Probably useless "small business" idea I had when looking at so many OA journal sites: Offer an English-to-English editing service, not for articles but for journal websites. Say $50 for a quick evaluation--which would include the apparent ethics of the site--and estimate, probably $100-$200 to clean up a typical site.
Back to just Joe
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John Dupuis
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Problems: 1. No way to reach the journals that need it (mostly but not all non-U.S.). 2. No way to convince them their sites aren't already in good English. 3. The American-vs.-British issue (that one's minor). So I don't plan to actually pursue this, although there are certainly hundreds of non-apparently-sketchy gold OA journal sites that could use it.
- walt crawford
Come to think of it: 4. No way to convince them that I'm capable of doing the job, given lack of advanced degrees, institutional affiliation, recent experience in copyediting...
- walt crawford
A writer I work with has been trying to figure out how to market herself to overseas medical writers as a "native English speaker to read your manuscript and clear up sentence structure, etc" ... definitely a lot of need out there!
- Hedgehog
Oh yeah, there are whole companies out there to do English-to-English for journal *articles*--although I'd guess some of those companies are shells for the journals themselves--but for the journal sites, it's a specialized market. And, as your friend's probably finding, difficult to market yourself in.
- walt crawford
The more I talk to my friends who own small businesses, the more I realize how ill-equipped I am for such work.
- laura x
You're not the only one.
- walt crawford