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Take a step back from the glorious world of line editing and developmental editing, and there are still a great number of editorial projects in academic publishing. Perhaps not as glamorous, the Editorial Services sector of academic publishing pertains to Copyediting, Fact checking, Cold reading, Printer Proofs, Indexing, Alt-text writing, and much more. Plus, editorial service managers also can wear the hat of a Project manager as well.
Now, I won't go into what project managing is in depth again. I have written a blog post about it already here. However, keep in mind that the editorial services managers have all of the PM responsibilities with them when it comes to editorial services only projects. This means that a client will hire the company only for indexing--this small project will be managed by the ESM, often with no outside help from a PM.
What else does an ESM do? Below, I have written a quick list of services that may be required to be managed by an ESM. They will hire subcontractor staff in the following areas. I have tried to define each process succinctly.
Copyediting is going through a draft with a magnifying glass. Copyeditors examine rules of grammar and punctuation, and apply them to the MS provided. They will often leave notes or track changes on in an MS, and have a rigid following of a client's given style guide.
Fact checking is fairly explanatory. These are the detectives of the publishing world, making sure any facts presented in a draft are accurate. What the author presents as fact could result in lawsuits if it is not actually true. This is a necessary step in textbook creation.
Indexing is the creation or editing of an index. Indexing is a particular set of skills that requires expensive software to do correctly.
Cold Reading is a step that usually happens just before the last steps of sending a completed product to the printer. Cold readers are subcontractors that have no familiarity with the particular textbook produced. They are hired to read final drafts without the attachment gained by other editors in the editorial process. Cold readers often catch obvious errors in sentence fragments or production, that may escape those carefully involved.
Printer Proofs this is a final, quick step in the editorial process. Often a subcontractor will be paid per page to take a glance at pdfs from the printer's website. This makes sure that no pages are upside down, or that images are not pixelated on the page. The editorial team and art team may still make small corrections to pages on a very quick basis.
Alternative Text creation or editing is a specialized step for digital products. Alternative text is a common feature designed for those with vision impairment. Where any image appears in a digital product, text will be written to describe what happens in the image. This way, those with vision impairments do not miss any key details of what is on the page.