If you are gifted with the skills afore mentioned, you can prepare to get pretty picky. There is a lot of money to be made in this field of writing, publishing, and editing, and you can make many different choices that will cater a career to you. First of all, you have your choice between making a full-time career with your skills and simply participating in part time ventures. You can choose to work from the comfort of your home, or become a part of an organization.
Writers and editors alike are looking for good proofreaders, and proofreading jobs are often home based. There are agencies you can check with online, and they will give you manuscripts to review. You will critique and criticize these works using your amazing skills. You will find spelling and grammatical errors and also note where you think the writing style excelled or deteriorated. You can also get involved with proofreading by seeking employment at a publishing company, though there are not as many job opportunities if you choose to do that. Most publishing companies would rather hire editors. This leads to the next basic option open to you—editing.
Editing careers are both challenging and rewarding. As an editor, you control the flow of literary works that end up at the fingertips of the general public. You will review the works of already published authors, along with hopeful writers. And what does an editor do? He critiques, criticizes, re-writes and orders re-writes—basically an editor is a proofreader with a potentially higher salary. An editor, however, typically does not get the benefit of working at home. An editor is employed at a publishing company, and so there is not the flexibility that a simple proofreader can enjoy. An editor will need to be able to use those same English skills that you are so gifted with, and have the added ability of good communication. Working in a larger organization takes people skills, and there will be pressure to deal with. In addition to this, an editor needs good taste and solid writing opinions. Also, becoming an editor is not really a part time occupation. If you decide to become an editor, it would be worthwhile to make your career there.
Once you are into editing, it is marginally easy to become a publisher—the boss of the editors. A publisher does many of the same things that an editor does, but a publisher also deals more with written works after they have been looked over by an editor. A publisher deals more with the business side of writing—the advertisement and sales. But still, great English skills and good taste is needed.
So, you’ve been reading this and looking these different job options over, but perhaps they don’t feel quite right. Well, we’ve been looking at only one way to use your English skills—as the critic. Have you ever considered becoming the writer?
Writing jobs are just as versatile as the critiquing jobs—sometimes even more so. Writers are needed for so many different things—you don’t have to become a novelist or even a journalist. People with a good grasp of the English language make some of the best basic researchers, and that’s not all. One of the best kept secrets in the writing world centers on medical writing. Medical writers take more complex healthcare problems/answers and then they employ medical writers to expound, and make it easier for the general populace to understand. If you have good reading and comprehension skills, this might be a very worthwhile pursuit. Medical writers will also write treatment pamphlets and leaflets—and medical writing is only one aspect of this type of writing. There are careers to be made for writers in the field of law, and also in production, and advertising especially. If you understand the English language and the inner workings of grammar, you have skills that many do not have, and in that case, writing could definitely be for you.
The written word is everywhere—instruction booklets, websites—and someone has to write it. Why not you?
