So not sure if I can put this question here or not so if not let me know we're I can thanks! I've been wanting to be an editor ever since picking up a book and having the grammar be so terrible it made me cry. I love to edit and make poorly written fan fiction more readable and enjoyable. Yet lately my brains Ben questioning me on the decision to become an editor so now not so sure. I'm thinking so and most likely will go through with it but want yo awesome people's input xD. Also for those who work...does it take up all your free time or not a lot? Probably a stupid fear but I'm afraid of once I start working then all my free time will go out the window...I'll be to tired or drained to play my games with friends or Skype and such...so does it take up a ton of free tie or not to much?
I say do what you think you will enjoy. Learn more about the line work and see if it works for you. To be honest, there was a time I kinda wanted to be an editor myself. Maybe I still will, I dunno. As for how busy they are, well that would probably depend on the job. Like who you are working for. I can't say for certain though.
Free time depends on how much work you take on. Decide however if you can apply yourself to produce quality results. It is not an area where you can allow yourself to not give it your all. This might mean that you would have to devote more time work.
First off, let me tell you a little bit about myself in order to establish some level of credibility. I have been writing stories as a hobby since I was five years old. Furthermore, I've been doing peer-edits and peer-reviews voluntarily for other writers for eight years. In college I was the editor-in-chief for a student run magazine. I graduated recently with a B.A. in English and just finished up an internship where I did some professional editing and writing. All that being said I'm still very new to the whole business. :icon_bigg First and foremost, editing is a difficult field to get into. I was only able to acquire the internship purely by happenstance. It's not what you call a "safe" profession in terms of job availability. I dont want to discourage you from being an editor, I just want to make sure you're clear on that. Right now I think it would be best to talk with an academic advisor at your school about your goals. They will be able to help you take the steps you need in order to become an editor. Based on my limited experience, I never felt like I didn't have any free time. My internship was five days a week, eight hours a day so pretty much your standard work schedule. Honestly though, free time will vary greatly from person to person. It will depend on whether or not you work for a company or end up doing freelance work, how much work is available to you, how many projects you're willing to take on etc. etc. Having said all of that though, you will still be able to have a life. There will be times where you have more of a workload than others however. Anyways, I hope this helped a little bit. Best of luck to you.
As a person going into an extremely unstable job field (English with a creative writing emphasis) you have to accept that you may not be able to pursue your full passion right away. You are going to have to put a lot of work in if you want to be a top competitor. So free time might be a little tighter than what is ideal. However, pursuing goals is a worthwhile experience. It just depends on how much you want this. It's definitely not a bad passion to have. I just feel like warning you what exactly is going to happen. In order to reach for the stars, you might need to make a couple of sacrifices.
One way you can get your feet wet is to create a profile on a site like Elance or Odesk offering your services as an editor, and then bidding on jobs as they come up. To build up credibility and reputation, you'll need to probably bid low and write really strong, unique and personalized pitches to each job posting to which you respond. Also really crucial is absolutely, positively meeting deadlines, doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, responding promptly to inquiries, and treating every client like gold. If you do that, you'll quickly build up a good reputation and be able to get more work. You'll be competing against people in India who will work for very cheap, and some of whom have *excellent* English skills... but in general, for editing work, most people prefer US (or other native English) residents with native English abilities. I know a lot of people who make a part-time or full-time living as freelancers using platforms like elance and odesk, and it can be rewarding, pay pretty well, and give you a lot of flexibility in your work hours and income. Additionally, once you've got a fair amount of freelance work under your belt, you'll have a portfolio with (most likely) a diverse variety of editing work you've done for these clients to show to potential real-world employers, making you a more attractive hire than someone with less to show.
Well thanks for all the helpful suggestions xD. Someone told me that there's a job like a beta reader of were you can read a story and pout out what worked and what didn't and such....is that true? If so I'd be in heaven! Any jobs for like reading or gaming? I'm an avid reader and gamer for the most part on the latter.
