How many typos have you laughed at on Facebook? They're funny until they come from you or your company. If you're writing something down for your business — be it a road sign or a shareholder report — you don't want to end up the butt of a Facebook joke. Having a good copy editor on call can save you from embarrassment and even earn you new business.
Even if you don't work in publishing, you work somewhere. Which means you, or the company you work for, has some materials it puts out there for partners, shareholders, or the public to see. That could be a website. It could be a letter or report. It might even be an email sent around to the company at large, or a sign for an event. Whatever it is, you or your company needs it to be professional, clean and clear. That's where a copy editor comes in handy.
A copy editor makes sure you're putting your best foot forward in all your written materials. As a copy editor, I examine every word, punctuation mark, and sentence to make sure your work is not just grammatically correct but eloquent and readable. I weigh every sentence to make sure it's in the right place and that it makes sense. I double-check that you've got the same numbers on page 31 that you do on page 23. I change "affect" to "effect" or vice versa if you're not sure of which you need. And I even govern that pesky Oxford comma, to make it's consistently used (or consistently not used). All these little things can mean the difference between amateur and professional. If you're consistent and correct in every detail, you're that much more credible to your readers and potential customers.
And let's face it — you haven't got time to worry about whether Working Group is capitalized in your appendixes but not the report text. Even your interns have better things to do than remember that health care was two words on page 7 but one word on page 84. And a college kid working for peanuts may notice some typos, but will he really scrutinize your text for redundancies, logic and clarity, and have the experience to suggest elegant solutions? Your business deserves better than that. You don't just need a really good copy editor — you deserve one.
Drop me a line at www.magicwandediting.com today, and let's talk about the work I can do for you.