Beginning Editor

You'll need proper editing experience to get a job at a good publishing house, which means that you either have to land a job at a smaller press and work your way up, or you have to get an intern position there.

Don't overlook literary agencies and magazines as possible places for work: they're good too. But mostly, you're going to have to work your socks off for very little pay, and hope it pays off.

Or for no pay at all. From what I've read, and heard from directly from some freelancers, is to start off doing things for free. You'll find lots of people who are willing to give you a good testimony, rather than money, in exchange for your services.

Get an internship at a well respected literary agency or a commercial publishing house doing the kind of books you're interested in editing.

I highly recommend starting at a literary agency. Yes, you'll spend time making copies and getting coffee, but you'll likely also be a reader, sussing out which manuscripts are worth the agent's time. That's how I started, and the experience was invaluable.

Also, don't forget about non-trade publishers. I worked as an editorial assistant for a textbook publisher once upon a time and learned a lot.

Good luck!

If you're having trouble finding places to get work and experience, joining your local editor's society will do wonders for that - you can start networking, find out where to get jobs, and they'll also probably have a website with resources.

Other than that, what people above me said.

Whatever your next editing project is, figure out a way to get samples. Ask for permission up front. Another way to build samples is to edit materials you find elsewhere, for example content from a website that you could use without violating copyright, like public documents found on many government websites, wikipedia, etc.

You have to have experience in a good publishing house, preferably several, so that you have good contacts who will trust you enough to send you work. It's not really a good idea to try to start out freelance, if you ask me (and I spent a very unsuccessful year freelancing once, that after six years' experience.)

Torgo said:

You have to have experience in a good publishing house, preferably several, so that you have good contacts who will trust you enough to send you work. It's not really a good idea to try to start out freelance, if you ask me (and I spent a very unsuccessful year freelancing once, that after six years' experience.)

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In my experience, one year is not really enough to freelance. It takes so long to get your name out and do all your marketing and all that, plus you're competing with other people, that it will generally take several years to get to the point where you can live comfortably off the proceeds.

This is not to say it's easy, nor is it to say it cannot be done. I might be a bit biased since I also started off with freelancing (I'm not past the 'I can make sufficient money off this, though I'm getting closer), but I think it can be done, you just need to work a whole lot harder at marketing. This is why I found the local editor's group so useful; networking is important.

On a side note, though, since you're planning on going into acquisitions editing, it might be useful to try for the internships instead of freelance, since it might be closer to what you want to do (though I've never worked in a publishing house, so others will be able to tell you better than I whether that's true).

Vella said:

In my experience, one year is not really enough to freelance. It takes so long to get your name out and do all your marketing and all that, plus you're competing with other people, that it will generally take several years to get to the point where you can live comfortably off the proceeds.

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Yes, the problem for me was that although I had six years' experience editing all kinds of things for a prestigious publishing house, I didn't have any contacts in other companies. So when my former employers didn't have any work for me, I didn't have any work. No work meant no money, and it wasn't really feasible for me to live on nothing for several years to 'get my name out there'.

On the issue of marketing, I guess it can be helpful if you're targeting authors directly. I had a couple of freelance jobs directly for authors, one of which I actually turned down once I'd seen the (bad, unsaleable) manuscript. I have never felt terribly comfortable about charging people to polish up manuscripts that have no hope of ever being picked up - it made me feel like a shark, contemplating it - so I was really after work for publishers. For that, I'm not sure how helpful marketing yourself is. When I hire a freelance editor these days, I don't go and Google for one, I ring up freelancing ex-colleagues whom I know personally, or ask my current colleagues for a recommendation.

On a side note, though, since you're planning on going into acquisitions editing, it might be useful to try for the internships instead of freelance, since it might be closer to what you want to do (though I've never worked in a publishing house, so others will be able to tell you better than I whether that's true).

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If that is indeed the OP's intention, I don't believe there's any other way to do it other than starting out at the bottom rung of a trade firm. I have never met anyone in the business who was hired in to a commissioning role purely on the basis of freelance work. I have worked with a couple of Editorial Directors with no previous editorial experience, but they had come in from agenting or from high-powered book-buyer jobs.

What Torgo said.