I think anything you can do to learn more would be beneficial – whether it’s a paid course or just practicing a little every day :) maybe you can start by reviewing all your friends’ facebook posts, haha…

Agreed. It really isn’t as easy as it sounds sometimes. Glad it made you interested in the possibility at least.

Very true, most bloggers don’t have the means to afford proofing. Most of my work ends up being with companies or content creators that have A LOT of material to put out. I really enjoy blogs though, so I started there hoping it could work. Luckily for me, it did.

And great advice about adapting proofing styles. There is definitely a change in style depending on the client. Glad the photography side hustle is working out well for you!

Sounds like an interesting way to make a living. Must have been difficult at times because we all know how ridiculous the handwriting of some doctors can be. Luckily, I’ve been able to keep my side hustle going by being annoying and correcting grammar, but I at least try to keep it to emails instead of comments.

J, do I need to go back 10 years into the archive and start working my up?

Love it. I’ve done some proofing and paid for some as well. I can see why a lot of bloggers said no though. It’s an expense that doesn’t necessarily generate ROI. People expect a touch of grammar and spelling issues on blogs and are generally forgiving – but someone seeking a professional service would be less so.

Learning to adapt proofing styles is key. I did some freelance work for a college friend of mine who started a web design service – he paid me well and I could do it kind of whenever as long as I got it done by a particular date. But I learned quickly editing for business clients is different than newspaper editing – one has to use a lot of diplomacy and also really understand the audience. The first site I worked on had a lot of jargon and it was crucial to know if their potential clients understood/expected the jargon or not. Eventually my friend got a pretty sweet university gig so shut down the business but it was nice work while it lasted.

Proofing/copyediting can be a great side hustle. Still not as good as my photography side hustle but so far it’s second place in the rate I’ve earned.

Haha…

You would not have liked this blog a decade ago when I first got started. Every other sentence had at least two errors in it and I refused to use capitalization for some reason :)