When I took a leap of faith in January 2020 to go it alone as a children’s author and start up my own publishing company ‘The Fish Face Publishing Company’, one of my first tasks was to find an editor. It’s always tricky sourcing the right people as the internet can be a real ‘Wild West’, but I fell on my feet finding Nick Jones, an award-winning children’s author who has become a good friend, and who put me in touch with editor Ben Corrigan.
Two years on and I needed to find a new editor. Nick put me in touch with children’s author, editor and proofreader, Alexa Tewkesbury. I have found her a joy to work with as endorsed by Nick in our interview. You can find Alexa here:
Alexa Tewkesbury Children’s Author & Editor
Little did I know that copy-editing and proofreading are two completely different skills, with copy-editing coming first, a fact I quickly learnt. So join me, as we ask Nick a bunch of questions so that he can shed some light…
…onto just what these skills are all about! Let’s journey into the world behind the published story together!
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Hi Nick! Thank you for joining us today.
Lois: What is your background?
Nick: Hi Lois, it’s nice to be here. My background in one sentence: graduated with an English Literature degree in 1999, somehow fell into a sales career for five years, then set up a proofreading business which has slowly grown over the past 15 years to the point where I now have a team of freelancers whom I outsource work to regularly.
Lois: How did you get into this profession and how long have you been proofreading?
Nick: I was miserable working in sales and decided one day that enough was enough and that I needed to try and carve a career in proofreading. It was the only job I could think of that would utilise my English skills other than teaching English, the thought of which scared me, or becoming a journalist, which sounded too much like hard work.
Lois: Why did you choose proofreading over copy-editing?
Nick: Well, I started out with proofreading as it’s more accessible than editing initially. It’s spotting spelling, grammar and punctuation errors in a document prior to publication after it’s been copy-edited. Copy-editing is a far more in-depth process. I do both editing and proofreading these days, but I tend to outsource intensive editing jobs to one of my colleagues, such as Ben Corrigan or Marion Adams, as they are more experienced at this. I will then proofread the text once they’ve been through it and the customer has addressed any niggling issues.
Lois: Do your clients come in all different shapes and sizes?
Nick: Yes! As well as editing and proofreading for authors like yourself, Full Proof have a wide range of regular corporate clients including blue-chip companies, international charities and universities. We also get a lot of work from individual students.
Lois: As a published author yourself, and one whose children’s book ‘Sarah’s Shadow’ has won two book awards, what an awesome achievement, who copy-edits and proofreads your work?!
Nick: The aforementioned Ben Corrigan is always the first person who reads my own work. He also happens to be one of my best friends, so he’s perhaps able to be more honest with me than other editors would be! I wrote three joke books before trying my hand at children’s picture books, and Ben was my editor for those. He also helped immensely with the story of Sarah’s Shadow. The brilliant Alexa Tewkesbury edits my children’s books and I get the also-aforementioned Marion Adams to proofread everything as she has an incredible eye for errors. I know some great people!
Lois: And finally Nick, tell us what you love best about your work!
Nick: Hard to pick one thing, to be honest! I love being my own boss, I love the variety of subjects I get to read about, and I love interacting with my customers who are almost invariably friendly (yourself included!).
Find Nick! ➡ Just head on over to https://full-proof.co.uk/. Rated the UK’s best proofreading company on FreeIndex!