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I wrote a few chapters of a book several years ago. How do I find an affordable editor?

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How do I contact you? – Neil Fein♦ Apr 17 '11 at 14:17
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I offer freelance editing at decent rates. =P – Ralph Gallagher Apr 17 '11 at 16:39
Aside: Find a good editor who takes a cut, instead. He/she may put more time in if he/she "has skin in the game". – MGOwen Apr 18 '11 at 3:11
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You are feel to email me rates and evidence of editorial work – Carnotaurus Apr 18 '11 at 19:40
Are you still looking? Try posting to the EFA Job List; it's free for employers. @MGOwen - Very few pro editors will work for a cut of book sales, myself included. – Neil Fein♦ May 18 '12 at 4:55
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The most widely used method of finding a freelancer is by asking around for recommendations from friends and associates. The great advantage of working this way is that you can get some rather credible information about the freelancer.

There are several job boards for finding freelancers, including freelancers, online. Some possibilities:

  1. http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/
  2. http://www.elance.com/

There are also directories of editors provided by professional societies and online communities. For example:

  1. http://www.copyediting-l.info/freelance.html
  2. http://www.sfep.org.uk/pub/dir/directory.asp (Society for Editors and Proofreaders directory)

If you have specialist requirements, searching broadly on Google (do look at Adwords results), or on networking sites like Linkedin.

The downside of finding an editor this route is that you won't know whether they are any good, although some professional societies, such as the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, do have substantial accreditation programmes giving weight to these names. Asking for a sample edit is valuable here: the information you gain here is much more useful to you if the editor will edit a small sample of your work than provide a highly selective portfolio of their past work.

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Always talk with an editor before hiring them. Asking them to edit a sample is also a good idea, and I always suggest this to clients, particularly with fiction. It lets us fine-tune expectations and see if we're compatible. (Editors will almost always ask for a sample of the manuscript before agreeing to a fee in any case.) – Neil Fein♦ May 21 '12 at 15:41

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