The Full Media blog offers insights, opinions and discussions concerning various forms of online media from proofreading and copywriting to web design and video.

What particularly appeals to me about the Full Media blog is the marketing angle. As small-business owners, editorial freelancers are constantly challenged by the pressure to keep up with the latest ideas and developments emerging not only in the area of publishing, but of business in general. We're not just proofreaders, editors, copywriters or indexers; we're our own IT directors, marketing managers and web development specialists, too. Keeping up to date with how we can enhance our business practice using the range of media available to us is important, and the Full Media blog promises to help.

The blog was born only last month (April 2013), but if the initial posts are anything to go by this will be a must-read and well worth bookmarking. Here's what's already live:

• Web video – inject personality into your online marketing
  
• Why content is still king
  

The blog is hosted by my colleague Nick Jones, a professional proofreader, editor copywriter and videographer. Some of you will already know him from the Find A Proofreader directory or through his editing business, Full Proof. Nick and I share an interest in not only the mechanics of editorial work but also the business-building aspects of running a small company, especially the marketing side of things, so I'm excited about how the learning opportunities on offer here.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << Other resources

My website attracts a lot of traffic from potential clients looking for proofreading services. I often have to turn down the work because: (a) it’s not actually ready for proofreading – it needs a substantive editor or copy-editor to work on it first, or (b) I don’t have capacity in my schedule and can’t meet the client’s deadline.

The last thing I want to do is just say “thanks, but no” to someone who’s taken the time to contact me. I don’t run a consultancy and I don’t have a bank of editorial freelancers who work for me, but I will do my best to help. This means referring the client to a colleague or helping them access a number of colleagues quickly and efficiently.

If you haven’t worked directly with a colleague, making a direct, if informal, referral can be tricky. Openness and honesty about what’s on offer are key. There are two important points to make clear during the process:

1. Fellow freelancers need to understand that I haven’t vetted the client. I haven’t checked that the client is a genuine, that the work is their own, that they are in a position to pay for the project commissioned, or that they are prepared to work within “reasonable” professional parameters. 
   
2. The clients need to understand that I haven’t always evaluated the freelancers with whom I’m putting them in touch. I can’t necessarily guarantee the quality of service they’ll receive, or that the proofreader will meet the agreed deadline.

I share job opportunities in two ways:

1. I refer the client directly to a specific colleague whom I think will be a good fit for them in terms of experience, subject knowledge and skill set. 
   
2. I post the client’s request (with their permission) on a core online discussion group, in my case usually the member-only forum of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. This enables the client receive and assess quotations from a number of SfEP members with availability and the required skill set.

Of the many job opportunities I’ve shared in the past twelve months, most have gone swimmingly for both the client and the freelancer who took the work. However, in only a few cases, problems occurred:

• clients agreed to work with a colleague and then moved to another freelancer who came in cheaper
  
• clients were not who they claimed to be and were, I suspect, fronts for essay-writing services attempting to commission proofreaders
  
• the freelancer who secured the work did a job the client felt dissatisfied with 
  

Even though the referrals were informal, I still felt a degree of responsibility. No one wants to share an opportunity only to find out that a colleague’s time has been wasted or that a client is unhappy. However, given the infrequency of the problems, I think that informal referrals are still a valuable element of freelancing life and something we should embrace, even if the outcomes can once in a while be “sticky”.

Despite the huge international network of editorial freelancers that I’m engaged with, I’ve only been able to directly assess the work of a very few colleagues. Following are just a few examples of the ways in which I’ve assessed my colleagues’ competence.

• I proofread for a number of academic publishers. In the main, alas, the copy-editor is usually unknown to me. But every now and then I am given the name of the copy-editing colleague who worked on the manuscript before me. One of my SfEP colleagues (an editor and proofreader) is so good at her job that every time I work on a book that she’s edited I struggle to find a single blip in the proofs, and if I do it’s invariably something introduced at typesetting stage.
  
• I'm also increasingly proofreading for self-publishers who have used fellow members of the SfEP to substantively edit and copy edit their novels. This is a great way for me to evaluate the quality of the work that's taken place at an earlier stage of the process and helps me to build up a list of named individuals whom I can suggest to a client.
• One of my colleagues is a fellow blogger and very experienced in working with students. I’ve seen the quality of her writing and therefore her understanding of the structure of the written word. I’ve referred several clients to her in the past (on an informal basis) and they have contacted me upon completion of her work to say how impressed they were with her service and to thank me for directing them to her. 
  
• Another colleague is an experienced editor and proofreader whom I commissioned to work on my own book. I knew this editor had many years of experience working with publishers (and they’d provided excellent testimonials that she’s posted on her website) so I felt confident that she’d be able to handle something that reached beyond a Word file. She did an outstanding job – and any remaining errors in the title were down to my failure to implement her amendments. 
  
• And yet another colleague is a blogger, copywriter and proofreader who has proofread the articles I’ve written for his website. He also beta read my book and pointed out a number of glitches. He, too, has demonstrated that he can do the job to a high standard, so I’m confident that a client will be in safe hands if I send them his way. 
  

Even if I haven’t worked directly with colleagues, I like to nose around their websites and LinkedIn profiles to see how they present themselves. That way, if a particular project comes my way that’s outside my time frame or my skill set, I have a sense of what their specialist areas are and the levels of editorial service they supply. Hazel Harris’ wonderful blog Editing Mechanics regularly features articles that present the world of editorial freelancing from the project manager’s perspective; her guidance on how we freelancers should present ourselves online is must-read stuff. In a nutshell, if you want to maximize your chances of having work referred to you, consider the following:

• Testimonials: testimonials have a loud voice. If a colleague has excellent testimonials on, for example, their website or LinkedIn profile, which demonstrate prior client satisfaction, these tell others something about their professional competence. 
• Website: a website should be easy to navigate and attractive to look at. It should clearly outline your specialist subject areas, the types of editorial service you offer, your experience, testimonials, and a portfolio (of summary thereof) of works completed.
• Social media networks: colleagues will assess the way you present yourself on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Facebook, so it’s worth ensuring that your business brand is coherently and professionally articulated across these platforms. 
  

I never charge a finder’s fee because I’m not operating a consultancy service. All I’m doing is sharing the opportunity with a fellow freelancer (or group of freelancers), outlining very briefly the client’s name, what service they want, what their deadline is, and perhaps a summary of the project’s subject matter. Once the job is in the hands of a colleague, it’s up to them to assess the viability of the project from all angles. Since the risk is theirs, I don’t feel they should be paying me a bean.

Furthermore, colleagues who get the chance to quote for jobs I share often return the favour. For me, freelancing is as much about engaging with others in the editorial community as anything else. In the past year I've secured a proofreading contract with a European translation agency, taken on a large fiction proofreading project from an independent author, and been contacted by a major international academic publisher, all on the recommendation of my freelancing colleagues. They didn't charge me a finder’s fee; why would I charge them one?

The editorial freelancing community is a generous network – what goes around, comes around. Informal referrals do pay but, in my case, not with percentage cuts. Instead, they generate return opportunities, and these result in pecuniary rewards far more valuable in the long run.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << More on getting noticed

The Weekly Review offers links to useful editing, proofreading, freelancing and publishing news articles published online in the past seven days.

< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << Older reviews

My colleague Anthony Haynes recently invited me to write a guest post for his blog, Monographer. We share an interest in publishing, in particular the challenges for both the writer and editorial freelancer working in the self-publishing market.

The boom in self-publishing has lead to a notable increase in the number of independent authors who contact me about proofreading. The reality is that many of the manuscripts I'm offered are not ready for me – they require a different level of editorial input.

This led me to create a set of introductory guidelines for new authors that aim to help them (a) to make the right decisions with regard to what kind of editorial freelancer they hire and (b) to consider some of the marketing, financial and distribution challenges that they will face on their self-publishing journeys. To read more, visit the Monographer blog: What do self-publishers need? The proofreader’s perspective.

I email these to independent authors who contact me about proofreading, and they're also included on the FAQs section of my website. For the more experienced writer and self-publisher they may seem rather basic, but for the first-time novelist they provide a few ideas to help them on their publishing journey.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << Work choices archive

The Weekly Review offers links to useful editing, proofreading, freelancing and publishing news articles published online in the past seven days.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << Older reviews

My starting-out posts have proved to be some of the most popular articles on the Parlour. Here's the top 10 according to reader pageviews:

1. Proofreading: How to Choose the Right Training Course 
   
2. Why I Hate the Term “Freelance Proofreader” – A Letter to Newbies
   
3. Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers – A Book for New Starters
   
4. Going Direct – Using “Cold” Cover Letters to get Freelance Work with Publishers
   
5. Roundup: Websites for Editorial Freelancers – Why? How? What? 
   
6. Building Your Editorial Business: A Fictive Case Study
   
7. But Who Are You? … One Proofreader’s Guide to Personalized Professional Online Communication
   
8. Spotlight: Building a Freelance Proofreading Business – The Usefulness of Objectives (by Mary McCauley)
   
9. Getting Noticed and Getting Work (SfEP Norfolk Group Meeting)
   
10. Starting Out in Proofreading – Five Steps Towards Success

If you're starting out in editorial freelancing, perhaps these will give you a feel for where you focus your business building efforts. The early stages or running one's own business can be the most frustrating and daunting, but perseverance does reap benefits, so keep at it!

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << More on starting out 
 

The maximum size of the file you can upload for free is 2MB. I tested it with a PDF of a large academic tome, and it did a great job. This isn't the only such tool available on the market, but it's free and so easy to use that I thought it was worth a plug.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << More editorial tools

The Weekly Review offers links to useful editing, proofreading, freelancing and publishing news articles published online in the past seven days.

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << Older reviews

Recently, a group of editorial friends and colleagues demonstrated how the power of group support can be harnessed to further the success of their editorial businesses. Let’s call them the Lunchers.

Learning the skills to be a fine editor or proofreader is tough enough. Turning that skill set into a client base is even tougher. For those with no previous marketing experience, this element of small-business building can feel like an overwhelming challenge. Social media platforms such as LinkedIn are a great option in which to explore marketing ideas, and there are books, blogs and professional society forums that are worth their weight in gold. However, when it comes to inspiration, nothing quite beats the act of bouncing ideas around with a group of trusted friends.

Freelancing can be isolating and many editors and proofreaders don’t feel comfortable using professional forums to chat. There are a number of reasons for this, some of the most common being:
 

• a lack of confidence; 
• fear of exposure to strangers who may be watching the discussion without participating; and
• concern about appearing foolish or inexperienced.

For those people, the ideal scenario might be a daily lunch in a local café with trusted colleagues – a sandwich and a coffee to accompany the sharing of ideas. Alas, given the nature of editorial freelancing, it’s likely that your best editorial friends don’t live around the corner. The group of editorial pros featured here, the Lunchers, have therefore taken the challenge online. The sandwiches and drinks are virtual but the daily meetup is very real. The idea started when one editor mailed the following message to a small group of her trusted freelancing friends:

The response was enthusiastic, to say the least. As the emails flew back and forth what transpired was a decision to “meet for lunch” every day and share any activity that would fall into the initial, comfortably loose definition of business promotion.

As the weeks have gone on, each member of the Lunchers has fired off daily emails stating things such as:

• "I have to email one of my clients today so while I'm at it I'll ask her for a reference."
  
• "Today I will contact some clients who I haven't heard from for a while, just to say hello."
• "I will draft an email to clients after I've returned a job, thanking them for their valued custom, and saying “please don't hesitate ...” etc. I'll insert the title of their work, to make it personal. After-sales courtesy might be almost as important as pre-sales. I think people may be inclined to recommend you if you've made them feel special, not just a source of income."
• "I have emailed three clients to ask for permission to use their images on my website, and I have written “cold” emails to two publishers; I'll send those later in the day so that they arrive during normal business hours."
• "I have emailed a potential client to say that I’m happy to review their books from time to time, and asked them if they would consider offering me some proofreading work."
• "I updated my CV yesterday and contacted a client with a query/reminder that I'm available for work."
• I told an adjunct professor whose PhD thesis I'm proofreading that her husband is welcome to pass on my contact details to students."
  
• I’ve updated my LinkedIn profile to include a portfolio of works I’ve completed."
• "Today I’m going to review my SfEP directory entry to make sure it’s up to date."

There are several points that struck me about what my colleagues are doing:

1. Size: the Lunchers is a small group. This means the contributions are quick to read and easy to digest. Any member can read the daily tip, and implement it themselves if they think it’s appropriate.
   
2. Momentum: the goal isn’t to get into lengthy discussions of marketing strategy. It’s about sharing quick tips and inspiring each other to do one thing, once a day, which will reap benefits further down the line.
   
3. Intimacy: the group is “closed” so there is complete privacy. All the members are friends. Everyone feels comfortable in the virtual company of each other so the confidence and fear factors don’t enter the equation. 
   
4. One rule: and there really is only one – be kind. This is not a space where people critique each other (to put it politely). This exchange is based on professional friendship and it is unthinkable that anyone would be criticized (even politely) for sloppy spelling, poor grammar, a lack of knowledge, a failure to trim their messages, etc.
   

It's not that I see the online lunch as an alternative to professional forums and social media platforms. Far from it. Indeed, I value the formal platforms I participate in. And many of the “rules” associated with larger, more formal forums are absolutely necessary owing to the size of the membership, the resulting number of contributions, and the lack of intimacy between members. Rather, the online lunch is an additional way for freelancers to communicate and inspire each other on a goal-by-goal basis (if desired) to improve their business practice in a safe and kind space.

The daily marketing challenge that our Lunchers set themselves could be applied to any aspect of small business development. If you want to set your own goals and get inspiration from your freelance friends, but feel uncomfortable with a more public forum, why not create your own virtual lunch group? What I've learned from the Lunchers is that success lies in keeping it between friends, keeping it small and keeping it kind.

Thanks to the following professional editorial freelancers for permitting me to share their experiences and advice:

• Miranda Bethell | Translator, Editor, Proofreader
  
• Ruth Durbridge | ProofRed
• Jane Hammett | Copy-editor and Proofreader
  
• Sam Hartburn | Quick Black Fox Proofreading
  
• Jennifer Hinchliffe | An Eye for Perfection
  
• Janet MacMillan, Wordsmith | Editor | Proofreader | Researcher
• Charlotte Norman | Freelance Proofreader
• Johanna Robinson | Ascribe Editing

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << More marketing tips

<< Go to the blog homepage    << Search this blog    << More on starting out    << More business tips