Become a copy editor? Or is this silly?

Hi, i'm a sub-editor/copy-editor for one of the independent newspapers' publications in SA. it was my first journalism job and i enjoy doing it so much. its like you are a word engineer, you fix it all up and its a good feeling to see the headline that you came up with on a big poster on your way to work. i love copy-editing, i dont know anyone who's a sub-editor who does not enjoy it. well, first of all you must be a perfectionist, there's no room for mistakes. even a coma that's on the wrong place can make you the sub-editor look so bad, really really bad. i think i'm a good sub-editor now because these days, whatever i read, mistakes just jump at my eyes, i can smell a dirty copy from miles away. but i'm more of a TV person, i love broadcasting, i'd love to edit tv scrips, create and produce tv material. i'm very creative and i'm ready to move into bigger and exciting things. i think i'm gonna keep on editing privatelly, as soon as i get my lap-top, i'm opening a little editing company, where'll i'll edit governement correspondences and copy of anyone who will need my services. i'm all for making money and i'm not scared of hard work. so dear, try it, i'm sure you'll love it. How much would you charge per page if you were to edit other people's stuff?

I worked for years as a copy editor, but never from home. I always worked in a corporate environment. I do think you need training. I was in a certificate program for publishing (I already had my BA and this was an additional criteria for the job) at George Washington University, but there are programs all over the country. A lot of folks think that they can be editors without any background because they write well. It takes a good working knowledge of an editing style, like AP or Chicago. Good luck with pursuing this line of work. I hope that you get some responses from freelancers; I'd love to hear what they have to say about working from home.

I've done some copy writing for my brothers company before that went quite well they were designing websites so I wrote some of the website content for them. Have you heard of Ciao? It's a fantastic site doesn't pay that much, but you get paid for writing reviews and it is loads of fun maybe you could start there and show future employers your work there? I will return to this discussion with a link for you in case you are interested in Ciao.

Nothing silly about it in my view. I have done that sort of work on a free-lance basis before as a "moon-light" kind of thing while working full-time elsewhere, and although it was a bit more work than expected, it was for the most part enjoyable work and paid better than some kinds of "seasonal" work. I've no idea where to apply as my leads were invitation-only and those kept me busy enough. The only drawback was that sometimes there would be a few too many assignments and I wouldn't want to say no because they were good clients whom I liked to keep happy. So it did get a bit overwhelming at times.

This sounds really interesting but what does a copy editor actually do and I am sorry if I don't know but I love to learn about new things that people are able to do from home. It is great to be able to branch out into freelance and what kind of skills does it really require.

It is not silly, people break into the copy editor game all the time. Breaking into working at home is much harder.

I was looking at my jobs on oDesk and there are copy editing and other writing jobs there. They are real jobs looking for real people. Here is a referral: http://www.odesk.com/referrals/track/kha I think that this can kick your career off.