Jo Morton – Editor

I took the decision to go freelance in 2018 after amassing over 25 years’ project management, copy editing and proofreading experience primarily working on academic, legal and general non-fiction publications, first for Jordan Publishing (now part of LexisNexis), and then for award-winning independent publishers Policy Press (now Bristol University Press). My aim was to diversify the types of work I do, and expand into new subject areas that particularly interest me - biography, and social and family history - and to have more time to undertake collaborative work directly with authors.

I always aim to make the production process a positive experience for authors and have been delighted therefore to receive such acknowledgements as 'You have been amazing. I have never been involved in such a stress free book' (from a historian and senior academic at The Open University) and 'Jo is a joy to work with - very efficient and very responsive and a great colleague' (a comment from one emeritus professor in social work to another whose typescript I'd been assigned to work on). When copy-editing, I try to tread gently, guiding, shaping and suggesting alternatives rather than imposing hard-and-fast rules (except where prescribed by the publisher), and recognising an author's individual style.

My BA in French has been a great asset when working with authors who have French as their first language; I have recently worked with Jean-Philippe Robé (Sciences Po Law School) as project manager on 'Property, Power and Politics', and with Charles Devellennes (University of Kent), as copy editor and project manager on 'The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract' and as copy editor on 'The Macron Régime', all for Bristol University Press.