Editing isn’t a profession that just anyone can pick up. It requires that you learn all sorts of things—and keep learning throughout your career. These are some of the many questions editors at various levels of experience ask:

• What’s the value for writers, in the age of generative artificial intelligence, of having a human editor edit their writing?
• What’s the difference between earning a certificate and earning certification?
• How do editors find work?
• How much money can editors earn?
• What style guides are out there for the niches I edit in?
• Do I have to be an employee to be an editor?
• What does it take to succeed as a freelance editor?
• What’s the latest software for editors?
• How do I keep up with changes in editing practices?
• What can editors’ associations do for my career, and where can I find out about them?
• What blogs do editors read to keep up in the profession?

I’ve been an editor since 1984, and I’ve moved through editing in various arenas, so I learned early on that I needed to keep up with everything going on in my profession. And because we editors edit materials on so many different topics, we also need to know where to track down a wide range of knowledge sources. For example, I started the editor part of my career reviewing manuscripts for a publisher of books, anthologies, and scripts for actors in educational and amateur theater. I moved on to being a production editor for one of the Big Five publishers in the USA and then on to being a production editor for a medical publisher.

How the Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base Came to Be

I’ve had a computer since the mid-1990s, and since then I’ve been bookmarking loads of websites and online resources that help me keep on top of changes in the profession, the best editorial practices, the best practices for running my editing business, where I can best find work, what colleagues around the world are doing now, and much more.

In the worldwide community of editors, we’re always asking one another where to find some bit of knowledge, so in 2004, I decided that I’d put those websites and resources into an online library that editors everywhere can use, and that became the Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base (CKB), which I maintain as part of my website.

I do my best to keep it updated, but because I must do paying work as an editor for some hours each week, I always have yet more updates to make. (I checked just now, and I have about 4,500 bookmarks on my current computer!)

What’s in the Knowledge Base?

Besides its main landing page, the CKB has seven pages that hold these categories of topics:

• 1: The Basics
• 2: Education and Certification
• 3: Business Tools
• 4: Editing Tools
• 5: Networking
• 6: Finding Work
• 7: Profession-Related Reading

How You Can Help

I’m always open to adding links that other editors find, so if you have some to share, please email them to me. Helping one another like that is a big way we make being an editor better for all of us.