Tips for proofreading children’s books

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In many ways, proofreading books for children isn’t that different from proofreading any other material … but there are a few extra things to look out for, especially in highly illustrated titles. In this refreshed post, originally from 2016, Liz Dalby provides some pointers.

Mind the flaps!

Many children’s books, especially non-fiction titles, feature interactive elements such as flaps, pop-ups, stickers and activities. If you’re proofreading on screen, you’ll see the pages in two-dimensional form, but be aware that you might need to consider how different elements of the book would work together in real life. (Would the outline provided fold up into a model of a robot? Are there really 1,000 stickers, as claimed on the cover?) You won’t necessarily need to print things out to get the job done, but you might need to sense-check activities, cross-reference different parts of the product, or count particular elements (all 1,000 of them). Make sure you factor this in to the time you allow to proofread the book, even if the word count is tiny, and consider using a second screen if you don’t already, to speed up the work and increase your accuracy.

When is a book not a book?

When it’s an ebook or an app – both popular formats for children’s books, and with a different set of considerations from physical books. You might be asked to check how a highly illustrated layout transfers to ebook format, for example, possibly with reflowable text. Are all the elements still there, in a sensible order?

With ebooks and apps, you’ll need to find the most sensible way of returning comments, which might not take the form of a more traditional mark-up, but could instead be a list of corrections. With apps you’ll need to make sure you’ve checked and clearly recorded corrections to all the places where text appears – which might not be easy to deal with in a linear way.

Less can be more … when it comes to mistakes

In some ways, children’s books seem too easy. In books for younger readers in particular, you might have as few as twenty words. (Your per-thousand word rate is likely to be reassuringly astronomical!) However, the lack of text can be almost intimidating. Any remaining mistakes have nowhere to hide, and will come back to haunt you for all eternity … or until the books are pulped. Make triply certain that the title on the spine matches the title on the cover and on the title page, for example. Surprisingly often, it doesn’t.

Reading order

In boring old adult books, usually you start reading at the top left of a page, and keep plugging away until you get to the bottom right, and then start the process all over again. This isn’t necessarily so in children’s books, where layouts can be considerably more dynamic, with smaller blocks of text arranged across the page or spread, integrated with the pictures, and interspersed with smaller text elements such as boxes, captions and annotations. Pay attention to the reading order of the different elements – it needs to be logical. Sometimes, captions will be the only part that is read, so these need to stand alone. They should work hard, add value to the picture they refer to, and not simply repeat part of the main body text. It seems obvious, but it’s easily overlooked: annotations need to refer to the part of a picture they are pointing to.

Consider the reader

Whatever we edit or proofread, we need to consider the intended reader. But with children as the audience, there are extra considerations. Is the text legible? Are the fonts used appropriate? Although by the time you are proofreading, basic decisions such as font choice will have been made long ago in the process, you might still find instances where things need to be tweaked to help a young readership. Also look out for words, especially technical terms or jargon, that don’t fit the reading age or need to be explained where they appear.

Diversity and inclusion

Children’s publishers often have guidelines for authors and editors on inclusion and diversity. Although these aspects should be considered from the outset of a project – or rather, as this article argues, a book should ‘be diverse without diversity being its selling point’ – it’s still an important aspect of children’s publishing for proofreaders and copy-editors to be aware of.

Don’t neglect the pictures

You might think of yourself as a word person, but in many children’s books, much of the sense comes from the pictures, so you must pay as much attention to them as to the text. If the text describes something shown in a picture, such as a colour, does the picture reflect that? If the pictures show a step-by-step process, are they in the right order? Many children’s books are commissioned in the knowledge that they will be co-editions, or sold into a range of territories. Often you will need to look out for parochial details in the images that could limit a book’s marketability, such as obviously right-hand-drive cars, or very British-looking police uniforms.

Marking up

Finally, think about the best way to mark up a highly illustrated book. Your client might have guidelines on how they want you to mark up PDFs, but remember that marks can easily be overlooked on busy, brightly coloured backgrounds. If you think a mark might be lost, draw a big box around it or highlight it with a helpful arrow. Go for maximum clarity.

About Liz Dalby

Liz Dalby worked in-house for two children’s publishers between 1998 and 2005, and still occasionally proofreads children’s books on a freelance basis.

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Ksenia Chernaya, four children reading by Anastasia Shuraeva, both on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, information commissioning editor.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Resources round-up: Children’s books

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Welcome to another round-up of resources compiled by the CIEP. This time, we look at children’s books. It focuses on fiction but some of the links are also relevant to non-fiction for young readers. We have divided our picks into:

CIEP guides and resources
Getting to know the market
Support for writers, editors and publishers
Encouraging diversity
Producing picture books
Ensuring age appropriateness

CIEP guides and resources

Things to consider when writing or editing a children’s book are much the same as when writing or editing for adults: follow plain English principles, support self-publishing and make the text as effective as possible via developmental editing, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. Search for relevant posts on our blog using the keywords ‘children’s books’ to find advice on sensitive language, age appropriateness and more.

Getting to know the market

If you want to write or edit children’s books, the best place to start is by reading them. The classics you remember from your childhood have stood the test of time for a reason, but the market – especially regarding children’s preferences – has changed a lot over the past 30 or 40 years.

To find out what kids are reading now, explore sites such as Achuka, LoveReading4Kids and ReadingZone, which all feature reviews of the latest titles, from picture books to young adult (YA) novels, as well as author interviews and other insights into the market.

If you’re looking for specific data on reading and publishing trends, download the School Library Association’s (SLA’s) research on what children are choosing to read and how they make that choice. Renaissance Learning produces a free annual report called ‘What and how kids are reading’ (registration required for access), which tracks pupils’ reading habits over many years. The research reveals that humorous authors Jeff Kinney and David Walliams continue to top young readers’ popularity charts – despite some adults’ disapproval!

But remember that in order to get into the hands of children, books also need to appeal to gatekeepers such as librarians, teachers and parents. To this end, the freely downloadable magazine Books for Keeps has been reviewing books and reporting on children’s literature for nearly 45 years over more than 260 issues. You can access thousands of reviews via its website – a useful tool for gauging what adults value about the books they make available to children.

BookTrust UK promotes the importance of books at all stages of life. Parents may know of it through the free Bookstart programme for babies and toddlers, but its website provides comprehensive resources for writers as well. Regular research and evaluation of BookTrust projects keeps content relevant for everyone involved in producing reading resources for children. The Scottish Book Trust offers similar programmes, including Bookbug, for babies, toddlers and preschoolers, and useful resources for writers and publishers.

Support for writers, editors and publishers

The Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is regarded by many as an indispensable guide to writing and publishing for children. Covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screen, audio and theatre, self-publishing and traditional publishing, it provides practical advice for all stages of the writing and illustration process.

The Writers & Artists website is itself a treasury of (free) advice and resources on the processes of writing, illustrating and publishing, and the book Writers’ & Artists’ Guide to Writing for Children and YA: A Writer’s Toolkit provides further guidance, including on digital publishing.

Anyone involved in producing children’s books should consider joining the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), a global community for children’s book creators. Its UK chapter runs Words and Pictures, which is full of practical resources for writers, illustrators and editors that, in fact, anyone with an interest in the process of making books can spend a happy afternoon browsing.

Children’s book prizes abound, but here we’ll highlight the Branford Boase Award because it recognises not only the winning debut writer but also their (in-house) editor.

Bookfox Press has a useful ‘how to’ guide for those entering the world of children’s book publishing, covering the whole process from initial idea to finding an agent. Kindlepreneur’s guide is more market focused. We’re pleased to note that both guides emphasise the importance of using editors.

Encouraging diversity

It’s important that children (and adults, for that matter) see positive representations of people like themselves. Inclusion has improved significantly in recent years, thanks in part to publications such as Pen&inc., a magazine promoting diversity in books produced by the Library and Information Association (CILIP), and organisations such as Black Books Matter UK, which champions diversity in books and stories that represent Black history and culture.

There’s support for writers and self-publishers too. The Jericho Prize promotes high-quality children’s picture books by Black-British authors that feature authentic Black main characters. Its website features a range of resources to help authors through the production process, including a video explaining the proofreading and formatting process. Meanwhile, Megaphone Writers is a mentoring scheme for people of colour in England who want to write novels for children and young adults.

Inclusion is also important for the one-in-six children who have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). BookTrust offers advice for writers, illustrators and publishers on good practice for showing disability in a positive and natural way. Significantly, it advises that ‘disability doesn’t need to be a key part of the plot – and certainly not a punchline’. In practical terms too, a ‘book’ doesn’t have to be a flat, printed document – as well as standard audiobooks, organisations such as ClearVision and Living Paintings provide books that provide access to the visual world via touch and sound.

Producing picture books

Yes, some books for adults do have pictures but those for children need a particularly nuanced partnership between the words and images. Successful and timeless examples are revealed in Penguin’s list of classic picture books, and People of Publishing’s top tips for authors and illustrators sheds more light on developing stories and portfolios that sell.

Creating a picture book is a complex process, as authors Alan Durant and Olivia Hope explain. The publishing process can take a surprisingly long time and the content needs to be held to as high a standard as any other type of book. For some beautiful and evocative examples of picture-book art, lose yourself in the wonderful Picturebook Makers gallery.

Ensuring age appropriateness

At every stage of the process, editors and other readers will be checking that the text is suitable for the target audience. As Miriam Laundry Publishing points out: ‘If you’re writing for ALL children, you’re not writing for ANY children.’ The post includes examples of age categories (although it sounds like an American term, ‘middle grade’ is also used in the UK to refer to books for pre- and early teen readers). Red Wolf Press describes where you can find this information about books that have already been published – more useful sources of research.

This blog post from Inky Frog Editorial looks at examples of contemporary middle-grade and teen fiction to underline the importance of knowing your audience.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by Annie Spratt, boy reading by Michał Parzuchowski, teenager reading a book by Seven shooter, all on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

The importance of page turns in picture books

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Picture books may have some of the shortest word counts of any books, but that doesn’t make editing them straightforward. Lisa Davis explains what editors and authors need to consider when using the format of the book itself to build the story.

When initially editing a manuscript without illustrations, it’s important to consider what the illustrations can bring to the narrative. Some manuscripts might come with illustration suggestions embedded in the text to help get an idea of what the author envisions. The author may also have broken down the manuscript into page splits, but if the editor or the author is not familiar with the picture book format or editing picture books, it can be easy to overlook the importance of page turns.

Using the picture book format

The standard picture book on the market these days is 32 pages. This includes all front and end matter, which often takes up a minimum of three pages for title page and copyright information. The text itself is usually around 500 words – it’s a lot of story to pack into a small amount of space, and that’s why the format of a picture book matters so much.

Whatever the production stage, but particularly when developmental editing a picture book, an editor needs to think about the book in spreads – the two pages that face each other compose one spread. This is essential when commissioning artwork since the illustrator will need to know if they are illustrating a single page or an entire spread. Picture books can have a mixture of artwork sizes throughout, so they could take up an entire spread, a single page or even just part of a page that features several illustrations. These all aid with the pacing of the story. But, along with the pictures, we can also use the format of the book to help pace and build tension in the story.

With each turn of a page, you can completely change the scene or tone. It’s almost like a lift-the-flap book where you reveal something to the reader. Imagine the story being read aloud to a child and pausing before turning the page to ask, ‘What do you think is going to happen now?’ Or the way a scene may be cut in a film or TV programme where something is shown that contradicts what was just said for humorous effect. Or even panels in a graphic novel where you build up to something big that needs a whole page of its own.

How to use page turns

While most picture books today will use page turns to some extent, certain titles rely on this element for comedy, surprise or dramatic effect. One great example is the classic Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins, which uses the page turns throughout the whole story for comedic effect. While Rosie the hen goes on a walk around the farmyard, a fox follows behind her planning to attack, only for the page to turn and the fox has a mishap that results in Rosie (unknowingly) escaping.

Unless the story fully relies on page turns, as in Rosie’s Walk, it’s more common to use these page turns for scene changes sparingly for greatest effect, usually around the climax of the story. For instance, the book I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen uses a page turn as Bear makes a realisation that yes, he has seen the hat he’s been looking for. The previous page leads to this with a ‘Wait a minute …’ moment, letting the reader know something big is going to happen once they turn the page. And then – page-flip – we zoom in on Bear’s face as his mood changes from sadness to rage, illustration turned from subtle tones to awash with red. The rest of the story hinges on this moment, which is why it’s vital to use every element a book offers (text, artwork and format) to build up to it.

Another popular page-turn technique in picture books is using the very last page of the book (which will be a single page that faces the inside of the cover) to add an illustration vignette to suggest what might happen after the story has ended. For instance, maybe you think a character has learned a lesson, but then the illustration suggests the same situation is about to happen all over again.

A great example of this final-page usage is Nine Lives Newton by Alice McKinley. At the beginning of the book, Newton the dog mistakenly reads an obscured sign and now believes that dogs have nine lives, setting him off to do all the things he had previously avoided doing – with a poor cat following behind trying to warn him (while using up its own nine lives in the process). By the end of the book, Newton learns about his error, and our cat friend thinks all is well again. But on that final page, a vignette shows Newton looking at another obscured sign leading to yet another misunderstanding, suggesting to the reader that the chaos is about to start all over again! It’s a great way to end the story with an unexpected laugh.

Adding page turns to a manuscript

It might be easy to see the strength of a clever page turn when you’re looking at published books, but how do you know where to put the page cuts in a manuscript that you’re working on? This can be done by looking for those moments in the text with a sudden scene change. Think of them as ‘3… 2 … 1 …’ moments, or points where someone reading aloud will add a lot more drama. For instance, consider where you might want page turns with the following sentences:

The little owl stepped up to the edge of the branch, puffed up its chest, stretched out its wings and leapt into the air. What a glorious feeling! it thought, just before it started to fall down … down … down … and then … CRASH! landed right in the middle of a bluebird nest.

Bear in mind that picture book pacing also means considering how many words are on each page. Effective page turns can mean that a page with a big reveal or sudden dramatic moment might have just a few words – or even no words at all. While there are many ways to split up a moment like this, an option could be:

(Spread 1 – left page)

The little owl stepped up to the edge of the branch, puffed up its chest, stretched out its wings and leapt into the air.

[illustration: full page of baby owl preparing to fly]

(Spread 1 – right page)

What a glorious feeling! it thought, just before it started to fall down … down … down … and then …

[illustration: page of vignettes showing owl at various stages: 1) happily flying, 2) realising it’s falling, 3) falling more, 4) properly tumbling down]

(Spread 2 – full spread)

CRASH! landed right in the middle of a bluebird nest.

[illustration: full spread of a dishevelled owl sitting unhappily among some perplexed bluebird chicks]

This is an exaggerated way to write this out in a manuscript and is rarely necessary, but it is sometimes helpful if a self-publishing author needs to commission the illustrations according to the page splits (because it will influence what the illustrator is commissioned to draw and how many illustrations are required). When working with authors who plan to submit the book to agents or publishers, then it’s better not to be as prescriptive with page numbers or illustrations, and to simply leave line breaks within the text to give an indication of pacing.

So if you’re getting into picture book editing, remember that there’s more to it than just the text and illustrations – there’s also the whole format of the book that you can play around with. That’s what makes editing picture books both challenging and exceptionally fun!

About Lisa Davis

Lisa Davis (she/her) is a children’s book editor and publishing consultant who specialises in making children’s books more inclusive. She has worked at major publishers in the UK including Simon & Schuster and Hachette, and in departments including editorial, rights and production. Before going freelance in 2018, she was the book purchasing manager for BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, which gives over 3.5 million books a year directly to children.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: child reading by Marta Wave on Pexels; Rosie’s Walk and Nine Lives Newton, Simon and Schuster.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

How editors can help self-publishing children’s book authors

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It’s easier than ever for first-time authors to self-publish children’s books but the process can still be confusing. Annie Deakins demystifies her role as an editor, explains how she can support authors in other ways and offers some tips to both prospective writers and editors.

The email begins, ‘Hello, I found your website and see that you proofread children’s books. I have written my first children’s book. Can you help me to publish? I need the grammar, etc, to be perfect. How much do you charge?’

I need more information.

Using my education background

I proofread children’s books using my knowledge from 30 years of teaching in the primary classroom. I know what makes a good children’s story, whether it’s a picture book, chapter book or another format.

When I taught children to read, I showed them how to understand and value stories with words chosen for effect. When I taught writing, I guided them to improve their writing using modelling – dissecting how the stories were written.

Supporting indie authors

When I retrained as a freelance proofreader and started my business, I had no idea about the area of self-publishing. But the process has grown in a way that makes getting their books out to readers attainable for new independent (indie) authors. And my knowledge has grown with them.

As it can be easier to self-publish than to go down the traditional route, it seemed logical to offer my services to indies. Half of the weekly enquiries I receive through my website are from new children’s book authors asking for help.

So, back to that email. What is my response?

The author hasn’t indicated the genre or word count, or attached their manuscript, so I request the current file of their book and ask some questions. I can’t provide a quote unless I’ve seen the material.
The author replies with their book file. As they have asked for a proofread, I’d hoped to see the finalised, illustrated manuscript as a PDF. However, when I open the file, it is a Word document with no illustrations.
When I read the manuscript, I am excited by the writing. I feel I would be a good fit for the author, so I explain my packages.

By this point I realise that this author, like many new indies, doesn’t understand the process involved in publishing. They have asked for proofreading but they realise they need more than that. They need an editor; they need advice. As a first step, I refer them to the resources on the website of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), where there are written guides and author forums. I am a Partner Member of ALLi, offering an editorial service.

Finding the right package

I offer three packages:

My basic proofread is checking for typos and errors of grammar and consistency. In traditional publishing, this would take place at the end of the publishing process when the manuscript has been copyedited, illustrated and typeset.
My proof-edit is a proofread plus tweaking the text with edits or suggestions for improvement. I guide the author on the use of appropriate language for the age of the child. For example, is the book aimed at 4–7-year-olds, 8–11-year-olds or another age group? Is the topic suitable? Is the vocabulary appropriate?
My advanced package includes the tasks outlined in point 2 but I add my consultancy service. I give indies advice on how to get their manuscript ready for self-publication. It includes a proof-edit in Microsoft Word, and a second proofread of the final proof of the book as a PDF just before it is published. By this time, a book designer has formatted and designed it to fit in the illustrations. It has a separate book-cover file which includes the front, back and spine.

To help this latest author to find the right package for their needs, I offer to do a sample proof-edit to show how their manuscript can be improved. I take different parts of their manuscript and demonstrate: a) a proofread and b) a proof-edit. As always, the author sees the value I add with my edits and chooses my consultancy rate. Then I invoice them for the deposit (usually 50%) so that their slot can be booked in my schedule.

Helping to find an illustrator

As the picture-book story lacks illustrations, I ask the author if they have an illustrator in mind. They say they want the story checked first to make sure it is ‘okay’ and ask if I can recommend an illustrator.

It’s a good idea for an author to have researched the kind of illustrator they want to use by, for example, looking at book covers of children’s books in the same genre and/or looking at the portfolios of illustrators to find one who uses the style they prefer. I recommend they look in the Directory of Partner Members in ALLi to find an illustrator.

Building the book

I’ve often been asked if I put the book together by combining the illustrations with the story. No, I don’t offer design, layout or typesetting as a service, yet. The skills of a book designer are in demand with the increase in self-publishing.

Book production involves a variety of specialists. We all respect each other as trusted colleagues. On LinkedIn, I’ve found several skilled typesetters who work with indie authors who I recommend to my clients. I also direct them to the ALLi Directory of Partner Members.

Offering sympathetic support

I am usually the only editing professional who sees the manuscript. When I am asked a question about self-publishing to which I don’t know the answer, it’s not a problem. I say I’ll find out. Answers can be found in the CIEP guide How to Work with Self-Publishers, or in the CIEP forums, or … on the ALLi website. Can you see a pattern emerging?

Considering the author’s marketing strategy

Lastly, when I return the proof-edited manuscript to the indie author, I ask if they have thought how they are going to advertise and market their children’s book. The answer, as always, is no; they are so pleased they have got this far. This is the end, isn’t it? Can I help?

I explain that if an indie author sells their children’s book on their website and social media channels, they will reach more readers, parents, teachers and other authors. As with any marketing strategy, it is best to start with the product at the end and work backwards.

Resources for editors

Could you offer an editing consultancy to indie authors?

Reflect on your skills, and recognise that you have knowledge that is in demand, and that you can offer trust and value. You are a safe pair of hands for a client who does not know the self-publishing area. Your skills are an asset that prospective clients are willing to pay for.

Here are some resources you may find useful:

The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is a global membership association for self-publishing authors. Its mission is ethics and excellence in self-publishing, and it offers advice and advocacy for self-publishing authors within the literary, publishing and creative industries around the world. ALLi Partner Members get an affiliate link in their logo that can be put on an email signature, website, etc.
The ‘Pen to Published’ podcast is presented by independent publisher Alexa Whitten and CIEP member Alexa Tewkesbury. They give advice about writing and publishing children’s books, for want-to-be authors, those who are self-publishing, and anyone who just likes to write.
An education resource is the ELT Publishing Professionals Directory, which brings together publishers and freelancers in the English-language-teaching and educational publishing sectors.

About Annie Deakins

Annie Deakins started her freelance proofreading and tutoring business in 2017 after teaching in Essex (via Paisley) for 30 years. She trained with the CIEP and is an Intermediate Member. She proofreads non-fiction for publishers and indies. Her specialisms are education, ELT, children’s books and religion. She is a Partner Member of ALLi and a member of the ELT Publishing Professionals Directory. Find her on LinkedIn.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Pierre Bamin, girl reading by Jonathan Borba, both on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Proofreading children’s books

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Children’s books are simpler than adult’s books so they’re easier to proofread, right? Well, no – in some cases, as Margaret Milton explains, they’re much more complicated because there is so much to consider.

When family, friends, parents on the school run or indeed other CIEP members ask me what I’ve been working on this week and I say that I’ve been doing crosswords, or counting stickers in an activity book, or reading a picture book, they often look at me with confusion and sometimes a little bit of envy. When I started out in publishing, I didn’t really have an idea of the type of editing I wanted to do. I had initially trained as a primary teacher so, in the end, it made sense that I wound up editing children’s non-fiction and educational texts. From the outside, it may seem like a bit of a skive; however, there’s a lot more to it than one might think.

Words, words, words (or not!)

With children’s books (fiction and non-fiction), there are often few words, but this is usually the very thing that can trip an editor up. You need to read, read and read again. I personally also like to strip the text out of the file sent by the publisher (usually a PDF) and put it into a Word file, then run a spelling and grammar check. This gives me an extra assurance other than my own proofreading.

Also, in lots of these types of books, there are words set in a decorative font. These should be triple-checked as this is often where spelling mistakes are made. This is especially true if the words have been illustrated rather than typed because they can be misspelled, or the original word from the manuscript can be left in as well as the illustrated word inserted.

It can be assumed (unless the brief informs you otherwise) that the copyeditor has assessed the text to ensure that the level of language is suitable for the target age range and also checked the factual information. However, if something does strike you as overly complicated/too simplistic/factually incorrect, then mark it up. Better to be over-cautious than not.

A picture paints a thousand words

If you have been tasked with proofreading illustrated books, there are certain things that you will be expected to check. One of the main ones will be reviewing the illustrations alongside the text.

By proofreading stage, the illustrations will have mostly been signed off by the designer and the in-house editor. However, the proofreader will be expected to mark up discrepancies, for example if the text reads that the girl held a silver cup in her hand, but the illustrator has coloured it gold. In cases like this, it will be up to the in-house team to decide whether to change the text or have the illustration re-coloured.

The proofreader will also be expected to review the readability of the text against the illustrations. It’s often too late for a font style to be changed, but should you feel that words will be difficult to read (for example on a dark sky background), then you can mark this for the designer. You should also mark up where words overlap illustrations or if there is an obvious gap, as text may have fallen out of a text box in the InDesign file or disappeared during conversion to PDF.

In slightly more complicated non-fiction and educational books, the proofreader will need to review photographs alongside the text, asking questions such as ‘Does the image suitably relate to the text?’, ‘Does it convey what the text is explaining?’ and (an especially important one for educational books) ‘Is there a suitably diverse range of genders, ethnicities, abilities and so on?’

Flapping about

Paper-engineered books (books with flaps, pull-out sections etc) are often tricky, as the flap or pull-out is presented to you on a separate page from the page it will be stuck to. Therefore, you will need to marry the two up and ensure that what’s on the front of the flap aligns with what will be under it. As it is two-dimensional, it is sometimes difficult to picture what goes where, especially in large, non-fiction titles with multiple pull-out and lift-up sections. Publishers will not expect you to print out the pages but on the odd occasion it might be helpful to do this if you are finding it difficult to visualise. A second screen can also be helpful in matching up the various engineered elements to their final locations.

Fancy doing some origami?

Activity books may seem, in principle, like a great fun editing job – and a lot of the time they are. However, there is a huge number of elements that need to be checked to ensure that the activities work and children (and adults) won’t get frustrated. (We’ve all been there, where there’s a piece missing or there’s no actual way out of a maze!)

The proofreader must do all the activities to ensure they work. Ask questions such as:

‘Do all the answers to the crossword fit the boxes?’
‘Are all the words present in the wordsearch (and have any naughty words crept in by mistake when it was generated)?’
‘Are there spots to place the stickers and are the stickers all on the corresponding sticker sheet?’
‘Are there definitely six differences between the two images in spot the difference?’
‘Do the origami instructions work?’

… and so on.

Think about time management

A children’s picture book or lift-the-flap book may only have 10–50 words so it would only take about 10 minutes to read. However, the amount of time needed to check the varying elements should be taken into consideration. An activity book might only have a few hundred words, but once the proofreader has checked that every activity works and everything is in place then this will increase the proofreading time estimate.

For the most part, publishers will set their own rate for proofreading work but if you are quoting for a job yourself then don’t work simply from the word count!

Time management is also important regarding how you spread your work out across a week. For example, you may wish to read a picture book two or three times, but over a few days in order to have a slightly fresher eye each time.

Finally, don’t forget the basics!

Checking that activities work and the paper-engineered sections are correct is important, but obviously shouldn’t be to the detriment of checking the basics. Things that so commonly cause problems such as headers, footers, page numbers, copyright information, author and illustrator names, and the title should all be factored into the proofreading time and given as much importance as the ‘fancy stuff’!

About Margaret Milton

Margaret Milton is a proofreader and project manager specialising in educational and children’s non-fiction books. She is a Professional Member of the CIEP and has worked in publishing in-house and freelance for over 15 years.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by Karolina Grabowski, children reading by Mikhail Nilov, both on Pexels.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Providing editorial services to non-profits and businesses

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In this post, Hazel Bird looks at some of the ways in which proofreading and editing for businesses and non-profits differs from working with ‘traditional’ publishers and independent authors.

Ultimately, providing editorial services to a non-profit or business works the same way as providing editorial services to a publisher or independent author: you talk to them about what they want, check that matches what you can deliver and then carry out the work to the brief. But, in reality, working with non-profits and businesses can feel quite different from working with publishers and authors, in terms of both how you do the work and how you interact with your contact.

These tips are based on my experience working primarily with UK and European non-profits operating around the world.

Getting and scheduling the work

The stereotype is that businesses and non-profits will make you jump through endless hoops before they’ll give you any work and then will want their project done yesterday. In my experience, they have a range of onboarding and scheduling practices, just like publishers (who themselves are not immune from ‘hoopery’ and asking for demanding schedules).

But it is certainly true that the larger businesses and non-profits are more likely to require you to go through a procurement or tendering process, where you might submit a bid for a contract and perhaps have an interview. It’s important to find out how your target clients contract work so you can make yourself visible to them – otherwise, if you wait to be contacted by your dream client, you may be waiting a while!

Another key difference is that businesses and non-profits are less likely than publishers and authors to even know that they might benefit from editorial services. As such, some will approach you directly (for example, through the CIEP Directory if you have an entry) but in other cases there is scope for using your contacts and marketing (for example, via social media) to reach clients who might not otherwise come to you naturally.

Understanding your role

I wrote a bit about this topic in an earlier post on moving into a new editorial field. In summary: while businesses and non-profits may have clear ideas of what they want to achieve via editorial work, they may have less of an idea how to achieve this. You may therefore find that your role involves a degree of educational work.

But, at the same time, it’s important not to make assumptions. Some smaller communications teams may be working with an editor for the first time, whereas some global organisations have editorial policies and processes to equal those of any publisher (and vice versa). Ask questions to understand how you will fit in.

Part of asking questions, too, means understanding the nature of the changes you are expected to make. As any editor who has worked outside the traditional publishing workflow knows, ‘proofreading’ for a business or non-profit may be more like traditional copyediting (or even developmental editing!). Conversely, though, when a business or non-profit commissions you to ‘proofread’ their text, they may have an especially restrictive definition of the work – for example, to avoid the document having to go back to a sponsoring body or key stakeholders for a further round of approval.

It’s therefore vital to ask questions to ensure you are comfortable with the level of work required and to avoid doing undesired work.

Matters of style

Businesses and non-profits are increasingly likely to have an in-house style guide of some nature. You might also encounter:

glossaries, which tell you exactly how certain words are allowed to be used
lists of proscribed words or phrases, hopefully with suggested replacements
‘tone tools’, which go into detail about the tone of voice and mode of address that the organisation uses in its communications.

We editors often talk about picking up an author’s tone of voice, but with businesses and non-profits this is more likely to be about picking up the brand’s voice (remember that a brand is not just a commercial thing – most non-profits will consider themselves to have a brand too). Whereas publishers will often be happy for authors to write however they like as long as they stay within the bounds of respectful discourse, businesses and non-profits are more likely to have quite stringent ideas about how their text should ‘feel’.

The good news, though, is that once you’ve absorbed this ‘feel’, it’s a relatively straightforward matter of applying it across all the work you do for the organisation (as opposed to picking up a new voice for each publisher’s author you work with).

Communications and queries

Some businesses and non-profits will follow the traditional three-step pattern where you send them the edited document with queries, the ‘author’ (or a nominated member of the communications team) answers the queries and sends the document back to you, and then you absorb the replies and return a squeaky-clean version ready to be sent to the client’s design team. But, in my experience, it is more likely that businesses and non-profits will request a single-stage service where they simply receive the edited document with your queries and then action them as they see fit, without your input.

If this will be the case, it’s helpful to make your queries extra clear and always offer solutions, to make the client’s tidy-up work as easy as possible. Remember, they may have very little editorial experience and so be unaware of options or approaches you find obvious.

Be prepared, too, for the possibility that your ‘proofread’ may actually be followed by huge revisions – for example, if a non-profit’s policy paper is on a tight schedule and the client decides to get proofreading done while they await revisions from a key stakeholder. If you’re aware in advance of what the revisions might be, you can take account of them in your editing and provide suggestions along the lines of ‘if X changes in Y manner, you might also want to consider changing Z’. But often this is just a case of accepting that your meticulous proofread might not be the end of the road for the document and leaving the door open for the client to request further support later on if they need it.

Completing the work

Some businesses and non-profits have very specific invoicing requirements – for example, to comply with a funder’s auditing schedule – so try to learn any restrictions on timing or formatting requirements (such as level of detail required in the breakdown of tasks) in advance. Some will require you to register on a payment portal or similar. As with working for publishers, it’s a good idea to get hold of the name of a person in the finance department so you can chase overdue invoices directly, if needed.

When it comes to post-project assessment of your work, in my experience this is an area that differs hugely from working with publishers. In a publisher–editor relationship, it’s usually the publisher that is considered the expert (rightly or wrongly!). In contrast, in relationships between editors and businesses or non-profits, it’s more likely that the client will consider you the expert and simply go with whatever you have suggested (unless it is obviously wrong or contrary to the brief). This puts more of a weight of responsibility on your shoulders, so it’s important to feel you have the confidence to make decisions without an editorially trained project manager waiting in the wings to check your work. But if you do have the confidence and appropriate experience, it can be an immensely satisfying way of collaborating with clients.

Embrace the variety!

Given editors’ traditional place within the orbit of publishers, it can be tempting to see businesses and non-profits simply as ‘not publishers’ and lump them together accordingly. However, in reality they can be as diverse in the ways they handle their editorial needs as they are in their focuses and operations. The old adage ‘it depends’ plays out in work with businesses and non-profits, just as it does in all editorial work. As always, the key is to ask questions and check we understand our role.

About Hazel Bird

Hazel offers editorial services that empower non-profits, charities, businesses and authors to confidently share their expertise and impact. An editor since 2009, she aims to see the big picture while pinpointing every detail. She has been described as ‘superhuman’ and a ‘secret weapon’, but until Tony Stark comes calling she’s dedicating her superpowers to text-based endeavours.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: header image by Sean Pollock, diary by JESHOOTS.COM, man with laptop by Headway, all on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Improve your website’s SEO and push it up the search results

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Search engine optimisation (SEO) helps your website climb search engine result pages. In this post, Debbie Emmitt offers easy steps you can take to maximise the chances of your own website being noticed.

I love web data, so SEO is a constant source of fascination to me. That’s why I wrote my book Improve Your Editor Website. But I appreciate not every editor is a web nerd like me! Let me help you make sense of the world of SEO for your own website.

Why bother with SEO?

SEO is a must for any editor or proofreader who takes their online marketing seriously. What’s the point of having a website if no one can find it? Most web users don’t click to Page 2 of Google search results; few look past the top four or five results on Page 1. Do you?

Graph showing decline in click-through rate after Page 1

Graph from Advanced Web Ranking, showing the sharp decline in click-through rate (CTR) after Page 1 of search results, using statistics from August 2022.

The tips in this post will give your website a better chance of making it onto the first page of search results.

1. Write engaging, high-quality content

Google uses AI called RankBrain that notices dwell time (how long people stay on your page) and click-through rate (how many people click through to your page from search results).

Take a few minutes to ponder the following questions, then include the answers in your site content:

How do your services help people?
What do you offer that is unique? This may be connected to your services, to you as a person, or both.
What do more established editors who work on similar content to you include on their site that people may be searching for? (Only use their sites for inspiration; do not copy content under any circumstances. Not only is this highly unprofessional but also all online content is protected by copyright.)

2. Add alt text to images and captions to videos

Your page content needs to be readable by search engine spider bots (bits of code that ‘look’ at your site to determine what it’s about).

To please these critters, add meaningful alt text to your images to accurately describe the image content. Make sure videos have good descriptions, ideally with captions or a transcription, or both.

All this ‘behind-the-scenes’ text serves double duty. Search engines love it, and it boosts the accessibility of your site, as screen readers can only make sense of text-based content.

3. Include relevant keywords in your content

Including the keywords your audience is actively searching for will attract your target users, who are more likely to convert to email sign-ups and enquiries about your services.

Firstly, work out the relevant keywords for your site. What search terms are your visitors using to find your content? What problem or question can you solve?

Keywords to consider for your site are:

your editing or proofreading services (eg genre, topic, level of editing)
your location (clients may prefer a UK-based editor, for example, if they’re writing in British English)
types of English you work with (UK, US, Australian, Canadian, etc).

Next, include these keywords on relevant pages. The higher up the page they appear, the more search engines will take note. If you pinpoint a primary keyword per page and put it in the URL, title and first sentence of that page, this will do you plenty of SEO favours.

However, don’t go overboard and flood your content with repeating keywords. This will make for a poor reading experience and may count against you.

4. Include compelling content in your search engine snippet

The page information in search engine listings is your page title, URL and description. Make these as inviting as possible to encourage people to click.

How to do this? Try this quick bit of research over your next cup of coffee:

Enter a search term people may use to find your site, then look at the Google Ads or sponsored search results (promoted boxes at the top of the page). It can take a few attempts, as ads aren’t available for all search terms.
Notice the keywords in their page titles and descriptions. As people are paying for these spots, the ads you see are probably the winning results of testing and therefore stand the best chance of getting clicks. If there aren’t any Google Ads or sponsored links showing, look at the top search results.
Use similar words in your page titles and descriptions, but be careful not to directly copy the content, and ensure the keywords are relevant to your site.

5. Use inbound, outbound and internal links

All these types of links contribute to SEO.

Inbound links (external sites linking to you)

The higher a site’s quality (and the higher it ranks in Google), the better it is to have a link from it to your site. Steve Napier, SEO consultant, has provided an extensive list of what makes a quality site.

Some ways to attract quality inbound links:

Get active on social media – Include your web address on your social profiles. While a link from Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) is not considered a high-quality link, it creates traffic to your site, which helps your SEO.
Comment (usefully!) on relevant blog posts – Include a link to your site. Make sure it doesn’t come across as shameless marketing, but as a genuinely useful link pertinent to the blog post and/or your comment.
Be a guest blogger – Politely approach the owners of blogs where your target audience hangs out and offer to write a guest post. Make sure a link to your site is included.
Go on podcasts – You can announce your web address on the episode, and it can also feature in the episode blurb on your host’s site and/or in the show notes.

Outbound links (from your site to external sites)

Outbound links, especially high-quality ones, can have a positive effect on your SEO, as proven in research such as this 2020 study by Reboot.

Some tips on using outbound links:

If you have a blog, link out to one to three relevant web pages per post. The external content will ideally expand on ideas you have touched on but haven’t covered in detail. This adds value to your post.
Moderate comments on your posts before publishing them. This will ensure low-quality or spam links aren’t auto-posted to your site and don’t negatively impact your SEO.
Force outbound links to open in a new tab, so if your visitors close that tab, they keep your site open. Simply add target=“blank” to the end of the link in the HTML (code) or tick the box ‘open in new tab’ when creating the link in your content management system (CMS).
Some outbound links can harm your SEO, such as affiliate links. Tell search engines to ignore these links by using the ‘nofollow’ attribute on the link. Either add it to the HTML if you know how to do this or toggle the relevant option in your CMS.

Internal links (between pages on your own site)

These are good for SEO because they encourage people to explore your site and stay longer, which search engines will notice.

This is the easiest link tip to implement because you know your site content, so can easily pinpoint places to add internal links.

6. Optimise your site for mobile

Given the rise in mobile browsing over the past few years, your site must be optimised for mobile if you want to improve your SEO.

Graph showing how mobile usage is significantly greater than desktop

Graph from StatCounter, showing how mobile usage is now significantly greater than desktop.

In July 2022, Google completed its switch to mobile-first for all websites. This means it crawls sites using a smartphone Googlebot, rather than a desktop one. If your site doesn’t display properly on mobile, it will be demoted in Google search results.

Follow these tips to ensure your site doesn’t lose SEO points as far as mobile is concerned:

If your site has a legacy mobile version, remove it and make sure your desktop (default) version is responsive (displays well on mobile and other devices).
Don’t hide content behind a ‘Read more’ drop-down to make your content shorter for mobile users. Search engine spider bots can’t index this hidden content.
Employ a mobile-first attitude. Design for mobile primarily, not as an afterthought. You can check your site for mobile friendliness using Google’s mobile-checking tool.

Other considerations

There are lots of other ways to improve your site’s SEO, including making sure your content is well laid out, easy to navigate and written with the user in mind.

It’s debatable whether frequent updates have a positive impact, so this isn’t worth worrying about if you don’t have a blog or other content that could go out of date. Focus on providing quality content and links rather than worrying about constantly publishing new content.

If you’re now suffering from information overload, please don’t panic! Just work through the tips a day or week at a time, and you’ll see your visitor figures improve.

My book Improve Your Editor Website contains everything you need to know to keep your website appealing to your target readers, looking professional and acting as a friend to search engines. If you find it useful, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Thanks!

A week in the life of a children’s fiction editor and proofreader

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Becky Grace is a freelance children’s fiction editor and proofreader. In this post she describes her unconventional route into the industry and how an average week unfolds.

An unconventional background?

For 15 years I taught politics and sociology in a secondary school in Kent, until I decided it was time for a complete change of career. Considering my teaching specialisms it might have made sense to focus solely on editing and proofreading educational textbooks, but my time in schools – and my additional role as a literacy coordinator – had sparked a passion for children’s literature. With no formal background in publishing and editorial work, I set about retraining with the courses available through the CIEP and fiction-specific courses provided by other editors (Louise Harnby and Sophie Playle have some amazing courses in this area). At the same time I embarked on a masters in publishing.

Changing career and retraining in your forties is quite a daunting prospect but thankfully I wasn’t doing it alone. Quite coincidentally, my sister was going through her own career change and we found we were heading in the same direction. We set up a freelance editorial business with a focus on children’s fiction, and Inky Frog Editorial was born. Our specialisms complement each other perfectly: Jess works with picture books, early reader chapter books and middle grade novels; I focus on middle grade and young adult novels. It is a partnership that works well for us.

As someone completely new to the publishing industry, I honestly found the best thing to do was to throw myself into the CIEP and learn everything I could. I volunteered to coordinate my local CIEP group and have now joined the CIEP’s Learning and Professional Development Committee. From reading fact sheets and guides, to taking the courses and attending the conference (albeit virtually), I have immersed myself in the world of editing and proofreading.

Over the last few years of running the business, I’ve realised that there’s really no such thing as a ‘typical’ week, which is perhaps what I love most about my job. I’ve also discovered that I’m not as unconventional as I thought. Many of the editors and proofreaders I have spoken to have transitioned into this profession from a range of different careers. That’s the beauty of the colleagues I have worked with: everyone brings different experiences, specialisms and strengths to the work they do.

What’s different about proofreading and editing children’s fiction?

Unless you have children or grandchildren of a certain age, it might have been years since you last read a children’s book. Friends will often talk to me about the books they are reading with their child and these books normally fall into one of two categories:

Books the parent read as a child (Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton)
David Walliams

There are obviously exceptions to this rule – and for that we are grateful – but the average adult’s knowledge of today’s literature for children is rather limited. Children’s books today are so vast, diverse and exciting; we are living in a new ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. There is obviously a great deal to be learned from reading the ‘classics’ of our youth (Frances Hodgson Burnett, Philippa Pearce, Alan Garner, LM Montgomery, to name just a few) but the market for children’s books is so very different today, as are the children themselves. Knowing today’s children and the books that they read is vital for any writer of children’s fiction. The first and most important advice we give to anyone we work with is this: read.

At Inky Frog Editorial, Jess and I work with writers who are polishing their manuscript before sending it to agents (or reworking it if the first round of querying wasn’t successful), as well as writers who want to self-publish. Just as with adult fiction, when editing a children’s book we will look at theme, genre, plot, structure, pace, characterisation, dialogue, point of view and more. However, with children’s books, there are additional factors that writers need to be aware of. Does the writer understand the huge difference between books for toddlers, books for early readers, books for tweens, books for teens and books for young adults? This difference shows itself not just in age-appropriate language, but also in age-appropriate content. Do writers understand the mixed market for children’s books? Who are they targeting: the children, their parents, their teachers, school librarians? Is the writer aware of how children’s books have changed since they were a child?

A ‘typical’ week

The week starts with an email from a CIEP colleague who has found my name in the IM Available list (a brilliant resource). She has been contacted by a potential client who is looking for someone to provide a light-touch edit and proofread of their picture book, but the editor’s own calendar is fully booked. Now, picture books are most definitely out of my comfort zone. It would be incorrect to think that editing or proofreading a picture book is easy. Absolutely not. With a children’s picture book – especially one that is being self-published – there is a duty on the part of the author and editor to create a book that is age appropriate in terms of content, tone and language; there should be an understanding of the composition of the page, looking at the relationship and interaction between words and pictures and the use of space on the page. And don’t even get me started on picture books that rhyme! (Or are meant to rhyme.) But perhaps the hardest thing to master with a picture book is telling a full, rounded, engaging story in under a thousand words. With her masters in children’s publishing, Jess is perfect for a job like this. I make the introductions and hand the project over.

I then turn to a scheduling discussion with one of my regular clients, an author of fantasy adventure middle grade novels. The second book in the current series is due to be ready for a proofread in the next couple of weeks and I need to check that we are still on course for the dates I have put aside. If my workflow needs to be amended it will be helpful to know this in advance. This client is self-publishing rather than pursuing the traditional publishing route, and we have consulted with her previously on matters beyond editing and proofreading, such as writing a series, cover design, marketing and promotion, and more.

My next meeting of the week is an interesting one. A word-of-mouth recommendation from an existing client, this is a new writer who is part-way through a crime procedural novel. Crime procedural? I hear you ask. That’s not for children! Correct. This client is indeed writing for adults (although children definitely love a good murder mystery) and while we market Inky Frog Editorial specifically at writers of children’s fiction, I also work on adult fiction. The client isn’t hiring me for a full edit or proofread, she is instead looking for some advice and guidance on her story ideas. Her goal is to enter her work-in-progress to a crime fiction competition. We talk about plot, structure, pace, action, suspense, characterisation and how to write a synopsis. She has some fantastic ideas and I can see the beginnings of a great story.

Although not specifically in the realms of editing and proofreading, we also offer a book coaching service. One of my longest-standing clients is currently writing a historical dual narrative and our coaching session is the last appointment of the week.

The ‘extra’ jobs

My working week generally involves far more than working directly with clients. I deal with the usual admin jobs of quoting and invoicing, accounts, emails and blog writing. I am sourcing guest bloggers for my website, one of whom has written an outstanding piece on the subject of branding and design for authors. I am also launching a literary festival in my town with a team of book enthusiasts, and I spend much of my time in conversation with authors, publicists, sponsors and venue owners, taking on more of a project and event management role.

I am also a firm believer in continually improving my skills and staying up to date with developments in the world of children’s fiction. To this end I recently attended a writing workshop with award-winning children’s author Lucy Strange. While this course is targeted at beginning writers (of course I want to write a children’s book!) it is also invaluable CPD for a children’s book editor.

I regularly take on work outside the realms of fiction. With my background in education, I am happy to take on proofreading and copyediting work in the education sector, both on websites and in course materials. It’s important to know your limitations and when it is best to pass on work to a colleague, but it’s also important to have confidence in your past experience, your range of abilities and to recognise all of your strengths.

About Becky Grace

Becky Grace is a children’s fiction editor and proofreader, working on all genres and specialising in middle grade and YA fiction. Prior to training as an editor and proofreader, Becky was a teacher for 15 years, a career that ignited her passion for children’s fiction.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by Picsea, girl reading by Johnny McClung, girl choosing a book by Suad Kamardeen, all on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Working together

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One of the CIEP’s greatest strengths is its collegiality and mutual support. This extends to our members helping each other to find and succeed in work. Here are six ways we do this.

Advising and encouraging
Sharing information
Supporting each other’s work
Sharing opportunities
Employing each other
Working collectively

1. Advising and encouraging

The CIEP’s online member forums include a Newbie forum, where less experienced members can introduce themselves and ask questions about any aspect of being an editorial professional. These first questions often concern the best way to go about finding work. More experienced members respond with advice, encouragement and tips. These responses tend to reflect the same key themes:

Get trained, so you have the knowledge and confidence to offer your services.
Join a CIEP local group – in-person or online.
Check out CIEP resources, including our fact sheets and guides. These are free to members.
Think about how you will market yourself, including identifying the area of editing you will concentrate on. This might reflect your existing expertise (a field you’ve worked in, perhaps) or even your personal interests (for example a hobby like gardening or cookery).
Don’t limit yourself, either. If you have trained in proofreading, consider adding copyediting to your training plan. This is because sometimes a client will ask you to ‘proofread’ a document which also needs elements of copyediting to get it ready for publication.
Tell everyone you know that you are setting yourself up as an editorial professional. This may get you your first clients.
Use the ‘search’ function to find similar threads in our forums – there is already lots of advice there. There’s also a pinned post near the top of the Newbie forum, ‘Newbie FAQs and Collated Wisdom from CIEP Members’, that includes invaluable tips and suggests some great resources for when you’re starting out as an editor or proofreader.

2. Sharing information

Within the CIEP member forums, information is shared about all sorts of editing- and proofreading-related subjects, from tax rules and software glitches to the use of commas. But CIEP members who aren’t registered for our forums can also benefit from the wisdom and experience of other members. Most of our fact sheets and all of our guides are written by CIEP members. The information in these resources aims to equip our members for work, from setting up a freelance business and getting your first clients to editing in specialist areas like scientific articles, cookery books and legal publishing.

Many of the topics covered in our bank of resources are explored at a deeper level in our range of training courses which, again, are designed and delivered by CIEP members.

And there’s more information in our vast collection of blogs which are overwhelmingly written by CIEP members. Our blogs cover almost every editing-related subject, many of which are related to gaining work. Use the ‘search’ function to see what you can find. The Flying Solo series, written by Sue Littleford, author of the Going Solo guide, is particularly useful if you’re just starting out.

3. Supporting each other’s work

Suzanne Arnold and Nadine Catto met through the CIEP London group during lockdown and realised that they lived round the corner from each other. Nadine says: ‘We started meeting up with a few other editors and have all become great friends. As Suzanne and I live very near, we often go for walks together. We have collaborated on a few work projects as well.’ Friendship and work combine, as Suzanne describes: ‘It is a regular (and very valuable) sounding-board thing and sometimes even a bit of informal accountability. But it’s not structured or planned – it’s two friends bouncing ideas around and sharing links to online resources etc and the “agenda” is very driven by what’s going on in our lives on any particular day.’ The connections created by their local group help them both. Suzanne says: ‘There’s a lot of informal help behind the scenes – on a more mundane level, too, such as messaging saying “does this sentence look right to you?” And that often involves the wider group of CIEP friends who live locally.’ Sometimes this informal help extends to pet-sitting: Suzanne feeds Nadine’s cat when she’s on holiday.

In contrast to this more informal growth of connections within a larger formal group, some CIEP members decide to set up their own small accountability groups. In a CIEP blog, ‘Accountability groups: What? Where? Why?’, Eleanor Abraham says: ‘It’s good to have other perspectives, but sometimes you don’t want 150 slightly different opinions, but rather the chance to talk things through with people you trust and respect.’ Eleanor’s group has an hour-long meeting each month, which suits the busy lives of its members; Erin Brenner’s accountability group has a monthly goals check-in and in-person and online retreats. Erin writes: ‘We’ll refer each other for work and collaborate on projects. Some of us have even partnered for new business ventures, and we regularly discuss opportunities to do so.’

4. Sharing opportunities

From recommending other people for work to advertising jobs they can’t themselves take, CIEP members often share work opportunities with each other. This happens on our member forums: on the Marketplace forum and local group forums in particular.

As Erin’s accountability group does, many members also recommend colleagues who possess the skills a client will need. Most people who have been editing or proofreading for a while have had the experience of being asked to suggest someone else if they’re too busy to take a job. Directories can help here. The CIEP has a directory of Professional and Advanced Professional Members, but some of our local groups also have their own directories of CIEP members which list their experience and specialisms. It also helps to pre-empt clients’ requests for recommendations to develop our own list of editors we would happily recommend if we can’t do a job.

5. Employing each other

A step beyond recommending our colleagues is employing them to do something for us. In ‘Reflections on the self-publishing process’, Kia Thomas describes commissioning two other CIEP members to help her publish her own novel, and they in turn report on the experience. The project went so well that Kia is planning to use the same team for her second novel.

Kia went about finding Judith Leask, her editor, ‘not just a good editor, but the right one for me’, by ‘asking CIEP members who were looking for more experience in fiction to put themselves forward for the job’. It can be a great approach to work with other editors who are at this stage of their career – for you as a ‘client’ and for the person you’ve asked to do the job. Judith says: ‘Being chosen by Kia to edit her novel was very exciting, because I knew I’d learn a huge amount from her, and that turned out to be true.’

The CIEP has a system for encouraging its members to work with other members who are keen to gain more experience: IM Available. This is a list, refreshed every fortnight, that includes any Intermediate CIEP members who are available for work, with details of their training, skills and experience, so that other CIEP members can employ them – to edit or proofread their own writing or to help with a surplus of client work.

6. Working collectively

Another way to deal with work that is too much for one editor or proofreader is to work in a partnership or a larger collective.

One such collective is Editing Globally, which, through six editorial professionals, spans the globe’s time zones but also the full range of tasks related to getting a publication produced: manuscript evaluations, project management, translation, developmental editing, line editing, fact-checking, copyediting and proofreading, formatting and design. This 24/7, end-to-end service can make it easier for a client to hit a tight deadline. Janet MacMillan, one of the editors in Editing Globally, is a fan of team working:

Editorial teams come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from a team like Global Editing to informal, ad hoc, two-person teams who work together to complete a job over a timescale that would be impossible for one person. I value being able to work with trusted colleagues, whose expertise and knowledge I learn from, and I believe that learning makes me the editor that I am. No matter the size or shape of the team, being able to work with others expands an editor’s knowledge and skills.

Make the most of the editorial community

Freelance editing and proofreading can be lonely work. It pays off – sometimes literally – to reach out to your professional community. If you want some more ideas about how to do this, download our fact sheet ‘Making the most of the editorial community’, which is free for CIEP members.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: hands together by Hannah Busing on Unsplash; two women working together by CoWomen on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Flying solo: The perpetual, invisible interview

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In this month’s Flying Solo column, Sue Littleford gives plenty of advice on how editorial freelancers can find more work (and make themselves more findable).

As a long-time recruiter in my previous, salaried life, I’ve not been surprised to see many stories in the media over the last few years about recruiters not hiring the person who’s objectively best for the job. Instead, they hire the person they like the most, or the person that’s most like them, or who seems to best ‘fit’ the culture, or presents as probably the least risky.

It’s the same with freelancers.

As we do our networking on social media, and our cold-emailing, and even our networking in person, we don’t necessarily know who is in the market for our services right now, at the moment we show up in their feed or their inbox or their face.

Unless we’re responding to a job ad, or there is unusually helpful information about their freelancer pool on their website, we won’t know exactly what gap the people we’re targeting as potential clients are trying to fill in their roster.

In the week I started work on this post, I attended a most excellent and timely webinar with LinkedIn expert Louise Brogan, of which more later.

I’ve also just reviewed Brittany Dowdle and Linda Ruggeri’s Networking for Freelance Editors Workbook: Practical Strategies for Networking Success, which is well worth a look if you’re all at sea about how to market yourself on social media, at in-person events or via your website.

Let’s run through some questions to ask yourself when you’re looking for work.

Who do I want to work for?

There’s actually a wrong answer to this, and that’s ‘anyone and everyone’. Even if you’re brand new to freelance editing and proofreading, you need to be selective, otherwise you’ll have a painful time trying to work out your marketing message.

Need an illustration? How many fish-finger ads do you see in the high-fashion glossy magazines? How many haute couture fashion houses advertise in trade magazines for the fishing industry?

Those are rather crude examples, true, but I’ve made my point: everyone eats, everyone wears clothes, but they don’t eat the same things, nor do they wear the same things, and if they’re reading about their part of the food industry, they don’t want people pushing their fancy frocks and vertiginous heels.

The people seeing misplaced ads are not receptive to the message.

So – who will be receptive to your message? Publishers, packagers, indie authors, businesses, NGOs, educational establishments, students? What kind of publisher, packager, indie author, business, NGO, educational establishment, student?

Where do my ideal clients hang out?

It’s no use being a whizz on App A if your clients are mostly on Apps B and C.

It’s no use relying on word-of-mouth and recommendations until you have a solid enough client base to generate sufficient work for you this way.

What groups can you join on social media that your ideal clients already populate?

A targeted approach to displaying your wares in front of the right people will generate more leads than the scattergun method of pitching up anywhere and yelling about how great an editor or proofreader you are to people who simply aren’t listening.

How do I reach my ideal clients?

That’s an ‘it depends’ if ever there was one!

When you know where they are, through browsing social media actually looking for them, for instance, you have to get in front of them.

Good marketing isn’t cringy. It’s presenting a possible solution to people who have the kinds of problems you’re able to solve, and letting them know you’re there.

Happily, marketing ideas have moved on a great deal and the notion of ‘selling at’ people thankfully seems to be debunked, because that idea is at the root, I think, of a lot of people’s discomfort with getting themselves out there and noticed.

On social media, the emphasis now is on having conversations. Authentic, genuine conversations.

Start following the companies and the people you’d like to work for, and register for alerts for when they post. Comment on their posts, don’t just hit a reaction emoji button. Converse with them. Move up to connecting with them more closely (if that’s how the particular platform works), when the time seems right. Keep yourself in their eyeline by being responsive, friendly, knowledgeable and genuine.

I say to follow the companies and the people – but remember that the companies are made up of people. There’s a person on the other end of their social media, their employees frequently have their own personal social media accounts. Companies don’t buy from companies; people buy from people. People read your cold emails (or don’t, but that’s another issue), people read your posts and your comments and form a view about whether you could help them out.

Social media – content marketing – is a slow burn. And that’s why you have to show up consistently, and reasonably frequently, so that you’re nudging potential clients to notice you. Once you have some kind of relationship going, you might then choose to message or email that person, but never do that as soon as you’ve made your first connection. That’s selling at people! It’s transactional, not conversational, and it’s self-serving, not a genuine relationship.

Cold-calling and cold-emailing

Ditch the cold-calling. Potential clients are unlikely to want to drop whatever they’re in the middle of and prioritise your wants. Email, instead.

If you want to work for publishers, the annual Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is your friend, for UK- and Ireland-based clients. There’s also a Yearbook for children’s publishers. If you know of similar publications in other territories, do please let us know using the comments.

Use the Yearbook, plus the companies’ websites and social media to figure out who you should contact. If you’re still in doubt about who runs their freelancer pool, call the switchboard and ask for a name (make sure you get the spelling right!) and an email address.

Keep your email short and to the point, though never brusque, of course. Explain who you are, what you can do and how you can help. Adapt your CV to the client, so the subject matter that the client publishes heads your list of specialities. Remove distractions that make you look like a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

How can I be findable?

If your ideal clients are indie authors, it’ll be more a matter of them finding you rather than you finding them.

This is where content marketing and social media are strongly in play. Hang out in writers’ groups – the right kind of writers’ groups. If you work in romance, maybe give the sci-fi crowd a miss. They’ll not be receptive to your message. Again, no hard-selling. Solve problems, give advice, be visible and be findable.

Pay attention to your profile details in social media (that applies to everyone, no matter who your ideal client is); include current contact details. Make it tremendously easy for people to contact you via your website and any online listings you may have.

Use your website to showcase your abilities and describe the problems you solve for your clients. Make your website about your ideal client, not about you. What is your ideal client looking for? Write about that. Be smart around SEO.

What should I write about?

Louise Brogan gave me some brilliant ideas in that webinar I mentioned up near the start of this post.

Start typing a question about editing into Google (this works with other search engines, too). What autofills? What appears in the list of questions people ask, or related searches that will appear right at the bottom of the first page of hits?

What questions are people asking in their comments on relevant podcasts, YouTube videos or in social media threads? Ask non-editor friends what questions they have about your job.

Look at other editors’ websites to see what they have in their FAQ sections; look at the public-facing content the Institute puts out to generate ideas for your own posts and blog articles. What are the comments about on Amazon’s gazillions of writing and editing books?

Answer those questions.

It doesn’t matter that every other editor has already answered them. The potential client is reading your post, your comment right now. Not your competitors’. And if they then go and look at your competitors, they may prefer your take on the solution to their own problem, or the way you express yourself, or how friendly and approachable you look to them in your profile pic. Or do you want your potential clients to come to your website, or your other online profiles, and find tumbleweed?

How quickly will all this work?

Finding work is a long haul, especially when you’re getting started, so if you have any specialist expertise, use that to get your first few jobs, even if that subject matter is not something you want to keep on with.

And because it’s a long haul, start your social media presence and begin working on your website as soon as you can. Don’t put it off until you feel ready to launch yourself on the world, fully formed as a professional editor or proofreader. Start small and grow, test out what kinds of posts get noticed, and which don’t. Get used to making time every week, if not every day, for some kind of marketing activity.

Remember that the best time to do your marketing is when you feel you’re too busy to make the time to do it. Leaving it until you have done all your work and really need some more, right now, is a truly bad idea.

In summary

To shine in your perpetual, invisible interview, be findable, be you, be genuine, be helpful, be knowledgeable. You never know who is looking, when, nor exactly what they’re looking for. Even when you’re in an editors-only online space, you don’t know who is looking to subcontract a piece of work. Spend time on your socials (the relevant ones!) and your website. Keep things fresh and current.

People do want their books and articles and marketing materials and annual reports to look good and reflect well on them. You can help them with that, can’t you? Go tell them!

Resources

Brittany Dowdle and Linda Ruggeri’s Networking for Freelance Editors Workbook: Practical Strategies for Networking Success

John Espirian’s Content DNA

Louise Harnby’s several books on content marketing and finding work

Sara Hulse’s Marketing Yourself: Strategies to promote your editorial business

Sue Littleford’s Going Solo: Creating your freelance editorial business

About Sue Littleford

Sue Littleford is the author of the CIEP guide Going Solo, now in its second edition. She went solo with her own freelance copyediting business, Apt Words, in March 2007 and specialises in scholarly humanities and social sciences.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: header image by Edar on Pixabay, fashion magazine by Cleo Vermij on Unsplash, writing by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Mind the flaps!

When is a book not a book?

Less can be more … when it comes to mistakes

Reading order

Consider the reader

Diversity and inclusion

Don’t neglect the pictures

Marking up

About Liz Dalby

About the CIEP

CIEP guides and resources

Getting to know the market

Support for writers, editors and publishers

Encouraging diversity

Producing picture books

Ensuring age appropriateness

About the CIEP

Using the picture book format

How to use page turns

Adding page turns to a manuscript

About Lisa Davis

About the CIEP

Using my education background

Supporting indie authors

Finding the right package

Helping to find an illustrator

Building the book

Offering sympathetic support

Considering the author’s marketing strategy

Resources for editors

About Annie Deakins

About the CIEP

Words, words, words (or not!)

A picture paints a thousand words

Flapping about

Fancy doing some origami?

Think about time management

Finally, don’t forget the basics!

About Margaret Milton

About the CIEP

Getting and scheduling the work

Understanding your role

Matters of style

Communications and queries

Completing the work

Embrace the variety!

About Hazel Bird

About the CIEP

Why bother with SEO?

1. Write engaging, high-quality content

2. Add alt text to images and captions to videos

3. Include relevant keywords in your content

4. Include compelling content in your search engine snippet

5. Use inbound, outbound and internal links

Inbound links (external sites linking to you)

Outbound links (from your site to external sites)

Internal links (between pages on your own site)

6. Optimise your site for mobile

Other considerations

Related content

About Debbie Emmitt

About the CIEP

An unconventional background?

What’s different about proofreading and editing children’s fiction?

A ‘typical’ week

The ‘extra’ jobs

About Becky Grace

About the CIEP

2. Sharing information

Make the most of the editorial community

About the CIEP

Who do I want to work for?

Where do my ideal clients hang out?

How do I reach my ideal clients?

Cold-calling and cold-emailing

How can I be findable?

What should I write about?

How quickly will all this work?

In summary

Resources