Today I want to highlight the three most important things I believe have helped me achieve the success I have today. Hopefully they provide some guidance to those who are just beginning their proofreading journeys; maybe this will invite others to share their stories.
The first thing is researching/studying. Though the proofreading course I took did a great job of teaching me the basics, there was still so much left to learn about punctuation, grammar, and everything else about written English. There are obviously vast amounts of free online resources I delved into, but I also read some books. Two of my favorites were Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner, and The Best Punctuation Book, Period by June Casagrande.
One thing about this job that makes it endlessly exciting is that there is always learning to do. Each new project presents new challenges, and it’s important to keep expanding your knowledge.
The second thing is practice. Thankfully the proofreading course I took had dozens and dozens of practice essays to work on, which I ended up doing multiple times. Something that should be encouraging to newcomers in the field is that it is so easy to find things to proofread online. There is written content everywhere you look these days, so why not start with something you have a passion for? For me, that was video games. I started with my favorite games site and just began proofreading their articles for fun. Since this particular site is a big name in the industry, the writing was very professional. I soon began finding smaller sites with less experienced writers, and that provided new challenges. All this is to say that by the time I got my first paying proofreading job, I was confident I could handle it because I had been doing the same thing for free on my own for some time.
The last thing is the hardest and least fun: marketing. A common through line I see from fellow editors all the time is that they dislike this aspect of the job more than anything else. Even though it was never fun for me (and still isn’t), it is vital to success in this field. A quote I came across earlier this year has stuck with me ever since: if you put yourself out there enough, people will find you. I’ve found this to be true, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without marketing myself.
Those are the three things I recommend focusing on when trying to grow your proofreading career. If you had to pick just three things to spend your time doing in order to achieve growth for your editorial business, what would they be?