Forgive me for filling your inbox with a brief note, but this has been such an insistent request since the beginning that it felt appropriate. I’ll be employing a copy editor moving forward, with this Friday’s post likely the first to be so edited. And there was much rejoicing.
Thank you very much to all of the readers who volunteered to perform this service for free. Those offers are very kind and appreciated, but I make a lot of money doing this, and even if I made none I could not in good conscience accept people doing for free that which others do professionally. As for who’s actually doing it, the editor prefers to remain anonymous. I will share that I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do with this project from the beginning - finding an excuse to pay a grad student, someone who’s struggling as I once struggled.
I stress that this is copy editing/proofreading; there is no content development going on from their end. And for the record, I actually have always been known for turning in very clean drafts as a freelancer. I’m not generally a high-typo kind of writer. But the sheer pace with which I publish makes typos inevitable when I’m the only proofreader, and there’s no reason a professional newsletter needs to have that problem. Stylistically I will remain myself, and as you know I’m a take it or leave it kind of writer.
The goal is to pass as much of what I publish here through the proofreading process as is realistically possible. I can guarantee you, though, that the occasional post will still be written at 3AM and posted at 9AM. I gotta be me.