Learning As I Go

Posted Sep 4 2010 by Amber with Comments Off

Just this past year I jumped at the chance to take an editorial job on a struggling magazine I found on-line. It doesn’t pay, but it’s paying me with plenty of experience I can add to my resume to hopefully achieve my dream of being an editor of a major publishing house. Plus, along the way, I’ve fallen in love with this magazine, even though we still need to do A LOT to improve. I suppose I fell in love because it does need to be improved. Since I am an Executive Editor, I get to play a much larger role in improving it than I would be if I had just joined on as a journalist or intern.

(Speaking of resumes, I’ll eventually post a blog on resume building while being a college student. Don’t wait until you graduate to get any experience.)

Before I joined, I had a little bit of editing experience. I’ve beta read for writers before, doing line-by-line edits, and I had helped The Oddville Press copy edit its issue 6. Of course, with magazines, editing should be a minimum, so it’s not like I did a whole lot. The bulk of my work came from reading the slush pile, choosing or rejecting stories that either met or didn’t meet The Oddville Press’s criteria.

Continuing on, when I found the magazine it was VERY short of staff, so I decided to apply to be an editor, and I got it, which was pretty exciting. I’ve helped with issues 4 and 5 so far, and though it’s sort of annoying, I’m having to learn about the magazine business as I go. I just recently learned from my boss of YALITCHAT that a lot of magazines use style guides to dictate how all their editors should edit, and so now I’m compiling the style guide for both writers and editors to write and edit to. I’ve been doing a lot more editing on articles and fiction pieces than I need to be doing, and I do attribute this to our not having a style guide. I mean, I’ve been studying the publishing business for probably six years by reading editor and agent blogs, reading writing books, talking to published authors, and receiving critique on my own work. All of this has contributed to my editing skills, so I do have a fairly good idea on how I need to edit. Plus, the CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) is an editor’s best friend–and should be a writer’s best friend as well.

I know our magazine still has a lot it needs to improve. For one thing, I just recently started paying attention to how we format articles and reviews and all that based on reader feedback, and so now I’ve just learned that consistent formatting is key. I also had an epiphany yesterday that perhaps we should start putting a theme to our articles and columns so they don’t seem so haphazard and random. (After all, this is a Goth magazine, and we seem to pull topics out of thin air with no regards to consistency.) Before issue 5 was even published, I had just learned how to edit so I don’t destroy the style of a writer, which is probably the most difficult thing to do as an editor. As an editor, your natural inclination is to think that your changes are right and perfect, but really, it’s just your style, and you can’t apply your style to another writer’s style. Sure, there’s certain things the CMOS suggests editors do when editing, but in reality, it’s important to keep your writer’s style in mind. And lastly, I’m learning that it’s not so easy to persuade writers who aren’t receiving payment to turn their articles in on time so I can edit everything on time so the editor-in-chief isn’t panicking about lack of content and publishing everything at the last minute, and–

I could go on forever.

Point is, though the magazine isn’t where I wish it could be, and though I may cringe when glaring, stomach-curdling mistakes get published, I have to realize that, first and foremost, I joined this magazine for the experience: in essence, a learning opportunity, much like college. And I am getting plenty of experience and learning along the way. Plus, since joining the magazine, I’ve picked up tons of leadership skills, and I am not afraid to be demanding when I need to be. In fact, I’m going to go demand right now that issue 6 be our best issue, something that deserves to be published in print and not just a floating .pdf on-line.

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Amber - I am a freshman at Augusta State University, though I tell people I'm a sophomore simply because I'm one credit away. I major in English and minor in Professional Writing, and would also like to add some photography experience to my education. Read my bio.