The books I read before I became a book editor.

In the article "Realizing in Four Years: From a Stay-at-home Mom to a Freelance Writer with a Monthly Payment of 8, Yuan", I mentioned my experience in applying for a book editor. Recently, I received some private letters asking about the requirements of being a book editor and what to prepare.

For the requirements of book editing, just check the recruitment notices of major recruitment platforms. As I mentioned at that time, some thresholds are "hard", and they must have graduated from the Chinese Department or a certain major, with a bachelor's degree or above, CET-6, relevant experience and so on. Some are "soft", not limited to graduation from a certain major, and not required to have experience in the industry (this usually has a written test).

I read some related books before applying for the job, and I list them here for the reference of friends who care about this industry.

1. The publication of Catology

was written by Chen Yingqing, a teacher in Taiwan Province, and it was very grounded. From how to choose the title and cover of the book, how to reduce typos in the content, how to make the layout more beautiful, to the choice of poster photos, which stall to choose for the book price, and the determination of the marketing plan, etc. There are also prospects for the industry in the book, because these contents were written more than ten years ago, and the forecast of the industry development may be different from today's status quo, but it is still worth learning.

2. Practical Manual for Book Editing and Proofreading

As its name implies, you should know some specifications, precautions, error-prone items and so on of proofreading.

3. Speech on Grammar and Rhetoric

This manuscript is relatively old. The text part is based on the text of China Youth Publishing House in 1979, and the exercise part is based on the single book Grammar and Rhetoric Practice published by China Youth Publishing House in 1953. The authors are Lv Shuxiang and Zhu Dexi, both of whom have great skills. Some sentences are "old", so just pay attention when reading them.

4. Contract Law of the People's Republic of China

As a book editor, I need to sign contracts with authors, translators and others, so I specially bought this contract law to find out. However, in actual work, contracts are standard templates provided by companies or there are colleagues who are in charge of legal affairs, so this is basically not needed.

5. Dear Genius

After I decided on the direction of editing children's books, I specially bought Dear Genius to read. Because this book contains the correspondence between Ursula, the editor of children's books, and many children's book authors. Ursula is the head of the children's book department of Harper's Publishing House, and has edited classic children's books such as Little Mouse, Charlotte's Web, Love Tree, Lost Corner, Runaway Bunny, Arroyo's colored pen, and Where Wild Animals haunt.

In these letters, we can see her requirements for the author, her suggestions for revision, and the process of repeated communication and consultation. When the author is depressed, she should encourage him; When the author writes a best-selling book, she will give a reminder to encourage a breakthrough when it is "gone with the wind"; When the author's thoughts are exhausted, she will try to guide ... In short, after reading this book, we can vividly understand the specific responsibilities of an editor.

I also bought a book on book marketing, but I forgot its name. I'll add it when I remember.

In addition, you can learn some information about the industry by paying attention to the editor's Weibo or blog. These need to be collected and sorted out by everyone. Which publishing house or style of books do you like? You can look through the copyright page, find the editor's name, and search if he has Weibo.

In fact, this point is not limited to the book industry. If you want to cross the line and collect relevant information in new fields, you can get it by looking for social media of people in the industry. After paying attention to it for a period of time, you will often have a certain understanding of this industry.

Finally, I would like to remind you that the salary of the book industry is generally not high. You'd better think twice if you want to enter this industry, otherwise you may feel that you have paid a lot and the result is not satisfactory. However, as far as the books I mentioned are concerned, I can still learn a lot after reading them, and I think it is quite worthwhile.