“Publish or perish” is axiomatic in academia, and that means that university presses are putting out thousands of books each year—and copy editors are busy making sure that it’s not “publish and perish.” If you’re a good academic copy editor with good university presses as clients, you can keep your calendar full. But academic copy editing has its particularities and can’t be approached quite the same way as copy editing mainstream trade books and magazines. It calls for an engaged, inquisitive and resourceful mind, a devotion to consistency, clarity and accuracy, an exquisite familiarity with multiple style guides, and almost infinite reserves of patience and kindness. Advanced acquaintance with some subject areas—and their particular ways of writing—and familiarity with such things as advanced math or multiple languages will be secret superpowers. Academic copy editing doesn’t pay as well as some other areas of editing, but it can be an excellent addition of variety and interest to fill out an editor’s calendar. Find out if it’s right for you—and if you’re right for it—and see what it takes to do a first-rate job of copy editing an academic book.
Presenter
James Harbeck has a BFA, MA and PhD in theatre, an MA in linguistics, and more than 25 years of experience as a professional editor. He has copy edited scores of academic books to fill out his thriving schedule of structural and substantive editing of trade books. He has given dozens of conference presentations and webinars over the years and has written countless articles for publications such as BBC.com, The Week, and his own blog, Sesquiotica.