Rebecca D. Freed

Professional Experience

Acquisitions Editor, Peachpit Press

September 2006 to present
Duties include:

• Conceive, commission, develop, and project-manage books in accordance with Peachpit Press's publishing plan.
• Attend creative technology events and trade shows to track industry trends and recruit new authors.
• Hire and supervise virtual book teams to edit books from manuscript through final page proofs.
• Draft contracts for new books, develop book budgets, and manage costs throughout production cycle.
• Communicate book plans and progress with Peachpit's design, production, and marketing staffs.

Freelance Editor, Writer, Translator

Selected Clients

• Avalon Travel Publishing
• Wilderness Press
• Shoemaker & Hoard
• Left Coast Press
• Seal Press
• Shape Magazine
• San Francisco Magazine
• Wired Magazine
• PC World
• Macworld

Senior Reviews Editor, PC World magazine and Web site

October 2000 to February 2005
Duties included:

• Develop, assign, and edit comparative reviews of computer products for PC World.
• Supervise the work of three junior editors, including reviewing their edits for coherence, usage, and technical accuracy, and coaching them on editing and writing skills.
• Pitch and write news and reviews articles.
• Comanage the Reviews department, determining topics to cover and allocation of work among staff.
• Maintain databases and spreadsheets used by Reviews department to track product information and projects.

Accomplishments include:

• Wrote the monthly "Mac Skeptic" column for PCWorld.com, one of the best-read columns on the Web site.
• Supervised the writing and editing of a special "Best of Everything" section in December 2003, consisting of 8 different staff-written product comparisons.
• Created task-tracking database in Microsoft Access for Reviews department.

Contributor, Glamour magazine

October 2003 to September 2004
Duties consisted of:

• Wrote "Gizmo of the Month" column: brief reviews of technology products.

Managing Editor, PCWorld.com

July 1997 to September 2000

• Provided editorial leadership and operations management for database-driven, high-tech Web site serving 13 million page views per month.
• Ensured the on-time, accurate production of up to 15 stories per day, plus four daily e-mail newsletters and index-page updates.

Duties included:

• Helped editors define scope and objectives of new site elements and applications, presented them to site programmers, and set time lines and monitored progress.
• Developed and monitored sitewide and departmental budgets.
• Scheduled and monitored ongoing editorial production deadlines.
• Established and implemented editorial production procedures.
• Hired, trained, and supervised PCWorld.com's in-house and freelance copy editors, including training on PCWorld.com's XML system.
• Managed the flow of content from print magazine to Web site.

Accomplishments included:

• Coordinated simultaneous site redesign and conversion from static HTML production to dynamic page generation using XML and Vignette content management system. Completed in March 1998. Performed same role for sitewide redesign in June 2000.
• Spoke to professional associations about PCWorld.com's implementation of XML.

Freelance Editor

October 1996 to June 1997
Projects included:

• Acting assistant managing editor, PC World magazine
• Lead copy editor, Netscape marketing extranet
• Book development editor, IDG Books

Additional Clients:

Microsoft Sidewalk, Forbes ASAP, PC Computing, The Red Herring

Copy Chief, Computer Life magazine

June 1994 to September 1996

• Checked in text and graphics files from editors.
• Hired copy editors and trained them in house style and production procedures.
• Communicated deadlines to copy editors and editors.
• Wrote and maintained Computer Life's style guide.
• Read each editorial page and inspected final proofs.

Copy Chief, Wired magazine

March 1994 to May 1994

• Developed and maintained Wired's house style guide.
• Assigned editing and proofreading to copy editors.
• Copyedited manuscripts, styled text in QuarkXPress, copyfit pages, and wrote captions and pull quotes.

Chief Copy Editor, InfoWorld magazine

March 1992 to February 1994

Copy Editor, InfoWorld

April 1990 to June 1991

Production Editor, Medical World News

May 1988 to March 1990

Education

Bachelor of Arts in French and English Literature
University of California at Santa Barbara, June 1986

References and work samples available upon request.