Freelance editing?

Question

How can I become a freelance editor for people's manuscripts. And how much do most editors charge?

Answer 1

You must have a degree to be taken seriously.

Colleges / Universities offer all the English classes you could ever ask for.

If you have a BA in English, do take a few editing classes to brush up.
If you haven't started doing so, start collecting the major books on style and word usage:
The Chicago Manual of Style
The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style
Fowler's Modern English Usage
Strunk and White -- The Elements of Style
They'll help in keeping up with the standard conventions of modern English.

Experience is the difficult part. People will want to read examples of your work. Start out with neighborhood newsletters, underground newspapers, and hopefully the city paper. Also look into TV and Radio scripting. Book composition houses need editors too -- if you're lucky, you may score a self publisher or two on the side. Try online sources too.
Breaking into the mass book publishing world (Delmar, Wiley, etc.) will require years of experience.

I need to insert here ... editing is like "write what you know." I had an editor change "tie rod" (it's part of a car's suspension) to "tire rod" (which means ... ah ... nothing). He had no clue.

My editor charges $2.00 per page for a light edit; the more technical the edit the more she charges up to around $4.00 per page. Those prices are as high as the market will accept.
You also have to take in account how much type is on the page and the size of type page.

Good luck!
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