Product Description
From the Publisher
The optional instant file download (PDF) is a professional three-part proofreading and copy-editing course with free extra exercises. Uses BS 5261C:2005 (marks for copy preparation and proof correction).
The Pocket Book of Proofreading offers a comprehensive overview of freelancing for publishers and working as a freelance proofreader.
Note: If this book were simply turned into A4 pages and made into a proofreading and editing course (which in fact it actually was originally), it would make a course that could be sold at the same price as existing proofreading courses on the market. Hence the value of this popular book.
From the Author
Learn Freelancing and its associated website offers a professional and comprehensive proofreading course, and you can learn about copy-editing too.
Many people have been successful as a result of taking this proofreading and editing course, and have found regular work as freelances, working from home full or part time, or are now working in-house for publishing companies.
There is competition naturally, so you need the best possible start. You'll find this with The Pocket Book of Proofreading.
NOTE: the book was proofread and copy-edited by a distinguished advanced member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), so you can sure of the quality and relevance of this material.
From the Back Cover
The Pocket Book of Proofreading is a powerful new guide to earning your own living as a freelance proofreader. You can 'read and make money' (around £20 an hour). No previous experience required, work full or part time.
The Pocket Book of Proofreading is also an essential book for every occasion where good English is really important whether you're writing a letter, an essay, composing a report, or perhaps even preparing a thesis.
This book will show you how to become a freelance proofreader, how to work from home as a freelance, and how to download a series of mind-stretching exercises so you can practise and progress your skills! This unique three-part course is available only online.
The Pocket Book of Proofreading is just right. It offers so much more for much less. Learn the secrets of successful proofreading and copy-editing for publishers, and how to earn extra income from home.
About the Author
Excerpted from The Pocket Book of Proofreading: A Guide to Freelance Proofreading and Copy-editing by William Critchley. Copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PREFACE (abridged)
I'm surprised no one else has brought out a book called The Pocket Book of Proofreading. There are times when it's handy to be able to refer to a reference book for various sorts of queries on the subject of proofreading. Where do you start?
This book will make a good beginning. If you need to ensure that what you write is correct, you'll find something of interest in this slim volume.
I spent a number of enjoyable years working as a freelance proofreader and copy-editor. For most of that time at least six typescripts and/or proofs were piled high on my desk. The money wasn't bad. Like many people, I 'fell' into the work by chance, in my case when a sister brought home a bulky set of proofs (she'd just found a job with a London publisher). She decided she didn't like the work so I volunteered. Of course, I hadn't the vaguest idea about what marks to use to correct the proofs, but my sister gave me a friend's phone number, and he taught me the most common marks in use in about twenty minutes. I was in!
The warning must be that it's not that easy to get started. If only, you might think, some kind publisher would throw a pile of proofs your way once a week, you could earn enough to get by...find two or three publishers, and you could even pay the mortgage.
So, what do you need to get started? A big slice of luck, application, dedication, good reading and editing skills, an eye for detail, and a determination to succeed. You might just do it. You could be lucky, but don't count on it.
I know many people have enjoyed working on the proofs of Santorini - A Greek Island. It's more fun than working on the proofs of an academic textbook - full of figures and tables, and enough notes and bibliographical references to induce a yawning fit for the rest of the afternoon.
The only tale I'd like to tell you, briefly, is how I came by the story. It was a long time ago. I was walking along a beach, a strip of black volcanic sand, hot from the beating summer sun. The place was called Perissa, then a fishing village on the island of Santorini in the Cyclades.
I had innocently met a slip of a girl a few days earlier, eyes sloe-black, skin olive-brown. Most of all I remember her slender figure in a turquoise bikini, and eyes that in the clear Greek sunlight spoke of timeless mysteries, a strange fusion of passion and reason...
The girl's uncle was fishing on the same stretch of beach. He hadn't caught anything all day. He rushed up, got a pen from someone, then gave me a book, after inscribing his name inside the front cover, and writing, 'To my friend William'. His book was the best present I ever had. I didn't realise at the time how much it would change my life. I told him I'd give him a copy of the book I'd write some day...
From April 2006, you must use BS 5261C:2005 [marks for 'copy preparation and proof correction']. It was somehow more arcanely satisfying to write 'stet' in the margin(s) of proofs. Now there's just a tick in a circle; there's a very slight feeling of dumbing down.
If any errors remain, these are my responsibility. It was a habit of mine to escape from any accountability for mistakes by saying it helped people become better proofreaders, if they found the errors I missed. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Just a note about the bear on the cover. He's not the real 'Archie', of course, but I still like him (the real one being Archibald Ormsby-Gore, longtime companion of Sir John Betjeman). Above the bear is an eclectic selection - from Archie, to three words from a Shakespearean sonnet, to an actress with a part in Desperate Housewives. (Alas, Eva Longoria was deleted from the cover (see pp. 134 and 199) but she's still very much alive on other pages in this book.) You'll find that proofreading (and copy-editing) will teach you new ways of looking at words.
...
Proofreading and editing skills can be learnt as easily and readily as any of the other skills that all of us acquire throughout our lives. It's also fun! You won't make as much money as a property developer but you can earn enough from home to make it worth studying.
If you simply like the idea of working from home as a freelance proofreader, The Pocket Book of Proofreading can show you how. If you'd like to improve your income and develop your editing skills, all the essential information is right here.
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