Had a bit of news about one of my long-standing publishing clients this morning. I've been working for them for teens of years - perhaps even longer - and the way we work has changed as technology has evolved. Proofreading used to mean comparing a typeset galley proof with the author's original, often handwritten manuscript. Now it means reading a designed page looking for literals and howlers, and (to coin a catchall phrase) anything that doesn't look right.
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| The end of the red pen? |
This company has gone from outsourcing everything to bringing it all back in-house to somewhere in between the two, so my workload has always fluctuated. The news this morning from a fellow freelance but who used to work in-house for this company is that from now they will be producing printed copies of only their annual publications, and will be focusing their energy on ebooks.
I shall be interested to see how this develops, not just because it is likely to mean less work for me, but also because their books have lots of illustrations, bullet points, tables, numbers and other complications.
Once again, we see that it's not survival of the fittest, but of the most adaptable.
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