Nelda Street—Copyediting Background

Copyediting Background

Having worked in the publishing industry since 1999 on a wide array of projects, ranging from highly technical subjects targeting computer developers to human potential and environmental materials, today I focus primarily on nonfiction books on alternative spirituality, personal growth, and holistic health care. I also welcome projects on herbalism, environmental concerns, music, and art, all subjects in which I have a demonstrated interest and personal experience.

I first professionally honed my natural aptitude for language arts in 1999, as a proofreader/specifications analyst for GTS Graphics (now TechBooks/GTS), a large publisher-services firm in Los Angeles, helping produce technical books covering psychology, software instruction, language, and microbiology. Publishers served by GTS included such well-known names as Addison Wesley, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, and John Wiley and Sons. I not only absorbed Chicago style but learned to quickly adapt to the various exceptions contained in each publisher's house style. Analyzing design samples, I determined and wrote design specifications, and ensured that final design-spec samples (the training materials used by all production-team members working on a book) were accurate. I proofread and/or analyzed specs of hard-copy galleys, page proofs, art, and figure captions. Deadlines frequently demanded that I switch to a different book (with new specs), and often a different publisher, on a moment’s notice.

I later became a freelancer for GTS and other companies, including advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather, medical equipment publisher Canon Communications, and book publishers Beyond Words Publishing and HarperSanFrancisco. Also as a freelancer, I copyedited technical books for Interactive Composition Corporation, including such subjects as wireless networks, software instruction, and health care.

Besides proofreading court documents for attorneys, my legal-industry experience includes serving as a staff copy editor for LRN, where I helped make the practical scenarios accompanying legal-compliance Web tutorials more accurate and interesting, and ensured that student quizzes functioned correctly. Created for the staffs of Fortune 500 companies, these tutorials covered such important matters as Internet marketing, antitrust, rights of disabled workers, intellectual property, confidentiality, preventing workplace harassment, disposal of hazardous wastes, and many more. I was inspired by the technology I encountered in the e-learning industry to formally study HTML and build hand-coded Web pages including photos, text, and music.

More recently I feel I have found my niche, as well as much inspiration, in my work with California publishers New Harbinger, New World Library, Red Wheel/Weiser, Palace Press International (Mandala Publishing), and North Atlantic Books, as well as Vermont publisher Inner Traditions, as a copy editor of nonfiction book manuscripts on self-help psychology, alternative spirituality, and holistic heath care.

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NELDA STREET

Copyediting Background

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