Are you someone who thinks in stories? Do you love to get lost in a book? Does wordplay bring a smile to your face? If so, a career in publishing may be in your future. But where to start? Who are the people who make the decisions about what the rest of us read—in books, magazines, online, and social media? How did they get started? What skills do you need? We invite you to dream big and bold with our new series, This Could Be Me.
Before track changes and Google docs became the standard, copyeditors made notations by hand in red pencil.
This Could Be Me: Copyediting with Mimi Kusch
Managing Editor Mimi Kusch has worked in the publishing industry for more than thirty-five years and has been a key member of Narrative’s staff since our founding.
1. What does a copyeditor do?
Copyediting varies depending on what type of piece you’re working on and how much editing it needs. When a piece is very clean, you simply fix punctuation and grammar, and when a piece needs a bit more help, you smooth out grammar and syntax, move sentences around, delete unneeded or repetitious stuff, and ask the writer to fill in missing information or to clarify meaning. (This itself can be a fine art, since queries need to be worded tactfully while also being effective at getting what’s needed from the writer.) At many publications, including Narrative, the editor who initially accepts the piece for publication does a deep-dive edit, looking for clarity, consistency of voice, and opportunities for deepening, before handing it off to the copyeditor for final polishing. Copyeditors also compile a style sheet, including rules for usage, italics, capitalization, using numerals or spelling them out, etc. Copyeditors also refer to a standard style guide such as the Chicago Manual of Style, which is what Narrative uses. A big part of copyediting is ensuring that the piece adheres to the style sheet and is consistent in usage.
2. How did you get started?
When I was in college, I started copyediting people’s theses and discovered I was good at it. When I graduated, I took lots of classes at UC Extension in copyediting and publishing in general. I started doing freelance editing for various presses, and then landed a job at Harper & Row as a project editor. I farmed out most of the copyediting to freelancers and learned a lot from reviewing the work of really good copyeditors (and learned a lot in a different way by redoing the work of the not-so-skilled editors). After I left Harper I landed my dream job of freelance copyediting for Narrative, eventually becoming managing editor there. I copyedit all the pieces on the site and work with the writers as they review the editing.
3. Which (specific) skills are necessary to become an extraordinary copyeditor such as yourself?
(Thanks for the kind words!) For me I think it’s a combination of having an ear for language, being very detail oriented, and having a strong need for communication to be clear. A fascination with style guides, and a willingness to learn from them, is a bonus. Being a big reader is essential, at least it has been for me, in that it has helped me hear a writer’s voice and not get in the way of it with my edits.
4. How has copyediting changed over the course of your career?
When I first started out, it was all done on paper, with a colored pencil, and when I needed to query an author, I attached Post-It notes to the edges of the manuscript. Now everything is digital, and I edit everything in Microsoft Word, using the track changes feature to show my edits and queries. The file is sent to the author, who makes their changes in the same file, and then the file can be cleaned up and finalized. It is so much easier to edit in Word—you can use search and replace, for example. On paper, if you change your mind about a stylistic issue (oops, I really should have capitalized that word), you would need to go back to every page and look for the word to be changed. In Word you can fix this issue in under a minute. Inserting author queries is way easier too—you just type in a comment, which shows in the margins of the file.
5. What’s one obsession or passion you engage in when you’re not at work?
I am a singer, and though most of my experience is with classical music, these days I am involved with a weekly music circle in which we take turn teaching songs and learning harmonies together. There’s nothing in the world like singing with a group of people. Especially now, amid the chaos, it feels healing to have voices mingle and mesh. And reading lots of lots of poetry!
Drafts—Copyediting Marks
Using track changes in Microsoft Word is now the prevailing mode of copyediting in the industry.
