Karin Cox – Editor

As Commissioning Editor for Australian Geographic Books, I commissioned authors, editors and artists for natural history, photographic, social history and children's books, along with editing, picture, researching, project-managing and layout tasks.

Heading up the Australian Geographic Books team, I worked from initial and final print edits on seasonal product, junior non-fiction, and natural history titles, including Georgina Steytler's For the Love of Flora, and the AG Discover range: Animals that Glow, Venomous Animals, and Animal Mimics, and a junior Dictionary of Scientific Terms, among other titles.

My role often also included image selection, book layout in Adobe InDesign, and even pre-pressing final files and marketing, promotion and publicity with retail partners and media.

– Editing and QA of primary school educational resources for a digital publishing house, including editing literacy and numeracy resources for grades K–6 and ensuring they aligned to the Australian national curriculum and TEKS (US) curriculum.

 – Writing web and promotional content and editing blog posts and copy in WordPress.

– Style-setting and establishing an online style guide and hub for internal/external contributors.

– Mentoring and guiding staff to facilitate greater consistency and improved writing and self-editing skills, and to foster the company values of Pursue Quality and Unleash Creativity.

– Planning and delivering quarterly issues to schedule.
– Interviewing and briefing scientists and authors, managing all content and images, editing and writing articles, and choosing cover images and layouts.
– Crafting captions, supplementary material, microcopy, editor's message, advertorial, and promotional web copy.
– Promoting and publishing digital versions on Pocketmags and EBSCO.
– Managing Facebook, social media and website content, including creating infographics, and seeking out and booking opportunities for digital advertising, promotion, and publicity.

Freelance editing for valued repeat clients while working part or full-time and raising children.

Over the years, I have helped many authors publish their titles from start to finish, assisting with editorial, fact-checking, image selection, formatting, layout and cover design, prepress and publication.

– Styling and editing content for educational textbooks and digital and print newsletters, using MS Word and Adobe Pagemaker.

– Liaison with production/printers to ensure material was printed and/or added to relevant websites on time.

– Briefing and managing a team of editors, proofreaders, and freelancers to produce natural history and social history books, travel guides, and educational print and digital publications.
– Preparing costing estimates and project- managing schedules.
– Planning content and briefing authors for commissioned titles, or researching and writing text for my own, often choosing images and layouts too.
– Editing for content, grammar, punctuation, and style; working with authors to transform academic text into mass-market copy.
– Structural editing, fact-checking, line editing, and proofreading.
– Laying out text and images and editing in-page using Adobe CS.
– Being responsible for QA and sign-off on all final product.
– Writing and editing jacket blurb and promotional copy, press releases, web copy, and blog content.

– Researching, ghostwriting, editing, and formatting commissioned works for New Holland Publishing, including Roma: From Prison to Paradise, Secret Women's Business, Irresitible Italy, Ripple Effect, and Whatever’s Going to Become of Us.
– Project-managing the progress from initial drat through to final edit.
– Editing and proofreading titles for University of Queensland Press, Hema Maps, John Wiley & Sons, and various indie clients.
– Writing marketing content, synopses, jacket blurbs, and website copy.

Editorial tasks, including line editing and proofreading, for a variety of fiction and non-fiction titles in a small press.