Why Learn Freelancing?

Learn Freelancing offers the most comprehensive proofreading course available at the best price.

The training is easy to follow but highly effective. You’ll enjoy working on the structured exercises. Many people taking this course, who began as complete beginners with no previous experience, have gone on to find regular, well-paid work as freelances. Others have found editorial work "in-house" with publishing houses.

It was the original proofreading course, a concept since copied by many others.

Learn Freelancing still offers the ultimate distance learning course for proofreaders and copy-editors.

Most successful freelances (also known, particularly in the US, as "freelancers") have outstanding fees, sometimes as much as £1,500 to £2,000 waiting to be paid. Most publishers pay within one month or so.

Beginners will appreciate the clarity of the material, and The Pocket Book of Proofreading, with interesting tips, advice, quotes, a list of the main proofreading marks, and some sample exercises to test and develop your skills.

Enjoy reading about Sir John Betjeman’s teddy bear, Archibald Ormsby-Gore ("Archie"), and his contribution to the book!

How does it work? Proofreaders work on (and are paid for) about 10 pages per hour (on average). 

If you are sent a set of proofs of, say, 300 pages, it may take you around 30 hours to complete.

At the suggested 2008 minimum freelance rate of £19.25 per hour, this works out at a gross total for the job of £577.50. So, imagine having to read, say, The Cloudspotter’s Guide (about 330 pages and £12.99 in the shops).

If proofreading this readable book, for example, you would be sent a cheque by the publisher for about 33 × £19.25 = £635.25, plus return postage. 

If you get a generous publisher paying £21 an hour, this would mean a cheque for £693.

If you can find the work, this is very good for working just over 30 hours, at home, in peace and comfort, reading and checking through what may well be an interesting book. Learn Freelancing's book and course can show you how.

Copy-editors can charge more. Sometimes a copy-editor will also proofread the same manuscript, and will in effect be paid twice for working on the same manuscript/proofs.

You'll find Learn Freelancing's new Proofreading and Editing Course offers you superb quality, and the best value.

NB: There are other courses. Often they give themselves grand names, college of this, academy of that, training courses, get your certificate today! Since there is no formal body in this profession awarding any kind of qualification, as far as I am aware (with perhaps one or two exceptions), the rest are not wholly scrupulous. Caveat emptor -they are after your money!

There's a School of Yoga, just one example, that also markets proofreading and editing courses, how to write for TV and radio, how to write short stories. This is just one example. They should stick to yoga! There's another company that once specialised in selling courses on 'how to get a flat stomach in 7 days'. All these companies want about £200-£350 for their 'courses', and they are not even experts in their fields.

Check out (change of subject) this interesting article on spelling from The Times.

And another, which is not happy reading! 

Smarter than a 16-year-old? Try this Harrow literacy test!

President of the Queen's English Society (Dr Lamb from Imperial College London) can't spell!

Read an amusing quote from a bored blogger!

'EuroEnglish'

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, 's' will be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard 'c' will be replaced with 'k.' Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced by 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to
reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' by
'z' and 'w' by 'v'.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou', and similar changes vud of kors; be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or ifikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

By boredofblogs