by MPB » Thu May 19, 2005 12:44 am
Oh sure, working at an academic publisher is probably terrible. But academic publishing is a miniscule proportion of the editorial job market. There is a demand for medical and scientific editors at pharma companies, societies (eg, American Heart Association), marketing and PR companies, contract research organizations, etc, etc. Go to a big east-coast city newspaper "help wanted" section and search for "editor" or "editorial" and see what comes up. In my experience, people often start out at an academic shop, but once they figure out how poorly they are getting paid, they leave for a better job someplace else.
The other thing is that the term "editor" covers a lot of different jobs, with different salaries and responsibilies. You have copy editors at the bottom, fixing grammar and consistency. You have mid-rank editors overseeing individual projects, and aquisitions editors, and managing or supervising editors keeping the whole thing on track, whether it's a magazine, book series, or an editorial services company, and editorial directors at the top, who do little or no actual editing. Then there are the freelancers, who get paid more to specific jobs, but accept the risk of having to find their own work. There is no one job of "editor."
I do agree that you need to have a desire to do this kind of work. You need to have a good grasp of English grammar to begin with, and coming from an academic background, you will probably need some training to get started. For medical writing, the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) offers editing courses, and they even have a certification ("Editor in the Life Sciences," or ELS). Or you can try to get some kind of entry-level job where you are going to get some training.
It isn't Shangrai-La, but there are worse ways to make a living for someone with an advanced degree who is ready to move on from lab work.