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Resources round-up: Self-publishing

Welcome to this round-up of resources compiled by the CIEP. This time, we look at self-publishing and working with independent authors. We have divided our picks into:

websites
blogs
a book and some guides.

Websites

This is a great time to be looking into working in self-publishing and with independent authors because of the sheer number of resources in this area that have built up in the last few years. The website of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is almost unbelievably useful. ALLi offers a regular podcast that covers a wide range of topics, and two web pages – ‘AskALLi: Self-Publishing Advice You Can Trust’ and the ALLi blog – that are a goldmine for anyone working, or hoping to work, in self-publishing. The blog is divided into 16 categories, including editorial, design and formatting, production and distribution, international insights, and writing.

Another useful website is Jane Friedman’s. Friedman commissions colleagues to write regular blogs on topics that are mostly relevant to self-publishing writers, but that editorial professionals working with these writers will want to dive into as well. These blogs are particularly strong on bigger-picture aspects of fiction like narrative arc and viewpoint, as well as the business aspects of being an independent writer, such as promotion. One particularly useful, and long, resource on this website is ‘The Comprehensive Guide to Finding, Hiring, and Working with an Editor’ by Chantel Hamilton, a non-fiction developmental editor.

Blogs

Blogs offer glimpses into different perspectives, and this is particularly true of blogs about self-publishing which aim to help different people at different stages of a complex process. Fiction editor Sophie Playle covers self-publishing from the viewpoint of writers on her own blog (‘Preparing your novel for self-publishing’) and of editors on the CIEP blog (‘Working with self-publishing authors: Expectations and implementation’). Also on the CIEP blog, Helen Jones considers the benefits of using an editor if you’re writing a business book, and Averill Buchanan writes from the perspective of a book production specialist.

On the AFEPI blog, Louise Harnby suggests 4 ways to get noticed by indie crime fiction and thriller writers if you’re an editorial professional, and Laura Bontje for the Editors Canada blog covers editing for authors on a budget, which can be a useful skill in the self-publishing world. Finally, Siobhán Prendergast at Dingle Publishing Services offers a completely different perspective – self-publishing as an act of defiance – reminding us that writers from Jane Austen to Walt Whitman self-published their work.

A book and some guides

At first glance, Richard Bradburn’s Self-Editing for Self-Publishers would seem to be doing editorial professionals out of a job, but many editors have found it useful, including Sophie Playle, who has reviewed it on her website. Playle says that Bradburn, a professional editor, ‘makes an excellent case as to why the best method for self-publishing authors would be to take their manuscript as far as they can on their own, then hire a professional’. She actively recommends the book to fiction editors ‘as it provides such an excellent overview of how a manuscript should be treated during the publication process, as well as giving the editor a wider understanding of the author’s role in shaping their work’.

What helps the writer helps the editor, which in turn helps the writer. So ALLi’s seven publishing guides for indie authors, including 150 Self-Publishing Questions Answered, based on AskALLi’s gathered advice, are also a help and resource for the editing community. Finally, Alison Shakspeare’s CIEP guide, How to Work with Self-Publishers: Editing, proofreading and other considerations, ‘for practising editors who want to develop their support of self-publishing authors, in fiction and non-fiction’ empowers editorial professionals with the skills and knowledge to guide authors to self-publishing success.

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: kindle by felipepelaquim on Unsplash, Jane Austen books by Leah Kelley on Pexels.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

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

Editing fiction: Dialogue

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In the first of a series of posts on editing fiction, Katherine Kirk looks at how editors can help authors create engaging dialogue that really brings individual characters to life.

Style manuals like New Hart’s Rules and guides like The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction can help editors know exactly how to punctuate an interruption or how to capitalise a stammered first name, but there’s more to great conversations than the lengths of their pauses. Sometimes we need to dig a little deeper into them, and at a line editing level, this can start to feel a bit abstract. It can be hard to explain to an author how to add more subtext to a snippet of dialogue: ‘You need to not write more things not being said’ sounds like some kind of magic trick.

This post will look at how great dialogue starts with the character, it changes depending on whom they’re talking to, and how editors can add or subtract to bring those voices out.

Start with the character

If a novel’s characters aren’t distinct enough from each other, their voices will blur into one and the reader will soon forget who’s who and why they should care.

A strong character voice comes from who that character is at their core. Their background, their beliefs and their agenda all play into how they speak. If you’re working directly with an author, you can ask them probing questions like: ‘These characters live in the US but are originally from the UK, having moved there when the children were quite young. How much of their British accent has remained a decade later?’

The answers will inform word choice and what sort of rhythm the characters use when they speak. For that reason, I usually don’t wait until the end of my main pass through a manuscript to ask the author these types of questions, but send them along as soon as possible.

If you’re not working directly with an author, then you can only work with the information they’ve given you in the manuscript itself, which is why it’s a great idea to read the whole thing first, before editing. In your style sheet, make notes not only of the concrete details like a character’s age or hair colour but also about characteristics that could inform the way they speak. If they have a pet phrase or verbal habit, see if it’s used consistently. Does their spoken voice match their inner voice? Is there a good reason for it not to?

Paying attention to these aspects of the character’s voice can help you to pick up on where characters might start sounding the same. For instance, what maybe started as a verbal habit for one character might have been applied to multiple characters, nullifying its effect. Or it may be an author habit instead. If an author is relying only on these verbal habits to distinguish characters from each other, they might be overused and feel repetitive. Authors of YA may be tempted to have their teen characters say ‘like’ in every sentence; while this might reflect how some real-life teens speak, overuse may irritate readers. Don’t be afraid to suggest removing some of them.

Pet phrases aren’t the only tool we can use to make the voices more distinct. Some other options might be:

talking around the issue vs getting to the point (look at sentence structure here)
utilising gratuitously verbose lexical terms vs using short, simple words
airily drifting in and out of a conversation with pauses and ellipses vs jumping in and thrashing about with dashes
popping in slang vs using very ‘correct’ formal language. Regional slang, age-specific slang, and industry jargon can all tell us a lot about a person, and about a person who refuses to use it.

The roles we play

I am her mother, his wife, her teacher, his naughty little secret, their ally, your worst nightmare, and that will affect how I speak to you. People who know each other well develop a kind of shorthand and can read each other’s subtext better, so characters who are close might not need to have every question answered. I often find that deleting the answer to the question (especially a yes or no) loses nothing. The reader can infer the answer from context and how the conversation proceeds, and it feels snappier and more vivid.

Here’s an example with every question answered. Note how slow it feels.

‘Where is he?’ I asked, reaching for the frozen peas.

‘He’s out back, I think.’ She turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘I’m not hungry. The peas are for the swelling.’ I pressed them to my throbbing cheek. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘I didn’t tell him,’ she said. ‘I knew it would make him angry.’

‘Because you know how he gets,’ I muttered.

‘Yes. I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell him.’

When the characters are family, as these two might be, then much of this does not need to be said. Cutting text out can turn it into subtext, making the conversation feel less stodgy and more suspenseful. If there’s a tag along with an action beat, we can probably take the tag out too and use the action beat as attribution on its own. Where it’s clear who’s speaking, we don’t need any attribution at all. Here’s an extreme example of how it might be pared down:

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

‘Out back.’ She turned away. ‘I didn’t tell him.’

‘You know how he gets.’

‘I know.’

What if they were acquaintances?

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

‘He’s out back. Working in the shop, I think.’ She turned away. ‘Did he do that?’

‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘I might have. But it wasn’t me that told him.’

Here, they need to give each other a little more information, and the shared knowledge of years of history is gone. They speak in slightly more complete sentences and give each other more grace.

How the characters negotiate the control of the conversation (or turn-taking) could also show their intimacy. It might change over the course of a novel. A meet-cute might have our lovers verbally stumbling over and butting up against each other, but by the end of their love story, they’re listening to each other, reading each other’s subtext and finishing each other’s sentences. Or it could go the other way, with a couple who used to be able to read each other’s signals now finding they’re no longer fluent in their shared unspoken language, and they might misread it.

What if our two characters dislike each other, and one of them is a little tougher? Let’s have the tough lady interrupt more and use more colloquial language, and contrast it with the other by having more hedging and hesitation. We might need to add an action beat to make the character more vivid.

‘Where is he?’ I reached for the frozen peas.

She spat out an apple seed. ‘I ain’t his keeper.’

‘Did you tell him? That I–’

‘Course not.’

‘It’s just that, well, I wouldn’t blame you if you had.’

‘Well I didn’t.’

Their relationship affects the words they choose to say, the questions they dodge and the assumptions they make. Dialogue that fails to take these elements into account tends towards soulless conversation that is just furthering the plot, reacting to an event or revealing a secret.

How much can an editor change?

It tends to be easier to take things out than to add things in. Whatever we remove, the words that remain are still entirely the author’s. Luckily for us, authors tend to bloat dialogue rather than be too brief, so we usually just need to do some careful snipping. But sometimes the dialogue feels like it’s just scaffolding and it needs something more substantial.

When it comes to adding stuff in, editors are limited in what we can do. It’s not our job to write the book. But we could provide examples. My favourite trick is to mine the narrative for key phrases that ring with the character’s voice and move them into sleepy dialogue to wake it up. I might borrow a phrase from one speaker and give it to another, or flip who says what. That way I’m using the author’s own words to patch the hole rather than speaking for them. If there isn’t a handy phrase nearby, I’ll provide some examples in my best imitation of their voice and let the author choose.

If you’re asking them to add something, you must have a good reason for doing so, and be very clear in your directions. Be specific about what exactly needs to be added, why and where. Review their revisions to check they haven’t introduced errors. And remember that it’s not your book.

Summing it up

If you read a manuscript in full before you dive in, you can get to know the characters a little better.
Take note not only of what characters are but who they are, and how that affects their voice.
Make note of their relationships, and check if these relationships are reflected in their conversations.
Trim out the unnecessary padding and let the best parts of the dialogue shine without being smothered by redundant dialogue tags or awkward attempts to show dialect.
Be just as careful taking out as you are adding in, and don’t fix what ain’t broke. Ask more questions and respect the characters as much as you respect the author.

For more insight into making dialogue sparkle, I recommend Louise Harnby’s dialogue resources, this blog post by Emma Darwin, and Sophie Playle’s fabulous explanation of ‘As You Know, Bob’ dialogue (and how to avoid it).

About Katherine Kirk

Katherine Kirk is a fiction editor who has been described by clients as a hopeless semantic and their secret weapon. She offers line editing, copyediting and proofreading to indie authors and publishers of all fiction genres, and she particularly enjoys science fiction and fantasy.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: speech bubbles by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels; couple by Samson Katt on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Curriculum focus: Educational publishing

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In this regular feature for The Edit, former training director Jane Moody highlights areas of the CIEP’s Curriculum for professional development related to educational publishing.

Editors who work in educational publishing use all the same tools as every other kind of editor, so it is difficult to pick out anything specific. Often, however, the areas of scheduling and process are important to editors working in this field. Clarity is also particularly important in writing for educational purposes, so let’s look at these few aspects of the curriculum.

Knowledge criteria	Editorial competency, professional skills and attitudes
2.1.2 Schedules and budgeting	• Understands the importance of scheduling and budgeting within any publishing process • Understands the influence of the schedule/budget on the scope of editing/proofreading
2.1.3 Editorial processes	• Understands the meaning and significance of common editorial terminology • Understands the roles and responsibilities of members of an editorial team • Understands the stages of the editorial process
2.1.4 Production processes	• Understands the roles and responsibilities of a production team • Understands the meaning and use of common production terminology • Understands the stages of the production process (eg prepress, print/electronic production)
2.3.3 Clarity in writing	• Understands the need to avoid ambiguity • Understands appropriate use of language and tone • Understands conciseness (elimination of redundancy/repetition) • If space is limited or layout is fixed, is aware of the need to fit any change into the available space without causing a new problem • Can reword appropriately to simplify, clarify or shorten text • Can identify whether material is well expressed and flows logically, with the ideas and wording easy to follow

Resources to support your learning and CPD

The CIEP course Editorial Project Management would be really useful to enhance your skills. You could also try the PTC course Introduction to Digital Project Management. For clarity in writing, try the CIEP courses Getting to Grips with Grammar and Punctuation and Plain English for Editors. The CIEP guide Editing Textbooks would also be worth a read.

This book chapter would also be worth reading: Miha Kovač, Mojca K. Šebart. ‘Educational publishing: how it works: primary and secondary education publishing’ in: The Oxford Handbook of Publishing, edited by Angus Phillips and Michael Bhaskar. OUP, 2019, pp274–288.

If you work with interactive exercises, the CIEP course Editing Digital Content could prove useful.

Read Anneke Schmidt’s blog post: ‘What makes a good elearning course? elearning best practices explained’ (Skill & Care, 13 March 2023). This post could also lead you down various other useful rabbit holes.

The Society of Young Publishers has published the video ‘Introduction to Education Publishing’, which you can find on YouTube. It’s a panel discussion and gives a good overview of the education sector of the publishing industry.

This is only a snapshot – almost every other topic in domains 1 and 2 of the Curriculum for professional development are relevant to editing for educational publishing!

About Jane Moody

Jane has worked with books for all her working life (which is rather more years than she cares to admit), having started life as a librarian. She started a freelance editing business while at home with her two children, which she maintained for 15 years before going back into full-time employment as head of publishing for a medical Royal College.

Now retired, she has resurrected her editorial business, but has less time for work these days as she spends much time with her four grandchildren and in her garden.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by Pixabay on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Five ways to incorporate movement into your working day

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Most of us know that moving and exercising more during the day is good for our health, but struggle to get out of the chair when we’re ensconced in work. In this post, Rosie Tate suggests five ways we can move more and sit less.

There are no two ways about it: the work of an editor involves a lot of sitting down. But as much as we may love our work, a sedentary lifestyle isn’t good for our physical or mental health. Human beings evolved to move – to walk, run and rest in positions like squatting that don’t involve sitting on a chair in the exact same position for hours on end.

Numerous studies have shown that we should sit less and move more. While sitting for long periods has been linked to being overweight, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer, this can be offset by doing more exercise. A recent study shows that one in 10 early deaths could be avoided globally if everyone did just 75 minutes of exercise per week. Not only is exercise essential for our health but it also makes us feel good. Who doesn’t feel better after a walk, a run or a workout? Movement is one of the pillars of wellbeing and happiness. In this post, I suggest five ways to move more during your working day.

1. Have a movement break every hour

It’s easy to get so absorbed in our work that we spend hours in the same sitting position – often hunched over a screen. If your work involves sitting down all day, take a movement break every hour. Walk around the block, or if timings don’t allow for this, take a few steps in your workplace. Do a few stretches, squats, push-ups, sit-ups or star jumps, dance to a favourite track or move in any other way that makes you feel good. Even just one minute of movement away from your screen every hour can make a world of difference.

2. Shift positions while working

Whether we’re working, eating, watching TV, reading or travelling, we are usually sitting down. In Western countries – unlike in some other countries that favour squatting or sitting on the floor – sitting on a chair is the default resting position. It’s worth trying to switch rest positions, as sitting in a chair for long periods of time places strain on our back and pelvis and, over time, can lead to bad posture or repetitive strain injury. Try to switch positions throughout the day. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Use a standing desk to alternate between sitting and standing. Standing desks don’t have to be expensive: you can improvise one (search online for ideas) or buy a standing desk converter that sits on top of your regular desk.
Try squatting! This improves ankle mobility and gives your back a break from sitting. Try it for a few minutes a day and then extend it to longer periods.
Put your laptop on a coffee table and sit on the floor.
While sitting in a chair, try doing some chair yoga exercises.

3. Walk and talk

Meetings can be a great opportunity to incorporate movement into your day because it’s possible to ‘walk and talk’ rather than ‘sit and talk’. Granted, some meetings may not lend themselves to walking. If we’re talking to a client and they ask us to look at a convoluted sentence on page 37, we’d rather not be strolling through a local park.

But we can look out for meetings where we don’t need to be glued to our screens and take the opportunity to step outside. If there’s an agenda for the meeting, you could have this on your phone and refer to it when needed. This is a great opportunity to get some sunshine – or if it isn’t shining, some natural light at least – which leads to better sleep, boosts vitamin D levels and regulates hormones. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his Confessions: ‘Walking has something in it which animates and heightens my ideas: I can scarcely think when I stay in one place; my body must be set a-going if my mind is to work.’ Who knows? You might find that your most productive talks happen while you’re walking.

4. Move more

Often, we see movement as something that must be done within a specific time frame and called ‘exercise’. We set time aside for our daily or weekly sessions and we don’t move very much the rest of the time. In reality, we don’t need a designated exercise session to move more. Movement can be incorporated into our daily activities if we look for opportunities to do so. And when we start looking, the opportunities abound. Here are some ideas.

Take the stairs instead of the lift or escalators.
Where possible, walk or cycle instead of taking public transport.
While watching TV, do some gentle exercises or stretches. There are plenty that you can do while still looking at the screen – a quick online search offers plenty of inspiration.
Try using text-to-speech software to move around or stretch while listening to text instead of sitting down to read it, such as blog posts, long emails or even perhaps the first read-through of a developmental edit.
Stand while on public transport instead of sitting down.

You can also use your lunch break to move more. Try eating mindfully while walking or doing an online exercise class (the Better at Home app offers hundreds of free online classes for all levels).

5. Get into and stick to good habits

The most crucial point of all when it comes to working movement into your day is to get into – and stick to – good habits. As anyone who has ever set new year’s resolutions knows, it’s all too easy to start with the best of intentions but fail to put them into practice. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear gives lots of tips on how to make good habits stick. A couple that stuck with me after reading his book:

Use the ‘two-minute rule’: you can break down habits into small tasks that fit into two minutes or less. When trying to move more during the day, you could start by doing this in one of the ways listed above for just two minutes each day. Do this for one week and work your way up to longer periods from there.
Make the habit obvious by using cues. If you want to spend some time at a standing desk each day, make sure it is set up so that you’re more likely to use it. Set an alarm to take a movement break each hour. Leave your yoga mat out in plain sight if you’re planning a lunchtime session on your mat.

You don’t need to make drastic changes: incremental steps will do just fine. Start small and work movement into your day little by little over the course of a few weeks. Even a few more minutes of physical activity and varied movement a day can make a huge difference in the long run. By building this movement into your day – moving more and sitting less – you should get to the end of the year feeling a bit more energetic and less achy without having put aside long periods of time each day specifically for exercise.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or other suggestions on how to move more in the comments below.

About Rosie Tate

Rosie Tate is co-founder of Tate & Clayburn, a London-based company that offers editorial and language services to clients worldwide. A first-class Oxford University languages graduate with an MA in Documentary Filmmaking, she’s an experienced editor, writer and producer, having worked for Oxford University Press, the BBC and Save the Children.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: header image by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels, man walking outside on a call by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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

Starting out as a freelance editor: Reflections on the first few years

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Now at the four-year mark of her freelance career, proofreader and copyeditor Eleanor Smith reflects on the ups, the downs and the lessons learnt – and offers an insight into starting an editorial business.

Having reached the four-year milestone with my editorial business, it feels right to mark the occasion by doing a touch of self-reflection on my freelance journey so far. Hopefully other editors will gain something from reading about my editorial escapades – whether that’s a dose of empathy or perhaps some guidance if you’re only just starting out yourself.

In this post, I will cover:

leaving full-time employment
taking my first steps as a freelance editor
an unexpected roadblock
choosing whether to specialise
celebrating the wins
lessons I’ve learnt.

My background and leaving full-time employment

From about age 13, I knew I wanted to work in the publishing industry. Books had always been an important part of my life, with regular trips to the library as a child to pick out that week’s adventures.

With that in mind, I got my degree in English literature and took some courses with the CIEP (then SfEP). But after a month of editorial work experience in a well-known publishing house in London, I realised the capital city life wasn’t for me.

So when I saw a job for a proofreader in a marketing agency pop up in my home town, I was thrilled. I could still use my editorial skills after all – without leaving home! Before long I was busy editing content and should have been loving every minute. But a toxic atmosphere can ruin even the best role …

It was only when the job began to impact both my physical and mental health that I knew it was time to tread a different path. Of course I was nervous, but I felt taking the ultimate risk and going it alone would be worth it. I knew if I didn’t give freelancing a try, I would always be wondering ‘What if …?’

Baby steps

Now it was time to take my first tentative steps into the freelance editing world. Straight away I rejoined as a member of the CIEP and took another proofreading course to sharpen my skills and increase my confidence.

When there’s no income on the horizon, you start to panic a little. So I sat down and made my first plan: exploring different avenues of finding work and deciding what kind of projects I wanted and was able to take on as a relative newbie.

I researched just about every publishing company in the UK (and some overseas too), set up alerts for freelance editing jobs and looked into several online directories. Slowly, my business started to take shape. I had made contacts, figured out what I wanted to do and set my own pace.

A temporary halt in proceedings

A year into working as a freelancer, I encountered an unexpected roadblock: the pandemic. It turned out it was not a great time to have a young business just beginning to spread its wings. Like many, I was faced with deadlines being pushed back indefinitely and found myself with a lot of unwelcome free time.

What this situation did was present me with a valuable lesson. When you’re self-employed, some months will be more successful than others. I used this time to address some of the tasks that had been shoved to the bottom of the pile – the ones that would eventually make it quicker to come out of this dry spell.

I set about updating my CV and directory entries, contacting different publishers, exploring new ways to enhance the services I offer and finding tools to make editing more efficient. I had to keep a positive mindset and believe that the work would return – and thankfully, it did.

To specialise or not to specialise?

I knew that a lot of editors choose to specialise in a field where they have previous experience, but as my degree was broad and I wanted to step away from the marketing world, I could go in any direction.

From educational children’s material to novels and puzzles, I’ve worked on a wide range of literature, and I can’t say whether I’ll choose to specialise further just yet. For now, I relish jumping between genres, gladly switching from books about history to fantasy epics to gritty crime.

The point I am trying to make is that it’s okay to choose only one route and stick to it, but it’s also perfectly okay to do a bit of wandering and see what captures your interest along the way. I’m still in the latter camp.

Celebrating the wins

When you work for yourself, there is no boss to give you external validation. No one is patting you on the back for a job well done (unless you do it yourself – no judgement here). Because of this, it can be easy to skim past the wins and, in doing so, fail to acknowledge them.

Over the last four years, I’ve struggled to celebrate these wins (even when I achieved Professional Member status with the CIEP!). Often I became so focused on where the next project was coming from, I didn’t take the time to pause and appreciate what I had achieved so far.

Being your own biggest cheerleader is a great asset as a freelancer, and while I still experience the occasional wobble, I’m finding this gets easier with time.

Lessons learnt (the hard way!)

Starting an editorial business is not an easy endeavour, and I will admit that my naivety has landed me in a few, shall we say, unfavourable situations. If you’re early in your freelance career, perhaps I can help you avoid these snags and keep your metaphorical knitwear intact.

Here are some memorable lessons I had to learn the hard way:

Early on, I offered to work on a book for free as a trial, with the hope of receiving repeat work from this particular publisher. I excitedly completed the job, got great feedback, then never heard from them again. Lesson learnt: only offer to do a short free sample!
After a client was late paying my invoice, I still took on more work with them and had to keep pestering them to pay. Lesson learnt: don’t give clients too many chances when it comes to payment. If an agreement is made at the start of a project, they should stick to it.
When a client asks for a timescale, give your timings a little padding. Better that than having to put in extra-long shifts in a panic to get an edit done on time. Lesson learnt: offer a realistic deadline rather than the one you think the client wants to hear.

Next steps

I’m excited to see where the next four years take me. I plan to continue honing my craft further with more courses, figuring out which projects excite me the most and trying out ways to market myself – something I’ll admit I find difficult, as it’s easy to compare yourself to other editors.

Does the impostor syndrome ever go away? I will let you know if it happens!

About Eleanor Smith

Eleanor Smith is a freelance proofreader and copyeditor based in Somerset with a passion for films, musicals and cats, the latter being her favourite breed of co-worker. A Professional Member of the CIEP, she applies her editorial skillset to an eclectic mix of projects, from children’s educational books to crime, fantasy and historical fiction.

About the CIEP

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Photo credits: header image by Pixabay on Pexels, woman taking notes by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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

Music editing

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What makes working on music-based manuscripts different from other subject areas? Four music editors give a flavour of this editorial speciality.

The CIEP Music forum and, shortly afterwards, the Music special interest group (SIG), led by Dawn Wakefield, were set up following the 2021 CIEP conference when it became clear that there are a lot of musicians among our members. The members of the SIG are all musical in some way, with many of us playing more than one instrument (including an unusual number of oboists!). Between us, we have experience in a broad range of musical genres, from classical to rock and gospel to folk.

We hold monthly Zoom meetings, sometimes with guest speakers, when we discuss music editing, specific editorial problems and ideas we’ve come across. One common discussion topic has been how to find clients and, just as importantly, how potential clients can find us. Google searches for music editors resulted in many links for music audio editors but nothing for those of us who edit text or sheet music. As a result, we have set up a new website, Find a Music Editor (FaME), to give us a more visible online presence.

Fiona Little: Music proofreading

I began proofreading sheet music after I had gained some experience of copyediting music books. I play several musical instruments and had edited some unpublished 18th-century music for a dissertation, so I felt reasonably confident about the work, but there was a lot to learn. Although music resembles text in that it is written and read in a linear way, from beginning to end, it also portrays sounds graphically, which is why a choir singer unfamiliar with the notation can trace their line in a score, following the ups and downs of the melody. Music notation has multiple dimensions: each note shows both pitch and duration and, as well as clefs and other symbols, there are markings for tempo (speed), dynamics (loud/soft), phrasing and so on. Finally, music normally incorporates some text, for example in the form of headings and directions, and, in vocal music, words that are sung to the notes. Good layout can help to make all these features clear.

Even with music typesetting software, errors can creep in. Although basic musical ‘grammar’ can be checked, a problem may have several possible solutions. For example, if a bar (a ‘measure’ in US English) contains five beats when the time signature specifies four, are there too many notes, is one of them too long or is the time signature wrong? Even simple errors are best queried, and you need to understand the musical style in order to work confidently.

For the proofreader or editor, addressing all these aspects is time-consuming. Whether I’m comparing with a previous version or reading ‘cold’, I work methodically in a series of passes, considering one aspect at a time: pitches on one pass, note durations and rhythms on another, and so on, hearing the music in my inner ear as I go. It all adds up to an experience that is very different from working on text.

Dawn Wakefield: Proofreading educational materials

One of the things I most enjoy about music proofreading is that it is not all sitting in front of a computer screen reading text; it can actually involve playing and listening to music.

I often work on educational piano books. First proofs of the sheet music portion of the book are usually worked through on paper as this is the quickest and most accurate way of marking music scores. Like Fiona, I take several passes to check the various elements of the notation, and then, in addition, I check or create piano fingering, shown with numbers (1 for thumb, 2 for index finger, etc). For this, I have to play through the pieces carefully and, in the process, often spot errors of pitch or rhythm, which may become clearer once heard.

The text sections of the book, as well as headings to the pieces themselves, often require knowledge of other languages. Instructions in the music are most commonly in Italian, but are often in French or German, according to the composer’s nationality. Historical background text also often contains foreign names and place names, so linguistic knowledge may be involved, for instance understanding masculine and feminine endings of Eastern European surnames or checking spelling that has been transcribed from Cyrillic.

Plenty of listening was required for a recent job proofreading online resources for an educational music course for teenagers. As well as checking that the YouTube links actually worked, I had to listen and check that the tracks were accurately described. I had a very enjoyable and nostalgic time listening to well-known pop hits from across the decades from the 1950s to the present! In one amusing incident, the music to a computer game was described as being by Grieg, yet, when I listened, I found a strange electronic version of The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss! The fact that music editing uses so many varied skills is one of its most rewarding aspects.

Eleanor Bolton: Editing books

In many ways, books about music are similar to other books. The text has to be copyedited so that it conforms to the publisher’s style guide, often, of course, with variations depending on author preference and likely readership. However, some specialist knowledge is useful whatever genre of music you work on.

Maybe the text is discussing the finer points of Schubert’s cello quintet, but the extract shows two viola parts. If you know your clefs, and that a ‘cello quintet’ has two cellos, that’s an obvious inconsistency. But what else do we need to look for? Here are some other examples of something being awry:

The text contains a discussion of piano fingerings in a specific bar, but the excerpt in the music example doesn’t have any fingerings in that bar.
The caption specifies bars 80–92 but the excerpt is only eight bars long.
The caption says the piece is in ‘F# major’. Note the difference between the hash sign # and the musical sharp sign ♯.
The text refers to Bach’s opus 1001 but the caption says ‘BWV 1001’. (J. S. Bach’s music is, uniquely, catalogued by BWV number, not opus number.)

As with many things in life, you don’t know what you don’t know. A good editor knows when (and where!) to look things up.

Anna Williams: Music typesetting and the crossover with editing

The line between the roles of music editor and typesetter (or ‘engraver’, harking back to the etched metal plates used from the late 16th century to surprisingly recently) has blurred over recent years. While some publishers retain the distinction, I am receiving more requests for ‘full package’ or ‘on-screen editing’ jobs. Though sometimes driven by a client’s desire to save time and/or money, it also taps into the crossover of skills required for each task and is made easier by advances in music notation software.

As well as the musical ‘grammar’ that Fiona mentions, plus house style, consistency and clarity checks, part of a music editor’s job is to optimise the layout and presentation of information on the page. This includes practical considerations, such as instrumentalists needing time to turn pages, or a publisher needing to fit a collection into a certain page extent, but it’s also about spacing, information density and the need for music that can be read fluently at speed.

It often makes sense to consider these layout issues before detailed copyediting and to adjust (a copy of!) the computer file accordingly. Whether or not you will be typesetting, some initial layout work can result in a cleaner manuscript to work on, saving time. Trying out different notations in the file can sometimes also guide editorial decisions, so being familiar with the software can be very helpful. Similarly, editorial knowledge is useful when typesetting. Some music publishers place much of the house style responsibility on typesetters, and understanding editorial conventions means they can fix things an editor might have missed.

I hope and believe that there will continue to be dedicated editors and typesetters in the industry, but there is a place for a combined model of working, especially for the increasing number of self-publishing composers, who are often looking for someone with both the editorial knowledge and typesetting expertise to turn their work into a publication-standard product.

If you’re an editor of music-based material, please come and join us on the Music forum, where you will find details of our meetings and more. If you’d like to be added to the Directory on our website, the details can be found on the forum.

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Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Wise owls: Tips on becoming a trusted freelancer

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In this post, our parliament of wise owls (all Advanced Professional Members) consider the qualities that turn someone into a trusted freelancer. What keeps clients coming back to them time and time again?

Sue Littleford

Some 95% of my work is for repeat clients. I think that boils down to three things: ability, reliability and understanding the client’s needs. I’m proud of this testimonial from a project manager: ‘All safely received … And all immaculately presented as ever. I like getting jobs back from you as it makes my life so easy.’ I’ve done 39 books so far for this particular client, because, aside from the actual quality of my copyediting, the handover is orderly and complete, and provides what that client wants from me. I don’t miss deadlines and I do flag up emerging problems as early as possible.

It also helps to be organised and easy to work with, and pleasant in your dealings – who wants to work with high drama and flapping about, when you can have peace and quiet?

You don’t have to be a doormat to have repeat clients. With all of mine, I still negotiate on deadlines and on price according to the project. Only today, as I draft this, I agreed with another client an extra week on the deadline for my 23rd book for them. One of the project managers in that same client is also now looking out for books for me on particular subjects rather than sending them out to several freelancers simultaneously to see who’s available. The benefits of becoming a trusted freelancer are manifold.

If you pay attention to your customer service as much as to the quality of your editing or proofreading, you’ll be in a good place to get repeat work. I’m a great proponent of using your imagination in customer service to put yourself in your client’s shoes and, as you can see, my own clients like the results.

Jacqueline Harvey

I’ve been copyediting for over 30 years and almost all my publisher clients have been regulars. What makes them come back to offer me another book? I guess it’s because they liked what I did the last time or on various projects over the years.

A trusted freelancer must at the very least be competent. They need to have an eye for detail, a good understanding of the language, a sense of how a reader will respond to a text, good judgement and a broad general knowledge. A client wants a freelancer they can trust to do a good job and to do it within the agreed time frame.

When I accept a job, I make sure that I set aside enough time for it and complete it by the deadline. I also keep my client informed of the work’s progress and of any problems that may arise. I generally get on with the work fairly independently, but raise questions if I’m unsure about anything or if something unexpected crops up. If I can’t meet a deadline for a good reason (eg the work is taking longer than anticipated), I let them know as soon as possible and we discuss how to proceed: it may be possible to tweak the schedule or I may be able to put in extra hours to finish it on time.

Good communication and courtesy go a long way to sustaining a working relationship, and that goes for my relationship with the author too. I try to approach each text with respect and sensitivity, and to be ready to explain or justify my edits – with reference to style guides if necessary. Some authors may need to be reassured that I am there to help them prepare their work for publication rather than to rewrite it or to censure them for spelling or grammatical mistakes.

In essence, do the job well, keep to deadlines, communicate, and you should gain the experience necessary to become a trusted freelancer.

Sue Browning

I think this depends on the type of client. All clients will appreciate you sticking to an agreed timescale, but this is especially true of publishers, where your work is part of a chain of tasks. Here I suspect that meeting deadlines is the most important factor in keeping them coming back to you time after time. Beyond that, communication is important (especially if you know you are going to miss that deadline), as is working to the brief and doing a good enough job. Being easy to work with also helps. Publisher project managers are often juggling multiple projects, and don’t always have their eye on your particular ball, so keep questions concise and suggest solutions to problems to help them out.

Having a reputation for reliability works both ways – if a publisher knows you will deliver at the agreed time and that you will do a thorough job, they are more likely to stretch deadlines to fit your availability and cut you some slack if something goes wrong.

With independent authors, I find that friendliness and flexibility are key. Communication is even more important, as these clients don’t always know what to expect of an edit, so I tend to explain more, so they come to trust that I get what they are trying to achieve. One of my fiction regulars even says he comes back for the comments that I leave when editing his novels, and the academic authors I work with know I understand the pressures of university life and will always try to fit their invariably last-minute paper in, even if I’m busy. So I’d say don’t be afraid to be yourself – you can be professional and friendly, authoritative and relaxed, serious and silly.

Michael Faulkner

In my experience the first two requirements for winning repeat business, perhaps unsurprisingly, are to do the job right and do it on time!

A close third is to introduce trust and reassurance into the relationship early on – give your credentials due prominence in correspondence, yes, but level up the relationship (don’t talk up your amazing skills and don’t be deferential either); offer a free sample; only insist on a formal contract for good reason (the alternative, of covering the main things in an exchange of emails, is normally fine); don’t get hung up on deposits; be responsive; where payment is staged, make sure the client knows the final tranche of work will go out before the final invoice; and reassure the client that you will be there to help should issues arise after the project has been put to bed.

Finally, I find it pays enormous dividends, both for you and the client, if you can make a project fun. Don’t be afraid to be a little irreverent. Believe it or not, this is possible even in my specialty, which is law. Obviously you have to get a feel for the client’s sense of humour (or lack of one, which is fine) and not become a pain, but a client who smiles a lot and laughs a few times will want more of the same because, well, life and the evening news …

Melanie Thompson

Being a trusted freelancer is no different from being a trustworthy person in any other sphere. Fundamentally it’s about doing what you have been asked to do while keeping the needs of the other party in mind. For editorial freelancers (and pretty much any other aspect of life) this depends on clear communications. Here are my seven steps to successful freelancing:

ensure that you understand what is expected of you, and your client knows what you will/can’t achieve
be upfront about any constraints (I can’t deliver by Thursday, but I can deliver by Friday)
be honest about costs – be prepared for a little flexibility but remember that it works both ways
keep in touch during a project, just enough to provide reassurance that the job is in safe hands
if you encounter a problem of any kind, don’t stick your head in the sand – take action straight away
be accessible and willing to give a little free-of-charge consultancy now and then
pay it forward – if you can’t take on a job, offer to help find some other trustworthy freelancer to help out.

That all boils down to ‘be a nice human’.

But there are times when being ‘trusted’ can mean being ‘taken for granted’, so take care not to undervalue yourself. Being a ‘trusted freelancer’ for one client should not have a detrimental impact on your wellbeing, or your ability to be a ‘trusted freelancer’ for other clients.

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Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

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

Apply now to the Printing Charity’s Rising Star Awards

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Each year, the Printing Charity holds the Rising Star Awards, for young people working in publishing, print, paper, packaging and graphic arts to invest in their career development. Applications to this year’s awards are welcome until 2 April 2023. One of 2022’s winners, Rosie Catcheside, shares her experience of applying for the award, and the career benefits that winning gave her.

I first heard about The Printing Charity’s Rising Star Awards from a colleague who had been selected as a Rising Star in a previous year. At the time, I had recently completed my English Literature MA and was working as an administrative assistant at a Newcastle-based creative-writing magazine. While I really enjoyed my role, I was eager to develop my skills further and to take on more responsibility. I also, ultimately, wanted to get into the publishing industry; I had always loved literature and was incredibly keen to work directly with authors and to help get books into the hands of readers. The Rising Star Awards offered a great opportunity to achieve these aims so, in 2022, I decided to apply.

With these development goals in mind, my funding requests included several online editing and proofreading courses run by the CIEP. These were a mixture of self-assessed and tutor-assessed courses, all of which included note sheets, tasks and tutor access. My courses included the copyediting and proofreading suites, as well as specific courses on editing fiction and editing digital content. Through these courses, I was able to build on the skills I had been learning on the job, while taking a more structured approach to my learning and familiarising myself with industry-approved methods. As well as developing my skills, I also wanted to broaden my industry knowledge, so I requested CIEP membership and BookMachine membership. These memberships helped me to connect with other professionals in the publishing community and to access invaluable information about industry news.

After submitting my application for the award, I was invited to an online interview with a member of The Printing Charity and two professionals working in my field. All three of my interviewers were supportive and friendly and it was hugely beneficial to discuss my career aspirations and training plans with professionals in my area. Both the application questions and the interview provided a valuable opportunity to think about my career ambitions and to consider any gaps in my knowledge. This helped me to ensure that the items I had requested were the best possible resources for my professional development. The Printing Charity made sure that the application process was clear and accessible throughout, and were always keen to help with any questions. The awards ceremony for the winners, hosted at the House of Lords, was also fantastic – it was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate in London and it was great to meet the other award winners and judges in person!

The Rising Star Awards really have been invaluable to me throughout the past year. The CIEP courses helped me to cultivate concrete editing and proofreading skills, allowed me to access professional tutors and enabled me to structure my learning in the best possible way. My editing and proofreading skills have developed further with every course I have completed and the BookMachine subscription has been a great resource for acquiring industry knowledge. Since winning the award last year, I have taken the next step in my career and am now working in publishing, as a publicity assistant at Faber. The award equipped me with the practical skills and publishing knowledge to break into the industry and really helped me to hit the ground running in my new role.

I would absolutely recommend the Rising Star Awards to anyone who is considering making an application this year. The process is smooth, the rewards are enormous and if you win, you will join a fantastic network of young professionals. If you are passionate about the print industry and want to develop your skills, do put in an application – it could make a huge difference to your career!

Visit The Printing Charity’s website to apply for the Rising Star Awards. The deadline for applications for 2023 is Sunday 2 April.

About Rosie Catcheside

Rosie was born in the North East but is currently living in London, where she works as a Publicity Assistant at Faber. She has an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature and won a Rising Star Award from The Printing Charity in 2022.

About the CIEP

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Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Definite articles: Developmental editing

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Welcome to ‘Definite articles’, our pick of recent editing-related internet content, most of which are definitely articles. This time, our theme is developmental editing.

The CIEP has recently released two guides about developmental editing: one covering fiction, the other, non-fiction. Let’s look at each type in turn.

Fiction

Sophie Playle, the author of our guide on developmental editing for fiction, recently released three connected CIEP blogs that answered key questions about the subject. The first covered giving feedback, the second was about definition and boundaries, and the third looked at process.

After these three Q&A-style blogs, how about a Q&A between three developmental editors? Sangeeta Mehta, Susan Chang and Julie Scheina’s Zoom discussion about the practicalities of the role is transcribed on Jane Friedman’s website and is well worth a read.

Over on the ACES website, Tanya Gold offers a survey of the conversations an editor needs to have with an author before tackling a developmental edit.

Finally, Susan DeFreitas sets out three critical questions an author needs to ask before drafting or revising a novel. These questions offer some valuable pointers for developmental editing, too.

Non-fiction

In her CIEP guide on developmental editing for non-fiction, Claire Beveridge recommends a detailed guide to the subject by Gary Smailes. For Editors Canada, Paul Buckingham has written a useful shorter overview of the process.

If you’re looking for a particular specialism, ACES has covered medical developmental editing; The Editing Podcast has talked to a developmental editor of academic writing; and Geoff Hart has written for An American Editor about creating effective outlines, an article that’s particularly relevant to technical text.

Book recommendations

If you’d like a longer read than a web page can offer but are unsure where to start, book reviews are a good way in. For fiction developmental editing, Tanya Gold can recommend a stack of useful books. In non-fiction, the classic work is Scott Norton’s Developmental Editing, and on the ACES website you can review what the book covers before deciding whether it’s worth investing in.

And to see developmental editing within the larger process of creating a book, as well as hearing directly from editors, What Editors Do, edited by Peter Ginna, is a great read. You can read a review of it on the Editors Canada website.

About the CIEP

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Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Why you need to see yourself as a marketer (so that you do some marketing)

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In this post, Malini Devadas talks about why you need to see yourself as a marketer, and feel comfortable in that identity, in order to actually do any marketing. She also shares one action that you can take today to find your next client.

There’s a model in coaching that I love, which is called ‘be, do, have’. Most freelancers want to have more clients, and they know that in order to do that they need to do some marketing. So they learn all about marketing; in other words, they focus on the doing. However, we won’t do something if it is in conflict with who we see ourselves as being. If we spend our time thinking about how much we hate selling, if we feel resentful about the fact that we need to be proactive about finding clients, or if we see ourselves as someone who is hopeless at marketing, we are unlikely to take marketing action. Instead of acknowledging the root cause of the problem, we decide it’s because we don’t know the ‘right’ marketing strategy. We then spend more time reading and learning about new platforms and tactics, because that feels easy and safe compared to actually putting ourselves out there.

As a transformational coach, my job is to help editors become someone who is comfortable with marketing and who even learns to enjoy connecting with writers they’d like to work with. Yes, it is possible! Here are some steps to get started.

Be comfortable with marketing and selling

The best way we can help a writer is to edit their piece (assuming that we are a good fit for the project). So, it’s in their best interest to know about what we do and how we can help them. They may decide not to work with us, but if they don’t even know that we exist, they are being denied the opportunity to get help.

Because selling, and talking about money more generally, can feel awkward, a lot of freelancers focus on giving away free content to help writers, such as through social media posts, blogs and podcasts. This has a place; personally, I like to give away free content so that I can help those who don’t have the budget to work with me. But I also think it’s important to share the message that I can help you more if you hire me, and invite people to contact me if they want to discuss the options.

I don’t think it’s likely that you’re going to go from hating something to loving it, so I’m not suggesting that you try to convince yourself that marketing your business is your new favourite pastime. Instead, I encourage you to start by feeling neutral about it. When the topic comes up, instead of joining in the chorus of complaints about having to do marketing or how bad you are at it or criticising other service providers who sell their services, don’t say anything. This may feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you’re used to leading the chorus of complaints. But over time you will notice that you no longer have such strong negative views about marketing and selling. And that will make it easier for you to do it.

Be confident in your offer

Yes, it’s the dreaded concept of niching! Having a niche for marketing purposes does not mean that you can’t have variety in your work. But if you are connecting with writers, it is much easier for you to find the right people, and for them to have more confidence in you, if you’re clear on the problem you solve (your offer). For example, do you proofread food blogs before they are published on a website? Do you do developmental editing of romance novels for first-time authors who eventually want to self-publish? Do you copyedit PhD theses for students in the sciences at Australian universities?

Put yourself in the shoes of a writer who thinks they might need help to reach their goals. If you don’t show empathy for your clients then it will be hard to write content that will appeal to them. If you spend all your time talking about the editing process, it is hard to connect with people, because many people outside publishing don’t understand what editing actually is. Instead, you want to be talking about things that matter to the people you want to work with.

And if you’re not sure what matters to your ideal clients, find some of them and ask them!

Be open to receiving more money

It may sound ridiculous, but it can be hard for some people to receive money. Here are some signs that you might be one of these people:

You stall on sending an invoice because you feel bad, especially if the invoice is for a lot of money (even if the client is happy).
You feel guilty about how much you earn compared to other people (eg parents, other family members, people with ‘more important’ jobs).
You feel bad about being paid for work you enjoy.
You think that people who earn a lot are greedy.

There are any number of limiting beliefs out there when it comes to money, and these can have a huge impact on how we run our business. Over the years, many editors I have coached have been shocked to discover all the negative thoughts they have about money.

Next time you find yourself criticising someone about their rates or making assumptions about what a potential client is willing to pay you, stop and consider how these thoughts may be hampering your business.

One action you can take today to find your next client

The easiest way to find a client is to start with your existing network, even if it is tiny. Here’s a script that I have used (and that has worked!) when I’ve needed more clients. You can use it to email someone you know.

Dear

[Some kind of introductory remarks.]

I wanted to let you know that I have recently started an editing business. I help [type of client/publication and the problem you solve].

You can find out more at my website [insert link]. (If you don’t have a website, just include any relevant information at the end of the email.)

If you think you might need my help, I’d love to make a time to chat about it. Or, if you know someone who might benefit from my services, I’d appreciate you forwarding this email to them.

[Some kind of sign-off.]

That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it!

If you’re struggling to send one email about your business to someone you know, this is an opportunity to look inwards and work out what the fear is that is getting in the way. Because until you uncover and deal with that, it’s going to be difficult to do the marketing that you need to do to grow your business.

This is not so much about expecting this one person to respond and offer you work. Statistically, in fact, this is unlikely to happen (this is why we need to tell lots of people about our business, to increase our chances of finding work). Instead, it is about taking responsibility for your business and telling the universe that you are ready to meet more of your ideal clients.

Going forward

Remember, so many writers need your services! But they can’t get help for their manuscript if they don’t know that you exist. Spend time building connections with your ideal clients and let them know how you can help them. Before you know it, you will be getting enquiries from people you want to work with on projects you find interesting.

About Malini Devadas

Dr Malini Devadas has been an editor since 2004 and a coach since 2018. Over the past five years, she has been helping editors learn to enjoy marketing and selling so that they can find more clients and earn more money. Malini takes on a few 1:1 coaching clients when her schedule allows. To find out more, you can email Malini (malini@mdwritingediting.com.au).

About the CIEP

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Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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