Proofreading can be a great way to earn extra money
as a freelancer. Especially if you are already working
as a freelance writer or designer or simply want to
work from home.
I use a freelance proofreader who charges between
$30/hr. (for regular jobs) and $40/hr. (for rush jobs
that require evening or weekend work), with a
minimum charge of one hour. Other proofreaders
charge by the page.
It doesn’t matter how many people look at a piece at
my client’s organization, even if it’s someone who has
never seen the copy before. This proofreader
ALWAYS finds typos, omissions, facts to check and
more. She may suggest grammatical changes, which
we follow or not, depending on how we want
the copy to sound.
Now for the big question – how to get started as a
professional freelance proofreader.
STEP 1. First you’ll have to educate yourself about
proofreading techniques. Proofreading is a lot more
than reading carefully. As you know, there are
special “proofreader’s marks” which you will use to
show mistakes and changes. And there are a number
of special techniques to use. One is reading a document
“backwards” after you’ve read it through the first time.
At the very least, you’ll want to:
- Make sure the document has been spellchecked.
- Read the document aloud to check for complete sentences
and flow of thoughts. - This also helps you find missing words.
- Make sure ideas are organized and in a logical order.
- Check that every sentence begins with a capital letter
and ends with the correct punctuation mark.
- Check that periods and commas are used correctly
- Apostrophes are used correctly for contractions.
- Quotations are punctuated correctly.
- That names of people and places have been capitalized.
- Each word in a title should be capitalized, except for:
and, but, or, a, an, the, and prepositions that are less
than five letters long (from, to, in, out, on, over, etc.).
- The first word of a title is always capitalized.
- Make sure the use of common homonyms (there, their,
they're; to, too, two, your, you're) is correct.
- Check the accuracy of numbers used in newsletter
articles.
- Numbers one through ten should be are spelled with
letters. Numbers over ten are written as numbers
unless they begin a sentence.
- Accurate abbreviations and acronyms.
- Book titles are italicized.
- Quotations are in quotation marks or italicized.
- You may want to eliminate the use of jargon and clichés.
You should probably do a Google search on “proofreading
courses” and invest in one course to learn the techniques
from a professionally-accredited organization. Ideally,
this should be a “distance learning” course that you can
complete at home, via the Internet, at your own pace.
It would also be good if it gave you some sort of certificate
or designation, upon completion of the course. Here are
a few resources you might want to check out:
Basic proofreading by distance learning:
http://www.train4publishing.co.uk/content/distance/basproof.htm
Writing trainers
http://www.writingtrainers.com/center/proof.htm
Many of the leading courses seem to be in Great Britain,
which is not surprising, given their love of the English
langauge and the popularity of shows and books on
grammar in the U.K.
STEP 2. Once you’re trained and qualified as a
professional proofreader, you’ll want to check out
your competition. Do not be discouraged to learn
that it’s a crowded field. Yes, you’ll have to compete
for business. But the fact that there are many proofreaders
shows there’s an ongoing demand for this service.
Check out how much they’re charging, how they
promote themselves, what kind of clients they list,
how they work, turnaround times, etc. You might
as well model a successful proofreading business
to get started. Here are a few websites to check out:
http://www.perfect-proofreading.com/
http://www.papercheck.com/
http://www.assistant-for-hire.com
STEP 3. Create your own simple professional
proofreading website. Today you can create a simple
website for $50 a year. For this tiny investment, you
can have an instant business with a very professional
appearance to anyone who’s thinking of using your services.
STEP 4. Promote your services. You’ll want to write
up a bit of background copy that answers these
important questions:
“What could happen if we don’t use a proofreader?”
One of the biggest challenges is convincing people they
should really take the time and spend the money to do
it right. But the horror stories of people who failed to
proofread should help convince them otherwise.
I know of one case where the word “savvy” was
misspelled “saavy” and an entire seminar mailing
had to be reprinted at a cost of more than $10,000.
In another case, the toll-free phone number for a
direct mail promotion wasn’t checked. The mailing
went out and all the calls went to a wrong number.
The entire campaign – tens of thousands of dollars –
was completely wasted, simply because of a
proofreading oversight.
I’m sure your friends, colleagues and clients have
their own horror stories that they can share with
you to really help build your case for professional
proofreading.
“What makes you so good?” The answer to this, of
course, is your special training, certification, your
reference materials, and, as time goes by, your
experience for a wide variety of clients.
Finally, you will want to hand out or email your
background document to prospective clients. This
information will also form the basic content for your
website. You’ll build on it over time, with articles,
client lists, testimonials, etc.
And you’ll start promoting your business through
your email signature, writing and posting articles online,
emails and mailings to businesses in your area,
pay-per-click advertising and more.
Best of all, you can often do this work part-time, nights
and weekends, until you build up a clientele. Or full-time
from home, with great flexibility. It’s a good way to
earn extra income.
Barnaby Kalan is an award-winning freelance copywriter
and author of Outsourcing Yourself: How to Turn Your Job
Into a Business for Greater Wealth and Security. For a free
chapter of his book, visit http://www.outsourcing-yourself.com
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