When the call or email that comes in isn’t from an ME at an actual house, then you’re dealing with a cold client. Be wary, no matter what kind they are. And there are various kinds.
Kind One: Someone Googled “copyeditor” and stumbled upon my website. It hardly ever happens, and when it does, I say no as gently as I can, without taking it any further. Most often, they can’t offer any trace of a suggestion that a publisher has shown an interest in their mscript. People like that tend to be looking for a portal into the industry, and I am not that. I’m on the production side and avoid having anything to do with acquisition. I’ve got respect within the industry, but it doesn’t extend to having influence on that side of it. Some CEs do take on jobs like that, but my scruples don’t allow it. I won’t take anyone’s money when it won’t help their chances.
Kind Two: A past author has recommended me as a copy editor. Usually, that means that Author Smith, whose mscript I copyedited for an established house, and who appreciated my work, has steered Student Jones to me prior to submission to a house. I’m open to that idea, and it often works out well, since the doctoral adviser will be carrying it to the house. But I still conduct some diligence – I review the mscript, I consider what the subject is. The immediate goal isn’t publication, but still, the mscript does have an audience – the doctoral committee. Which means that to some extent, you do have the author’s career in your hands. I usually take those jobs on, trusting that the person who recommended me will oversee what happens once I’ve done what I do.
Kind Three: A house has recommended me to an author to clean up a mscript before it is fed to the acquisition desk. I’m leery, but I will say yes, after I’ve called the house to ask how serious they really are about the project. Can I help its chances? Okay, then, if they say so. Truth, I stopped accepting projects like that a few years ago after two or three of them turned out badly. That is, the publisher had told me the mscript had good chances, and I did for it what I do, and the house eventually turned the mscript down. There was a little old lady in a retirement home who’d spent years writing a biography of her favourite (renowned) poet. The house offered me a positive outlook on its chances, but in the end said no. And there was a woman who’d written a book about American suffragettes. The same house sent her to me and said its chances were strong, but after I did my job, the result got shredded in an insulting way by one mscript reviewer, which led to a final no. I’d taken their money and they’d got nothing back. Even worse, they’d assumed (though I tried to convince them it wasn’t so) that I had some kind of magic formula at hand for getting their book through the mscript review. Surely I must, or why would the publisher have sent them to me? So, no, never again.