How to Be My Enemy
Oh, Copy Editors, why must you stand between me and the $15-$20/per article promised land?
Just had an article returned a few days ago from a brand new copy editor.
How do I know he was new? Well, it seems like it’s only the new ones that ask you to fix the most retarded things. Like this one wanted me to “paint a picture” of how to do each step.
I’ll paint a picture for you – how about one of me kicking you in the balls?
Seriously though, this highlights one of the major, if not THE MOST MAJOR, problem with the Demand Studios review system.
The way things work is that you write an article. This article is then passed along to Copy Editors who check the article over for punctuation, spelling, grammatical errors and Demand style. It’s this last one that usually catches most writers. I don’t mind going back and fixing a misspelled word or two – in fact, I expect it because I don’t usually look things over before I send them to the Copy Editors. That’s what they’re paid their $2.50 per article to do – check my work. But the problem arises when Copy Editors try to check your style. There’s just no consistency. What passes by one Copy Editor is flagged by the next.
So what happens is that you have the case of a writer who’s been with Demand for over two years, yet my articles could be flagged by a Copy Editor on his first day of work. Which, fair enough, this Copy Editor could have spotted some horrible grammatical error on my article, but that’s usually not the case.
Take for example one of my first returned articles. In the “Things Needed” section, I clearly listed a “Screwdriver”. Later on in the article, I had the line “Tighten the screw”. The Copy Editor flagged this and added the comment, “Tighten the screw with what?”.
THE F**ING SCREWDRIVER I LISTED IN THE THINGS NEEDED SECTION, YOU F**KING MORON.
Sigh.
This touches on another couple of tips I’ll bring up in the next few posts –
- Overexplanation for Dummies
- Rewrite? Or Teach the Copy Editor A Lesson and Screw Him Out of His $2.50.
Where did this nonsense that it’s new copy editors who are making mistakes come from?
Demand “hires” people without checking out who they are and then grants them anonymity, an unheard of decision in any walk of professional life.
They are INCOMPETENT.
The editors you were complaining about six months ago because you thought they were new are still around and still INCOMPETENT. And that editor probably wasn’t new back then.
How do you know that Demand isn’t hiring better editors and the new editors aren’t much better than the old editors? And why is Demand hiring new editors anyway when the old editors are clearly incompetent?
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“Later on in the article, I had the line “Tighten the screw”. The Copy Editor flagged this and added the comment, “Tighten the screw with what?”.
THE F**ING SCREWDRIVER I LISTED IN THE THINGS NEEDED SECTION, YOU F**KING MORON.”
The CE was most likely asking a rhetorical question. It’s not like he doesn’t know the answer to the question and is actually wondering about it; he’s simply pointing out that you should have specified the screw driver.
“I reconsidered writing one of the three over, but instead I will teach this CE a lesson and have them lose $7.50.”
The CEs get paid if you let the articles expire. You’re actually doing them a favor; they get the same amount of money but do less work than they would if you re-submitted the articles.
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I’m with you Patrick. in the short time that I have been with DMS I am beginning to notice that certain copy editors work on certain days and I am trying to avoid writing on those days just to avoid the aggravation that those ass holes put me through with their incessant nit picking and personal opinions. While DMS does have some good copy editors, I fear that most of the good ones have moved on in the new ones have recently taken courses on picking the wings off flies. I think they loathe the fact that they have to work in a sucky place like DMS because liberalism has destroyed the readership at most newspapers. After all, how would you like to go on to college, worked for that communications degree and now have to work for $3.50 an article in a crappy content mill?
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Lighten up, it’s just the Internet … Geez.
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You already outed EditorMom in the DSS forum after someone reposted her Z-forum post, now you are still on her ass? We get it already. One of you must be a real bitch if you can’t drop it.
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Must have been EditorMom! Hahaha!
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I intern at a local newspaper and the editor changed my words completely. I didn’t find out until it was published in print and online. It was much better before, and the EDITOR misspelled a word. :/
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I’m a Demand Media copy editor and all I have to say is… we make more than $2.50 an article. Get some Zen in your life. Peace.
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I completely loathe the review process over there.
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Just got an edit that read in part, and I quote: “gonna need more ‘splainin.”
ffs
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How about this…ONE copy editor got THREE of my articles in one days and basically asked me to rewrite all three. I reconsidered writing one of the three over, but instead I will teach this CE a lesson and have them lose $7.50.
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