Overview
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.
Services
Non-Fiction
Fiction
Languages
Work experience
Self-employed
• Pre-submission consultancy work on draft manuscripts
• Development editing
• Line and copy editing
• Proofreading (onscreen or hard copy)
• Managing outsourced publishing projects within time and budget, liaising with in-house contacts and engaging other professional freelance services as necessary
• Instructional design, making suggestions for formatting and layout of textbooks and other educational materials
• Legislation checking on legal texts
• Fact-checking
Bristol University Press/Policy Press
• Managing and coordinating book production throughout pre-press stages, taking responsibility for up to 40 titles per year
• Seeing through to publication projects as diverse as The Human Atlas of Europe (Dimitris Ballas, Danny Dorling and Benjamin Hennig); The Passionate Economist (a biography of Brian Abel-Smith by Sally Sheard) and Democracy Under Attack (an analysis of the influence of the media on social policy by Malcolm Dean)
Self-employed
• Occasional copy-editing or proofreading commissions undertaken for publishers including Hart Publishing and Puffin, and for non-profits such as SCIE (Social Care Institute for Excellence) and the Joseph Rowntree Fund
Jordan Publishing Ltd
• Managing production of all new book titles and revised editions
• Supervising a small in-house team
• Devising and implementing house style guidance
Prior to this I was a Desk Editor with responsibility for managing projects varying from monthly law reports to multi-volume looseleaf works on legal practice, also taking on directories and legal packs, in addition to books.