Any professional proofreaders out there?

[ProofreadingQuery]

Does anyone actually make a living from proofreading chiefly/alone these days? If so, what's your background, did you do any formal training, and are you a member of the CIEP?

My current freelance profession of translation and editing in a particular specialisation is dying out in a big way - thanks AI! I'd prefer to be doing something where I can keep working freelance from home. I have proofread quite a number of published books and exhibitions over the past twenty years, so not a noob by any means, but so far it's been a sideline to the translation/editing and I've never really gone out of my way to acquire separate clients. Now I clearly need to pivot and I'm finding the thought of proofreading less deadly than PMTE. However, I have no formal training in proofreading; sort of taught myself along the way and clients always seemed happy enough. The three CIEP courses would be the best part of 1,000 quid, then membership on top of that, and you still only start at Entry level and have to work your way up to Professional level to be able to advertise. Not sure it's worth the effort or money if there's not enough work to go around as it is. Perhaps some cold emails to all the publishers in 'my' field would be more sensible. Do British publishers find formal qualifications important? Any thoughts?

And because it is invariably the case (see Muphry's [sic] Law for details) that any post about proofreading will include multiple egregious errors, Ill gettit awl overr nd done wiv in 1 foul soup..!!

Hi - I'm a former member of the CIEP. Not sure you would have to do all three courses. They grade your membership on a points basis, so experience counts as well as qualifications. You could email them your CV and ask how many points it might be worth. They're generally approachable.

No idea about the proofreading industry, sorry - AI is encroaching everywhere. I found the CIEP directory very useful for getting clients, but that was in 2016-2021. And nearly all my clients were private individuals rather than publishing houses.

Thanks so much, Melarus. This is really a thread where I think quality is more important than quantity! So did you do all three courses or did you get in on experience (or the dreaded 'impossible' test)? I was wondering whether I could risk only doing the third course, but I have no idea what level they're aimed at and whether I would be missing some basic knowledge. And potentially the biggest problem: I'm not in the UK and all my experience has been with publishers where I live, so invoices etc are in a different language, and I mostly invoiced according to length rather than time. Thus proving 100 or 500 hours will be tricky. Do you know what proof of experience they ask for (just names of projects, or actual invoices?)?

And the website was really rather vague on how many point are needed to get up to the next level, which is something of a red flag in itself. But you're right, I need to contact them and just ask. I'm imagining them being a bit sniffy about my lack of formal qualifications.

So which level were you at, if I can ask? Did you leave because your circumstances (family or otherwise) changed and you weren't doing proofreading any longer, or because it was too difficult to get those private clients? Apologies for all the questions.

I think I did one course? The test wasn't impossible and it got me some points (it may have changed since then). And I had to provide a reference or two. But this was back in 2016 and it can't necessarily be extrapolated to cover your situation, so it's probably best if you ask them directly. Doubt they'd be sniffy, they're quite nice IIRC. It's a friendly organisation.

I was at the professional level, allowing me to advertise in their directory, which did get me some clients. But I wasn't proofreading - more copy-editing and developmental. Sorry not to be more help.

Ah, that’s really interesting, so you used a mixture of a course, exam and references. I’ll contact them tomorrow then. I’ve never done developmental so don’t even really know what it involves, but I suspect I strayed into that territory somewhat on a few copy editing projects where I recommended adding a map here or an explanation there (all strictly non-fiction). Thanks so much!

No problem! Good luck

You could always join for a year just to meet other professionals and get ideas for your career progression - it's a good place to make contacts. They have social groups across the UK, which meet in person, and a conference once a year which is quite fun.