When I decided to take my editing skills and go home, I thought I was headed out into uncharted territory. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to discover that I didn’t need to hack a path all on my own; I could simply tap a few keys and tap into the wisdom and experience of people all over the world who had been living my dream for years. Amazingly, many of these people are not only willing but actually eager to share what they have learned. So, whenever someone asks me about how to become an editor or proofreader, I tell them to explore the vast terrains of the Internet for helpful advice, time-saving tips, and welcome (although digital) companionship. Although there are many, many other sites out there, here are the websites, blogs and discussion lists that have been most helpful to me in the past couple of years.

Editing and Publishing Organizations

Editorial Freelancers, Association, the-efa.org

Christian Editor Network, www.christianeditor.com

Freelance Switch, freelanceswitch.com

Media Bistro, mediabistro.com

Copyediting, copyediting.com

Communication Central, communication-central.com

Small Publishers, Artists, and Writers Network, spawn.org

Independent Book Publishers Association, ibpa-online.org

Individual Blogs

The best place to start is with Katharine O’Moore-Klopf, who has put together an incredible list of resources, which she calls The Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base, at kokedit.com/ckb.php. She offers additional tips in her blog at the same site.

Louise Harnby dishes up many very practical tips about proofreading and editing at louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog.

Liz Broomfield provides editing tips and also intriguing interviews with independent business owners each week at libroediting.com/blog.

Meg E. Cox has just recently started blogging about how how to stay fat while freelancing, freelancefeast.com.

Carol Saller is the rock star of the copyediting world: subversivecopyeditor.com/blog.

Rich Adin offers insights about editing and publishing at americaneditor.wordpress.com.

Discussion Lists

Copyediting-L is a list for copy editors and other defenders of the English language who want to discuss anything related to editing. It is monitored and frequented by very serious and very knowledgeable editors who share advice on everything from dangling modifiers to billing practices: copyediting-l.info/

McEdit is a list for editors who work on Macintosh: groups.yahoo.com/group/McEdit

As an added bonus, all of these sites and blogs will point you to other resources and places to find editing information. And you can follow many of these organizations and individuals on Twitter and/or in LinkedIn or other editing discussion lists.