About Amy J. Schneider

Amy J. Schneider has been a full-time freelance copyeditor and proofreader of fiction and nonfiction and owner of Featherschneider Editorial Services since 1995. Her projects have included textbooks, trade nonfiction, and university press books on a variety of subjects, as well as more than 600 novels and anthologies for traditional publishers, including multiple series works and best sellers in a variety of genres. She is the author of The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (University of Chicago Press, 2023).

Since 2012 Amy has written articles and presented in-person sessions and webinars on fiction copyediting, macros, templates, mastermind groups, and the business of freelancing for ACES: The Society for Editing, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), Copyediting.com, the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), Editors Canada, the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd), and the Northwest Editors Guild.

When Amy is not working in the soft glow of her four-monitor desktop, she enjoys running, singing, and teaching her springer spaniels to do silly tricks (not all at the same time).

Clients

  • Hachette Book Group (multiple imprints)
  • Penguin Random House (multiple imprints)
  • Podium Entertainment
  • Quirk Books
  • Stanford University Press
  • University of Iowa Press

Publications

Memberships

Presentations

Selected solo presentations, given both as webinars and in person:

  • Conscious Language and Copyediting Fiction
  • Oops! Finding and Fixing Bloopers in Fiction
  • Talking Points: Copyediting Dialogue in Fiction
  • Copyediting Fiction, Part 1: Overview
  • Copyediting Fiction. Part 2: The Fiction Style Sheet
  • Mastering Editorial Style Sheets
  • For Your Eyes Only: Customize Your Word Workspace with Templates
  • Macros 101: Work Smarter, Not Harder
  • Macros 201: The Shell Game
  • Copyediting Fiction for Traditional Publishers
  • Keynote address: “Seasons of an Editing Career” (Northwest Editors Guild regional conference, 2023)

Selected panel presentations, given both as webinars and in person:

  • What We Wish We’d Known Before We Started Freelancing
  • Freelance Like a Boss: Act Like a Business, Not an Employee
  • Editorial Mastermind Groups
  • Editing at the Edge (panel on remote editing)

Podcasts

My Links