About Ian Kingston Publishing Services

Who am I?

I’m Ian Kingston – freelance editor and typesetter. Hidden within that brief description are a few more skills (technical illustration, proofreading, indexing and writing, among others), but editing and typesetting are the heart of what I do.

I’ve worked in publishing for almost my whole career. A list of the organizations that I worked for before I went freelance appears at the end of this page. I began my freelance career in 1991.

What do I do?

I take an author’s disks, sent by the publisher and containing the text and illustrations of the author’s book, and produce finished typeset output as either PostScript or PDF files.

If you work in publishing, you probably have a reasonable idea of what this involves. If you don’t work in publishing, or you want to see in detail what I do, then go to the Process page.

Why do it this way?

Because it’s a highly efficient way of producing a book, in terms of both time and money. Here are some of the benefits.

Subjects

I cover the following broad subject areas:

• Physics
• Computer science
• Mathematics
• Engineering
• Business studies
• Economics
• Management
• Medicine
• Law

I can also handle other subjects, but not usually at a high academic level.

In-house employment history

• Institute of Physics Publishing (1982–84): Desk Editor
• Oxford University Press (1984–88): Assistant Editor (Science and Medical Department)
• B. T. Batsford Ltd (1988–90): Commissioning Editor (Chess)
• BIS Banking Systems (1990–91): Technical Writer