Five Tips to Earn Good Income from Work-at-Home Proofreading Jobs
Work-at-home proofreading jobs can be an excellent source of income and with the explosion of the worldwide web it is possible to have a steady flow of freelancing work. For experienced proofreading specialists, full time salaried positions are also available, however these jobs usually require intensive experience in a specific area such as medical terminology, technical writing, academic writing and fiction or generalized experience in proofreading copy for newspapers, magazines, books or business print jobs. However, work-at-home proofreading jobs provide flexibility allowing you to fit work around family and other needs.
1. Experience
If you are still at school or in college, work for your school or college newspaper,
it can be difficult to land proofreading jobs, so gaining experience in publishing early can be very helpful. Take as many English based classes as possible and make sure you know your grammar and punctuation. Read as much as you can on the industry. One of the most helpful books on the market is “Words Into Type.” It is also essential to learn the proofreading symbols and where to use them.
2. Certification.
You don't need to be certified as a proof reader but it can give you a competitive advantage and some employers require it. Certification is a quick and reliable way for employers to know you have the necessary skills to perform work-at-home proofreading jobs. It also saves you time constantly proving your skills.
3. Build your resume.
Be committed to documenting your proofreading skills and experience into a resume. If you lack experience and wish to break into proof reading, you can obtain a relevant internship, volunteer for a not for profit organization or begin to bid on proofreading jobs on freelance work sites. By bidding low initially, you can ‘win' work-at-home proofreading jobs and gain valuable feedback ratings to support your claims in a resume. Many online communities also provide the opportunity to build proofreading skills. Just make sure that you can obtain documentary evidence of your work.
4. Diversify
If you are freelancing, don't put all your eggs in one basket.
If you find an online editing or publishing service that hires freelance proofreaders and editors, it can be easy to settle into a rhythm of working for one company. The problem with doing this is obvious. If something happens to that business, you lose your income. It is far better to develop a few sources of proofreading jobs.
Here are some good starting places to find freelance work-at-home proofreading jobs:
CyberEdit.com
Editavenue.com
Freelancewriting.com (online jobs)
Elance.com
Treating yourself as a business can markedly improve your opportunities of obtaining well paid freelance work. You can set up a website fairly easily and inexpensively. Weebly.com provides a quick and easy way to get up and running with your own website if you are a novice. Once you have your website online complete with contact forms, you will need to begin to market your services and direct traffic to your site. The quickest way to get responses is by using paid search engine advertising, however this will only be effective with well written headlines and advertising copy as well as the use of appropriate keywords. Pay per click advertising can also be expensive. Article marketing, on the other hand, is free and can generate a reasonable amount of targeted traffic to your website. It can also pay to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to market your services. If you are new to the internet, you will need to be prepared to learn a lot of new skills in order to earn a good income as a freelance proofreader.
Pay rates vary for proofreading, with many businesses paying by the completed project. In these cases your earning capacity will depend upon how quickly and accurately you are able to complete your work. The hourly rates typically charged by proofreaders range from $25 to $50 and up to $100 per hour for intensive proofreading of scientific papers. It can be helpful to know the average salaries for employed proofreaders when determining your hourly rate if you are seeking contract work from companies which employ them. This can allow you to remain competitive. Permanent full time proofreading jobs pay according to experience. According to Payscale.com, the average annual salary for a proofreader with less than one year's experience is $29,479. This increases to $33,573 with one to four year's experience and $41,970 with four to nine year's experience. The average annual income for proofreaders with more than twenty years experience is $48,440. The pay rates also differ according to location with Los Angeles paying the highest average annual salary of $53,155 and Minneapolis the lowest at $34,000.
The potential to earn full time income from work-at-home proofreading jobs is greater than ever before due to the number of websites being created everyday. Not only can freelance proofreaders do traditional work, they can work online in an environment that sorely needs them. By taking time each day to market your services and source new clients, you can earn a good income as a freelance proofreader.
