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Re: Copyediting. Why not in-house?

In fact, copy-editing is one of those publishing skills (typographical design, selection, and promotion are others in the core skill-set) where you sometimes get much, much more than you pay for. A really outstanding copy editor can add much more than they charge to the value of a book or an article. Mind you, one really has to care about books to see the value of these skills. That ultimately is the challenge for publishers and librarians who value culture of the book -- disaggregating and automating the skill set can sometimes be achieved at the expense of real quality.

So I suspect that Sandy's deeper point is that you may only and barely get what you pay for. Real quality and expertise is not fungible and cannot be bought ... it accrues and that is one good reason for the expertise being concentrated in publishing houses with a particular style and subject focus.

Adam Hodgkin


On 2 Apr 2008, at 00:22, Sandy Thatcher wrote:

Well, I can only say, in response to this set of suggestions, that you get what you pay for. The current rate for a first-rate free- lance copyeditor is $25 to $30 an hour. (I'm not sure whether Heather is quoting in Canadian or U.S. dollars.) A copyeditor should be able to edit about 5 pages per hour, so Heather's quote of $5 seems about right. If you get "light" copyediting for $5 a page, though, I'm not sure what a copyeditor would be doing for $2 a page--just catching typos?

Heather makes the assumption that copyediting is a skill that just about anyone can acquire, including "students with subject expertise and good language skills, or secretaries." Having seen the copyediting tests that many intelligent people take, I can assure you that this is not a skill that just comes naturally with a little encouragement. With no disrespect to secretaries, the average secretary, however good a typist he or she may be, and however good a speller, would find that there is a lot more to copyediting than just accuracy. Subject expertise does help, especially for more technical fields where familiarity with the prevalent jargon is useful, but it does not itself make a person a good copyeditor either.

One reason for journal publishers to take care of copyediting is that there is more likelihood of quality control than what would result from each author hiring a free-lance editor separately--not to mention the fact that separate editing would result in inconsistency across the articles in a journal.

And who is going to provide the training to these students and secretaries to do editing in house? It would be nice to have more people with such skills, but will they be given the time off to take the courses they would need to take to learn how to copyedit well? This is an extra cost Heather does not factor into her equation.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press

Heather Morrison wrote:
One of the services offered by publishers is copyediting.Correct
grammar, spelling, etc., is important; but, wouldn't itmake more
sense to do this in-house?

The rates for freelance copyeditors range from about $5 per pagefor
light copyediting (one freelancer I found on the web thismorning
quotes $2 - $5 per page).

Picture a highly proficient secretary or editor copyediting
amanuscript that has been written carefully and gone through
agrammar / spellcheck.  Copyediting a page shouldn't take verylong,
should it?

There are good reasons why peer review should be blind or
double-blind.  Not so copyediting.  Having a copyeditor work
directlywith the author is much more efficient than working
indirectlythrough a journal editor.

A copyeditor who gets to know the author and their research willhave
more understanding of the topic matter, be less likely tomake
technical errors, and will be more respectful of theauthor's
stylistic preferences.

In addition to hiring freelancers, other options are creatingjobs
for students with subject expertise and good languageskills, or
secretaries.  Perhaps the same staff could takeresponsibility for
depositing the author's final manuscript inthe appropriate open
access archive(s)?  The skills andexperience such staff would
develop would lend themselves well toproviding additional help to
the researcher, such as helping withthe paperwork involved in grant
applications, thus freeing up theresearcher's time, for research.

If copyediting is done in-house, it makes sense to me thatpublishers
who charge for this service, should provide adiscount.

Copyediting does not always cost, of course.  There are peoplewho
enjoy copyediting, and provide this service on a volunteerbasis.

[SNIP]