terminology needed to build a good foundation for a career in copy-editing.

Building for the future with expert training

The PTC’s Essential Proofreading course was fantastically thorough – it was comprehensive and covered everything I needed to know about the proofreading process from beginning to end. My tutor was helpful and provided detailed feedback, including the next steps to take after completing the course.

The course has given me the confidence to approach clients, and the knowledge to adapt to their requirements and deliver high-quality work. For example, one of the key learnings was when to leave things alone! Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.

Since completing training, and with an industry-recognised qualification under my belt, I’ve been fortunate enough to work as a freelance proofreader with a number of publishing clients. I now plan to build my experience and client base to get more frequent work, and to continue training – in fact, I’ve just started the PTC’s Essential Copy-Editing course!

Taliha Quadri is a freelance proofreader, events officer for the Society of Young Publishers and co-founder of The Selkie Publications CIC.

Follow her on Twitter @talihawrites.

So, you’ve been asked to proofread something. Maybe you’re newly qualified and starting your first job? Perhaps you’re considering training to become a professional? Or maybe a friend has asked you to give their short story a once-over? Here are five pieces of advice to help you on your way.

1. Do the ‘housekeeping’ first

Get the dull, mechanical bits out of the way early and you’re free to focus on the text. In a Word file, scroll down the document, scanning horizontal spaces to check that they’re all even. If there are footnotes, check their in-text indicators are present and correct. If there’s a table of contents, check that chapter/section titles exactly match those in the actual location (it’s surprising how often they don’t).

Open the search box and hit the space bar twice, then press enter; this will catch double spaces and allow you to reduce them to single ones. Go through the document, deleting extra spaces, then start again, continuing until there are none left.

On PDFs, check that running headers, page numbers and page headings all match and are in the same place on each page. Setting the view to show the whole page, then using the left and right keys on the keyboard to quickly ‘flick’ through the file, will help you spot if a ‘fixed’ element moves slightly on some pages; it’ll appear to ‘jump’ like a flipbook animation.

2. Slow down. Then slow down more

Now you can focus on the text. Allow yourself to really focus.

With experience, your prooofreading speed will increase – but when you’re starting out, slow right down and pay atttention to every letter, looking at what’s really on the screen rather than what your brain expects to be there.

Have you spotted the two typos? Reading at your normal speed (even if you normally pick out typos in published books) you’re likely to miss things.

If you’re (for example) a Brit proofreading texts in US English, it can help to read out loud in a theatrical voice. This may feel ridiculous, but it will help you spot discrepancies. For example, if a ‘u’ accidentally appears in what should be ‘color’, or if the text mentions a ‘lift’ rather than an ‘elevator’.

Find ways to slow yourself down and you’ll pick up more errors.

3. Refresh your grammar

There’s a good chance that you’ve got a decent innate sense of grammar. But trust me, it’s worth taking a refresher course.

Before I studied to be a qualified proofreader, I’d been writing professionally for about nine years. I was a strong writer, but I’d never actually learnt grammar at school. A grammar course tailored to editorial roles will show you exactly what you know and don’t know, and will bring structure to your knowledge and use of grammar.

4. Query carefully

Be precise with your feedback. If the text cites organisations such as ‘N.A.T.O. and the BBC’, don’t write a comment like ‘N.A.T.O. but BBC?’ and hope they’ll see what you’re getting at. Be explicit: ‘Q: Should abbreviations use full points or not?’ (at all places where it’s relevant) will avoid any confusion.

Remember that many clients will read your comments and queries in a rush, while (more rarely) others might compile them into a list for a different team member to check separately. Clear feedback will ensure consistency and reduce the chance of misunderstandings.

5. Read the brief and style sheet again

You read the brief and/or style guide before you started, didn’t you? Well, when you’ve finished a job, check it one more time. This has two positive consequences.

First, it’s a reminder of what you need to consider after you’ve read the text. If the brief is to standardise to a certain style choice, then the text, unless it is quite short, will frequently contain instances of the ‘opposite’ choice.

Second, you can go back over your work and check that you’ve captured all the specifications. “Did it really say ‘no Oxford commas’ when I started the job? How did I forget that? And -ize endings! That means that when I changed ‘realize’ to ‘realise’ on page 15 I should have left it alone.” Remember to check one last time before sending your work back to the client.

Bonus tip!

To avoid easy-to-miss, but embarrassing, mistakes, run a whole-document search for specific words that are easy to misspell.

Sam Kelly is a professional proofreader specialising in non-fiction and academic texts. He is also a tutor for the Publishing Training Centre’s Essential Proofreading course.

Visit his website, Undisputed Proof, and follow him on Twitter @samkellyproof and LinkedIn.