Membership FAQs

Variable, particularly at the start. You will be competing with the established workforce, many of whom trained in a publishing company and have years of experience. And you will be vying for jobs with the many newcomers who are doing the same as you. You need to get experience and a track record. It's a Catch-22 situation.

However, some areas of publishing are more in need of freelancers than others. If you have a specialism, you stand a better chance of finding work with publishers producing publications in your subject. For example, if you have a degree in engineering or law, or can cope with medicine or complex mathematics, you will probably get more business than if you are hoping to work on bestselling novels.

CIEP members are also finding new markets for their skills and services among self-publishers and non-publishers – industry, commerce, charities, local government – in fact, any enterprise or individual that produces text. However, if they have not used editorial professionals before, you may need to persuade them to try you. 

Usually not very good. Every year the CIEP publishes suggested minimum hourly rates for freelance proofreading, copyediting and project management, but they cannot be enforced; in any case, each individual freelancer has to agree their rates with each client. There are always some who will work for less than these rates, especially when starting out or working on a project of particular interest, and many publishers habitually pay less – some much less – than the suggested minimums.

You are unlikely to have a steady flow of work, at least until you are more experienced and established. The usual pattern is 'feast or famine' and even then 20% of our members consider themselves under-employed. Your overheads – computer, printer, scanner, supplies, postage – may be higher than you think, even if working from home, and you need to put aside money for replacements, sick pay, pension, tax, professional development and holidays.

There are a number of ways to drum up work:

• Personal contacts are the most successful way of getting work. If you have had an editorial job in house, tell everyone – at your old company and elsewhere – that you are going freelance, giving them all your contact details and a good idea of what you can offer. Use Christmas cards to remind people that you are available, and read trade journals so that you can drop colleagues a line when they are promoted or change job. Use any excuse to keep in touch.
• Networking is the active pursuit of professional contacts. The CIEP offers networking opportunities through its local groups, forums, professional days and annual conference. You can find information about publishing and 'chat' to like-minded people by visiting the CIEP's Facebook page and by following @TheCIEP on X. You might also wish to join organisations like Business Link, chambers of commerce and other business forums.
• Directories – The CIEP maintains a searchable online Directory of Editorial Services offered by our Professional and Advanced Professional members. It is secure, can be updated at any time and has proved to be one of the major benefits of CIEP membership. Various other directories online also list people offering freelance editorial work; however, their success rates (for the freelancer) can be quite patchy. Check up on them carefully before contributing your details; many of them, unlike the CIEP Directory, can be used by spammers to harvest email addresses.
• Advertising – As a Professional Member or Advanced Professional Member, you can take an entry in the CIEP Directory, but you can also advertise. Business cards are one obvious way to promote yourself; your own website is another. Advertising in the trade press (The Bookseller, Publishing News) may be expensive, but an advert in Yellow Pages is free – though some people say this makes you the target of marketing campaigns. You can send leaflets to local businesses – find them in the local Thomson Directory and from business groups – or get together with complementary freelancers (e.g. designers, typesetters, translators) to offer a one-stop shop.

In all sorts of ways. Apart from our name, our Professional Practice Code and the Directory, we offer classroom training, distance learning, local groups, a conference, forums and other support, including free legal advice for members at our professional grades. We have been told the CIEP forum is 'worth its weight in gold' (though we haven't weighed it) and there are specialist forums too, including one for 'newbies'. In fact our whole membership is one big network for help, advice and contacts, as well as a great way of keeping in touch.