Where and how to find a good editor. Signs of editorial unsuitability

Every week someone asks me where to find and how to choose a good editor. The answer is the same, so I'll duplicate it here.

This article will be of interest to those who make web services, work in publishing houses, design studios, agencies and small companies. Also for those who in large companies manage a small but proud department. If you feel that it's time for your company to clean up the text - this is for you.

Hiring optional

To begin with, understand whether you really need an editor on the team, or whether it is enough to attract a freelancer.

The editor in the company is an independent combat unit. He will assemble a team, raise everyone's ears and release the product entrusted to him on time: at least a blog, at least a corporate magazine, at least a mailing list, at least courses. A good editor is the captain of his editorial ship. If your org chart doesn't need another ship, don't waste your time.

About the captain - these are not big words. I noticed that when a person deals with dull texts in a company, he himself is dull, and his texts are dull, and there is no professional growth, and hatred accumulates from all sides. In order for the editor to perlo and give out burning powerful products, give him a difficult task and great responsibility. And any student will write texts in a Word for three kopecks (maximum - for a ruble).

Take ready or grow

There are two options: find a cool ready-made editor or find a regular one and make it cool.

The first option is fast, expensive and only in your fantasies. I know two dozen really good editors, half of them work in my projects, and they were loaded for the whole next year back in September. The other half are working on projects that would be very difficult to get them out of. Many have long had their own businesses.

Salary expectations for good editors are at the level of leading managers of Moscow banks. But the manager sits in the bank all day, and the editor only comes to meetings and simultaneously cuts 2-3 projects. So if you are not a Moscow bank, a ready-made cool editor will cost a lot.

The second option is much easier. Hire any person with whom you are comfortable and interested, start working with him. It can be a senior student or a graduate, a former copywriter, just a person from the profession. Work with him, see the strengths and weaknesses. Further develop it to make a fighter out of it.

It is more profitable to grow an editor for yourself for three reasons:

This is much cheaper than hiring a ready-made one. A good editor's salary is twice that of a regular editor. This is no joke: twice.
This will be your person, whom you created and raised as a professional - he knows your business and understands your problems. Even if you hire a star today, it will take him at least a month to figure out your business.
If you know how to grow new editors, you are not dependent on the old ones: if your native editor becomes a star and goes to create his own studio (desperate man!), you will simply grow a new one.

Hire a ready-made editor only when you have a suitcase of free money.

How to choose

If you are looking for a ready-made cool person right away, re-read any article, blog post or newsletter that inspired you. Look up the author's name, find him on Facebook and make an offer. Be prepared for the fact that he will not answer or put up an exorbitant price tag: if you fell in love with his work, then the person is intelligent, he is in high demand.

If you're just looking for an editor, post a job:

Tell us about the tasks and requirements. Do not indicate that work can be remote. This is how you weed out the freeloaders.
Ask for a test task to tell about yourself. This is how you reject the crazy ones.
As one of the requirements, indicate a detailed knowledge of advice: - so you reject the lazy.
Ask not to apply for a job with a formal resume. Or write that resumes are not considered, only stories about yourself in free form.
Invite candidates to meet. And cull anyone who doesn't read them. You will understand this from the first lines of the letter.

All this multi-stage rejection is needed only because there are a lot of random people among those looking for work as editors: bad copywriters, amateurs, information businessmen, dreamers, writers and crazy people. And there are especially many of those who were promised “quick money” on the Internet, but in reality it turned out that these were cheap copywriting courses. All these people will have to be rejected, and for a hundred who responded, you will have three or four sane candidates. This is more than enough to get you started.

Help cheat sheet:

Signs of editorial unsuitability

In response to the vacancy, the editor attaches a resume and asks to read it.
In a story about yourself - an autobiography.
There are no examples of work or it is not said why there are no works.
The editor sets conditions for you in the first letter.
The editor doesn't ask for anything.
The editor in the first letter asks about the salary or names his salary expectations, even in jest.
The letter contains the phrases "I need a job" or "I'm looking for a job."
In the letter, you notice spelling or punctuation errors.
The letter is one big paragraph.

How to grow

The only normal way to forge a cool editor is to send him to the School of Editors and give him the task to hold out at least the first two steps. The first step is time-consuming, but simple, and the second is hellish hell, from which editors come out of steel.

No universities, including specialized journalism departments, graduate such people who are trained by the School of Editors. After graduating from the faculty of journalism, you will have a text writer with knowledge of ancient literature. And we produce guys who know how to negotiate, defend their work, launch projects and not miss shit - this is in addition to editing, design and interface.

Our guys do not just write: they launch live projects. I'm an editor, so my favorite thing is when they make long reads. These could be your editors and your pages:

More longreads from the first set	Second

It's been a long time since I've posted in the For Beginners section, so I think I'll stop rambling. After thinking a little about the subject of the article, I decided to write about ways to enter the Windows Registry Editor. Although I write in each of the articles how to enter the registry. I'd rather write down all the possible methods available in Windows operating systems by default. So what is a registry?

The Windows registry is a database containing all the settings and parameters necessary for the operation of the operating system. It contains settings for both hardware and software. Most changes in the Control Panel, Group Policy Editor, and advanced system settings are written to the registry.

So, how do you enter the Windows Registry Editor?

Logging in through the Run utility

It is this method that I use in my articles, since, in my opinion, it is the fastest and most convenient. We perform three simple steps.

Through the search in the start menu

To begin with, let's look at the example of Windows 7, since it has an old version of the Start menu and this option is suitable for older operating systems.

For Windows 7, Vista and earlier

For Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

Opening via Windows Explorer

A very simple way: you just need to find the desired file in the system folder. To do this, we follow the path:C:\windows. We are looking for a file and run it.

Compliance with the rules of the game is extremely important. Many authors do everything in their own way: they send in which you can’t make out anything, or they write at all: “My book is in the application. I want to publish. This shows that the author is a hack. If from the very beginning he treats his business carelessly, then what to expect from him in the future?

Pitch

Negotiations with the publisher

The application and all supporting documents are sent to the publisher either by e-mail or by regular mail. The review time can vary from a few days to several months.

If you suspect that your letter has been lost, do not hesitate to call the publisher. Always ask the editor when to contact them for a solution. It is likely that you will have to repeat the procedure several times: editors are extremely busy people and often do not meet deadlines.

Can I submit a manuscript to multiple publishers?

Novice writers often ask themselves the question: should I send a manuscript to several publishers at once, or should I first wait for a response from one, and then move on to the next?

My opinion is this: the manuscript should be sent to all appropriate editions. If you have several offers, you can negotiate on the price. If you don't get a single positive response, you won't waste time waiting in vain.

Dead season in publishing houses

The dead season can be called the time of book fairs - Frankfurt, Moscow International Book Fair and a number of thematic exhibitions. At this time, it is better for the author not to disturb the publishers: they still have no time, and they will postpone reading the manuscript until after-fair times.

Summer is the holiday season, May holidays are the barbecue season, New Year and Christmas are sacred.

What is suitable for publication and what is not

In the publishing house, each manuscript suitable for the genre is evaluated for compliance with the following criteria:

Text quality

the norms of the Russian literary language are observed;
the principles of composition are observed, the logic is sustained;
the text contains new useful information (non-fiction) or entertains the reader (fiction).

Demand

Works of this type should sell well. If sales of similar books have been poor or the data simply isn't there, distributors won't take the novelty.

By the way, this is why publishers do not like non-format so much - it is very difficult to attach it to bookstores.

unusual

The manuscript should have a striking feature: a theme, a point of view, a way of presenting the material, etc.

PR opportunity

This is not about posters with commercials, but about the interest of the press in the topic of the book or in the author himself. Theoretically, any competent book can be made a bestseller (at least for a short time), but this will require huge investments, and the profit will bring a penny. Only those books that the press itself begins to talk about sell well. And for this you need some kind of clue.

For example:

celebrity books or about celebrities,
books that have become bestsellers abroad,
books on pressing social and economic problems,
books written by extraordinary people
books that destroy the usual ideas about some phenomenon, etc.

If the first two points - quality and relevance - are observed, the book is accepted for publication in the general series. If the work is also unusual, and the author has signs of a potential star, an advertising budget can be allocated to promote his book.

Book cost

Try to do everything to reduce the cost of your book. If the budget turns out to be large, then the publisher is forced to lay down a high retail price, and this, in modern times, is almost a guarantee of a failure in sales.

Editing and proofreading can easily be done at the expense of the author. By the way, the need for editing (i.e. additional attachments) is one of the most common reasons for refusal to publish.

Correspondence with the editor

If the editor believes that a book that has arrived by chance has a chance, he notifies the author that the publisher is interested in working with him.

When entering into correspondence with the editor, adhere to the following rules:

No familiarity. The tone of the letters should be emphatically business-like.
Indicate the subject in your emails - it's easier to find them in the general thread.
Be brief - long letters are read last.
Check spelling and punctuation.
If you've just started a conversation, remind the editor who you are and/or what you're talking about.

For example:

Good afternoon, dear Larisa Ivanovna!

On August 27 you asked for the manuscript of my love story Roses and Tears. File in attachment.

Sincerely,
Adelaide Konforkina

And in a conversation with the editor-in-chief Sasha, they discussed how things were going with us: how many people responded, how many approaches to the test task turned out, how many good entries, which candidates to consider.

We found several pain points in hiring an editor. As it turned out, hiring an editor is difficult and there are surprises all the way, from the first day of work to several months after onboarding.

What's wrong with hiring

During the interview, it is important to check the expectations of the editor and the company, to compare principles. At interviews, they often customize the story about themselves to fit the templates and agree to everything that they are offered.

Companies post a vacancy about role A, in fact they want to close role B, the candidate knows how to do job C, but says that he can and wants to do job D. It is usually difficult to overcome the case of incompatibility between B and D, but sometimes it works.

Companies post a vacancy about role A, in fact they want to close role B, the candidate knows how to do job C, but says that he can and wants to do job D.

Content marketing is broken

Let's see why editors are hired. Sometimes you need a person who translates the buttons in the interface from engineering into Russian and English. With this, everything is simple.

It is more difficult when the director has spring and marketing in his head and he is determined to make money with the help of the blog. He knows Ilyakhov, believes that he is the king of content, he has a cool school with editors and you can hire their graduates. But such a fierce director is usually not aware of a cool post about the economics of content projects.

A company hiring an editor really wants sales, users, traffic, not the articles themselves. Articles are not needed to be published on Facebook with joyful exclamations and receive approval in editorial chats.

Articles are not needed to be published on Facebook with joyful exclamations and receive approval in editorial chats.

The company thinks: “Okay, first we’ll get into industrial blogs, and then our own blog, mailing list, Telegram channel will grow, and since we have an editor, he will also take over social networks.” All of this is content-based marketing. It is important to evaluate the payback, work with different channels. Companies usually know very superficially about this, but they have heard that it works for others.

With this attitude, the director hires an editor. Wants marketing and sales, but hires an editor.

What the editor thinks

In fact, the editor is easy to find. They just say it's difficult. Many people want to write texts for money, and some even know how to do it competently.

The same graduates of Ilyakhov can do a lot of cool things. “Understanding the task”, “FFF principle”, “whose task is the one who wears”, “text hygiene”, layout of “information products” - all this, of course, is cool, but in itself does not guarantee that the content will pay off and bring significant benefit.

Most likely, the editor will be allowed to write a couple of freelance texts and see how they work. Work well - the editor will be hired. Seems good to the director - the editor will get autonomy to "do content marketing".

After a few texts, weeks or months, the editor will run out of topics and he will start writing fierce, uninteresting shit. Why is that?

The editor thought he was being hired to write beautiful texts. That he will be “issued an invoice” as an input, some other people will publish texts on the company’s blog after him, a separate manager will harness the illustrator, someone else will count the metrics for the editor. After all, he editor and not a manager or marketer.

Editors write the first texts about a company not because they know how to give a smooth, predictable, good result in sales and traffic by working with texts, but because they are fascinated by the company, they have their own opinion about this company and its products, which they put into first texts.

Sooner or later, the quality of the texts goes to shit or the texts do not appear at all. The editor just said everything he wanted to tell about the company. He has nothing more to say. He does not want to engage in research and marketing in general - because he editor and wants to write texts, but the client did not give him "meat". Where do you get themes from?

Both idiot editors and good marketers run out of threads. But a great marketer in such a situation will build a plan for new publications and start working, looking for materials, researching, writing, harnessing speakers, finding columnists, and a bad one will sit on his ass for your money and wait for the “meat rain of insights”.

You wanted to give all the work with the content (mailings, blog, social networks, research) to the editor, but he, such a bitch, only wants to write texts, but he doesn’t want to type, publish, research, manage and be responsible for the result.

How do we hire

It is impossible to check a person on his resume and interview. Therefore, for us, the input threshold for a conversation is a completed test task. Every time we post a vacancy, there are twenty smart people with the comment “oh, you are completely fucked up, such a person costs three times as much.”

The test task cuts off 90% of candidates and causes a storm of indignation about "no one will do a free test for you." This coin has two sides.

On the one hand, we are against free labor. Therefore, at the first stage, we do not ask for complete do text. It is enough for us to see the plan of the article, the ideas that the editor offers, how much he follows the trends and knows what is relevant. It is also important to see the motivation and justification - why this topic really needs to be written.

On the other hand, the test is as close as possible to what a person will do when working for us. Therefore, in our test tasks for SMM, plans for texts for Russian and English blogs. It's funny that so far no one has guessed to create a content plan for Amplifer's social networks for 2 weeks (this is in the test) in Amplifer itself, although the idea seems so obvious.

According to the texts, we ask you to suggest three topics in Russian and English for our blog, an article plan and motivation. Cool guys are not too lazy and bring their own task understanding but so far no one has done it.

The second stage of the test is to take one of the proposed texts from an idea to a document that complies with the redaction policy (we still take care of the layout), write leads for a post and repost on a social network, and write requirements for illustrations. Naturally, we pay for it.

If we like it, then we offer to make some texts on a freelance basis in order to consolidate the result and opinion about the person. Another important thing at this stage is load estimation. We ask: "How many net working hours and days do you need to do this?".

If a person suggested a simple 4-page topic, but is ready to bring it in a week and states that it will take him 30 hours of pure time, something is wrong. And vice versa, if he wants to make a long read in 4 hours of pure time and is ready to bring the material on the same day, then this is also bad. With a probability of 99.5% it will be raw, unfinished material or, God forbid, copy-paste or stupid rewrite. To detect such stupidity, we ask how much time is needed.

Yes, you are crazy!

May be. We have no illusions about a "big market of cool people" who would be happy to join us. But if you are not afraid of what we have written and our principles are close to you, then you can apply for a vacancy and do a test task.

If you are not an editor, but want to join us - do something useful and write about it on [email protected]. Advise us of a client there, or analyze something that we can improve in marketing, voteva!

Today, almost every information Internet resource, be it a website or a blog, consists of many articles. All of them are written manually by the creators of these projects, or by hired specialists -.

The success of each site depends on the quality of the articles. The more relevant, informative and useful they are for readers, the more likely the project is to achieve excellent results. Sites with high-quality content are actively promoted in search engines, which leads to an increase in the audience.

I have noticed from my personal experience that when you write large amounts of text for the site yourself, the quality of the articles may deteriorate due to a loss of concentration. And to avoid this, you simply cannot do without the help of editors. These experts proofread the material written by you and correct it according to the necessary criteria, correct errors. Of course, they don't do it for free.

Perhaps there are people among my readers with such skills. Therefore, in this article I decided to tell you how to become an article editor, where to find a job and how much you can earn as an article editor.

Pros and cons of being an editor

Whichever field of activity you choose for yourself, each of them has its strengths and weaknesses. This also applies to the work of the editor of articles for sites.

Let's start with the benefits, since they are more significant:

article editor is a creative and quite interesting job. You will constantly work with different articles and topics, learn a lot of new things that will not let you get bored;
it is possible to organize remote work as an article editor (text proofreader) and do what you love without leaving home;
work as a proofreader of articles can be easily combined with your main activity - for this you should choose small and not short-term orders;
in the process of editing and proofreading the text, you will constantly improve and develop, which will allow you to climb up the career ladder and become a more valuable specialist.

The disadvantages of remote work as a proofreader of articles include the following:

you will have to sit at the monitor screen for hours - this significantly affects vision and leads to diseases of the musculoskeletal system. Be sure to take regular breaks during work, eye gymnastics, and also try to move more in your free time;
due to large volumes of work or highly time-limited deadlines, numerous stresses can arise;
The editor is a profession with high responsibility.

Now let's talk about how to become an editor of articles on the site. Having certain skills is good, but you need to be able to apply and monetize them.

How to become an editor (proofreader) of articles where editors are required, where to look for work

It is generally accepted that only people with a philological education can realize earnings as an editor (proofreader) of articles. Of course, if you get a job in some major editorial office or agency, your diploma of education will play an important role. On the Internet, people are more interested in your knowledge, skills and experience, which you can acquire on your own.

Often, how to become a site editor are interested in and. These specialists have extensive experience in writing articles and working with text in general. If you can write an article with high quality and competently on your own, then you should also cope with the editorial (correction) perfectly.

So, to become a successful editor, you definitely need to have the following skills:

exceptional literacy - after your verification of the text, it will be immediately allowed for publication, so the assumption of any errors is excluded;
attentiveness and perseverance - the editor must notice even the smallest blots and typos;
you must feel the genre and style in which you are working on a particular article;
the text you checked should be easy to read and convey to readers the main meaning inherent in it;
the approach to work should be creative and creative;
fast typing (ideally touch typing);
Confident computer work and knowledge of text editing programs.

If you are going to work with major publications, the editor's duties may also include:

performance of managerial tasks (editor-in-chief) - distribution of work among writers, quality control and deadlines;
definition of the main concept, idea, subject and name of the project;
tracking the regular filling of the Internet resource with new articles;
assistance in solving technical, artistic and other types of issues;
publication of articles with beautiful design;
Basic knowledge of HTML and .

The question of where to find a job as an article editor remains relevant. With the development of the Internet, there is now no need to run around the publications offering your services. Now you can quickly and easily find the right job for yourself with the help of. They contain many suggestions for article editors. And you can work both in the office and remotely.

The convenience of freelance exchanges is that all the offers you are interested in are in one section. It is usually called " Editing and proofreading". In your personal profile, you can write about your skills and work experience, add examples of work to your portfolio. In the process of cooperation with customers, you will receive positive feedback and recommendations from them. This will allow you to become a more sought-after specialist.

To find a job as an article editor, I can safely recommend the following freelance exchanges:

1. - a popular exchange, which is very popular among freelancers. To quickly search for orders, there is a special category " Text and Translations» — «Editing Proofreading». Leave your requests for work and wait for the response of customers.

2. is an interesting service where you offer your services in the form of Kworks. Each Kwork is the performance of a certain amount of services with a fixed fee (from 400 rubles).

3. - one of the largest freelance exchanges in Runet. Here you will find thousands of orders for working with text, including its editing and proofreading. This exchange is in high demand among major brands, websites and publications, due to which you can find "fat" customers.

4. - a very convenient service for freelancers. To find the right order, you can use the filter by field of activity or the search bar.

5. - a unique freelance exchange, where the selection of performers takes place through an auction. You find an order, and then indicate for what period and cost you are ready to fulfill it. If your offer is the most tempting, the customer appoints you as a contractor.

6. - a great exchange for finding remote work. A large number of orders are placed here for people working with texts. It is also possible to post your full resume with examples of work.

If you are a fairly confident and experienced editor, you should not limit yourself to freelance exchanges. Much larger and regular income will be able to provide large publishing houses and Internet projects. To do this, send them by e-mail or in another accessible way a resume in which you describe your professional qualities and skills. Be sure to add examples of your work and testimonials from satisfied customers.

Who and when needs an editor of articles on the site

As I said at the very beginning of the article, an editor is needed for almost any site that has regular content with articles in large volumes. Let's look at the need for a text corrector with a few illustrative examples.

Suppose the site owner independently writes articles for his resource. Even with perfect literacy, in the process of rereading the text after completion of writing, he may not notice minor typographical errors.

Or take the situation when the site owner purchases ready-made articles on . Again, due to large volumes of text, there is not always enough time and perseverance to check the material for errors and convey the main idea. In addition, the editor, for an additional fee, can not only reread the articles, but also publish them on the site.

That is why we can say that the profession of an editor is very much in demand. After all, every day there are new projects on the Internet that need to be filled with high-quality content.

How much can you earn as an editor (proofreader) of articles

It's time to talk about how much you can earn as an article editor. I must say right away that it is rather problematic to unambiguously answer this question. The fact is that the amount of earnings will directly depend on your skills, experience, qualifications, complexity and volume of orders.

For the simplest orders for editing / correcting articles, you can get from 5 to 15 rubles for every thousand characters. If the articles are complex, narrowly focused, require serious editorial intervention or creativity, then, of course, the rate will increase significantly.

Based on specific examples, the monthly salary of an online editor can range from $200 to $1,000. If you are lucky enough to get a job in a large agency or become the chief editor of a project, then your income can increase significantly.

I hope this article helped you learn how to get a job as an article editor and make money in this field. And in general, we can say with full confidence that editing and proofreading the text is an excellent job that will allow you to turn your hobby into a source of stable income. Try not to stop at the results you have achieved - always improve your skills, learn new directions for yourself (for example, you can learn a foreign language, which will allow you to study). And then you are guaranteed high financial and creative results!