Category Archives: Working practices

A week in the life of an ELT editor and project manager

Editor and project manager Derek Philip-Xu shares with us the ins and outs of his varied week in the world of English language teaching (ELT) editing, where he focuses on producing digital content for publishers.

My route into publishing

I’ve been involved in ELT and publishing for over 20 years now, but I initially started off my work life as a chartered surveyor. That was a career path I followed for seven years before deciding to take a career break. I wasn’t keen on backpacking, but my sister’s suggestion of teaching English abroad sparked my interest. While she was thinking that it would be good for me to travel the world and gain valuable work experience, she was also hoping to visit me for nice holidays somewhere in Europe.

In 2003, following completion of my CELTA (Certificate in English Language to Speakers of Other Languages), I moved to Japan to teach for a year. This was not because I didn’t want family visits, but there was something about Japanese culture and the way of life that I found quite captivating. A year out turned into five years, followed by two years teaching in Spain and then six years in China. My time in China saw me move from teaching into publishing, developing both print and digital materials for young learners. When I returned to the UK, I continued working in publishing, specifically on digital ELT materials.

Why the focus on digital content?

I have always believed that digital products are an important part of a publisher’s course offering. They are not just a free add-on, as I have sometimes heard them described. They take time and effort to produce and, as was seen throughout the pandemic, offer teachers and students the opportunity to continue their classroom activities – albeit in a slightly different format than before. Digital ELT content continues to offer flexibility in the form of micro-learning and bite-sized learning. Students can practise their English wherever they are and whenever they want, providing them with a degree of control and choice that wasn’t available when I started out.

So, what is a typical week?

Well, is there such a thing as a typical week? Probably not, which is quite nice as it keeps things fresh and interesting. Generally, I start off the week with an overview of the tasks I need to get through. I use a handy business and project management app called Notion to organise my workload into projects, to-do lists and due dates. It quickly gets me into the work mindset, setting me up for the week ahead.

If I’m lucky enough to come into a project right from the very beginning, there will be a project kick-off meeting scheduled at some point. For example, one of my clients has asked me to join the project team as a content editor for a digital component the client is developing. I’ll be making sure the content that is written follows the brief, is pedagogically sound and is generally fit for purpose.

Project kick-off meetings, whether I’m the project lead or part of the project team, are an excellent way of ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Sometimes aspects of the project have not yet been decided on, such as the overall platform design, and these meetings are a good way of communicating those known issues but also assuaging any uncertainties that team members might have. They are a good opportunity to start building rapport with the rest of the team, ask any questions, present any doubts and generally get up to speed with the project and its documentation.

Project update meetings follow on from the kick-off meeting and can range from quick 15-minute weekly catch-ups to longer meetings once or twice a month. Project management is a lot about communication but also involves information gathering, and project update meetings are a useful tool for that. It is vital that the correct people have the most up-to-date information so that the project can proceed smoothly. In my project update meetings, we are looking at changes to the schedule to bring forward the go-live date, as well as interrogating the existing publishing workflow to ensure that it fits with the schedule and the budget.

My publishing work as a digital commissioning editor has set me up well for dealing with project management tasks, and, indeed, there are many crossovers (such as scheduling, briefing and budgeting). I am currently building on that knowledge through studying with the Association for Project Management. Nevertheless, having worked with publishing workflows for many years, and understanding the bottlenecks and pinch points that invariably crop up, it has become easier to anticipate and, therefore, deal with such issues.

Editing work

One of my regular jobs is working as editor of Voices, the flagship magazine of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL). This is a mix of editorial and project management work. For project management, this involves setting schedules and ensuring that authors and contributors submit their articles by the specified deadlines and generally progress everything through the workflow in a timely manner.

The editorial part of the work involves me liaising with the authors, providing advice and feedback on their work. This is a very satisfying part of the job as I get to speak regularly with IATEFL members from all over the world, helping them with their articles on a wide range of ELT-related subjects. Many of the authors are writing in their second language, which is no easy feat. I aim to guide them through the publishing process by first asking them to submit a short outline of their article which I can provide feedback on. This provides the author with a foundation upon which to start writing their article in more depth. There can be regular check-in points just to make sure that good progress is being made and to resolve any potential issues. Once submitted, I give the article an initial edit before sending it off to the copyeditor.

This culminates in the proofing stages, where I get to work closely with the designer and the copyeditor, checking to ensure that everything is in the correct place. One important aspect of our work is our desire to make the publication more accessible. This has involved checking the fonts and font sizes used throughout and updating to sans serif fonts, to improve readability. We are also looking at including alternative (alt) text descriptions for images which can be read by screen readers.

Running my business

I do not particularly like the term ‘freelancer’ because it sounds so temporary; I am a self-employed business owner. Although the projects I take on may last a few months or maybe only a few weeks, there is nothing temporary about the business I am running. While I have to work on my project tasks, such as the content editing and project management (the money makers), I do also have to spend time during the week on business admin and other similar tasks.

Jobs will not come in if people do not know you or what you do. So, there has to be some element of networking to increase my business visibility and online presence. Although I’ve gotten better at networking over the years, it’s not something I particularly like doing. Nevertheless, going to the IATEFL conference as well as the ELT Publishing Professionals Freelancers’ Awayday is invaluable (and fun).

Concentrating on the likes of your accounts from a business health standpoint as well as increasing your visibility as a business has an impact on your project pipeline. It is important to ensure that you plan ahead and know how much time you have available throughout the coming months and, potentially, for the year ahead. Some projects will tide you over for a few months, with others being more short term. With increased visibility, you may often be contacted at short notice to see if you are available to take on work. I have my time-tracking spreadsheet at the ready to see exactly how much time I have available and when.

Running

My week wouldn’t be complete without a few runs around Maidenhead, where I live. I’ve been involved with Maidenhead Athletic Club for around six years now, most recently as the club’s chair. Getting out and about for a run, no matter how fast or slow, is a great way to wind down after a busy day. Running is great for alleviating stress and anxiety, and for rooting you in the present. I’d definitely recommend it after a busy day of project management and editing.

About Derek Philip-Xu

Derek Philip-Xu left his native Scotland in 2003 to teach English in Japan and Spain before moving into school management and publishing while in China. On moving back to the UK in 2016, he continued working in ELT publishing, specialising in digital content development and commissioning. Derek is now self-employed, managing his business Refreshing Publishing, which offers digital content development, publishing project management and editorial services.

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: desktop by Pexels on Pixabay; team meeting by fauxels on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Talking tech: Note-taking

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A key part of any training and CPD we undertake is taking notes that we can look back on for reference. But which is best: good old pen and paper, or modern apps? Andy Coulson contrasts and compares.

I am an unashamed paper note-taker. There is something about using paper and a pen or pencil that just feels better. I think the physical action of writing is a part of it: research in education and psychology suggests there is a link between handwriting and memory formation. There is certainly research around the cognitive benefits of handwritten note-taking (for example, Mueller and Oppenheimer’s ‘The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking’). I’ve tried various digital solutions and they just don’t quite cut it for me, but they might be preferred by some.

Why make notes?

Note-taking is a key study skill students use to record key information about a topic and create something they can then review and learn from. Many university websites offer good note-taking guides, for example the University of Reading and the Open University. Cornell University goes a step further and has its own note-taking system, summarised here.

All these have a few things in common: notes are short-form text, summarising key points to act as reminders; they should ask or stimulate questions about the topic; and they should allow the student to accurately review the material later.

Paper notes: The pros and cons

I think one of the things that I like about paper notes is that they don’t have to have a fixed structure: if they capture the key information in a way that allows you to understand and recall it, then they work. Handwritten notes can include marking up or annotating printouts (for example, with a highlighter or marginal notes); creating a structured outline using nested bullets, diagrams, tables and graphs, and mind maps or spider diagrams; or mostly graphical approaches like Sketchnotes. If you are anything like me, your notes end up with a mix of different things – sometimes a doodle or sketch catches an idea, and sometimes words are enough.

While handwritten notes have an advantage in helping us to understand and remember what we are learning, organising them can be more difficult. The more formal and structured systems, such as Cornell’s, encourage you to review and rewrite notes to help understand and retain the information. Using paper this is a slow job, but again it is all helping the information sink into your brain – it is a part of the learning process. By contrast, we have got used to storing everything and quickly searching for it with reasonable accuracy in the digital world. So, do the digital alternatives offer us a real advantage by managing the organisation?

The digital app alternatives

Three popular digital note-taking apps are Microsoft’s OneNote, Google Keep and Evernote. The first two are freely available with a Windows, Office or a Google account. Evernote has a feature-limited free version, and paid versions with varying degrees of sophistication. All three of them also have mobile apps that link to the desktop or web app, allowing you to sync your notes across devices. I’ve used both Evernote and OneNote and they are both very comprehensive programs. They do slightly different jobs, but there is a big crossover in the middle.

Evernote is particularly good at grabbing content from sources such as web pages and, with a paid plan, you can add markup to these. Information is organised as pages, referred to as ‘notes’, that can be grouped in notebooks and linked. When you create notes there are a lot of templates you can use, including a Cornell Notes-specific one. In a note, you can add text or images, and a wide variety of other material. The editing screen is quite similar to Word or Google Docs, with material added in a linear up/down fashion as you would in Word. There are also features to create checklists and a link to Google Calendar, allowing Evernote to work as a capable task manager as well as a note manager.

OneNote supports most of the same features as Evernote. One big difference is the much more freeform way that you can add things to a note (or ‘section’ in OneNote terminology) where blocks of text or images are not fixed in a linear flow like they are in Word. For example, when you add text to a page, say a paragraph or bullet list, you add it as a box. These boxes can be moved around on the page in relation to each other, making the structure of your notes very easy to reorganise. There are a lot of quick formatting options that help you to highlight and flag elements in the text, such as ‘tickable’ to-do list bullets, highlighted styles for definitions or things to remember for later, and icons for phone numbers or email addresses.

By contrast, Google Keep is a much simpler app and to my mind is more like a digital block of sticky notes. You create text notes with a more limited range of features, including embedding images. The clever bit is that you can add labels like those Gmail uses, to group and organise those notes.

I think OneNote gets closest to the flexibility of handwritten notes, and I can imagine that with a tablet and stylus it gets even closer. However, I don’t think any of these quite replace the functionality and convenience of a pad and pen; for me, at least.

As I mentioned earlier, part of the learning process is to review and perhaps rewrite your notes. Perhaps a hybrid option is to treat that rewrite as a good point to digitise your notes, particularly if you want them to be digitally searchable in future.

A reMarkable solution?

There is one more technical solution that might offer the best of both worlds. The reMarkable tablet aims to provide a paper-like experience on a digital tablet. It incorporates handwriting recognition so handwritten text can be converted to computer text, allowing it to be searched. The reMarkable system uses a folder system, just like your PC or Mac, and can sync documents with popular file storage services like Google Drive. There is also a desktop program that allows you to access and organise all your notes on your PC or Mac. The downside is of course the cost (around £300), but it is comparable to a mid-range phone or tablet, and this could be a really useful tool for many people.

About Andy Coulson

Andy Coulson is a reformed engineer and primary teacher, and a Professional Member of the CIEP. He is a copyeditor and proofreader specialising in STEM subjects and odd formats like LaTeX.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Kelly Sikkema, handwriting by Eleni Koureas, computer keyboard by Sergi Kabrera on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

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

What might the future of AI mean for editors and proofreaders?

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We asked five editors to give us their views on how they think AI might affect their work in the future (while acknowledging that none of them owns a crystal ball). Here are their thoughts…

Hazel Bird

Back in January, I wrote on The Wordstitch Blog that I don’t believe AI will ever replace human editors – and (spoiler alert) AI agreed with me. Nothing I’ve seen since then has changed my opinion.

I certainly think AI will have an impact by shifting how editors work. I suspect there will be a natural migration away from the less judgement-based work of ‘error checking’ towards the more nuanced, involved work of refining and enhancing text (although this doesn’t necessarily mean that I think traditional proofreaders will be out of a job; proofreading is about much more than ‘error checking’ and requires intensely refined judgement at a point in the editorial workflow where the scope for changes is often very limited).

Overall, in the long term I believe AI will have a positive (or at worst neutral) effect on our work. I believe it will do this by allowing us to be more efficient and thereby freeing us up to provide more of the gloriously messy human mix of spontaneity and personal experience that leads to great creative collaborations (remember: ChatGPT et al. cannot truly create; all they can do is predict based on what they have learned from text that already exists).

My view is that the most important thing for us to do as editors is to educate ourselves about AI. If you’re like me, reading about its new (and ever-increasing) capabilities involves a lot of mental flinching. But it’s important to set aside this fear and learn how to work with AI. If we ignore its possibilities, we only increase our chances of being replaced. In contrast, if we make it a part of our team, we might just gain a whole new lease of life in our respective businesses. We might be able to focus more on the meaningful editing we love, supported by our very own AI-powered editorial assistant.

Most of all I believe that, when it comes to the quintessentially human activity of communication, ultimately humans will always prefer to work with other humans.

Sue Littleford

AI reminds me of the early days of Covid. We all know we’re facing something big – so big it may even be an existential threat (especially for editorial professionals) – and so we all want answers, but those answers simply don’t exist, yet. We have to wait for things to unfold, but as we’re so closely affected, we’re grappling at the margins of knowledge and speculation to try to get ahead of the curve.

My own view is that AI as an editing tool is, at present, pretty poor in my niche (scholarly humanities and social sciences). At present. As I write, the news has come that ChatGPT can now access the internet. Not great – it’s a move from inventing ‘facts’ to melding together an almighty mess, as it still won’t be able to distinguish between fake news, error, unfounded opinion and truth. People can’t! I imagine it will improve quickly but not so far as to replace us editors. Computers were, and are, pretty dumb things and language is a hugely complex thing to codify. The learning they do through AI is just following patterns – but who knows what trawling the internet will add to their output? Regulation will be essential.

However, AI bots will help unconfident writers, for whom getting a simple message across simply and clearly is important, rather than literary style. I suspect they’ll be better at utilitarian language than at artistry. I also suspect there’ll be a rise in mediocre writing, as people accept AI’s input without the ability to judge it for themselves and be selective.

Accordingly, I’m ensuring my marketing efforts remain focused on the quality end of the client base, targeting people and organisations who understand that AI isn’t an easy, cheap replacement for the human mind.

I’ll be asking clients about their AI policies and thinking about what additional clauses to include in my own T&Cs.

John Ingamells

At the CIEP conference, a colleague said that he had experimented with ChatGPT.

His conclusion was that it was ‘good, but not great’. This immediately brought to mind the instruction I well remember from my first proofreading course – the idea of learning when things are ‘good enough’. We would all love to produce perfect work every time. But often budgets and time constraints lead us to that ‘good enough’ conclusion.

It struck me that this could well be the niche that AI fills for the foreseeable future. The polished prose of literary fiction, the pinpoint accuracy needed in legal and commercial material – these are things that will probably be beyond AI for some time to come. But the world of ‘good enough’ is surely there for the taking. So much content nowadays is produced to tight deadlines and is only expected to have a short shelf life. Being able to get something usable far more quickly is bound to be attractive to a lot of people. How much of that sort of material is currently being put through editors and proofreaders is open to debate. So the impact on our profession may not be as bad as some fear. But the need for us all to demonstrate the value of our work and how it is worth paying for will only increase. Perhaps on our websites we now don’t just need a ‘Services I offer’ tab, but a ‘Services I offer that AI can’t’ tab as well!

Erin Brenner

I run Right Touch Editing, an agency primarily serving small and mid-sized organisations. Our clients produce reports, marketing materials, and similar business-related copy, and they generally don’t have devoted writers on staff. Many projects are written collectively by staffers who have a lot of other tasks to do every day.

It’s easy to see how AI tools can help them get these projects done. They can brainstorm, outline, and write rough drafts quickly with the right prompts. And the output can be helpful – up to a point. We’ve all heard stories of AI tools making up details. They’re mediocre at best when it comes to writing and editing, even with well-written prompts.

But this is where my team and I come in. As the writing experts for our clients, we’re key to understanding these tools and using them successfully. We can help clients use these time-saving tools to get the results they’re looking for. I see us performing heavier-than-usual edits on copy that AI has helped produce. Being aware of its weaknesses means we can edit for those weaknesses. For those clients with a little more budget, we can work directly with an AI tool to develop the content and then revise and edit it to a professional standard.

These tools aren’t going away. Of course, we need to be wary, ensuring that we’re using them ethically, but we can’t ignore them. By becoming the experts on how and when to use AI tools, we can guide our clients to better, more ethical usage.

Andrew Hodges

Overall, I’m excited about generative AI’s possibilities but angry at how authors’ and artists’ work (including my own book) has been exploited in datasets to train them. Better protections for authors must be established. But generative AI (when developed responsibly) could save lots of time on copyedits by creating macros and doing jobs like reference list formatting etc.

In the medium term, I expect a small drop in the number of human editors needed, as more work will involve reviewing AI-assisted edits. I expect this will happen quickly for proofreading of PDF proofs.

Since I set up my business, I’ve been shifting to doing more developmental editing and coaching and less line editing and copyediting. I guess editorial consulting will be less directly affected by generative AI than, say, proofreading, light copyediting or translation. Whatever kind of editing people do, I expect editors who include human connection in their workflows will continue to flourish. Electric massage chairs didn’t make regular massages obsolete.

The most exciting aspect for me is how these new technologies may change our expectations. This reminds me of Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s argument about how the invention of labour-saving household devices like the vacuum cleaner didn’t ultimately end up saving people time. Alongside the new inventions came raised standards and expectations of cleanliness. When new technologies emerge, there’s a social reconfiguring and a new balance is found. This is happening with generative AI: in the space of a few months, it became obvious when ChatGPT had been used to write a blog or social media post, and I started interpreting a smooth, correctly spelled post or email with that signature ChatGPT voice differently. Who knows, there could be an increased focus on solving structural problems with manuscripts if generative AI takes care of some of the sentence-level issues. It’s impossible to predict!

About the CIEP

Photo credits: artificial brain by geralt on Pixabay; human and robot hands by cottonbro on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, 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

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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.

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.

Overcoming perfectionism

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In this post, Harriet Power discusses some ways of thinking that editors and proofreaders can use to disentangle themselves from the pursuit of perfectionism.

Many of us editors and proofreaders are perfectionists. I’m one of them. But while I think we should care about our work and that high-quality work is important, the trouble comes when this shifts into beating ourselves up over our mistakes, or spending extra unpaid hours on a job to get it just right, or feeding the sense of inadequacy that comes from imposter syndrome.

Here are some of the ideas and ways of thinking that have helped me to relax a bit and become less beholden to perfectionism.

Humans make mistakes

We all make mistakes: it’s just a human trait, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s an important part of how we learn: by making mistakes through trial and error, we learn how to do better next time. (One of the worst mistakes I ever made in-house was to send a book to press without the author’s name on the front cover. WHOOPS. Thankfully the author accepted my heartfelt apology, and it wasn’t too big a deal for the publisher because it was a school textbook where the author’s cachet was minimal, but you can be sure I learned my lesson from that.)

Linked to the idea that we all make mistakes is the fact that as (human) proofreaders and editors, we can’t catch everything. Some things will inevitably slip through the net.

This is something that the publishing system acknowledges. It’s why there are so many eyes on a book: the copyeditor isn’t expected to catch everything, and neither is the first proofreader, and so on. If a human could do a ‘perfect’ proofread, and a typesetter could do a ‘perfect’ markup, then we wouldn’t need three or four or even five proofreading rounds.

I’ve worked on school textbooks in-house where there were so many pairs of eyes on them: a development editor, a copyeditor, reviewers, the authors, in-house colleagues, proofreaders, and there’d still be reprint corrections. At first this was dispiriting, but the fact it kept happening helped me to realise that mistakes are just inevitable and perfection is impossible.

Publishers aren’t paying for perfection

Publishers usually have to compromise on quality in some way and they do this consciously. They choose not to pay for a separate development editor and copyeditor, they squash the schedule, they cut budgets: they choose to make a book that is OK, or even good, but rarely perfect.

Often there’s just not the budget to pay for the extra work that would elevate the book to the next level, and I think publishers realise that for the majority of books, those extra hours aren’t worth the investment anyway. Because readers (generally) don’t demand or expect perfection, so it’s not worth the time, effort and money that it requires.

So if the publisher isn’t shooting for perfection, then you shouldn’t feel you have to either.

This wonderful article by Jeff Reimer puts it much better than I can, and is well worth a read.

A project is simply a project, neither a sacred trust to better the world nor a consecrated burden the publisher has placed on their shoulders to ensure the book is a masterpiece. A job is a job is a job.

Readers are more forgiving (or less observant) than you think

Most readers are going to forgive or not even notice a few slips here and there, like the odd typo or clunky sentence or stilted line of dialogue.

I’m not saying that these things don’t matter at all – they do, and lots of them can accumulate to break a reader’s immersion in the novel, or make the how-to guide harder to read and understand. But a few slips here and there really aren’t the end of the world. Readers generally care more about the bigger picture, like whether the story’s any good or whether the text gives them the information they need.

This is something I’ve noticed when reading non-fiction books. Some of them have what I’d call significant flaws – issues that I’d try to fix as a development editor – like unnecessary waffle and repetition, unclear examples, etc. But these books still do hugely well and get 4+-star ratings on Amazon.

Maybe a good analogy here is a musical performance. A hard but important lesson to learn as a musician is that individual mistakes genuinely don’t matter (and half the time the audience doesn’t notice them anyway) – what matters is the overall performance. I’ve done performances where I’ve completely fallen off the tune, played bum notes, forgotten the chords and more, and people still come up afterwards and say ‘that was amazing!’ I think the same is true of reading a book: it’s the overall experience that matters. So don’t sweat too much over the small stuff.

Authors are allowed to write the books they want

This is something it took me a while to accept once I started working with indie authors, because previously I’d just been working in educational publishing, and educational publishers will usually intervene and rework a textbook if the author’s done a bad job (or has simply failed to write to the brief). But I think educational publishing is something of an outlier here and often it’s important to remember that it’s the author’s book.

When I first started doing development edits for indie authors, I think I had a tendency to go overboard: to try to make the book ‘perfect’ and in doing so bombard the author with tons of comments and things to fix. But I suspect this just overwhelmed them and I was asking for too much from them. So now I try to remember to rein my suggestions in. Because I can still help an author to make a book better, even if it’s not going to be perfect, and that’s OK.

The book is not (just) your responsibility

It’s the publisher’s responsibility, and the author’s, and the proofreader’s, and the typesetter’s, and so on. You don’t have to carry the weight of ‘perfecting’ the book on your shoulders alone.

Editing is subjective

If you give a manuscript to five different editors, you’ll come back with five different edits. This truism is something a lot of us freelancers hear without being able to witness it first-hand, but it’s something I’ve actually seen while working in the CIEP information team. If three of us in the team review a proof, we’ll all comment on different things. I don’t think that makes us better or worse editors than each other – it’s just that editing is subjective and we all notice different things.

The corollary to this is that we can’t all notice everything.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses

This is another way of looking at the idea that we can’t all pick up on everything. Every editor and proofreader will have some things they’re better at than others: that’s just a part of being human. We can’t be perfect, great or even good at everything.

I’m not great at the intricacies of grammar, I don’t know enough about the self-publishing process, and I really need to organise and formalise my workflows better. These are all things I’m slowly working on, but in the meantime I try to play to my strengths and do a decent-enough job otherwise, and make peace with the fact that I simply can’t be brilliant at everything. (And the positive feedback that I receive suggests that my clients don’t expect me to be brilliant at everything and don’t care that I’m not.)

Even regular people deserve to make a living

This freeing idea comes from Jennifer Lawler, who wrote this short post on LinkedIn about imposter syndrome. Never forget that even ‘regular’, far-from-perfect people (i.e. the majority of us) deserve to make a living.

Once I embraced the idea that I didn’t have to be special in order to deserve not to starve, it freed up a lot of mental bandwidth to do the work to the very best of my ability and not fret otherwise. Letting go of the idea that I have to somehow be A-MAZING all the time actually allows me to have a more realistic perspective on my abilities and to (so ironically) do better work.

I can’t claim to always follow my own advice, but I hope some of these ideas will help you if, like me, you think it’d be healthy to disengage somewhat from your perfectionism. If you’ve found other strategies that work for you, please share them in the comments!

About Harriet Power

Harriet Power develops and copyedits nonfiction books and educational materials. She is a commissioning editor for the CIEP information team, and a Professional Member of the CIEP.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header by Ann H on Pexels, woman reading a book under a tree by Pramod Tiwari on Pexels, sign saying wisdom with perfectionism crossed out by geralt on Pixabay.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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