Freelance Editing for Steve Jackson Games

SJ Games is a small company, and our full-time editors cannot always cover our complete editorial workload. As a result, we occasionally employ freelance editors to help us out with roleplaying books (we do not employ freelance developers for board or card games). If you are interested in freelance editing for SJ Games, here are a few things you should know:

Qualifications: SJ Games normally requires its freelance editors to have previous editorial experience of some kind, as well as current knowledge of the game system(s) with which they would like to work. We are biased toward professional editors over amateurs, toward full-time freelancers over moonlighters, toward RPG editors over other kinds of editors, and toward people who have worked with us before over first-timers. We also give consideration to related work experience and interests.

Availability of Work: When you contact us, your name will go on our list of potential freelance editors. When work becomes available, we will review the qualifications of all unassigned editors on that list and choose one. This means that unlike writing contracts, which are posted publicly and treated as a competition, editorial contracts are assigned in private, with editors being called up as work becomes available. In short, our policy is "don't call us, we'll call you," not "first come, first served." In those rare situations where we do solicit for editorial help on a project-by-project basis, the solicitations will appear below.

Duties: Editors are required to function on several levels:

• Initial Quality Check: The editor may be the first person other than the author to read the whole manuscript. It is unfortunately possible - it has happened repeatedly - that the manuscript does not follow the outline, is massively too long or short, or is rife with errors. Perhaps it must be returned to the author; perhaps it is simply not worth salvaging. It is NOT the editor's job to create a publishable book out of whatever dross he is handed. It is the editor's responsibility to realize when the manuscript would require an unreasonable amount of reworking. In that case, the editor is expected to notify the SJ Games employee who contracted him, and we will go from there. Perhaps contracts will be renegotiated, with the editor earning more and the author less. Perhaps the manuscript will simply be rejected and the author told to try again with a spell checker.
• Playtest Management: In most cases, the first draft of a roleplaying book is playtested by a group chosen from the readers of Pyramid magazine for playtesting. The playtesters are given a discussion area where they can post their comments, and the editor is expected to follow this discussion (and possibly to moderate it). When the playtest ends, the editor should add these comments to his own and send them to the author, who will use them to revise his manuscript.
• Copy Editing: The most basic duty of the editor is to mark up the first draft for grammar, spelling, style, and so on, so the author can make these corrections and learn from the process. At SJ Games, this also includes enforcing compliance with house style and document codes. A complete list of SJ Games style guides can be found on the Author Solicitation Page.
• Content Editing: SJ Games books are known for their accuracy and quality of research. The editor is not expected to do the author's work, but he is expected to familiarize himself with the subject matter, double-check easily verified facts (e.g., birth and death dates of historical figures, spellings of names), and catch glaring errors in content (e.g., "the capital of Canada is Toronto"). Any such corrections should be part of the editor's first-draft comments.
• Rules Editing: The editor is required to ensure that game rules are used properly and, where applicable, to make sure that the math checks out (e.g., add up the point values of characters and verify the performance statistics of vehicles). This is never optional! Some companies leave this task for the line developer; we do not. Rules and stats corrections should also be part of the editor's first-draft comments.
• Final Draft Check: When the author, working from the editor's comments, submits the final draft, it is the editor's responsibility to:
  • Check it against a copy of the original marked manuscript to see that all changes were properly made, noting those that were not;
  • Read the new draft from start to finish, again looking for all sorts of problems, and marking them;
  • Advise SJ Games of how well the final draft met expectations.
  On the final draft, it is the editor's responsibility to make any further required corrections. The book does not normally go back to the author unless the editor's initial corrections were simply not made . . . in which case, the whole project must be re-evaluated.
• Proofreading: The laid-out, paginated text of the book will be sent to the editor for a final pass in order to catch insidious spelling errors, etc. Knowledge of formal proofreading terminology and symbology is not absolutely required, but is extremely helpful. This also serves as an opportunity to pencil in page references.

Payment: SJ Games handles freelance editing contracts on a "flat-fee" basis only; under no circumstances will we pay per word or per hour. The fee may be negotiable, but the payment plan is not. We typically pay 50% of the fee on acceptance of the final, layout-ready draft, and the remainder on receipt of the proofread pages (just before the book goes to print). The fee itself is calculated on the basis of several factors, including editor experience, previous satisfactory work for SJ Games, manuscript length, difficulty, desired turnaround time, and author quality (i.e., if the author is a "hard edit," we will pay the author less and the editor more). Typical fees are in the $1,200 to $2,000 range for a 240-page book. A new editor can expect to see fees at the low end, while an editor who has worked with us before may be offered more (up to $2,500) and may be paid a fraction of his fee as an advance on execution of the contract.

Other Contract Terms: All contracts are between SJ Games and the individual editor. We do not award contracts to firms, nor do we permit subcontracting. We do not offer multi-volume, exclusive, or advance contracts; each job is a new contest (although experience working with us counts for a lot).

Contacting Us: Those interested in freelance editing should contact the Managing Editor.

None at the moment. Please note: Prodding the above contacts and going "When will there be something for me?" does not earn style points. Thanks for your understanding.