Tips for Becoming a Better-Paid Editor

The beginning of being a successful writer is editing. There are editing jobs that pay can pay the bills, there are the aspects of improving a work we wrote, and gaining the experience by being published because of it. We will explore what it takes to become not only a successful editor but also a working writer.

Working as an editor can be a luxurious job, or just a sideshow in paying off the mortgage. Consider the possibilities for a writer with basic skills: we can work at college and professional newspaper, we can edit for online magazines, we can work with major magazines, and we can do all this and focus on our own writing in the spare time. But, editing can be time consuming. It is not unheard of for salaried editors to work 50 hours a week, especially for more local newspapers with a short staff or magazines that publish often. Yet the rewards can outweigh the benefits. We learn things from all the hard work of being an editor. We become better-paid editors by becoming willing to work the long hours sort out an article.

We improve upon the basics first. The dreaded comma happy writer has to be reined in. The m dashes need to be used sparingly. We can learn more about what a basic story needs, news or other kind, by looking over someone else's piece. Editors learn that every word counts, lengthy articles do not get read, and boring articles lower the number of readers for future stories. We learn to become superior writers; we find the key elements in the story and cut down everything else. That is key for any form of writing because writing is about improving draft after draft.

Experience is crucial in becoming a better-paid editor. We will need to start out small; perhaps a local paper will take us in for a short article. These initial sales often lead to jobs. My career started by writing short articles for my college newspaper. They offered me an editing job a few months later because I had the experience they needed. Building experience allows for the editor to shop themselves around. The more clips we have, the better our chances of landing the higher paid job.