Tag Archives: marketing

Flying solo: The perpetual, invisible interview

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

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

It’s the same with freelancers.

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

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

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

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

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

Who do I want to work for?

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

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

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

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

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

Where do my ideal clients hang out?

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

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

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

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

How do I reach my ideal clients?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cold-calling and cold-emailing

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

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

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

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

How can I be findable?

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

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

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

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

What should I write about?

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

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

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

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

Answer those questions.

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

Writing: finding work as a freelancer

How quickly will all this work?

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

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

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

In summary

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

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

Resources

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

John Espirian’s Content DNA

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

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

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

About Sue Littleford

Sue Littleford

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

 

 

About the CIEP

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

Find out more about:

 

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

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

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

Marketing and networking through Twitch

In this Q&A, Kat Betts talks about using the streaming platform Twitch to market her editing business and to network with writers and other editors. For the past five years, she’s live-streamed edits on Twitch.

What is Twitch?

Twitch.tv is a streaming platform used mostly, but not exclusively, by gamers to live-stream games as they are being played. Through using software such as OBS or Streamlabs you can share what’s on your screen to anyone watching online. You can also share a camera view of yourself, if that’s something you want. There is a wide community of writers and editors on the platform; accountability or coworking streams are a large part of Twitch.

What do you need to be a successful Twitch streamer?

To be able to stream, you don’t need much: a camera (if you choose to use one), a screen layout overlay (available through Streamlabs, create your own, or have someone design one!) and something to stream. This might be as little as a Pomodoro timer all on its own, or it might be your writing or an edit you’re working on.

To be a successful streamer takes time and effort. Not only do you need to be active in the community to cultivate a viewership (usually through having a strong streaming schedule), but you also need to advertise streams (on social media) as well as in various Discord groups. For me, diving into such depth is beyond my ability. I just don’t have the time, and while it doesn’t take long to put out a post on social media, my primary focus on those platforms is to share myself as an editor first and foremost, rather than a streamer. Still, being active in the community has me meeting writers worldwide, and other streamers through them and their viewers. It’s a web of friends that I spend time with daily, whether or not I’m streaming.

Why did you start streaming on Twitch?

Way back when I started (2018), I wanted to add to my income and add to my pool of potential leads. I thought streaming on Twitch would be a good way to do this. I do not get paid much through subscriptions (where viewers can pay to have no ads while watching my channel), bits (tips) or ad revenue. Being present and active in the Twitch writing and editing community has led to new, long-lasting client relationships though. That said, the value in it is the company. Most of us work from home. Alone. And some days this is lovely. For me, though, I get lonely quickly, and being able to chat with friends I’ve made across the world is a great social outlet. Plus, if you get your social bar filled, all you have to do is hit that little browser X. 😉

editing on Twitch

Do you ever get nervous or make mistakes?

In the beginning, I would get nervous all the time. I knew the people, I loved the community, but having your face up there, and people watching your every digital move? Sounds like a disaster! But the community are wonderful. They are supportive.

What still makes me nervous these days is when the author of the work I am editing onscreen comes into the stream. In almost every case, my nerves are unfounded. The clients are excited to see the edit, they’re excited to get to know me more, and I them! They love when you’re umming and ahhing over the same pesky comma they were. Take it out? Leave it in? Clients being in the chat and viewing the stream is not a bad thing, either; they can often clear up queries on the fly, rather than you having to wait until they return an email or Discord message.

It’s important to understand that Twitch is a live environment, and viewers aren’t looking for perfection. Anything too cultivated screams promotional content only. In my experience, this just doesn’t work within the writing and editing community on Twitch. Most viewers are there to create a bond, to make a friend, and this is a great way to develop relationships that turn into leads.

Do you get many questions while streaming?

Absolutely, and I love being able to share what I do. It’s important to me to show authors that editors are there to support them, to be their partner in the process, to make their work shine.

Regarding editing, there are three common questions I get asked repeatedly:

  • What’s your website? A link to my website shows up periodically using an automated chatbot system I have set up, but I’m always happy to share it!
  • What are your rates? I redirect to my website, with an explanation that the rates listed are just a guide, and that manuscripts are assessed individually.
  • Will you look at my story for me? There are, of course, many people in the community who want work done for free, and there are writers and editors on Twitch who do give feedback (usually developmental advice). This is not something I do (I like to think of myself as a coin-operated editor), and I have lost only a few potential viewers as a result.

How do you decide which manuscripts to edit live?

Whether to edit a manuscript live first comes down to what the author decides. I include in my contracts multiple versions of the confidentiality clause, which allow the client to choose what depth of clause they’d like. Twitch streaming is one of these options, and every client is walked through what Twitch is and how it works before they decide. If an author chooses Twitch streaming, the decision of when and how long to stream for is made at my discretion. Some days I might choose not to stream the manuscript; it all depends on what I am doing at the time, and whether the manuscript lends itself well to streaming.

Works are never streamed in their entirety, and at no point are any recordings or clips made. If an author wishes to rescind streaming permissions for their work, it is made clear that this is always an option; it is their work, and when it comes to confidentiality (among so much more!), it’s entirely their choice. Most authors I work with (about 9 out of 10) choose to have their edit streamed, and while I’ve never had a client pull their manuscript permissions, it is important that they know this is always an option.

Where can you be found?

I’m always happy to answer questions about streaming. If you’re curious, stop by twitch.tv/elementeds, hit the follow button and turn on notifications. I don’t have a stream schedule (though I do recommend it if you can stick to one), but the notification option will send you an email letting you know I’ve gone live. Come hang out and let’s make some work progress together!

About Kat Betts

Kat BettsKat Betts has been an editor for just over 12 years and maintains that it is, in fact, an addiction. She generalises in speculative fiction, specialising in fantasy and science fiction. Kat spends most of her time editing or wrangling her three young boys, and when she gets spare time, she writes portal fantasies, plays World of Warcraft or sculpts cute little dragons from polymer clay. You can find her at elementeds.com and on most social media platforms as @elementeds.

 

About the CIEP

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

 

Photo credits: header image by ilgmyzin on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, 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)

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!

A smiling woman shouts into a megaphone

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

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: green shoot by PhotoMIX Company; megaphone by Andrea Piacquadio, both on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

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

Reviewing and updating the CIEP blog

Andrew Hodges, who is a member of the CIEP’s social media team, has been busy reviewing the CIEP blog to make sure our posts are still relevant, useful and discoverable. In this post he explains what this entails. 

When starting a blog, simply putting content out there is a good strategy: we all know that it’s easier to edit existing copy than start with a blank page. And the CIEP has come a long way since it set up the blog in 2014. The Institute has grown a lot in recent years, and many changes currently under way reflect that growth and the Institute’s chartered status.

Just like a house, some of the blog’s furnishings and fittings still look great after eight years. Others haven’t aged so well, while others have gone completely out of style and could do with more than a revamp.

A blog is a marketing tool designed to serve its members and promote the Institute. The blog therefore needs to remain relevant, and it should be interesting and discoverable to potential members and our wider audiences.

That’s why the CIEP Council asked me to step in and review the posts, as well as the book reviews, with these goals in mind.

The good stuff

There are many excellent posts that remain relevant. These include ‘evergreen posts’ on editorial topics and business skills. How to style ellipses in New Hart’s Rules and Chicago style rarely changes, and when or if it does, that would be big editorial news!

The blog now has over 350 posts, all publicly available for free, and new ones are added most weeks.

Time for change

Some of the older posts are no longer relevant for various reasons, which is why I have reviewed them for the information team and Council.

In the first stage of my work, I divided these into posts that need a content review or deletion, and posts that need optimising. Here’s the reasoning:

Content review or deletion

Out-of-date posts: We no longer need posts on topics such as recommendations for office exercise equipment in 2016 with broken links to sales websites, or a short summary of a 2017 conference presentation. With reviewed books, a new edition may have been published.

Posts with little content: Some of the older posts are short with very little content, and other blog posts have covered these topics in more detail. Very short posts provide little value, and search engines do not rank them highly.

Posts that don’t reflect our values: Some of the older posts take positions on debates that are now old hat. Others use phrases such as ‘non-native speaker’ (when the label is attributed to others) that can cause harm. Some of these posts are still highly relevant but need a content review.

Irrelevant posts: A few posts aren’t directly relevant to the CIEP and the work that its members do.

Optimisation

SEO issues with the blog titles: Some posts have cryptic titles that sound clever. (I used to work as an academic researcher, and this was commonplace in the humanities and social sciences. It can also be fine in other contexts, it just isn’t ideal for the blog genre.)

For example, imagine that you are copyediting a report written in British English. You encounter a sentence and are unsure about whether a certain comma before ‘and’ is optional. Would you search for:

‘Commas: The Chameleon Conundrum’ or

‘Do I need to put a comma before “and”’?

Fabulous references to Culture Club aside, these kinds of tweaks to titles can make our useful evergreen content more discoverable.

Other SEO issues: Other tweaks can improve discoverability too. Each blog post should have a keyword repeated throughout the text and headings (a word or phrase that people are likely to search for online), and things like metadata, a URL that includes the keyword, ALT descriptions and image URLs that reference what is in the picture etc.

You can optimise blog posts by making content changes too. For instance, by cutting up large sentences, including more transition words etc.

But we (the information team, Council and I) have decided to focus on quick SEO wins. This means we won’t be making changes to the main body of the blog posts and book reviews (except for changing SfEP to CIEP).

Wooden blocks spelling out 'SEO'

Progress so far

The first step has been to review all the blog posts and book reviews briefly and come up with an initial recommendation – delete the post, optimise it or keep it as it is.

In summary, a lot of non-evergreen posts from the first three years of the blog (2014–2017) have been recommended for deletion or archiving (if they are of relevance to the CIEP’s history).

For all the suggested deletions, I’ve written a list with a short explanation of the reason for each deletion and have passed this on to the Council. Abi Saffrey, the CIEP’s information director, has reviewed this and then made the deletions.

Next steps

Now we have a trimmed-down set of blog posts and book reviews.

The next step will be to make minor changes to some blog posts (optimising them) and reviews.

These changes will include:

  • changing old post titles to better reflect the content and optimise for SEO
  • inserting or changing subheadings that clearly reflect the content
  • deleting any remaining references to the SfEP
  • making sure the URLs reflect the content
  • flagging up any EDI issues for review
  • checking all the images have URLs that reflect the content and inserting ALT descriptions of said images
  • requesting reviews of newer editions of certain books.

We will keep a log of all changes made.

The next big change for the CIEP blog will be ensuring that all existing posts are available through the new CIEP website.

Did you write an SfEP blog post?

Most of the posts that we will change or delete were originally published when the Institute was the SfEP. If you wrote a blog post for the SfEP, you may want to check whether it is still there. If it’s not and you’re unhappy about this, get in touch and we can have a chat about possible options (perhaps you could write an updated blog post on that topic). And, of course, the same applies if you’ve written a post since we became the CIEP.

Get in touch

About Andrew Hodges

Headshot of Andrew Hodges

 

Andrew Hodges runs an editorial business called The Narrative Craft in Edinburgh, UK. He loves line-editing fiction and ethnography and enjoys chatting with science fiction and fantasy authors about worldbuilding and point of view issues whenever he can.

 

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: letters by Pixabay; SEO blocks by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi, both on Pexels. 

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Curriculum focus: Meeting up

In this regular feature for The Edit, former training director Jane Moody shines a light on an area of the CIEP’s Curriculum for professional development.

Keeping in touch with fellow professionals is vital for all editors and proofreaders. This month’s focus of The Edit seems to fit neatly within Domain 1: ‘Working as a professional’, which covers the professional life of an editor/proofreader. These subdomains cover various aspects of personal communication. The table gives details about the competencies, skills and attitudes that you should be able to evidence under each of the criteria. I’ve listed some suggested supporting resources below the table.

Knowledge criteriaEditorial competencies, professional skills and attitudes
1.1.1 Role and responsibilities of an editor/proofreader within a publishing team• Is aware of own role within the team and able to work as part of a team
1.1.4 Professional communication and negotiation• Communicates politely and diplomatically
• Responds promptly
• Understands negotiating techniques and is capable of handling delicate negotiations appropriately
1.1.5 Continuing professional development• Recognises the need for continual learning throughout career
• Can demonstrate frequent continuing professional development and improvement of skills and knowledge
1.2.6 Marketing of services• Is aware of the importance of networking
1.2.7 Professional use of social media and internet• Understands importance and uses of professional directories and business website for marketing of services
• Understands and follows good practice in the use of social media

Resources to support your learning and CPD

Courses and meetings

Books, guides and general resources

Blogs

Networking

Have you come across Business Buzz? You might not meet another editor or proofreader but you will have interesting conversations and make local links that you might not otherwise have discovered. My local group meets monthly in face-to-face drop-in sessions. Why not see if there’s a group near you?

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

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: counters by Pixabay on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Making time for marketing and CPD

One of those age-old questions for freelance editors and proofreaders is how to find time for marketing and continuing professional development (CPD) when other work keeps getting in the way. In this post, Philippa Lewis brings together some approaches that have helped her and other CIEP members.

When I started freelancing, I had no idea how much extra work would be involved on top of actual editing work. Words are my love and joy, and I’m more than happy to spend hours deliberating over every tiny aspect of punctuation, but I found myself completely unprepared for how much time marketing and CPD would take up.

Marketing in particular has been a challenge for me; I find the thought of promoting myself very uncomfortable, and marketing takes up time which I could be spending editing. And I would much, much rather be editing. It’s easy to convince myself that marketing is a waste of time when I could be spending that time completing paid work instead, so most of my attempts at marketing have been squeezed in out of slight desperation when I haven’t had any work booked in.

At the recent CIEP conference, Kia Thomas did an excellent talk about marketing. I really appreciated how matter-of-fact she was about it: as a freelancer, you have no choice but to market your business, so you might as well get on with it. Whether or not you enjoy doing marketing isn’t really relevant, because you still have to do it.

This was a bit of a wake-up call for me, and since then I’ve tried to come up with a system for regularly building marketing and CPD into my working week.

Find what works for you

Editors often talk about setting aside one morning or day a week for CPD and marketing. Having a specific slot for these tasks sounds like an excellent approach, but I always find that when I reach the time I’ve set aside, my latest editing deadline inevitably feels like a higher priority.

I’ve finally realised that a more flexible approach works better for me. I start my week by identifying the CPD and marketing tasks that I want to accomplish. These get written on a post-it and stuck onto my computer monitor; keeping them visible means I can’t forget to do them. I try to identify a mix of quick jobs (like sending a CV to a publisher) and longer ones (like drafting a blog post) for each week. I try to break tasks into smaller units where needed: ‘check pricing page on website’ feels more manageable than ‘re-do website’.

These tasks then got slotted in throughout the week. I find it useful to do them whenever I need a break from editing – often at the end of a work day, or before lunch. I might not have the mental capacity to edit another paragraph, but I can still manage to do a marketing task or read a blog post. Cycling through tasks like this means I’m more productive, as I’m ticking something off my list despite not feeling up to completing work for a client.

At the moment, this approach is working really well and allowing me to consistently complete CPD and marketing goals. But it’s freeing to remember that this might not be a strategy that works for me long term – I’ve found it really helpful to keep an open mind rather than trying to stick to a set routine that doesn’t feel like it’s working any more. We all work in different ways; don’t be afraid to try different approaches until you find a method that works for you.

Prioritise

Marketing and CPD both sometimes feel overwhelming: the list of things I could be doing can feel endless, and when the list is so long, sometimes it’s difficult to get started on working through it.

I’ve now got a list of CPD and marketing tasks that I want to complete, with the more pressing ones near the top, and I use this list to help me identify my tasks for each week.

CIEP member Eleanor Bolton has found it helpful to think about her long-term goals, then select CPD options that relate to this. She says ‘I had quite a long list of courses that all sounded interesting and potentially useful, but there was no way I could fit them all in. Over the summer I spent some time thinking about who my preferred clients were and ended up niching quite considerably. As a result, quite a few of those courses were no longer relevant.’

Be flexible

I’m currently doing a developmental editing course, and it wouldn’t be possible to complete the assignments for this in short bursts of time, or at the end of a day when I’m already tired. Likewise, if I’ve got a complex edit booked in, sometimes setting aside a chunk of time for CPD and marketing is more effective than trying to slot in extra tasks each day. On a different week with a different workload, a different approach might work better. It’s important to stay flexible, and to work with whatever your current circumstances are.

Anything is better than nothing

I’m aware that I could improve my editing speed if I improved my knowledge of using Word. I don’t have time to do a full course on it at the moment, so instead I’ve bought a book on the subject and I’m taking ten minutes every couple of days to work through a few pages. I’m not learning as much (or as quickly) as I would on a course, but I’m still learning something. Each tip I pick up is improving my editing speed.

Maybe you don’t have time to do a course at the moment, but could you listen to a podcast while doing the washing up or when you’re in the car? Again, this comes down to taking a step back and being willing to be flexible: what would be achievable with how your working week looks right now?

I regularly have to remind myself that anything is better than nothing. It’s really easy to get caught up in thinking all your marketing materials have to be perfect, which can lead to never finishing anything – but an imperfect website will reach more clients than a non-existent one.

Get something finished and sent off or published, even if you’re not completely happy with it: send a CV out to publishers even if you’re still completing a training course that you wanted to add to it; publish that blog post even though you’re not completely happy with one paragraph in it.

Reflect

And finally, set a moment aside to think about whether your current approach is working for you.

CIEP member Anna Baildon finds monthly reflections helpful to keep her CPD and marketing on track: ‘Each month I think about what’s gone well, what’s been more challenging and what I’ve learned. A brief look through my diary and my Trello board is usually enough to prompt my thoughts and form some analysis. It’s surprising how much insight this simple task provides. It’s like having a monthly meeting with my boss to bring clarity and focus to my work.’

There’s no ‘right’ way to tackle CPD and marketing; it’s just about finding an approach that works for you, sticking to it when you’re able to, and taking small but consistent steps forward.

About Philippa LewisHeadshot of Philippa Lewis

Philippa Lewis is a freelance developmental editor, copyeditor and proofreader. She works on a mix of speculative fiction and outdoors literature, and lives in North Wales.

 

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: unfocused lights and coffee both by Pixabay on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Forum matters: Creating and editing web content

This feature comes from the band of CIEP members who serve as forum moderators. You will only be able to access links to the posts if you’re a forum user and logged in. Find out how to register.

Posts on this topic that are more than a year old might be of only historical interest, given how fast technology changes. The threads referred to in this article have been selected because they link pretty directly to work on websites, but don’t forget that issues of accessibility also apply to (or can be found in relation to) other media, such as PDFs.

Your own website

Although many editors and proofreaders rely on social media to network and expand their business, there is no doubt that having your own website helps establish your professionalism and is a good place for information about you that may get lost on Facebook and Instagram, or when LinkedIn and Twitter revamp their algorithms, or a newcomer takes people up another highway. One member’s request, Advice needed: moving from self-publishing to traditional fiction editing, ranged far and wide and pointed to just that conclusion.

Even if you’ve embraced the idea of developing a website it can be a slog, and a quick reach-out via the forums has kept members on track (‘How best to prioritise?’). After deciding to use a website design company, forum members have asked for recommendations, in threads entitled ‘website’ and ‘Web hosting and domain registrars’. Even that tricky sub-subject of emails has been covered in Email hosting recommendations.

Many CIEP members create and manage their own websites and have shared hard-earned advice on sites and specifics. You may already have chosen a provider, but if you are thinking of managing your own website then maybe you should have a look first at: Squarespace help; Creating a website then Websites again; Portfolio on WordPress website and New member & request for advice.

Members have asked each other for a quick review of their new or revamped websites (see Quid (I proofread your website) pro quo (you proofread mine) and quick website check) and for help on specifics such as T&Cs and Domain Name Extensions, or about the principles of Pricing and its absence on editor websites and the Use of first-person in freelance websites. The number of replies does vary, and sometimes the first one nails the answer, while at other times the discussion ranges so far you feel you’ve attended a mini-course in the subject – see Struggling to be competitive.

There are some topics that apply to more than websites but will certainly add a professional gloss, such as a source to spruce up the background of your profile pic in Useful website to create/edit profile pics or useful advice on accessibility in Text colours and backgrounds – best and worst for legibility? and Q about hyperlinks in Forum signature.

Laptop and notebook

Working on other websites

You don’t have to have created a website to be able to work on one (although it does help), but it is worth doing some training on the subject. CIEP offers two specific courses: Editing Digital Content and Web editing. But the forums are also up there when it comes to learning. We’ve all had an itch when we’ve spotted some bad practice and asked ourselves, should I say something? Read the thread and then decide.

You’d think a business would see editing their website as a no-brainer, but sometimes getting at the content can be tricky. Copyediting of websites and general advice on editing a website offer some useful insights and links.

SEO and accessibility are two aspects that you really need to get to grips with if you are going to offer a good service to website clients, and the forums are full of good advice on: best font/typeface for emails; quote marks and other punctuation for easy reading and accessibility; Rewording a bullet list for a website; Should numbers be spelled out in Websites?; Providing hyperlinks: best practice?

Good luck with your own and other websites. And don’t hold back on developing your skills and sharing your experiences through the CIEP forums.

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 credit: laptops by Louise Viallesoubranne, notebook and laptop by Marissa Grootes, both on Unsplash.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Flying solo: Focusing your website on your ideal client

In this Flying Solo column, Sue Littleford gets deep into the business of editing text for your website.

When it comes to the content of your website, there are four stages: the initial content creation of the text, editing it down to do the job efficiently, making it accessible and keeping your content fresh. Let’s take those in turn. (I’m not going to talk about using images in this article – but keep ’em relevant, keep ’em in small file sizes for faster page loading, use alt text for accessibility and be aware of copyright issues.)

Creating the initial content

To paraphrase Malini Devadas, of the recently (and, I hope, temporarily) mothballed Edit Boost, marketing boils down to (1) understanding what you do and (2) who you do it for, then (3) telling them about it.

Your website (alongside the CIEP Directory, for Professional and Advanced Professional Members), is the easiest place to demonstrate the first two, and do the third.

It’s clear that people don’t give your website much time to make a good first impression. I learned at the 2022 CIEP conference that websites have 50 milliseconds in which to do it.

Your content should therefore be attractive and engaging (how I hate that word ‘compelling’ in this context!), be easy to access in terms of language, layout and colours, and focus on the potential client.

So here’s the biggest piece of advice today: create an avatar of your ideal client, then write for them, specifically.

How can you help them? What problems do you solve? Why should they hire you?

It’s always about them, not about you. That should steer your writing.

Think not about what you offer, but about what your client needs.

Keywords are a big thing

These are the search terms that people use in browsers to find what they need. And as search engines have been developed to work with more natural language, so they now reward keywords that appear in natural writing, rather than being crammed in artificially.

Keywords come in three flavours, depending on their length. The shortest are short-tail keywords, and are a word or two long. Long-tail keywords are little phrases – five words or more in length. Medium-tail keywords fit snugly in between, at three or four words long. This flexibility means that using keywords of different lengths can still make the writing appear natural while getting good search engine optimisation – the SEO you hear bandied about.

Short-tail keywords are necessarily more generic: ‘proofreader’, ‘editing’ and so on. The longer the keyword, the more specific it becomes, which is why you need to know the keywords that people type into their search engines.

How do you find out the keywords people use?

There are a number of services available, some paid for, some not. If your website is live, Google’s Search Console will show you the keywords that people already use when finding your site.

Or you can simply search for your service in your browser (like most of the world, I use Google as my search engine, most of the time, anyway) and see what comes up at the bottom of the screen under the heading Related Searches or People Also Ask.

Google screenshot showing related searches

Google screenshot showing what people also ask

There you’ll see what people are typing into Google, which is what you want to incorporate into your content – somehow – so that you are found, too.

For instance, I’m a copyeditor. I don’t proofread – proofreading and I just do not get along. But I know that ‘proofreader’ is the catch-all term for what I do, and people outside the publishing industry will be searching for that, in all probability, or maybe for ‘editor’ far more than ‘copyeditor’. So, I lob ‘proofreader/​proofreading’ into my text whenever I can, even though I don’t offer that service. Google doesn’t read the negative!

Editing the content into shape

Once you’ve created your content (which you can, of course, tweak endlessly even after it’s live) you now need to make it look the part.

I buck the trend, as about 70% of my traffic is on computers, and only 30% on mobile devices (of the mobile devices, tablets barely get a look in. Most weeks, it’s just computers and phones). In most cases, those figures are reversed, I understand (I suspect it’s because I market to publishers and packagers, and people are searching during work hours at their desk; if you market to indie authors, I’d guess those figures flip over in favour of phones).

It’s therefore essential to think of how your content will look on a teensy-tiny phone screen, not just how it looks on your 33-inch monitor.

So that means subheadings (keyword magnets) for ease of navigation, short sentences and short paragraphs.

We editorial professionals do like our words. We use far too many of them (guilty as charged) so here’s a chance to practise your word-cutting on your own text.

Ask yourself what that ideal client of yours wants to know, and will be willing to read. It’s not necessarily what you want to say …

Aside from being visually accessible in terms of paragraph and sentence length, structured around those easy-to-navigate subheadings, you’ll want to make sure the language itself is also accessible. Take a look at a couple of ‘Flying solo’ articles on just this topic: Good communication is accessible and Conscious language and the business-conscious editor or proofreader for some guidance on this.

Then pare away at your text until every word earns its keep – but don’t be so concise that reading it is hard going.

When you’ve finished, your text should be doing a shining job of demonstrating your editorial skills (showing, as much as telling) and speak directly to your ideal client.

Shaping the edited content

When it comes to importing your text to your website, think about possible formatting issues, as you would with any text that is to be published.

Incorporate white space, avoid walls of text and make sure it is easy to find the bit you want. Choose an easy-to-read font, that’s big enough to read comfortably, even on a phone.

If you have things you want your reader to click on, have a button if you can, rather than an in-line link. On my site, the button to email me is pretty visible – different colour, big but not ridiculous.

Accessibility

In 2021 I completely renewed my website, including an entirely new colour palette. One of the hardest parts of the build was to make sure that there was sufficient contrast between text colour and background colour on links and buttons.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are supported by many websites offering to check a page and give instant feedback. My web guy and I spent a couple of hours going back and forth making sure we found colours that worked with the palette I’d chosen (I’d already had my logo redrawn – no going back! But the Coolors site helped us find compatible shades) and passed all the accessibility tests. I see that new colour contrast guidelines are on their way.

Keeping the content fresh

Search engines much prefer sites that don’t look neglected. That means periodically updating your text, whether that’s small tweaks, complete rewrites of a page, adding items to a resources page, posting a blog article regularly, adding new testimonials or adding whole new pages.

Throughout all your updates, do keep that avatar of your ideal client in mind.

But every now and again, as your business grows and you develop as an editor or proofreader, do ask yourself whether your ideal client has also changed. If so, work out a new avatar and then review all your content with that paragon at the forefront of your mind.

If you are getting more firmly established in a niche, you may want to trim your offer to reflect that, and stop targeting the type of client who is no longer a good fit for where you’re taking your business.

If you are adding services – maybe you’re a proofreader who now also copyedits, or now offers manuscript evaluation or developmental editing – then you have a new ideal client. Or one ideal client per service. Again, keep your text under review with that or those ideal clients front and centre of your thinking.


Buy a print copy or download the second edition of Going Solo: Creating your freelance editorial business from here.

About Sue Littleford

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

 

About the CIEP

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

Find out more about:

 

Photo credits: header image by JESHOOTS.com, person on a computer by Andrea Piacquadio, both on Pexels, screenshots from Google.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Definite articles: Working with websites

Welcome to ‘Definite articles’, a column devoted to the CIEP’s top internet picks, most of which are definitely articles. This time, our theme is working with websites – for clients and for yourself. The CIEP has recently published its own articles on working in digital formats, in ‘Flying solo: Focusing your website on your ideal client’, and ‘Talking tech: Web editors – WYSIWIG or code?’ If you’re a CIEP forum user, you can access our website-related forum wisdom in ‘Forum matters: Creating and editing web content’.

In this issue:

  • Client websites: Learn from the experts
  • Planning and creating your own website
  • Refreshing your site
  • Other platforms
  • If it all goes wrong

Client websites: Learn from the experts

Marketing tips

Websites act as shop windows. So when you’re editing what is essentially marketing copy, it’s worth learning from people who know about marketing. Copywriter Karri Stover, in ‘11 steps to effective website copywriting’, reminds us of the importance of plain language, understanding the reader, including essential information, and readability. On that last point, Stover links to a useful 2013 article by Carrie Cousins at Design Shack, ‘The importance of designing for readability’, which talks about design elements, from subheads (which should be simple, direct and frequent) to how hyphens can break readers’ concentration.

Understanding accessibility and SEO

If you’re working with websites, you should always have at least one tab open at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This advises on web accessibility and is recommended as a resource on the CIEP’s Editing Digital Content course. Get started with ‘Easy checks – a first review of web accessibility’ and ‘Introduction to web accessibility’.

It’s also essential to have an understanding of SEO (search engine optimisation). Michelle Bourbonniere gives a useful overview of what it is and how to do it. Marieke van de Rakt of Yoast has also written a long blog about the importance of content in SEO. Trickery with links is long gone as a way to improve rankings. These days, SEO is firmly about quality content, as Marieke testifies.

Planning and creating your own website

Every website needs to be planned, and Malini Devadas’s podcast episode ‘How to create a client-focused business’ is a good start in working out how the elements of your offering, including your website, fit together. John Espirian adds to this by taking the long view with a 30-month mindset.

Whether you create your own website or outsource that process is a big decision. A blog by Startups explores the options. If you’re keen on doing it yourself, John Espirian discusses setting up your own website in an article from the archives that includes plenty of useful tips and links. However, as Michelle Waltzman suggests in ‘Stressed about your to-do list? 5 times you should outsource tasks’, if you keep putting it off, you don’t know where to start, or you’ve tried it and it’s gone very wrong, it might be worth considering asking someone else to help you.

Even if you outsource the creation of your website, you’ll have to write it. Apply the same marketing, accessibility and SEO principles that we covered in the ‘Client websites’ section above. You might also commission some photography. Sophie Playle describes how she did this in ‘Branding my editorial business: Working with a photographer’. If you’re working with images that are already created, take a look at Chicago Shop Talk’s article ‘Crediting images at an author website’ for principles and tips.

Once you’ve covered the broad brushwork of development, content and images, make sure the little things also look great, including any URLs.

Refreshing your site

If you created your website some time ago, it’s important to interrogate it every so often to ensure it’s working as hard as it can. Luckily, if we forget, ACES, the society for editing in America, keeps us on our toes with articles like ‘Is your website referral-worthy?’ by Molly McCowan and ‘When was the last time you updated your website?’ by Nate Hoffelder. Nate also wrote the helpful ‘18 questions to ask when refreshing your editor website’. If 18 questions are too many, Annie Deakins suggests six website features you should check.

One editor, Letitia Henville, recently went beyond checking and fixing to supplementing her current site with a digital tool for academics, which received 4,000 views in its first three days. Not everyone has the time or resources to do this, but Letitia includes a list of less ambitious alternatives: ‘blog post, webinar, infographic, video, app, tin-can phone or whatever other medium may reach your client population’. As tempting as the tin-can phone is, many editors find that their digital resource of choice is the humble blog, and if yours is ailing Louise Harnby has four ideas to fix it. Recently on Twitter, Lynne Murphy (@lynneguist) recommended a piece about how to keep online readers engaged in long articles. If your blogs are on the lengthy side, take a look.

Other platforms

Don’t forget Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook as part of a digital content strategy. You can see Instagram at its best in ‘The 15 most Instagrammed bookstores in the world’. TikTok has recently been credited with changing the publishing industry as high-profile book lovers share their favourite reads with users. But if all these options make you feel dizzy, Mel Edits has some sage words about timelessness in ‘5 rules of content that will never change’.

If it all goes wrong

Finally, Chicago Shop Talk has helpfully published an article on how to ‘take back’ an online error that could be useful if you’re working with websites or on other digital platforms. One advantage of the internet is that amendment can be instant. In certain circumstances, though, amendments have to be acknowledged and explained, for example if a vital word like ‘not’ has been omitted in a prominent place in the original text, giving entirely the wrong impression and alarming people.

We’ll leave you to think up your own examples.

Thank you for reading. Why not follow the CIEP on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for more useful content for editors and proofreaders?

About the CIEP

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

Find out more about:

 

Photo credits: header by Sigmund, person with mobile phone by by Jonas Leupe, both on Unsplash

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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

Core business documentation for freelance proofreaders and editors

In this post, Hazel Bird takes a look at the documentation that can help freelance proofreaders and editors to keep on top of the business side of things – from scheduling and accounting to thinking about CPD and business strategy.

Your style sheets are slicker than a greased exclamation mark and your handover notes template is perfectly balanced between conciseness and comprehensiveness. Your macros are practically doing the editing for you (well, not quite …) and you have shortcuts set up with author queries to handle just about anything a client can throw at you.

In other words, you’ve got this editing thing down pretty well. But what about your wider business? What strategic and administrative documentation have you set up and how well is it working for you? Does it enable you to understand what’s going on in your business now, what happened in the past and how to achieve your future goals?

This post looks at some of the core non-editorial documentation you might want to consider setting up. The list is based on the lessons I’ve learned over 13 years as a full-time freelancer – simply put, this is a list of the documentation I wish I’d established and used from the get-go.

It’s important to note from the start that these ‘documents’ don’t necessarily have to be separate – it’s perfectly OK to address two, three or more of the functions below in a single document if that’s what works best for you.

1 Scheduling and workload

Let’s start with the absolute basics. You’ll need somewhere to write down all the work you have booked in, any prospective work beyond that, and all the key dates. You might also want to estimate how many hours each block of work will take you. From this basic information, you can then plan long term (so you know when you’re free for additional work) and short term (so you can see in detail how you’ll meet your immediate commitments).

There are endless options for scheduling, from a humble spreadsheet (such as Google Sheets) to project management software (such as Trello) to business management tools (such as 17hats). I record my schedules and key tasks in a database and then pull the information out into a spreadsheet that shows me week by week, in a highly visual way, how much work I have booked in over the next year (long-term planning). I also use this data to draw up a handwritten plan every two weeks showing exactly when I will complete what I’ve got coming up (short-term planning).

This is a simplified mock-up of one of my two-week plans. On the left is a list of all the projects that will have some sort of activity over the next two weeks. Brackets signal projects that are in the background and very unlikely to require active work; ticks mean I have inputted all work for the project into the grid on the right. In the grid, the circled numbers are days of the week and an exclamation mark means I have holiday or some other potentially disrupting commitment on that day. Non-paid work and general admin are not scheduled as my project scheduling deliberately leaves time free for those tasks over the course of the week. I do, however, note down specific events, such as the client calls and webinar. ‘X’ is an important one – it means ‘answer emails and do any other bits and pieces that need to be done today’. As I complete projects and work, I cross them off (the cross-outs in this mock-up are as if I were halfway through day 2 of week 1).

2 Word counts, fees and time

This is where you get into the nitty-gritty of your day-to-day work. How quickly can you edit? Does it vary by client, type of work or subject matter? Are you happy that the amount you’re being paid fairly compensates you for the amount of work you’re putting in? Can you make a reasonable estimate of how long a potential project might take?

Recording word counts, fees and the time you take will enable you to answer these questions and many more. The answers will feed into your reporting (see below) and also help you to control your workload (and hence take care of your mental wellbeing).

Whatever system you choose for your scheduling will likely have the ability to record these details, or you might want to set up a specific spreadsheet for this purpose (or, if you’re a CIEP member, you can use the Going Solo toolkit ‘work record’ spreadsheet). For time tracking, some people use tools such as Toggl, which can integrate with other software.

3 Finances

You’ll need some sort of way of tracking invoices raised, whether they’ve been paid and any expenses. Obviously this should be in a format that enables you to meet the tax reporting requirements in your region. Beyond that, the level of detail and the format are up to you. You might find specialist software helpful, but a spreadsheet (perhaps with some conditional formatting to flag when an invoice is overdue) can be more than enough. You might even just add a couple more columns to your scheduling spreadsheet to record when a project has been invoiced and paid. If you’re a CIEP member in the UK, you could try the Going Solo toolkit ‘accounts’ spreadsheet.

A hard-earned tip is to actively track your cashflow too. By this I mean forecasting when you expect future payments to arrive (for all upcoming projects – not just the ones you’ve already invoiced) and your anticipated expenses (including the ‘salary’ you pay yourself). Although this can take a bit of time, it can really help your mental wellbeing as it avoids surprises. Susie Jackson has a lot of great tips on clear financial thinking for freelancers.

4 Leads, enquiries and quotes

This is all about tracking who’s contacted you and why, the outcomes, the status of any ongoing discussions (eg if you’ve sent out a quote and are waiting for feedback) and the details of any organisations you’re interested in approaching in the future.

The scale and format of this document will vary hugely from freelancer to freelancer, depending on the nature of their business and what they’re trying to achieve. You might want a complex CRM-type system that enables easy day-to-day tracking and communication with clients, or a simple spreadsheet might equally serve you very well. Just make sure your chosen tool has the capacity to record everything you’ll want to report on (see ‘Strategy and reporting’ below).

5 Marketing

I’m very much not a marketing expert, so I like to keep this as simple as possible. However, if this is an activity that you enjoy or that is particularly important to you at the moment (eg if you’re pivoting your business in a new direction), you might want to give this more space within your business. Louise Harnby’s posts are a perennial favourite in the editing community on the topic of marketing.

My major marketing activities are my website, my blog and my CIEP directory entry. For my website and directory entry, I keep an ongoing list of tweaks plus, if I’m building up to a major update, a more substantial document where I rewrite my content. For my blog, I used to have a separate spreadsheet but I now track my posts in WordPress’s native interface, which I’ve found has saved a huge amount of time.

All of my marketing activities are heavily influenced by my strategy document (see below).

6 Log of positive feedback and lessons learned

As advocated by Erin Brenner and many others, the ‘win jar’ is a hugely important morale booster, especially for freelancers who spend much of their time working in isolation. Whether you choose an actual jar, yet another spreadsheet or an A1-size poster of your greatest hits to hang on the wall, it’s wise to remind yourself of all the positive comments you’ve received. After all, if you don’t keep in mind what your clients appreciate, it’s harder to deliver on their needs.

At the same time, though, a modest log of lessons learned can be a really valuable tool. I always make sure to briefly write down when something doesn’t go to plan – for example, if I take on a project with red flags and then regret it, or if it turns out partway through a process that a client wasn’t fully clear on some aspect of my service. I then make sure to plug the gaps by taking action to avoid the same thing happening in the future – for example, by updating my checklist of ‘things to consider’ when evaluating a potential new project or by updating my quote package so future clients hopefully won’t experience the same misunderstanding in the future.

7 CPD log and planning

It can be helpful to keep a list of the continuing professional development (CPD) activities you’d like to do. Otherwise it can be easy for months or even years to slip by in which you’ve completed an awful lot of projects but not furthered (or even maintained) your skillset at all. It can be particularly helpful to use this document to plan the time and financing needed for any ‘big’ courses, such as learning a brand new skill. But it’s also good to jot down books, podcasts, websites and the like that you can use to help you keep up to date with whatever developments are relevant to your field. Again, CIEP members could use the Going Solo toolkit ‘training and CPD’ spreadsheet for this.

8 Terms and conditions

If you’re working with non-publisher clients then you’ll probably want a document you can share with them that lets them know the legal and practical implications of doing business with you. I think of my T&Cs as a document that evolves with my business and I update it at least annually.

9 Strategy and reporting

Not everyone starts their business with a fancy formal business plan. But at some point you’ll probably find it helpful to write down all those ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybe I coulds’ and ‘I think I’d like tos’ in a single place to keep track of them. The purpose of this document is to set out what you want your business to do for you and how you plan to achieve that.

Your goals can be as grand or as simple as you like. For example, you might want to write a detailed financial and marketing plan to help you completely change your client base over the next three years. Or you might prefer to keep things roughly as they are but achieve a modest hourly rate increase each year.

Where this becomes really powerful is when you pair it with reporting on how your business has performed in the past. I’ve written about how and why I write an annual report for my business here and here. Once you understand your past performance, you’re better able to set realistic future goals and make wiser decisions about what you want your business to achieve for you.

I do my strategy and reporting in Google Docs and use this information to populate to-do lists in Trello with the actions I’ve chosen to keep me on track. Your reporting data will come from all the sources above – you’ll just be viewing it in the rear-view mirror.


In choosing how to address each of the areas above, keep in mind that your documentation should be flexible, manageable and focused on outcomes rather than tracking for its own sake. It should also be capable of evolving – after all, who knows what you will want your business to be doing in five, ten or even twenty years’ time?

Resources

The Going Solo toolkit, which is free to all CIEP members, includes a collection of Excel spreadsheets that are set up to record most of the information covered in this post.

The Editor’s Affairs (TEA) is another series of Excel spreadsheets designed specifically for editors to keep track of their business data.

The short book The Paper It’s Written On: Defining your relationship with an editing client, by Karin Cather and Dick Margulis, is helpful for crafting your own T&Cs.

About Hazel Bird

Hazel Bird is a freelance editor and editorial project manager who works with businesses, charities, public sector organisations, publishers and authors around the world to deliver some of their most prestigious publications. She tries to see the detail and the big picture all at once – the wood and the trees – and has learned over the years how important good documentation is in achieving that!

 

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.

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Photo credits: notebook by Jessica Lewis Creative on Pexels, two-week plan by Hazel Bird, laptop and notebook by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.

Posted by Harriet Power, CIEP information commissioning editor.

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