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Erin Brown © 2007 First we'd like to get to know you on a personal level. What are your hobbies and interests outside of the workplace? To be honest, I am a nerd-I like to read, even after putting in a full workday! But in addition to that, I enjoy teaching high school Sunday school and participating in our local church softball league. Harassing my kids is really fun, but I'm not sure that's a true hobby! Are you an avid reader? What's your favorite book? Yes! I generally am reading about three books at any given time. I have so many "favorites," but if I were to tag my all-time favorite, I think I'd have to give that award to David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd, a children's book I began reading when I was in third grade and haven't yet stopped enjoying. What is a fact most people don't know about you? Probably how I loathe to exercise, positively abhor it-yet I lift weights four to six times a week. If you didn't write or edit, what other occupation would you choose? I think I'd like to teach-women's Bible studies, Sunday school, seminars. If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why? Wonder Woman. So I could have her body and not have to lift weights. Tell us a little about your work history. Where have you been, and what are you doing now? What influenced your decision to become an editor? I'll answer the second part first, if that's okay. Not any one thing influenced me, rather a series of influences. My parents set an example for me by always reading something. My mother had such a love of books that when I was in grade school she opened a Christian bookstore in Las Vegas, Nevada. Quite often I would be called upon to preview books so she'd be able to tell customers about their content. As a homeschooling mom, reading was a major component in our home and "school"; therefore, the avid-reading legacy continued. After having taught K-12 grammar to the kids, I began to notice many errors in the textbooks, readers, and other books we read. About that same time, a writer friend who had hired me to help her write a textbook told me about a position in publishing called copyediting. Boy, did my antennae pop. I immediately researched copyediting and took the Graduate School's copyediting certification course. I have been professionally working as a proofreader and copyeditor for about five years. I get steady work from a couple of publishers in addition to working with authors and their manuscripts. What are some specific examples of how God has used you through your business to be a light to the world? Well, I'm not sure I'll know the full answer to that until I meet Him face-to-face, but I do try to encourage authors to see that their gift of writing is a ministry. My part is to help them present their message in the best way possible, to make sure author and readers are connecting in a meaningful way. What are the most common mistakes authors make? Probably the ones that bother me most, you know, like fingernails on a chalkboard, is starting a sentence with There are, Here are. Using passive voice rather than active is another common problem. How did you break into the editing field? Once I gained enough education on the copyediting process, I put together a résumé, wrote a cover letter, and began sending them out to about a hundred managing editors. I was able to pick up a few publishers for clients as a result. Joining associations like The Christian PEN and the Editorial Freelancers Association has helped garner additional clients. Now I'm turning my attention to writer's conferences and am meeting more authors who are looking for copyeditors. What organizational tips do you have for other editors? Keep organized. My sister, a writer living in South America, always kids me because whenever she asks me what's on my To Do list for the week, CMO (clean my office) is always at the top. A clutter-free office is a clutter-free mind. A calendar is a must. I use Google's calendar and love the reminders it sends me in my e-mail and also to my desktop. I enter when a manuscript is due to arrive and when it is due back to the publisher or author. I keep all my business and personal appointments on it, too. What determines the length of time it will take to finish a project? Do you set deadlines? Deadlines are a must. I always request two or three chapters from a prospective client. I read it and do a sample edit-maybe five pages. Based on how much time it takes me to do the sample, and knowing how many pages a manuscript is, I can estimate fairly accurately how many hours it will take me to do the entire manuscript. How do you determine your fees? I base my fees on what I need to earn hourly. I multiply that by the number of hours I figure a project will take. I typically add about 10 percent to that because it is inevitable that I will run into something unexpected along the way. If, however, the project flows smoothly, I refund that 10 percent fudge figure. Is a contract a necessity? To this date I've never worked with a formal contract. I always state in an e-mail what exactly I will do, how much I charge, payment terms, and deadlines for each project. This has worked for me and the authors I work with. Do you take electronic submissions or hard copy? I do both. Now, tell us about your writing. Most of my time is spent editing, so I never write as much as I want to. And I'm not a big name writer-yet (hey, I can dream!). For several years I published a newsletter for local homeschool parents. I've been published in Homeschooling Today, and I just sent off a proposal for a nonfiction book. I'm working on a novel-half of it is stored in my hard drive and half is still in my "head drive." Does being a writer help or hinder your work as an editor? It truly helps. By understanding writing, I can better understand a writer. It helps when I need to either rewrite or reorganize or suggest a rewrite. How do you balance freelancing with other areas of your life? Let me put it this way: I've reared seven children (two teenagers are still home, actually), homeschooled them all from K-12 (that's 25 years of teaching, folks), helped my husband start, maintain, and grow his window washing business, teach Sunday school, and do all the other miscellaneous stuff that makes up my life. And tucked within all that is my freelancing. My secret? Keeping priorities straight and in line with what God has called me to do; God and then family top the list. As long as I keep that order straight, even when I occasionally get swamped with work, life seems to continue to flow along. And it helps that my daughter works at Subway-she brings home healthy sandwiches when I find myself temporarily buried under too many projects. Do you have any advice for those who are just starting out in their freelance editing careers? For those who are seasoned editors? For the novice editor, don't expect to make a living at editing for quite a while and find a writer's group to join. For the seasoned editor, go to writer's conferences and network like crazy. I think knowing what God wants you to accomplish through your work, knowing the craft, recognizing and staying close to your area of expertise, and read a variety of authors and genres is the best advice I could give to both.
To read the September 2007 Featured Editor article, click here
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