What is something that most people don't know about being a project editor?
One thing most people don't know about being a project editor is the sheer number of projects we manage at once. We're always working on a range of projects at different stages in the production process. A few manuscripts will be just starting out on their journey, waiting for a copyeditor to start work, and several books will be nearly finished and ready to go off to a printer soon. All the rest are in one production stage or another. Project editors review the work of freelance copyeditors and proofreaders, work with authors, and do a lot of proof checking ourselves. The job involves an interesting balance of times when we're completely focused on one task for one book and times when we're turning from one book to another quickly to keep everything moving along.
How has being a project editor changed during your time at Eerdmans?
The biggest change in project editors' work over the years is the way almost all work is done on screen now. Up until about five years ago, we were still using hard copy at some stages, mostly to check proof corrections. Doing practically everything on screen now has helped us work much more efficiently. We're able to work more closely with authors, too.
What are you currently reading?
I'm currently reading the third of three mysteries by British author James Anderson. Anderson wrote in the late twentieth century, but he wrote in the tradition of the British country house murder mystery, similar to Golden Age writers like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh. The mysteries are set in the 1930s and are full of delightfully quirky characters and bafflingly complicated storylines. They're a lot of fun.
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