​Ever wondered how a professional book index is created? My colleague Vanessa Wells offers an honest and humorous glimpse into the world of a pro indexer – the challenges and the joys, and the 'sense of having created a beautiful thing'.

Let's take a peek into Vanessa's diary ...

I attended the Canadian national indexing conference in Montreal, where we – like most conference attendees – go to strengthen connections with colleagues and expand our professional knowledge. Since the indexing community in Canada is very small, this is a valuable investment and full of good people.

As a result of the conference, I’ve received a referral and am being hired by a university professor to write an index for a 220K-word anthology he’s editing with 22 chapters and almost as many contributors. It’s a ‘straightforward’ index of ‘names and titles’ which, of course, means that it’s both a name and subject index in reality. Yikes.

Against my usual policy, I agree to meet the professor in person, as the campus is close by and it would be faster than exchanging several emails. An excellent meeting results in ironing out expectations, discussing needs and agreeing we’re on the same page! It’s due July 26.

I send him my contract to review, and we discuss rates. Rate structure, I find from speaking to other indexers, is variable. Some people will work for $2/page; others charge much more. A figure I often hear is $5/page, but that definitely depends on your market – geographically and by genre, specialization, and timeline.

​An independent author writing a non-fiction trade book is not going to generate the same fee as a university-paid gig. Some indexers provide other means of calculating their fees, such as a flat project fee.

I tell him my academic rate, and he agrees. I submit my invoice for a non-refundable 30% deposit, payable before work begins.

Proofs are due. They don’t arrive. They’re rescheduled by publisher for the 30th … While publishing timelines are often shifting (there’s a domino effect when a hitch arises), the end deadlines of proofreading and indexing are rarely budged.

​So now I have to recalculate the number of hours and pages per day I’ll have to complete to meet the non-budging due date of July 26. Four days lost means Goodbye, weekends! for the duration.

It’s a long weekend here for #Canada150, our sesquicentenary. I’m so wiped from the previous month of conferences and making a second website for the new arm of my business that I take (most of) the weekend off. I can’t afford to get sick during this project. Self-care and all that.

Forgot I start a weekly course on Tuesday afternoons for the summer, with an appointment this morning. Will have to start tomorrow. Now that I’ve lost another 5 days, I’ll have not only to work weekends but very long days, everyday. My bad.

21 days to go: I begin the pre-read (see above photo) to start gathering my thoughts on how I’ll approach this behemoth. And I need at least 3 days at the end to edit the written index, so really I only have 18 days available.
​
I note there are A LOT of errors still in the MS. I judiciously email AU to double check that it’s been edited and that no other file is forthcoming. He confirms it has been copyedited … Sigh.

Re-install my $500USD indexing software on my new PC. Pay $39 for TextExpander, which is an online tool that lets you build a library of ‘snippets’, sort of like hot keys or macros, but it’s much simpler and faster. Using TextExpander for repeated, long index headings is making my life so much easier: it works pretty well with .ucdx files!

I’m already 50 pages behind. Indexing academic books is so much harder because you have to interpret the often-verbose language to get to the ideas (then re-edit them in your mind) and THEN start forming index relationships between the ideas on that and every other page.

​Since there are almost two dozen authors in this anthology, I’m doing a lot of mental shifts. Why do I pine for indexes so much when they can be so draining?!?

I’m being foiled by the very poor copyediting that was(n’t) done. I email the author-editor several times regarding his preferences for word options that I’m finding in the errata …

​Working on a Saturday is particularly annoying when you hear other people having a great day off. Such is the freelance life.

Here’s how I start an indexing day. Wish I had more than one monitor and can’t believe I used to do this on a 15-inch one!

CINDEX software file open; Google to check MS info, with related sites and academic books on the subject; book PDF marked up with terms needing indexing; and TextExpander to cut down on keyboard strokes. For the time being, I just type the entries into the index; refining connections comes later.

I emailed the author again about the serious issues around the practically non-existent copyediting of this book. It’s causing me to complete about 3pg/hr instead of 5–10pg/hr, never mind that I’m not being paid to correct such things, so again my budgeted time has to be rethought.

He’d like errata forwarded to him so he can take the examples to the publisher and complain. (Understandably, he just doesn’t realize how much is involved in corrections before indexing can be done: research, confirm which instance is the error, note error, find other instances of it in MS, return to indexing the term and fixing all related cross-references).

Ctl+F is my BFF. Wish I still drank alcohol.
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And for all you fellow CCLs, here’s what’s behind it all (because this, after all, is what’s important in life, not crying over indexes).

I had a good phone chat with the author about the terrible editing. (Again breaking the rules; normally I never share my number – learned the hard way with an abusive client once – but there’s too much to discuss via email.)

We’re hatching a plan to shame the publisher into redoing the copyediting or letting me do it. Either way, my schedule is messed up, and he’s sympathetic. What he’s told me about their process with him this far is appalling.

Email from author: basically, the publisher will redo the copyediting after indexing (!!!). This is a problem because it can affect pagination, thus rendering entries incorrect. I asked that my name not be included due to peer reviews in a trade journal, and I wouldn’t want residual index errors to be ascribed to me. The prof was cool with this; I am not, but that’s life in publishing.

Slogging away, only getting about 35 pages/day done. Have to step it up to get in an extra day for editing the index. I hired a subcontractor to proofread it the day before it’s due. I need an emoji for dollar bills flying away. [Note from Louise: I've obliged.]

Tenth day. Just shoot me.

I’ve put in 12 hours today. I’m starting to wonder if I’m going too deep with this index. Re-evaluating.

Good thing I hate summer weather. I worked smarter today, however, using more automations.

Panic time. I’m only at pg 385 out of 557 and I have less than 4 indexing days left before I start editing.

Trying a new – and, to me, risky – tactic: indexing on the fly, not marking up first. I’ll see how one chapter goes. I’ve got to save time!
​
I’ve subcontracted out a small job (1–2 hrs) due to the copyedit snafu. I need every hour I can get. I figure it’ll be worth the money.

What happened to yesterday? Feel like I’m getting sick, which would be disastrous. As an editor, I can always subcontract out a project for an emergency, but not only does indexing have a smaller pool of trained professionals, the intricacies of indexing style are so individual that really no one could easily or seamlessly take over. At least, not if the index is to retain its integrity and essence. Sigh.

Yay, I’m not sick! Done the inputting of entries! 6,388 records, which is on par for a book of this size and topic. The hard part is yet to come: finessing the cross-references and making links to interrelated concepts. While the software can help check for bad references and missing locators, there are many variables to consider. Some cross-references will have to be truncated and reworked; others will simply have to go; and yet others will require double posting due to wording.

This is the part that indexers must educate authors and publishers about – explaining that Word’s ‘indexing’ program just cannot replace a trained human brain. Word creates a concordance: that’s like taking the ingredients off a cereal box and listing them in alphabetical order.

An index, analogously, takes the main words, interrelates them, looks at their nutrient values and considers how the ingredients work to give us a food product, but we can also just know what’s in there if that’s all we need.

In fact, there’s our professional comparison: indexers are the food chemists of the book world – ta da!
​
This stage is exciting and a bit terrifying. I read an article in our UK journal, The Indexer, wherein another indexer (Margie Towery, Ten Characteristics of Quality Indexes) admitted to having two moments of feeling stuck during the process: getting started and this stage. Glad I’m not the only one!

I’m just doing some basic cleanup so that I can get to the editing described yesterday. Fixing typos deletes erroneously duplicated entries and ensures consistency: now’s the time to go back to the MS and confirm correct spellings; get rid of unnecessary, duplicated or differently phrased duplicate subheadings (the latter because you don’t see repeats in the Draft Format that you might have entered previously); add subheadings for entries that have too many unrelated locators, etc.
​
It’s 11 a.m. and I’m only at the Cs. As the meteorologist at the beginning of Twister says, ‘This is going to be a long day’…

Finished cleanup from the Ms to Z; also a lot of double-checking that sufficient entries existed for major and meta topics, as well as the book’s contributors, which the author-editor requested. I’ve planned out the editing for tomorrow before a review by software on Monday.
​
And to prevent potential meltdowns, I save every 30 minutes or so, and back up to hard drive and Dropbox every 4 hours. That’s because once someone turned off the fuse box, and I lost a huge part of an index I had been working on. Live and learn.

Sunday morning, so starting late at 10 a.m. I had a good night’s sleep, which is great because today’s to-do list is intimidating … Except my optical mouse isn’t working, so thank god I have a wired spare. Kind of like giving a chef a loaner knife they’re not used to.

The mouse worked after a reboot, but the reboot took about 20 mins, so essentially I’m half an hour behind again.
​
I can’t just Control + F terms in the PDF, type the page numbers in and I’m done: half of them are in citations, references or footnotes, and the latter should usually only be included when they’re substantive (which can take some time to decide). So whittling down the number is time-consuming. Then they have to be organized by thought. Then entered, and without page-number errors.

Butterflies. I heard a reminder on the radio yesterday talking about how, philosophically, Good Enough should be good enough, i.e. that striving for perfection is not good for us. I don’t think this is the inclination of the indexer (or editor or proofreader for that matter), no matter who says it. But I’m sure Annie Lamott would tell us to be gentler with our sorry-ass selves.

I confirmed that the proofreader is available to complete their part tomorrow. On to my penultimate review …

Due to other commitments, I had to forget about the index today and trust it would be well proofread by my subcontractor. Not easy to do ...

Bad dreams all night about repeatedly calling said subcontractor because the file was late.

Spent several hours correcting, finessing, re-sorting (getting the locator order right – Roman numerals, ascending page numbers interspersed with those with an i for illustration (sometimes we just put illustrated page numbers in italics), so it would show thus: ix–x, 132, i234, 496), and double-checking things before putting it in a double-columned .rtf file.

I’ve heard that before this editing stage, an error rate for page numbers of about 10% can occur, but with the ones my subcontractor found, I was at 0.002% errors: I hope that’s true! Corrected, I hope it’s near-perfect.

Even human indexers with software can make mistakes. In a book of 220K words to be considered for indexing, perfection cannot be expected.
​
I’ve clicked Send …

Anti-climax: the author couldn’t access the file properly (the .rtf was showing up strangely), so he just asked for a new file format. He hadn’t got past the first 10 lines. But he did thank me for my ‘copious explanatory notes’, i.e. my return-file letter, which outlined info about the parameters of the index and changes that had to be used.

The prof is going to read the index this weekend, as he’s travelling. I could have had extra days after all! Waah!

Author got back to me with a few queries and the following: ‘Thanks for the painstaking and thorough job – it’s clear you took a lot of care, and I appreciate that … Thanks again for all of your hard work.’

Hopefully he’ll call me again in the future or refer a colleague to me. But after a few days’ reflection and relaxation, I’m not sure I’ll accept such a long and dense manuscript again – unless it truly is strictly names and titles!

And I’ve realized that an index you’ve written is more like your baby than a book edit: there’s the same pride of accomplishment, but there’s more of a sense of having created a beautiful thing.
​
And the labour and delivery stories are way better!

Vanessa Wells is a subtitle, caption and copyeditor, proofreader and indexer, who taught Latin for almost 20 years before becoming a freelance editor. She recently wrote an article summarizing the current state of indexing. When she’s not working, she’s either reading, watching films, or cat-sitting for senior cats with special medical needs. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
www.reelwords.ca  www.wellsreadediting.ca

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​Why marketing is sometimes a struggle
Here are two reasons why a lot of proofreaders and editors struggle with marketing:

1. They think it’s too difficult
2. They think it’s too time-consuming

Here’s an option that will solve both problems. I’m talking about something I bet all of you do rather well, and how you can get some efficiencies from it that will stretch your marketing budget (no Lycra required!).

What do you do really, really well?
I’ve not yet met one of my peers who couldn’t have a decent conversation with me about editing and proofreading – whether it be a technical or stylistic issue, or a business-development matter. You're all great at it.

And if you can talk about it, you can write about it.

And if you can write about it, you can offer that information to colleagues and potential clients.

And that’s marketing.

So, for those of you sitting in the too-difficult camp, you’ve no excuse!

And here’s a tip – solving problems is always good fodder for marketing.
If you’ve read Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business, you’ll recall my discussion of Kevin Daum’s Differentiation–Empathy–Solution framework. The empathy part of the framework is where you identify the problems. The solution part of the framework is … well, it’s pretty obvious!

If you’ve read my Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders, you’ll recall that I bang on non-stop about solving customers’ problems.

So write about all the problems you’ve ever been asked to solve and you’ll not go far wrong in terms of engaging with the audience who asked the questions in the first place.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at one way you can save yourself time in the long run …

Recycling
This year I landed a free ticket for the Summit on Content Marketing via content marketing masters Andrew and Pete. One hundred speakers in twelve days. No, I didn’t listen to all of the webinars. And I was up until 1 a.m. frequently, just to catch what I could. But it was worth it because one of the sessions was by Gordon Graham, aka That White Paper Guy.

In ‘One White Paper, Five Ways: Stretch Your Content Marketing Budget by Repurposing’, Graham demonstrated how after creating one large, in-depth piece of writing (which can be used as a marketing tool in its own right) you can create additional promo pieces from it by slicing and dicing. More on that later.

Now, Graham specializes in the white paper – ‘A persuasive essay that uses facts and logic to promote a better way to solve a business problem’ – but we editorial pros can take the basic principles and use them to create our own problem-solving materials too.

Let’s put aside the term white paper and think in terms of booklets instead – ebooklets specifically, since we can post them on a blog and pages of a website, send them out to our mailing list or blog subscribers, email them to colleagues or clients who are looking for answers contained in that booklet, link to them in our social media posts, upload them to our membership forums, and so on.

What makes a great booklet?
Graham has some wonderful advice on how to approach a white paper, but I think these points are well worth bearing in mind for booklets too. I’m paraphrasing here but it boils down to this:

• think like a lawyer
• research like a think tank
• cite like a scholar
• write like a journalist
• communicate like a person

We’re editors and proofreaders. That’s mostly nuts-and-bolts stuff that editors are paid to look out for, so I’m confident every one of us can do this.

Upside-down thinking
In the past, I’ve tended to think of my writing upside down. I might create several blog articles and then wonder whether, because they’re related (say, by topic), I can merge them into something more substantive. My first two books emerged, in part, from that mode of thinking.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. However, it’s not always the most efficient way of doing things; I tend to limit myself in terms of word count and perhaps omit information that I’d like to explore in more depth but choose not to because I don’t want to overload the reader.

And then, when I want to create something more substantive, I have to go back and rewrite large chunks of material to ensure the detail’s there.

By switching things round and creating the big piece first, I don’t limit myself or my ideas. I can put everything into the booklet, and then decide how best to slice and dice later.

Examples of white papers and booklets
Here are five examples of in-depth pieces – three from the publishing industry, and two from my own stable:

• White paper: Reedsy’s ‘The Lean Publisher: A Changing Freelance Economy’
• White paper: Digital Book World’s ‘How Do Book Sales Stack Up – Genre by Genre?’
• White paper: The 2017 BookBaby Self-Publishing Survey Results
• Editorial booklet: Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer
• Editorial booklet: How to write great sex scenes: Advice for beginner authors (which I’m currently researching and writing)

The slice and dice – a case study
To show you how the process works, and why I think it’s effective, I’m using How to write great sex scenes as a case study, because it’s something that’s on the go at the moment and the process is fresh in my mind.

Why am I writing it?
Because I’m asked about it A LOT, and it’s something that many beginner authors struggle with. That means it solves a problem. And when we solve problems we’re more likely to be trusted.

There are tens of thousands of people in the world offering editing and proofreading services. For the beginner author, with no prior experience of self-publishing, trying to find help can be terrifying. Is X trustworthy? Does Y know what she’s doing? Is Z worth the money he’s asking?

When we show we’re engaged with our clients’ problems, we begin to earn their trust, and they’re more likely to ask us to quote. So I’m not only helping my clients, but also helping my business.
​
What do I get out of it?
I’m learning. This is the realm of writer coaching and developmental editing. That I’m neither of those things is neither here nor there. The fact is that lots of my clients choose not to hire developmental editors or writing coaches before they come to me. So if I learn, at least I can articulate what their problems are, how they might solve them in their future writing projects, and direct them to expert guidance that I’ve discovered on my own journey.

Why don’t I just refer them to existing articles?
Because there’s tons of the stuff. And that doesn’t help a beginner author who’s in the very early stages of developing their novel-craft and navigating the self-publishing process. Like all of you, I pride myself on being helpful and solving authors’ problems rather than creating more for them!

Besides, I want that content on my website. I want my authors to see that I’m engaged with their problems rather than just sending them to someone else – someone they’ll think is more helpful than me.

How am I handling the research?
I’m reading a lot (research like a think tank). The advice is always wise, and sometimes hilarious, so it’s a joy to do. And this way I get to summarize the advice of expert writing coaches who know how to write about sex well, and the resources they’ve created. There are entire books about this stuff, you know!

And I’ll cite like a scholar. Well, perhaps I won’t be using the full author–date system (I do, after all, want to write more like a journalist and communicate like a human being) but all my sources will be attributed fully in a reference section at the end.
​
What about the format?
It’ll be a PDF, but I’ll create a hardcopy-style booklet image for marketing purposes – a bit like this one for the audio-book primer.

I like a landscape format for my booklets because they work well on tablets and laptop screens. But, really, it’s a personal choice.

I’ll create the cover image in Canva (using the principles outlined in an excellent and free Canva Copy Special video and template by Andrew and Pete) using my brand colours and fonts. Then I’ll use that to create a 3D booklet picture with BoxShot 3D (there’s a newer version but I prefer the older one; you can still access it though it’s not supported technically).

How long will it be and how long will it take to write?
I reckon about 10,000 words max. in total – maybe 9 or 10 sections covering different aspects of the problem.

I don’t know how long it will take, to be honest. I tend to write my blog posts and booklets in front of the TV. That way, I’m relaxed and don’t feel like it’s cutting into my spare time. Reading time is something I don’t have trouble fitting into my life – it’s just something that happens, and it’s a pleasure, even when I’m learning.

My approach to my marketing and writing is: it takes as long as it takes. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. It might take a week, or a month, or more. It depends what else is going on. My only rule is that I make sure I’m ahead of myself by a couple of months so that I can market my business regularly and consistently with my writing.

The thing is, once it’s done, I get to kick back and break out the chopping board!

The slice-and-dice-stage
Once I have the booklet written and the image produced, I can use it as it is – a substantive, useful and compelling resource that will help current and future clients. But I can also chop it up.

If I have 10 different sections, and each one’s around 1,000 words, I can easily create a series of 10 blog posts, each with its own core theme. That’s a lot of useful content to offer potential clients, and I can stagger the publication in whatever way suits me best.

Does that detract from the value of the booklet? I don’t think so. It’s about visibility and choice.

Regarding visibility, different people find answers to problems in different ways. So they might see my tweet about this booklet and think, ‘That’s useful. I’ll download that.’

But they might also place a longer question into Google, such as ‘How long should a sex scene be in a novel?’ My booklet’s unlikely to show up because its title doesn’t answer that question. But a blog post that looks specifically at that question might well end up in the results. It’s certainly far more likely to than the booklet title alone.

As for choice, the thing to remember is that not everyone can be bothered to root around on a blog for Parts 1 to whatever. Blog posts work really well when everything’s in one place, but once you start asking people to jump here, there and everywhere there’s a risk they’ll switch off.

What I like to do is slice up the content into several posts but give the reader the option of downloading the full booklet at every stage.

Graham also suggests using some of the sliced-off articles as guest posts. This is a great idea because, again, you’re putting your resource in front of a new audience that might otherwise not have seen it.

Repurpose and relax
Any editor or proofreader can stretch their marketing budget using this recycling method. When we create an in-depth, research-based resource, we help our clients and we teach ourselves. That’s a win–win all round.

As long as it’s dripping with value, you should feel free to carve it up in whatever way suits you. Your clients aren’t homogeneous when it comes to finding solutions to their problems, which means you don’t have to be homogeneous when it comes to delivering them.

When you slice and dice, and deliver according to your audience’s preferences, you increase engagement, build trust and expand the life cycle of the story you’re telling. What’s not to like? – that’s how I rounded up the discussion of how publishers can stretch their marketing budgets on BookMachine’s blog. I think it stands just the same for the freelance editorial pro.

Go on! Write yourself a booklet!

Also mentioned

• Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business (Louise Harnby)
• Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders (Louise Harnby)
• That White Paper Guy
• ‘The Lean Publisher: A Changing Freelance Economy’ (Reedsy)
• ‘How Do Book Sales Stack Up – Genre by Genre?’ (Digital Book World)
• 'The 2017 BookBaby Self-Publishing Survey Results'
• Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer (Louise Harnby)
• 'Canva Copy Special video and template' (Andrew and Pete)
• BoxShot 3D

Louise Harnby is a professional fiction proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

‘A good design should be almost invisible. It should support your words, deliver them to the reader, not get in the way.’
Rebecca Brown, Design for Writers

I'm delighted to welcome Rebecca Brown of Design for Writers to the Proofreader's Parlour. Design for Writers is the team I refer my authors to when they ask for help with book formatting and design.

In this post, Rebecca offers her expert advice on how to get the best from your book interior ...

Congratulations! Having shed blood, sweat and tears, and arrived at a finished manuscript, you’ve decided to take the plunge and self-publish.

As part of the process of finding the best people to help you do that, one of your priorities will be making your book look as professional as possible.

Everyone’s heard the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. Yet most people do just that. And they judge it by how it looks inside, too.

The cover will get people to pick your book off the shelf; the interior will help make it a pleasure to read.

Why is interior design important?
Your words have been carefully edited and chosen to hook your readers, but the best opening lines may never even be read if they’re set in a font that’s difficult to read, the margins are so small that you need to crack the spine just to read the start of each line, or the overall design looks rushed and unprofessional.

Many self-published authors rely on online sales of both print books and ebooks though, so, okay, a badly designed book might not necessarily put off all prospective buyers. But do you want your readers to leave reviews saying, ‘I don’t know if this book was any good because it was horrible to read’?

It does happen, just as readers will leave reviews that criticize poor editing or a weak story line. And those readers are less likely to return for Book Two.

What does a well-designed book look like?
The best way of answering that is to look at some professionally published books. This is what you’ll find.

Text: The text is large enough to read – usually around 11 or 12 point – but not too large (unless it’s a large-print edition) of course; the point is that the text size is appropriate for the target audience.

Margins: There’s plenty of space around the text. You don’t want tiny margins; you need to be able to see the text as it goes in towards the spine, and you need to be able to hold it around the edges without your thumb obscuring the words. Some titles will have bigger margins, like children’s books. Again, it’s about an appropriate design for your readership.

Typeface: The most obvious and striking feature is the chosen typeface. It should be a serif font (like Garamond, or Times) not a sans-serif font (like Arial) for the body text.
 
Serif fonts are easier on the eyes for long format, physical text. Sans-serif fonts are easier for on-screen reading on a computer. However, this itself can depend on the type of book – many people prefer a sans-serif for some kinds of non-fiction.
 
For fiction, though, choose a traditional serif font. That way, if you need to make part of the text stand out – for example, if your protagonists exchange text messages, it’ll be more obvious that you’ve made a deliberate style choice, and have a more professional impact.
 
When it comes to print books, small details like embellishments and display fonts for titles all add to the pleasure of reading, and to the sense of your book as a beautiful piece of work.
 
That doesn’t mean you should try to mimic the same experience in your ebook, though …

​
​Print and digital books are different animals
Authors often hugely underestimate just how different ebooks and print are.
 
Don’t aim for a duplicate of your print book – it’s a different reading experience. A stand-out feature of ebooks is the extent to which the reader can set up the reading experience to fit their personal preferences (for example, text size, font, and spacing).
 
If you try to force a replica of your print book, you’re doing your book a disservice and making things more difficult for your reader.
 
For example, every ebook device is slightly different, so if you have many different embellishments and beautiful fonts, you’re increasing the risk of the book not displaying as you intended, perhaps not working properly at all.
 
Doing it yourself
Authors can, and often do, carry out the work themselves. There are many good guides to setting out your text, and if you bear certain guidelines in mind, such as those mentioned above, you’ll be able to produce a decent book.
 
If your budget is limited, this can be a good option. Bear in mind the following:
 
Print

• You’ll need decent word-processing software, preferably with the facility to export your file to PDF (so you retain more control over the finished look), and you'll need to set up the pages in your final trim size.

• If your book is 5.25" x 8" (a great size for a novel!) then don’t format your text in A4.

• Take your time and try to envisage your book in your hands.

 
Ebook

• Make sure that none of your text is in Default styling; it all has to be in a ‘Paragraph’ (i.e, Body) or ‘Character’ (i.e, Italic) style; ideally you want to keep these styles to a minimum.
• Strip out unnecessary spacing (multiple returns are a cardinal sin, and your ebook-conversion service will purge them with utter contempt, so your book won’t look how you thought it would anyway!)
• Ensure the text is justified.

Hiring a professional
While you can do it yourself, there is a risk that you'll miss out those extra design elements that make your book stand out.
 
Hiring pro interior designers ensures that your files are absolutely guaranteed to work with the major retailers, and that your book will offer your readers the best reading experience possible, regardless of format (e.g. paperback, hardback, ereader).
 
So what should you look for?
 
Price is always a consideration of course. This can be an expensive endeavour, but sometimes you do get what you pay for, and cheaper is not necessarily better.

Look for what’s included in the package:

• Will your files be guaranteed?
• Will your ebooks be validated by latest IDPF standards?
• Which programme does your formatter use?

 
For print, at least, the designer’s use of InDesign demonstrates a level of skill and commitment to using professional tools.
 
Ask to see examples of your prospective formatter work. Find out what books they’ve worked on (from their website or social media, for example) and take a look at the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon, noting the following:

• Is the front matter laid out well?
• What does the title page look like?
• Does the interior complement the cover design?

 
Evaluating the professional designer’s process
It’s important to understand how your designer works if you’re to get the best value for your investment. If they’re not interested in getting to know your book and your style, that should be a red flag.
 
Ask them how they would like your manuscript to be sent to them. Most will want final, fully edited text in a common format (such as a Microsoft Word document), but often they’ll allow a ‘reasonable’ number of small changes after proof stage. That’s because designers are human, too! We realize that seeing your work laid out for the first time can alert you to small typos and errors, no matter how carefully you’ve checked it.
 
However, multiple rounds of editing once the text is laid out can have a bigger impact than you might think, so get it as close to finished as you possibly can, and make sure you understand what levels of revision are included by your formatter.
 
Finally, and this goes for any book-publication service, think about your initial contact with them. What are they like to work with? There’ll be quite a lot of back-and-forth. Discussion is important because this is such a personal, important project for you. Having a great rapport with your designer is essential.

​Good luck!

Design for Writers
For drama-free book design, contact Rebecca or Andrew at hello@designforwriters.com or www.designforwriters.com

How does one go about building a written-communications business from scratch? The person who got in touch is looking to break into a sector that I have almost no experience of, so I wondered whether it might stump me. However, it soon became clear that the problem is not the sector itself but the challenge of being visible in that sector.

​Those of us who started out by targeting the publishing industry know that there’s an advantage – that sector knows who we are, what we do, and why it needs us. But what do you do if your target clients are corporates? 

Jo says:
 
Firstly, thank you so much for your extremely helpful articles. They’re all I seem to read at the moment.
 
Secondly, a question! You kindly offer to help people solve their business problems, so here’s mine.
 
I recently set up a communications business offering copywriting, proofreading, editing and social media services. I have a professional background in science, business and education, but not specifically within the communication arena. My last role, as a communications manager, was my first within this sector.
 
I’ve spent 15 years helping my partner with his communication requirements, from proofreading and editing to copywriting, so I feel as experienced as I can in this field without having any ‘official’ training. Now comes the hard bit! I am spending each and every day at the computer, emailing companies that I hope will be able to utilize my services, and the one question I keep hearing, time after time is ‘Can you please send me examples of your work?’

​Herein lies the problem. Even though I have worked for many years with my other half, I haven’t built a portfolio of any kind, let alone kept any of the work I contributed to. I’m stuck in that cycle of no provable experience so no work, but no work so no way of demonstrating what I can do! Tricky!
 
How would you suggest I get around this?
 
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for your insightful advice!

Hi, Jo, and thanks so much for your question!
 
Your problem is essentially one of visibility, competition, and the lack of a stand-out brand identity. Your website looks lovely, but that’s no longer enough to get you found or noticed.
 
Written-communications businesses are ten a penny, so you’re operating in a marketplace that’s highly competitive. You’re also up against specialist editors (like me) and specialist copywriters (like my pal John Espirian), and a ton of big-brand agencies who offer service packages to corporates (your target market).
 
Currently, despite your pretty website, you’re basically an unknown supplier writing to companies who’ve never heard of you and have no way of working out why you’re special, why you’re different, why they should pick you over anyone else.
 
And none of that is a reflection of your capability. It’s simply a reflection of the fact that you can’t prove it.
 
The consequence is that, at the moment, your message is all about you.
 
You’re not the first supplier to be in the position of having a small or non-existent portfolio. Many of my colleagues have to sign non-disclosure agreements that preclude them from advertising the fact that they’ve worked for corporates. And while my fiction writers are more than happy to make it known that they’ve hired me, I’d never send another author a sample of the work I’ve done on behalf of a former client. It would be a breach of confidentiality.

Becoming visible and standing out
So what to do? My view is that you need to commit to a content marketing strategy that will build trust and get attention.

The briefest definition of content marketing I can give you is this:
Creating useful stuff that solves problems … and giving it away.

That’s because when you help people, you get noticed. You know this is true because that’s why you contacted me! Let me quote you; ‘Thank you so much for your extremely helpful articles. They’re all I seem to read at the moment.’

Think about it … you’ve never met me or seen a sample of my editing work, and yet you devoured my blog and sent me a long email outlining your problem in the hope that I could help you. Then you agreed to let me publish your name, your question and my response in a public place. Somewhere along the line, I made you trust me.

And that, Jo, is what you need to mimic with your own business. You found me, which means my clients can find me. Now you need to enable people to find you and make them want to engage with you and your written-communications business.

We’re already 690 words in and I haven’t even got started on the nuts and bolts of content marketing, and there isn’t room to do it justice here. But here are the basic principles.

My basic principles of content marketing

• The value is about the usefulness of the resources you create – solutions to your potential clients’ problems.
• The visibility is about making sure people can find it – sharing it with networks (either online – including in forums or via social media – or face to face).
• The memorability is about creating resources that say something new or have an angle that’s yours.
• The usability is about delivering it in a format that your audience wants to engage with (e.g. a blog, vlog, a podcast, a screencast, a PDF, a tutorial, a course, a speaking event, etc.)
• The identifiability comes in the form of branding, so that it oozes you-ness, is recognizable as yours.
• And the credibility is about ensuring that what you’re offering works, makes sense, is of high quality.

 
When you create solutions to people’s problems – based around these principles – you begin a journey that puts you top of mind and top of the search engines. 

Changing the focus of the message
Remember above how I talked about your message being all about you? When you start content marketing, the message becomes all about the client – their problems, their challenges, their business.
 
And when you offer solutions to those problems via your content marketing strategy, you present yourself as the expert you are – someone with 15 years’ experience of working with a corporate. No one will be looking at your sparse testimonials page if they’re too busy drooling over the free resources you’ve offered them.

Then, when it comes to the stuff they can’t do themselves, you’ll be ready to help with paying work.

It’s hard graft, make no mistake. There are no quick fixes or overnight solutions. The strategy requires commitment. 

The principles I outlined above are from my Content Marketing Primer for Editors & Proofreaders, which I wrote at the end of 2016 and published in January 2017. I stand by everything I wrote in that ebook, but I’ve learned a whole lot more since, because I decided to get help from the pros. After all, I’m a professional editor not a professional marketer!

And if you want to get serious and make inroads as quickly as possible, you might decide to go for the pro option, too. 

An example of how content marketing worked … on me
The story of the pros I chose provides an example of great content marketing in action.

I was looking for free online help with branding and design. I came across a couple of guys on Twitter who were creating video tutorials about how to do just that. They were fun, young (younger than me, for sure!), seemed friendly … and their stuff was brilliant … and free. I watched one vlog after another, and signed up for their mailing list so I’d know when something new was out. For about three months, I took all that free guidance and implemented it. 

And then I bought from them. Just a book at first. It cost about a tenner. And all the time, I kept thinking: if the free stuff is this good, and this cheap book is this good, what must their membership group be like?

By the time April had come around, resistance was futile.

Like the Borg.

​And I joined.

​So, you see what happened? They gave away a load of stuff that I found useful, and it got my attention and persuaded me to trust them. And then I became a client because when it came to making the big decision about whom to choose, they were top of mind. They'd blown everyone else out of the water. 

So who are they? Regular readers of my blog will be bored rigid of hearing me talk about Andrew and Pete, and their group Atomic, but I won’t apologize because they’ve made a difference to me. What they teach works. If you decide to go down this route though, do your own research first and make your own decisions. Find what’s right for you.

An example of a colleague’s content strategy
My colleague Natalie Hailey owns a digital marketing agency called Hot Content. And she uses content to drive her marketing strategy, just like I do, just like you can.

Natalie has a blog, a vlog and a newsletter through which she’s building an audience of business owners who are interested in her services – her solutions. 

But she’s not just creating visual and written online content. She’s also delivering those solutions face to face – by speaking at regional events (via her local chamber of commerce) – and by hosting live training sessions and workshops in her area that focus on helping, educating, building relationships and engaging with local businesswomen.

She focuses on a core audience and makes sure that the content she creates and delivers speaks to that audience at every touchpoint of her business – from the font she uses for her logo to the colours she chooses for her blog images; from the way she dresses at speaking engagements to the gentle warmth of her voice when she vlogs; from the tone of her blog posts to the way she engages in forums.

Those are the things her potential clients focus on. And, ultimately, they choose to engage with her because she makes them want to. And why on earth wouldn’t they? She’s nothing but helpful.

Back to you ...
I think you can do what I do, what Natalie does, what John does, and what Andrew and Pete do, so that you and your written-communications business stand out. 

By focusing on your target clients, what their problems are, and how you can solve them, and in a way that’s based purely on being helpful, by making them ‘feel smarter or happier’, as Andrew and Pete put it, you can move out of the catch-22 you find yourself in.

That’s because this type of marketing is about relationships rather than résumés, about problem-solving rather than portfolios, about answering with solutions rather than asking for work. 

It’s not that testimonials, portfolios and experience aren’t great. They are. They’re wonderful. But, as you know only too well, they’re what you get at the arrivals gate. Content marketing is the departure point.

Do it yourself, do it with books, or do it with pros. But do it. (Gawd, I sound like a Nike advert!). Then you'll be irresistible too. Like the Borg.
​
Good luck!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

​Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths about ‘rules’ in writing. Sorting out what’s right or wrong versus what’s preferred or asked for can be tricky for the inexperienced author. In this article, I offer some guidance.

​Don't forget to claim your FREE copy of my Guidelines for New Authors booklet at the bottom of this post!
​

​Writing well means understanding the difference between a rule and a preference. In the world of the written word, these two things often become confused.

How do you sort out the rules from the preferences?
There is a difference between choosing where to place an apostrophe and choosing how to spell ‘focused’.

You can get the first one wrong because different placements will create different meanings. You can’t get the second one wrong, but you can be inconsistent; ‘focused’ and ‘focussed’ are simply variants of the same word and both are correct in British and American English.

So, how do you work out what’s a rule and what’s a choice?

Check a good-quality dictionary or reference manual if you’re unsure. Oxford Dictionaries Online is a great place to start because it shows spelling variants – e.g. whiskey/whisky, organize/organise, centre/center – and explains whether these are equally acceptable across different regions, more likely to be used in one particular part of the world, or distinct to a particular area.

Refer to a style manual. A good-quality style manual should distinguish between a rule and a preference. Which one you choose should be relevant to your audience. If you’re working with a publisher, the press will probably have its own house style, or refer you to a preferred guide like New Hart’s Rules or The Chicago Manual of Style.

If you’re a self-publishing author, you can create your own, though a professional editor and proofreader should offer this as part of their service.

Creating your own style sheet enables you to record decisions about hyphenation, numbering, capitalization, spelling variation, punctuation style, etc., and enforce common-sense consistency without becoming bogged down in overly prescriptive ‘rules’ taught to you by someone who thought they knew better.

You can find a free template for a style sheet on my Self-publishers page.

Check online resources from grammarians and linguists to help you separate the good sense from the nonsense. That way, you can defend your decisions.

Consider your audience. Certain types of writing (and those who will be reading it) bend more easily to particular style choices.

• Website copy that needs to communicate big ideas in small spaces may lose its wow factor if the writer worries too much about avoiding certain grammatical choices.
• Articles for publication in specialist magazines and journals may require the writer’s adherence to specific publisher house-style preferences or academic traditions.
• Engaging fiction writing, especially dialogue, can be damaged when character voice or idiom is buried by grammatical pedantry.

Broadly speaking, a good piece of writing will be sensitive to its audience. Variations in punctuation style, idiom usage, spelling and grammar abound, but they are just that – variations, not mistakes.

The most common myths debunked …
There are plenty of excellent online articles highlighting common things that writers are told are ‘wrong’ when in fact they’re perfectly fine. I’ve provided a summary here, though if you read the linked-to articles in full you’ll quickly realize that the same sticking points arise time and again.

Myth 1: Verbs with -iz suffixes are Americanisms (for example, specialise vs specialize). This isn’t true. In fact, use of the -iz form has been around for over 400 years and is a completely standard variant that’s recognized, and widely used, within UK publishing and beyond. Consistency is what you should look out for.

A word of caution, though – take care not to apply the style globally to your text. There are some words that must retain their -is suffix (e.g. compromise, advertise). Oxford provides a useful list of the most common words that must be spelled with -is. If you’re in doubt, look up a word’s spelling in a good-quality dictionary that includes variants.

Myth 2: You can’t split an infinitive. There are numerous online articles debunking this myth, but one of my favourites is Language Myths by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman (Grammarphobia).

They write: ‘Writers of English have been merrily “splitting” infinitives since the 1300s. It was perfectly acceptable until the mid-nineteenth century, when Latin scholars – notably Henry Alford in his book A Plea for the Queen’s English – misguidedly called it a crime. (Some linguists trace the taboo to the Victorians’ slavish fondness for Latin, a language in which you can’t divide an infinitive.) This “rule” was popular for half a century, until leading grammarians debunked it. But its ghost has proved more durable than Freddie Krueger.’

Myth 3: You can’t use a preposition at the end of a sentence. This is incorrect. You can use a preposition at the end of a sentence – in fact, sometimes it’s far more comfortable for your reader.

Says the OxfordWords blog: ‘Most of us learned in school that ending a sentence with a preposition was a mistake. This “rule”, however, is misguided, dating from the 17th century, when several notable writers tried to codify English to fit more neatly with Latin grammar. Clearly, there are instances where attempting to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition results in a statement that is either over-formal or simply poor English.’

Consider the following examples:

• There’s no chair for me to sit on.
• He had no one to play with.
• Darling, come on in!
• The football match is over.
• Get that dog out!
• We had to do several sets of exercises with no rest in between.

Recasting these sentences to avoid the end-of-sentence prepositions would likely render the text stilted and unrealistic. Unless you're Yoda.

Myth 4: You mustn’t begin a sentence with a conjunction. This is yet another dose of hypercorrection – obviously, you don’t want your writing to be boring, so it pays to not overdo it, but there’s nothing grammatically wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction. And in some cases it can even add punch to a sentence (see what I did there?).

Richard Feloni, in 10 popular grammar myths debunked by a Harvard Linguist, reviews linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style (published by Allen Lane in 2014), and writes: ‘Teachers instruct young students that it is incorrect to begin a sentence with a conjunction (and, because, but, or, so, also) because it helps keep them from writing in fragments, Pinker writes, but it's advice that adults don't need to follow. Avoid writing an ugly “megasentence” full of connected independent clauses, and feel free to start a sentence with a conjunction’ (Business Insider UK, 2015).

Myth 5: You must place two spaces after a full point. Actually, it's best not to – it looks awful on documents produced with modern word-processing software such as Word or InDesign.

Publishers don’t do it; nor do professional typographers. When we do it, it makes the text look gappy and amateurish. You can do a quick search and replace in Word to remove double spaces (simply click Ctrl H, and then type two spaces into the Find What box and a single space in the Replace With box).

This supposed typographical rule is purported to be a hangover from the days of monospaced letters on typewriters; these had only one font that gave equal space on a page to a wider letter such a ‘w’ and a narrower symbol like a full point. Whether that's true is not the point. Go to your bookshelf and pick up any contemporary, professionally published book; I promise you this – all full points will have a single space after them. Delete your double spaces and you're more likely to look like a pro!

For an entertaining discussion of the issue, read Farhad Manjoo’s article Space Invaders (Slate, 2011). 

Myth 6: You can’t use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. This old chestnut gets a lot of peevers in a pickle. It’s a shame because it’s a rather splendid solution for those who want to write clearly and succinctly while avoiding gendered language. It’s been in use for a while too – from at least the sixteenth century.

Some publisher house styles demand the avoidance of the singular ‘they’; others embrace it, given that, as Arike Okrent notes, ‘[i]t’s perfectly good English. It sounds completely natural. Great writers like Shakespeare and Austen used it’ (4 Fake Grammar Rules You Don’t Need to Worry About, Mental Floss, 2015). Oxford Dictionaries concurs.

Note, though, Oxford’s follow-up caution: ‘Two things are matters of fact, however: many people use it, and many others dislike it intensely. If you’re writing something, it is therefore advisable to consider who might read it, and what their views might be.’

Myth 7: You shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘However’. You can, but getting the punctuation right is essential.

(a) When it’s being used in the sense of ‘Nevertheless’ or ‘But’, it acts as a connector or conjunction with the previous sentence:

• The weather’s been awful recently. However, it’s due to brighten up next week.
• I’m taking a gap year to travel around Europe. However, I’ll resume my studies in a year’s time.

Note that when used in this sense, it should take a comma after it so as not to make your reader think it’s being used in the sense of (b), below.

(b) ‘However’ can also be used to mean ‘in whatever way’ or ‘regardless of how’. In this case, I wouldn’t place a comma after it because it would interrupt the sentence.

• However you get there, just be sure to arrive before 4 p.m.
• However much you think you know about grammar, there’s always someone who’ll insist that you adhere to their pet peeves.

Mignon Fogarty provides a good overview of the issue in Starting a Sentence with ‘However’: Right or Wrong?.

She also provides some thoughtful advice about avoiding placing ‘However’ at the beginning of a sentence: ‘Sometimes it’s still a good idea to avoid it because a lot of people think it's wrong. I don’t advise starting a sentence with ‘however’ in a cover letter for a job application, for example. You don’t want your résumé to get dumped because someone thinks you’ve made a mistake even if you haven’t’ (Quick and Dirty Tips, 2013).

Depressing, but worth bearing in mind!

Final thoughts …
First, consider Jonathon Owen’s reminder that good writers should never ignore register. ‘There’s a time and a place for following the rules, but the writers of these lists typically treat English as though it had only one register: formal writing. They ignore the fact that following the rules in the wrong setting often sounds stuffy and stilted. Formal written English is not the only legitimate form of the language, and the rules of formal written English don’t apply in all situations. Sure, it’s useful to know when to use who and whom, but it’s probably more useful to know that saying To whom did you give the book? in casual conversation will make you sound like a pompous twit’ (12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Grammar Mistakes Makes, Arrant Pedantry, 2013).

Second, bear in mind that some people’s ‘rules’ are actually just their pet peeves. Taking time to understand the difference between a rule and a preference will at least enable you to defend your choices. However, don’t be surprised if some sticklers still object to your decisions – there’s no consensus.

Says editor and writer Stan Carey, ‘There are local and institutional conventions, but since English lacks an official language academy, there is no universal Standard English. Pick a version and you will find it riddled, as Geoffrey Pullum wrote, “with disorder, illogic, inconsistency, oddity, irregularity, and chaos”. Amidst such ragged variability, clarity is desirable and elegance is admirable, but while certain rules facilitate these qualities, others are misguided myths that undermine them’ (Descriptivism vs. prescriptivism: War is over (if you want it), Sentence First, 2010).

And as promised, here's your free booklet! It includes lots of useful guidance and links for newbie writers. I hope you find it useful. Click on the picture to get yours.

For more self-publishing resources, visit the library on my Self-publishers page. Or join the library here to get monthly updates.

Louise Harnby is a professional fiction proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

How to organize your proofreading and editing resources so that they're visible and usable ...

Content hubs for proofreaders and editors
The ‘self-publishers’ page on my site is a content hub. I call it Louise's Writing Library. It’s where potential author clients can find lots of resources to make their lives easier.

Each resource has a picture. Clicking on that picture takes the visitor to a blog post, a Word file or a PDF booklet (though it could just as easily link to a video, podcast or Excel spreadsheet).

All of that stuff is on my blog too, so why did I create a dedicated page to curate it? Here are 8 reasons why:

1. Hubs help your visitors find your useful stuff
It's much easier for a visitor to navigate from one resource to another when you offer clearly titled images in one place than it is to find what you want in a search bar or blog archive.

And if they get distracted, it’s easy to start the content review process all over again back in the hub. That might not be so easy if they’re on a 7-year-old blog with several hundred articles on it, especially if the ones they want to read appear in different subject- or month-archives.

Your visitor can also bookmark a hub page on your site. They can’t do that with a list of results generated by your search bar. They can probably bookmark an archive, but that will only show the first article or two on your blog, not a chunk of your core resources at a glance.

2. Hubs keeps your visitors on your site for longer because there’s more to engage with
The more goodies you offer visitors, the greater their engagement. That’s good for obvious reasons – you’re helping your clients, showing them you’re engaged with their problems and are willing and able to solve them.

But there’s another important reason. The longer someone sticks around on your site, the more likely they are to hire your editorial services.

It’s no surprise, really – I don’t stick around in a high-street shop, desperately trying to find that one thing I want, if the overall feel of the place and the products it’s selling don’t feel like me. But if I keep finding things that grab my attention, I’m much more likely to walk out of the door with a bag full of something nice.

Editorial websites are no different. If your hub makes potential clients drool because you’re offering them a lot of free, helpful, valuable content, if it makes them feel that you get them, and that you’re a good fit for each other, you have a much higher chance of persuading that person to ask for a quote or a sample edit/proofread.

3. Hubs reinforce your brand
Content hubs are perfect for reinforcing your brand identity because you can create a uniform look and feel by theming your images with consistent colourways, fonts, and design.

Include a few lines of text at the top to explain who your resources are for, and what problems they’ll solve – your mission, so to speak.
​
Here’s a partial sample of the images in my own content hub:

My brand identity is premised on a passionate support for the independent author’s right to write, and my empathy with their self-publishing journey (having done it myself). I hope my smiling headshots give them an inkling of my friendliness and supportive nature. I hope that the colours are soft and gentle enough to inspire reassurance. But just in case, I include the following text to explain what my aim is with this hub:

​And here's a partial shot of John Espirian's Learning Zone. John's hub has a very different feel to it, and so it should. His brand identity is built around a different set of skills, services and target clients.

​4. Hubs demonstrate your expertise and arouse clients’ emotions
With a hub you can offer a chunk of accessible information that solves multiple problems. That presents you as an expert who sees the big picture. It’s not a labyrinthine process of discovery that involves extensive scrolling or putting the right keywords into a search box. Rather, you hit them in the heart with a message that you’re on their side and have their backs.

It’s about arousing powerful emotions. In episode 3 of Content Mavericks, pro content marketers Andrew and Pete argue that high-arousal messages like awe, excitement, relief, and love are much more likely to generate engagement than lower-arousal messages like contentment. ‘When we care we share … Figure out a way to make people care about your message or your offering.’

If your hub can generate excitement in your potential client – make them feel that they’ve found an editor or proofreader who’s completely on their wavelength, someone who’s demonstrably in touch with their struggles, and is offering resolution – that’s a powerful message.

And it’s one that’s more likely to get your visitors telling others about who you are and what you’re up to, and have them clicking the Contact button.
​
5. Eye candy
I cherish my blog, The Proofreader’s Parlour. I’ve lovingly filled it with articles on a weekly (mostly) basis since 2011. But things can get messy. There’s a sidebar with a subscription button, an RSS button, a search box, an archive by subject area, an archive by date, some links to my book, and more.

Plus, I love to write meaty posts. Most of my articles are at least 1,500 words long. And while I do include images and header stamps that summarize what’s included in each post, there’s an awful lot of text.

That’s not all. There’s a lot of scrolling to do if someone wants to glimpse what’s available on one page of the blog. A content hub is much easier on the eye and allows my author visitors to see at a glance what’s on offer.

6. Segmentation
Back in the day when I worked exclusively for publishers, my blog posts were aimed at my colleagues. These days I work pretty much exclusively for indie authors, and now I’m creating content for them, too. So I have two audiences, and two types of content. It’s about a 50–50 split.

Creating resource hubs helps me to segment my website so that the right people can find the relevant content. This is particularly important for my author audience because most of them don’t yet know me. They’re less likely to bounce around in my blog, diving from one archive to another in a bid to find what they need.

Many of my colleague visitors do know me, at least in an online capacity. And so they have a little more patience because I’ve already built a trusting relationship with them. They’re more likely to spend time rooting around the Parlour for what they want. I do have a Resources page for them, but it houses fewer pieces of content than the author content hub.

7. You can show off what you’ve got planned
This is one of the biggest pulls for me. I want potential author clients to see what I’m already offering them, of course, but I have a tonne of great stuff in my head or listed on my content-audit spreadsheet, in production, out with the proofreader, or already scheduled for publication sometime in the next few months. And that’s not visible on my blog.

My blog only tells people about what’s available. What’s coming might be equally appealing to a client. They might be more likely to sign up for membership to Louise’s Writing Library (my author newsletter) if they can see there are some exciting things in the pipeline.

Furthermore, I encourage library members to tell me what’s missing from the hub. If I’m asked for something, but I know it’s going to take me a few weeks to produce that new resource, I want to have a way of indicating that it’s on its way and that I haven’t ignored the request.

8. Hubs encourage ‘you’re worth it’ moments
Certainly, a great content hub will increase the likelihood that your visitor will hit the contact button, but not everyone will be ready to make that commitment.

That’s why building a mailing list is a great way to keep in touch with potential clients who are thinking, ‘I’m interested in you and like what you’re doing, but I’m not quite at the point where I’m ready to hire you as my editor or proofreader.’

Still, it seems like everyone and their aunt has a mailing list or newsletter these days. And if you’re going to persuade someone to allow yet another email into their already crowded inbox, and make them want to actually open it, displaying a hub of gorgeous resources might just be the tipping point – the thing that makes them think you’re worth it.
​
Make sure your hub includes a way of signing up to your mailing list, and a clear call to action that tells the visitor what you want them to do, and why. Here’s what mine looks like:​

Summing up
Make your wonderful editorial content easy to access. Whether it’s a blog, a vlog, a podcast, or something else, help your potential clients navigate their way around your resources and show them all the marvellous stuff on offer.

Tell them who and what it’s for – how it helps, which problems it solves. Explain whether it’s available instantly or whether some sort of access sign-up is required.

​Finally, make sure it’s designed uniformly (Canva is your free friend – trust me!) so that each resource looks like it’s part of a stable. That way it’s not a hotchpotch of stuff; it’s valuable, client-focused content that represents you, your editorial business, your professional values, and your mission – your brand identity.

Resources

• Canva: free graphic-design tool website
• Andrew and Pete: pro content marketers; creators of the Content Mavericks training programme, available to Atomic members
• There are some good examples of content hubs curated by non-editing businesses on the Kissmetrics blog

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

Another email from a Parlour reader ... the answer will be of interest to anyone with similar manual dexterity issues.

Rachel asks:

‘I am looking into a career in proofreading. I have multiple sclerosis and need to work from home. I was wondering if you know whether any of the online courses cover the use of things such as Track Changes. Unfortunately, I have lost almost all manual dexterity and am unable to mark up on hard copy. I am, however, able to use a keyboard and mouse comfortably.’

Thanks so much for your question, Rachel.

So the good news is that because you can use a keyboard and mouse, and you therefore prefer to work onscreen, professional proofreading is certainly a viable option for you (assuming your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are up to scratch, and you're ready to market your business effectively).

Furthermore, there are industry-recognized training courses and resources that will support your onscreen learning.

One thing we need to look at is how different client types’ expectations of what proofreading entails present challenges for you.

It’s important to me that you’re forewarned about this so that you can target your clients appropriately, and communicate your service offering in a way that makes it clear what you will and won’t do.

I’ll tackle that issue first and then move on to the training options available.

Proofreading – expectations and possible challenges
So, you’ve told me that your MS affects your manual dexterity, but my first thought was whether it also leads to fatigue. You didn’t mention this in your email, but I think it’s worth discussing for reasons that I hope will become clear.

In my first decade of proofreading practice, almost all of my clients were mainstream publishers. Now I work exclusively with self-publishers (a few businesses but primarily writers of fiction).

What’s clear from my experience is that the expectations of what has to be done and how it has to be done often differ depending on client type.

Furthermore, how much will be done by the proofreader is often (though not always) quite different.

What and how much does a proofreader do? Traditional publishers
When working for traditional publishers, a proofreader is usually annotating designed page proofs. These are the pages (either paper or digital) that are almost identical to what readers would see if they pulled a book off the shelf.

It’s a quality-control check of a book that’s been through developmental-, line- and copy-editing. The author has reviewed the files at each stage. Once the team is happy that the book’s ready to be laid out, an interior designer or typesetter will format the book to professional, industry-recognized standards.

The proofreader’s job is to find anything missed during an extensive copy-edit, that no errors have been introduced at design stage, and that the various elements of the book are rendered consistently, correctly, and according to the design brief.

In this case, the proofreader is looking at more than just spelling, punctuation and grammar. She’s also spotting problems with page numbering, chapter headings, line spacing, paragraph indentation, running heads, image captions, table and figure numbering, widows and orphans, page depth, prelims and end matter, and more.

In my experience, because most of the problems in the text have already been attended to during previous rounds of editing, there might be only a few changes that warrant querying or marking up on each page.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but, on the whole, most of a proofreader’s time is spent carefully reading and checking rather than marking up.
That’s important for you because while your hand movement is somewhat impaired, your vision isn’t.

And because you wouldn’t have to make thousands of changes, the strain on your hands wouldn’t be excessive or challenging.

What and how much does a proofreader do? Non-publishers
Outside of the mainstream publishing industry, things become a little more tangled. The role of the proofreader is not nearly so well defined.

It’s not unusual for clients to ask for a service they call ‘proofreading’ but that a traditional publisher would call ‘copy-editing or even ‘line editing’. Here the raw text is amended (or suggested recasts to the text are made using Word’s commenting tool).

Furthermore, it’s not unusual for the so-called proofreader to be the first professional to work on the text.

And that means that the changes made might well run into the thousands. We’re not talking about a few amendments on each page, but hundreds per chapter, perhaps even per several pages.
​
Of course, it does vary, but every change, every query, requires the use of one’s hands. So you need to be aware of the potential impact of this kind of work on your health, and think carefully about how it will affect your hands and your fatigue levels.

I’m not saying that working for non-publishers isn’t an option for you. Rather, you’ll need to take your speed and fatigue levels into account and factor them into the time you assign to complete projects.

If you're working in Word, I suspect that =2K–10K-word business documents, Master’s dissertations, journal articles, short stories, brochures and newsletters won't present you with the same challenges as book-length work of 80K–100K words will.

How does a proofreader mark up? Traditional publishers
Because the proofreader is usually providing a pre-publication quality-control check on designed page proofs, most publishers like the annotations to take the form of industry-recognized proof-correction marks. In the UK, these are BS 5261C:2005.

Any decent professional training course will teach you how to use these appropriately.

Traditionally, these annotations were made on paper but publishers are increasingly providing PDF proofs.

This affords you an opportunity because you can use a keyboard and mouse to annotate the page proofs in a way that mirrors a paper markup. There are a few options, but many proofreaders use a combination of a PDF editor’s (e.g. Adobe Reader DC, Acrobat Pro, or PDF-XChange) onboard comment and markup tools and digital proofreading symbols (custom stamps).

I supply free files of stamps that proofreaders can download and install in the stamp palettes of their PDF editors. These stamps conform to BS 5261C:2005.
 
How does a proofreader mark up? Non-publishers
Because many non-publishers supply Word files, you’ll be working directly in Word and using Track Changes.

You’ll also be able to take advantage of several macro suites and find/replace strings that will improve your efficiency and reduce the strain on your wrists and fingers.

That’s good news for all of us – with or without MS or other manual-dexterity issues – in terms of time, quality and consistency.

Summary of what, how, and how much
So, all in all, it’s worth your taking the time to think about the types of clients you’ll work for, how many changes you might be required to make, how those client types will expect you to mark up, what length the projects will be, how long it will take you to complete the different project types, and how all of those things fit in with your specific health condition.

Professional training
My two recommended online proofreading training providers in the UK are the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and The Publishing Training Centre.

The SfEP has practical online courses on the technical aspects of professional proofreading, a grammar brush-up course, and editing in Word. Of the latter, the SfEP says, ‘It includes chapters on styles and templates, find & replace and wildcards, and macros. Guest chapters have been written by Paul Beverley on FRedit, Daniel Heuman on PerfectIt and Jack Lyon on The Editorium. All chapters contain downloadable study notes, exercises and model answers.’

The PTC offers a grammar course, and its flagship Basic Proofreading course.
Before you sign up, I’d recommend you have a conversation with either or both organizations in order to assure yourself that the course materials are usable in a way that suits your needs.

Additionally, there are numerous free online tutorials and screencasts on how to use Word’s Track Changes, so Google will be your friend here. Search for one that matches your own version of Word.

The most important issue for any professional proofreader is understanding first what to change, and making sure that she and the client are on the same page, figuratively speaking, about what degree of intervention is expected and how it will be rendered.

Online books and resources
Here are some resources that should help you on your journey:

• My favourite punctuation guide is R.L. Trask’s Penguin Guide to Punctuation – straight to the point, lots of easy-to-understand examples, logically organized, and short! If you can manage print, there’s a paperback on Amazon.
• If you need an online version, try this guide by the same author, and available free online via the University of Sussex: Guide to Punctuation.
• New Hart’s Rules online: If you’re a UK library member, you can access the premium version of Oxford Dictionaries, which includes NHR and a number of other excellent online grammar and style resources. I like it because it’s easier to search than the paper version, but you’ll benefit from the fact that you can access its content using a keyboard and mouse. You'll need your library card number.
• The Chicago Manual of Style: There’s a searchable online version of this too. Great for all the same reasons as NHR!
• Jack Lyon’s Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word is brilliant for helping the complete novice learn how to use wildcards to save time when editing/proofreading Word docs. It’s a small book, but, again, if the print version’s going to impede access, then use Google Search. Try, for example, Graham Mayor’s Find and Replace using Wildcards.
• Check out the myriad macros on Jack’s The Editorium, too.
• PerfectIt is a simply gorgeous Word add-in that, in my opinion, is a must-have for any professional editor or proofreader working in Word. There are lots of tutorials on the developer’s website.
• Rich Adin’s EditTools is also popular with non-fiction Word editors and proofreaders.
• ​And let’s not forget the mountain of macros available via Paul Beverley – do check these out; they’re all free!
• Finally, for a tiny but excellent summary of BS 5261C:2005 proof-correction marks, visit the SfEP website. There are freebies online but they’re not always up to date. This is still, for me, the best and cheapest reference guide to the marks. It comes as a sturdy piece of folded card, so I’m hoping it won’t be a challenge for your hands.

I hope this helps you move forward, Rachel, and wish you all the very best in your search for a career that will work for you alongside your MS rather than in opposition to it.

Good luck!

Further reading

• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 1. Working with page proofs (Louise Harnby)
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 2. Working directly in Word (Louise Harnby)
• PDF Editing – Making the Most of the Stamps Tool​ (Louise Harnby)
• Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses (Louise Harnby; The Proofreader’s Parlour)
• The Proofreader’s Corner: Page Proofs and the Domino Effect (Louise Harnby; An American Editor)
• Proofreading Practice: Exercises with model answers and commentary, 2nd ed. (contact Margaret Aherne direct)

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

This question is from Alison, who’s new to proofreading and still completing her professional training with one of the UK's industry-recognized bodies.

‘I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the iPad Pro 12.9" with a stylus as a proofreading tool. I am currently using my MacBook Air.’

That’s a great question, Alison. Here’s my take on the situation:

Broadly speaking, I wouldn’t recommend a tablet as a primary professional proofreading tool because I think you’ll struggle to match the functionality available on a laptop or desktop computer.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use it in your home office to increase your screen real estate – perhaps for fact checking, referring to an onscreen style guide, displaying your online dictionary, or checking emails.

Overall, though, I think there are too many limitations for the pro proofreader. Here are some thoughts …

Proofreading and tangled terminology
Your professional training will distinguish between proofreading (annotating designed pages – page proofs) and copyediting (correcting the raw text).

This distinction will match the expectations of many traditional publishing houses, though not all.

I’ve worked for two publishers in my career whose ‘proofreading’ required me to edit raw text. We might call it a light edit, or a proofedit, or just stop beating about the bush and use the term copyedit!

What we’re talking about here is a quality-control check prior to publication. And it’s done in Word.

In this case, you’ll not be scribbling hieroglyphics on your tablet with your stylus; you’ll be directly amending the file.

iPads and Word files
I have an iPad Air. I love it for email, search, messaging, reading, listening to music and audiobooks, social media and gaming. I also like it for writing – drafting anyway. But I wouldn’t use it as a professional proofreading tool if you paid me (unless you paid me a lot to compensate for how much slower I’m going to be!).

The screen size is still too small for one thing. Now, it’s not necessary to have two mammoth screens, but I like mine! I’m happy to work on my 15” laptop when required, but that’s as low as I’ll go. The more I can fit on a screen the less I have to scroll. And that reduces the strain on my wrist.

There is a lot of functionality in the app, but I just don’t think it’s anywhere near as quick or accessible as when one’s working on a laptop or desktop. Making a decent living from professional proofreading means taking advantage of complementary efficiency and productivity tools wherever possible.

Basics like find/replace, wildcard searches, keyboard shortcuts, and the styles palette should speed you up, not slow you down.

But the biggest downside is what you’ll lose from not being able to run a whole suite of gorgeous macros that will make your life easier and improve the quality of your proofread.

• PerfectIt for iPad. Doesn’t exist.
• StyleWriter for iPad. Doesn’t exist.
• EditTools for iPad. Doesn’t exist.
• Macros for Editors (Paul Beverley) … the iPad version. Doesn’t exist

You get the point!

So, for me, the iPad is not a contender for working in Word. Not for the professional, anyway, for whom quality and efficiency are key.

iPads and PDFs
Whom you’re working for will affect things here.

If you proofread for publishers, you’ll likely be asked to work on designed-for-print page proofs. This presents a number of challenges on a tablet.

Even on a larger tablet like the one you’re considering, you won’t get a clear view of a facing recto and verso. And that means you won’t be able to check quickly for unequal page depths.

Then there are the comment and mark-up tools to consider. A stylus is great if you want to use industry-standard proofreading marks, though it’ll need to be a high-quality stylus with a fine nib if your marks are to conform to BSI 5621C.

I’ve experimented with a stylus and it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped to annotate a PDF to professional standards. I wasted time ensuring each symbol was clear and neat, whereas if I’d been working on paper or on a laptop using digital BSI stamps, I’d have already moved on to the next annotation. Just something to bear in mind – practice will be essential if you experiment with tablet/stylus markup.

Talking of stamps, you can mark up a PDF on a laptop or desktop (Mac or PC) using digital symbols. I provide a free set (see More Resources below).

I want to mention the search function, too. One of the things I like best about marking up a PDF is the ability to do global searches for repeated errors. And while the search tool is quite neat on a tablet, it doesn’t have the range of functionality that you’d find on a laptop or desktop, particularly if you’re using pro versions of Acrobat or PDF-XChange.

And, yes, the comment and markup tools, and the bookmarking are there in the app, and again quite neat if you’re working on a basic file with very little text for a non-publisher client. But for an 80,000-word book in which you might have to make hundreds of changes, I think you’ll struggle.

Overall, the issue is one of speed. There’s a lot you can do on an iPad but I don’t think tablets in general are designed to let you move efficiently around a designed book page in the way a professional proofreader needs to.

I want to be able to see a double-page spread at a glance. Yes, I’ll need to inspect the text word by word, line by line, but I also want to be able to view the page as a whole, including its running heads, its margin and line spacing, the position of all of the various elements and whether they’re aesthetically pleasing.

I want to be able to bounce around on one page, and back and forth between pages via bookmarks, without keyboards and windows popping up all over the place while I’m working! That just slows me down, and in an age when many mainstream publishers are feeling the pinch and increasing their freelance editing rates only marginally each year, smart proofreading is essential. The more efficient you are, the better the hourly rate you’ll earn.

I recommend you stick with your MacBook Air. My friend and colleague John Espirian concurs:

'My iPad is a wonderful writing platform but I wouldn't use it for editing or proofreading in any professional capacity. A MacBook is going to win hands down on that score. I write all of my blog drafts in Byword on my iPad. I use Apple's Smart Keyboard (see More Resources for a review). 

And unless you're location-independent and need to carry as little as possible, treat yourself to a second screen.

I wish you good luck with your training, Alison!
 
More resources

• Working with two screens (John Espirian)
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 1. Working with page proofs (Louise Harnby)
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part 2. Working directly in Word (Louise Harnby)
• PDF Editing – Making the Most of the Stamps Tool​ (Louise Harnby)
• iPad Pro Smart Keyboard: first impressions (John Espirian)

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

[Note from Louise: the typos in the title are a little joke by A&P! No emails, please!]

Please direct any hate mail about this article to: Andrew and Pete, Bluff House, Middle-of-Nowhere Lane, Fakeshire, FK3 QQX

When Louise asked us to write a guest blog for proofreaders, we thought to ourselves: ‘Proofreaders, they love words, right? Hmm ... we know ... why don’t we write a blog about why they should all stop writing stuff and start creating videos instead?’

WHAT. A. GREAT. IDEA.

Deep breath ...

... here we go. 

Should you all start video marketing?
Excusing the dramatics at the start of this article, let’s talk seriously for a moment about why video marketing can’t be ignored when it comes to marketing your proofreading business.

We aren’t saying stop writing, period. We do think blogging should be a key part of your marketing mix, but our aim in this article is to make the case for bringing some elements of video into your content marketing strategy.

Remember, you may like to write, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how all your customers want to consume their content.

Reason number 1: Consumers are switching to video content
With faster internet connection both at home and on mobile, video content has been opened up to the masses, and more and more people are turning to video content over written blogs.

This may be the case for you, too! Think about how many videos you’ve watched online in the past 7 days compared to the amount of blogs you’ve read.

Chances are the former is higher; and if it’s not, you’re in the minority here.

Why is this happening? Well, other than the tech allowing it in the modern world, people are becoming highly trained multi-taskers. We’re used to triple or quadruple screening with our devices – watching TV while checking our phones, scrolling through Facebook on our tablets, and maybe even taking a fourth glance at the smart watches on our wrists.

A lot of the content we’re consuming is video because, actually, it’s less effort. Reading generally requires our full focus on 1 screen.

In fact – especially on social – video is being watched with the sound off more often than with it on! Crazy, right? (Rev.com is your best friend for subtitling, btw.)

So, if we want to get people’s attention, if we want to educate them, entertain them, or even SELL to them, video is the best way to get that all-important attention. At least today, anyway.

​Reason number 2: Video builds trust, something that’s lacking
Once we have the attention, the next thing we need is trust.

In 2015, we attended talk by our marketing hero Seth Godin, who painted the picture of the modern business landscape.
​
He argued that the businesses that are going to win are the ones with attention and trust. 

Trust is lacking nowadays. It’s never been easier to start a business – the internet has allowed for that.

We’re sure you’re running a legitimate business, but there’s no denying the number of charlatans out there as well as the people who – let’s be honest – have no clue what they’re doing.

But all you need is a website and BOOM! you’re in business.

Because of this, trust is falling … fast. People don’t really know if you’re an experienced proofreader, if this is your first time at the rodeo, if you’re doing this to put yourself through an English degree, or even whether English is your first language. We have to earn that trust before somebody parts with their cash.

Yes – nice websites can do this, as can client testimonials, a nice logo and an about page that says you’ve been doing this since Andrew and Pete were in diapers.

But if you want to go from being a stranger, or a faceless logo, to earning trust to the extent that somebody will actually hire you, video wins the day.

Why? Because people still trust a friendly face.

Add a face to your brand and you’re getting somewhere. Add a talking face and you’ve hit the money.

Let’s be honest – we need to know, like and trust our proofreader. If we don’t, we might as well check our own stuff.
​
But if you can show your expertise and let people get to know you through video, you speed up that know–like–trust factor tenfold.

​Reason number 3: It can be a more effective way to communicate
Marketing is basically communication.

Whether we’re looking at blogs, home pages, print, sales copy – whatever – we want to communicate a message in the most efficient way possible, and in a way that people remember.

Video allows for that.

Studies have shown that on average people remember 20% of what they see; or 30% of what they hear, BUT A WHOPPING 70% of what they see and hear!

​It seems a lot but it makes sense when you think about. 

​Reason number 4: Social media marketing and video are a match made in heaven
Being a proofreader, you can work from wherever you like, at whatever time you like – whether that’s the cupboard under your stairs or a beach in the Seychelles.

Because of that, you can’t ignore using social media to find clients and network with people all over the world.

The majority of the social networks are pushing users towards video, and because of this they’re giving preference to it in feeds. You’ll see a significant increase in reach online when using video content natively on a platform, compared to links or plain-text updates.

Side note: ‘natively’ means uploading the video direct to that platform, rather than linking to, say, a YouTube video or similar.

The only exception is the classically late-to-the-party LinkedIn, where video can’t be uploaded natively, yet (for the general user at least). We’d place bets on them catching up soon.
​
Video comes in different formats depending on the platform. Whichever platform you’re focusing on, try adding video into the mix. 

Reason number 5: Stand out from the crowd and show your brand personality

Everybody wants their businesses to stand out from the competition, but only a few are willing to take the action to do something different. Video probably isn’t the norm for proofreaders, so it’s therefore a great way to stand out from the crowd and show your brand personality.

We’ve talked about trust and attention already, and this increases tenfold if you show some personality in your business.

We aren’t saying you have to be funny, or crazy, or unprofessional, but rather know what your brand personality is.

By the way, if you aren’t sure what we mean by brand personality, check out Creating a Brand Identity, a video we created ;) 

Once you know your brand personality, you have to show it! Yes, you can do this with the written word (we’d like to think this article gets across some of our personality), but oftentimes this can be much easier with video.
​
So don’t go with the flow. Be different and you’ll get attention. 

Using video in your marketing
Okay, hopefully we’ve set the scene for incorporating some video into your marketing. The next thing is getting going with it.

The first thing people tend to jump to is the sales video – the videos for your home page, services page, about page, etc.

This is cool – you can create these to help people through the buying process – but we also want you to use video for content marketing.

Just like you might write blogs to educate, inspire or entertain, make videos for the same purpose. And, importantly, be consistent so that you build your brand awareness over time and max out the 5 reasons we covered earlier in this article.

Remember, just because you’re creating video it doesn’t mean that you can’t write as well. Feel free to embed your videos on your blog and write, too, like we do on the Andew and Pete blog.

Here are 3 main styles of video you could implement:

1. The edited video. This is the classic. You shoot some footage, and then use a video editor to put it all together (btw, if you’ve bought a Smartphone in the past two years, the camera on it will be perfectly okay to use). Check out the HitFilm video tutorial; it's the free editing software we recommend.
2. Live video. This has become hot over the past few years. You can go live on Facebook, Twitter (Periscope), Instagram and YouTube and create video on the fly super quickly.
3. Stories. Another fairly new video format is the story. Popularised by Snapchat, but unashamedly ripped off by Facebook and Instagram, stories can be created on the fly, too, then downloaded and repurposed. Again – these are super easy to do.

You don’t have to do all three! Find out what works best for you, and stick with it!

Final thoughts
Thank for reading this article. We hope it’s got you thinking twice about using video. Our own marketing efforts improved significantly when we switched to video. Our only regret was not doing it sooner!

Let us know how you get on, and if you need any help don’t hesitate to ask.

​Extra resources (if you want to get started with video)

• 3 Ways to Create a Video Studio on Any Budget
• Best Free Video Editing Software 2017
• HitFilm Express Tutorial 2017
• How to Add Subtitles to Your Facebook Video and YouTube Videos | The Quick and Easy Way
• Facebook Live: How To Get Started and Not Be Scared With Ian Anderson Gray
• Creating a Brand Identity | The First Thing You Must Do

Written by Andrew and Pete

Andrew and Pete run an award-winning content marketing company called Andrew and Pete, where they help small businesses create share-worthy content that builds brands people love.

They have been featured on Social Media Examiner, Huffington Post and Entrepreneur on Fire, and are the authors of the hit book The Hippo Campus and Content Mavericks, launching Autumn 2017. You can find out more about them at www.andrewandpete.com.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

Andrew Langley is the author of the Nathen Turner supernatural thriller series. He kindly agreed to answer some questions about his journey as an independent writer. Below, he talks frankly about marketing, the research and writing processes, and the pros and cons of self-publishing.

This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #82

Hi, Andrew! Thanks so much for talking to me. So what have you found to be the most effective methods of marketing your books?
Thanks for having me! So, for me, the whole point about marketing a novel is profile-building and connecting with an audience, not about hard selling. 

Someone might write the best book in the history of publishing, but if nobody’s heard about it then nobody will buy it.

The most important thing for me at the beginning was to have a website. That way, if anybody asked me about the books, I could give them the web address and they could find out more, and maybe subscribe to the newsletter. It’s more about relationship-building than trying immediately to close a sale.

Months before the publication date, I send leaflets to as many bookstores as I can find, just to make them aware of the book. One time, I bumped into a bookshop worker when I was doing a radio interview. She asked me the name of my latest novel. When I told her, she said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about that!’ So, basically, the leaflets had done their job. 

I also think the publication date is important. If it can be tied into some event relevant to the ideas in your story, then it gives you an angle with which to approach the press. My first two books are mysteries based in the world of the supernatural, so I published them on Halloween.

I’ve found things like book signings and talks – in fact, anywhere you can meet potential readers face-to-face – much more effective than social media, though they can be a little nerve wracking!

I have multiple sclerosis, so when I’m booked for a signing or interview it’s always a bit stressful because I’m wondering what my health will be like on the day. Will I feel fatigued? Am I going to start twitching? What will my pain levels be like? All those issues tend to cloud my mind before the event I’m sure authors without health complications experience nervousness too.

Once I'm there, though, it’s great. I’ve found that the public tend to be genuinely interested in authors – why they write, what the book’s about, etc. – and you get to meet some truly lovely people.

Another thing that worked well for me was making a load of bookmarks with the web address on. I gave out the bookmarks everywhere I could. The theory was that readers would use them in the novels they were currently reading and they’d have a constant reminder about my books.

Have you tested a method of marketing but later shelved it?
I’m not the best on social media. By nature, I’m quite a private person, so baring my soul to the world really doesn’t feel comfortable for me. 

Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads all have their place, and I do think you need to have a presence there to give readers another way of contacting you. But, for me, they don’t really generate sales.

Is there anything you’ve not yet tried but would like to in the future?
For my third novel in the supernatural series I’m moving the publication date away from Halloween.

Although it worked well for the first two in terms of generating press interest, it’s very close to Christmas. The bookstores tend to be focused on seasonal stock and promotions at that time of year. This makes it a real challenge to arrange signings or talks. Thankfully, my local Waterstones has been very accommodating despite the staff workload.

So, for the third book, even though it’ll be ready to publish Halloween 2017, I’ve moved the date to Easter 2018. This also ties in to some other events that are relevant to the story.
​
Plus, it’s given me a different idea for a marketing strapline – ‘Relax and read a book for Easter (but keep the lights on!)'. That kind of thing!

Do you have a method or process when writing?
I live off notebooks! Everywhere I go I carry a notebook and jot down ideas. I was a photojournalist for a long time and I got used to this method of working when I was on location.

Sometimes I’ll overhear a funny story in a bar and think it’ll be great to add that to a novel in the future – it all goes in the notebook for recycling later. 

All my background research goes into the notebooks and I handwrite the synopsis and first chapter long before I sit in front of a computer. Then I usually test the story idea with my friends and family. If they’re not immediately interested, I change it until they are.

Once I have the bones of the story, I create a storyboard from beginning to end that covers the key scenes, and I write some dialogue as well to get a sense of how the characters feel in these. Once all this is done, I finally sit in front of the computer. 

As I already have a clear idea of the story and the characters, I try to write a chapter per day. At this stage, I don’t worry about perfect grammar or even a single nuance – I just want to get the story down from start to finish and see whether it works. 

I write every day for as long as it takes until I’ve nailed that chapter. It can mean very long hours. The following day, I read through what I’ve done and then start the next chapter.

Once I’ve got the book finished, I put it away for a few weeks. The second pass is when I fine-tune the grammar, and make sure I’ve added in all the scents, sounds, feelings and nuances that bring the story to life.

At this point I’ll let a few friends or family members read it so I can get their feedback. Then I revise the manuscript again. I might repeat this process many times before I send the file to a professional editor for review.

How much research do you do for your novels, and how do you go about it?
Researching a story takes me many months, even years. I always write about what I know or have experienced in some way or another. So I’ll visit the locations in the story if at all possible, take photographs, talk to the locals and get a feel for the location I’m writing about.

In my photojournalist days, I travelled a lot and kept notes, so in some cases I can rely on those.

My main character’s base in the supernatural series is Whitby, on the east coast. This is a town I’ve been visiting since early childhood and I still go there with my family. I love the place.

The second book is set mainly in the Scottish Highlands. My father was Scottish and, again, it’s a place I know well from both work and leisure.

I do other research by trawling the internet, reading relevant books or interviewing people who know about the subjects I’m writing about. I try really hard to make things as authentic as possible even though I’m writing about things like ghosts and witchcraft in the first three books.
​
The fourth book, which I’m working on now, is a historical adventure based on the legacy of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. For the past six months I’ve been back and forth to Scotland, checking out the locations, talking to people, visiting museums and so on. I’m hoping to finish this research by August; then I’ll write the story.

Where do you get the inspiration for your stories?
The idea behind the supernatural series came from a conversation about psychic mediums.

There’d been some news claims about a famous psychic using devious methods to gather information that they’d then used in their shows to wow the public. Whether this story was true or not I don’t know, but it gave me an idea. What if there was a psychic who knew he was a fake but whose heart was in the right place? So he didn’t believe in any afterlife or spiritual world but could fake it because he believed he was doing the right thing – bringing comfort and closure to the bereaved.

Now, what if this person then unwittingly summoned a very real ghost in one of his sessions, and this ghost was intent on wreaking revenge?

The basic idea struck me as funny and something people might enjoy reading about. Hence, Nathen Turner, my psychic medium character, was born.

The idea behind the adventure I’m writing now came after I stumbled across a news story about the Jacobites. I can’t say too much about this one at the moment but I’ll put information about it on the website or my Goodreads blog once I’m further into the process!

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? If so, how did you get through it?
A very weird thing happens when I’m stumbling over my writing – the characters seem to come alive and tell me what they’d do! I know this sounds bizarre but the characters are real people in my head.

Many times, I’ve wondered where to go in a scene but written it anyway. Then I’ve read it back and thought: This person wouldn’t behave like that. So I change it. I think that the more you work with your characters the more this tends to happen.

Sometimes I look back and can’t even remember writing a particular scene – it's like I’ve had a stream of consciousness and become so wrapped up in the story that I’ve put it down without thinking too deeply about it.

Occasionally, I’ll end up pacing around the garden or heading for a strong caffeine fix if I can’t figure out the best way to get the words on paper.

Having the bones of the story already mapped out in my notebooks is a huge help here. I go back to them and make sure that what I’m writing stays true to the original idea.

Is writing a series an important part of your strategy?
Personally, I think that writing a series is vital for an independent author. The more books you have out there in a series the more visible you become to readers.
Also, people who like one book will usually buy the others in the series. Hence your sales increase without any expensive promotional activity.

When I wrote the first book I already had the basic stories for the other two in my head, as they were part of my main character’s development – he gets more and more involved in the supernatural and the legacy of his past.

I’ve planned out other stories for this character already but I’m taking a break from him to write an adventure story. Again, the characters in this new adventure can build into a series, and I have a rough idea of how I could make that work.

How have you found the experience of self-publishing?
Self-publishing has been a huge learning curve. I was used to a press background where you do a story and it gets in the press or on TV the next day. Fiction publishing is simply not like that.

Writing a novel is a slow process involving many revisions long before it gets anywhere near a professional editor or proofreader.

Even after that, there’s the time it takes to typeset and come up with a cover design you hope will appeal to readers.

And then there’s Nielsen, Ingram Spark, CreateSpace and so on, and learning how their systems work.

So, yes, a huge learning curve. Luckily, there’s a lot of information on the internet to guide you. 

The biggest nail-biter is after you’ve sent the finished novel off for independent review and you’re waiting to see if the reviewers like it. This is a story you’ve poured your heart and soul into for a long time. If your work gets pulled apart it’s a bit like someone criticising your children. I was very worried about that!

I’ve been very fortunate so far – the books have been well received. It’s a huge boost to your ego but there’s always something in the back of your mind that’s waiting for that first bad review.

At the end of the day, it’s impossible to please everybody, but I always hope that if the novel has been through the various editing steps, then most of the flaws have been ironed out before it faces the public.

The biggest benefit is control over your own destiny and the sheer pleasure of writing.

The downside, as ever, is financial. Without a publishing contract behind you, you’re taking all the risks and have to pay for all your promotion. And you don’t know whether it’ll pay off.
​
My attitude is simply that I have to make it work somehow. With my health condition, there are very few options left to me workwise, and desperation can be a great motivator!

Do you have any tips for new writers who are considering self-publishing?
For anyone considering self-publishing I’d say give it a go. It’s a fascinating world that has revolutionized the publishing industry.

There are two general approaches I’ve seen other writers take. The first is to study what’s currently in the bestseller market and write something that will appeal to the same readership. As I don’t want to write about kinky sex scenes or zombie apocalypses, I didn’t choose that approach but there’s nothing wrong with it.

The second method is to have an idea that might work within a specific genre that you know about and enjoy reading. This is the approach I took as I felt my writing would be much more genuine and true to myself, and my readers.

Once you’ve decided on an approach, I suggest studying what’s out there. What do the covers look like? Which titles appeal to you? How can you create something new? How will you build a brand identity for your own work?

I spent a very long time on this before I created a look for my novels that was true to myself and fitted my genre.

After that, there’s the interior design. Which styles do you like and how could you make your work indistinguishable from a mainstream publisher’s? I think readers expect a certain quality in their print and ebooks – after all, they’re paying good money for them.

I chose a font and style that I liked and then tested it on family and friends to see what they thought. 

Getting feedback is, I think, vital. An independent publisher will be investing hundreds of hours in their project so it’s important to have the right mindset from the start or all that time will be wasted.

Once you’ve got the finished article, I recommend giving away some signed free copies to people you know socially who run local reading groups, bookstores and organisations.

Really, it’s just about letting people know you’re an author, and if you’ve done a good job with the cover and the typesetting, they’ll definitely take you seriously.

Anything you wish you’d known before you wrote your first book, and that you’d do differently now?
At the beginning, I was obsessed with getting an agent and a publishing contract. I didn’t know at the time how many submissions the agents receive and that the chances of securing representation for the genre I write in are between slim and none.

I also didn’t know that the majority of mainstream published books are not a commercial success and that many sell less than 750 copies even with a heavy-hitting publisher’s backing and advertising. If I’d known that, I think I’d have gone straight into self-publishing without a second thought and not bothered submitting to agents at the beginning.

The other thing I found out is that, because of their workload, only 30–40% of the agents get back to you, and your submission might even be overlooked by mistake.
So it can be disheartening. Sometimes it just means that your book doesn’t fit their current needs. I don’t think it’s worth getting too worked up about. 

Many self-published authors can make a success of their work – it just needs perseverance and more relationship building than hard sell, in my opinion.

Anything else you want to mention, Andrew?
I think the best advice I could give anyone who wants to be an author is simply to write. Stick to a schedule and do a daily stint. Don’t worry about coining the perfect phrase. 

After it’s down on paper, you can alter and correct as much as you like. A first draft is exactly that – the basic story in the raw, if you like. Add in weather, smells, sensations etc. to make your imaginary world believable, to bring it alive.

Background research is key for me, and it’s wonderful to discover new places and experiences. 

Keep a notebook and write down everything that you come across. It might not go in your current work; instead, think of it as a treasure trove for the future.

Most of all, enjoy it! I love writing and creating new stories. I’m a lot less mobile than I used to be. Creating my new adventures on paper has been more than a lifeline – it’s been an adventure in itself, and one I thoroughly enjoy!

You can find out more about Andrew and his novels on his website: www.andrewlangley.co.uk

For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. ​Or join the library to get monthly updates.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here's more from professional narrator Ray Greenley on how to create an audio book.

​The following article is an excerpt from a 26-page booklet in which Ray offers his experience and advice. At the bottom of the post there's information on how to access Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer.

In this post, he focuses on evaluating the quality of a professional voice artist, and offers advice on an alternative form of contract that shifts some of the risk.

‘I don’t know anything about audio books. How can I tell if a producer will do a good job on my book?’
That’s a tough question with few solid answers, but I can offer some tips.

1. Take some time to listen to some good, well-produced audio books.
You are usually safe with most stuff from the larger publishing houses and big-name authors. Try to listen to not just the narration but also to how the narration SOUNDS. Then compare that to the auditions you’ve received.

2. How loud is the recording in the pauses between sentences?
There shouldn’t be a lot of background noise, but neither should it sound like the recording drops off a cliff in between sentences.

3. Are there ANY extraneous sounds in the background, like a barking dog or a car driving by?
Those sorts of sounds should NEVER be in the recording and I would consider them an instant red flag.

4. Can you hear a lot of ‘mouth noise’?
Strange clicks, smacking lips, that sort of thing. This is a challenge for almost all narrators, and if you catch a little, it’s not a cause for major concern. But if you find yourself distracted by the sounds, be careful.

See, the thing is that a Producer on ACX really does have to be more than just a narrator. They have to be a narrator, a director, an editor, and an engineer.

There are a lot of skills involved and not everyone is equally good at all the facets of each job. This is why you need to listen to more than just the performance when evaluating auditions.

Note that no one is perfect and you can get a good audio book from someone who has at least a base level of competency in some the various skills while excelling in a few others.

Again, it’s up to you to determine if a producer is capable enough to do a good job with your book.

Also, when evaluating any producer, be sure you look them up to see what other books they’ve done. Do they have a bunch of books already out there?

• Listening to the samples of those books, how do they sound?
• What sorts of books are they?
• Are they about the length that your book is likely to be or longer, showing that they will be likely to complete your project?
• Have they done books in a similar genre to your book?

Note that some producers publish under a pseudonym, so if you can’t find anything on your own, ask. If they’re really brand new and have absolutely no history to go by, don’t be afraid to ask about what sort of training they have that can give you confidence that they’ll do the job.

In short, do your homework on your potential producer, or you’ll only have yourself to blame if things don’t work out!

‘Is there some other option besides making a big up-front investment for a seasoned professional or rolling the dice on an unknown talent?’
Yes, there actually is another option. How astute of you to ask!

So if you think about it, the bottom line for a Pay for Production contract is that the risk is entirely on the rights holder. You put up all the cash and hope the audio book sells enough to make that money back and more, while the producer gets paid and moves on to the next project.

Meanwhile, the bottom line for a Royalty Share contract is that the risk is entirely on the producer. We do all the work involved in getting the audio book recorded and don’t see any return on our time until it starts selling, while the rights holder doesn’t have to put up a dime.

The third option is a split between those two, known as either a ‘Hybrid’ or ‘Stipend’ contract (the name ‘Stipend’ comes from an incentive program offered by ACX; just be aware that that program is something different than what I’m describing here).

A Hybrid contract is ostensibly a Royalty Share contract, but the rights holder offers a modest Pay for Production payment in addition to the Royalty Share. The producer gets enough up front to cover some of their production costs, while the rights holder can attract a higher tier of talent to their project.

Exactly how much a producer will be willing to take for their payment as part of a Hybrid contract depends on the producer, but I’d venture that most would be happy with $100 PFH. That can still add up to a fair amount of money. However, at one half to one third of what you’d expect to pay an experienced pro, it’s much more affordable.

The key is that you’re going to want to be able to at least cover the post-production costs for the producer.
​
Remember when I talked about all the things a producer needs to be good at in order to do a good job on your book? Well, most producers would really rather focus on the narration side of things, so they look for editing and mastering professionals to handle that stuff for them.
​
They end up as better narrators, and the post-production is higher quality because they’re working with people who dedicate themselves to that aspect of the production.

It’s a win–win, but it does cost the producer money. Few producers will be willing to put up that cash on a Royalty Share project with uncertain prospects. It’s bad enough to produce a book and not make any money on it. It’s even worse to produce a book and LOSE money on it!

One tricky part with the Hybrid contract is that it’s not officially supported by ACX. To do one, you’ll need to set up the contract in ACX as Royalty Share and then handle the additional payment on the side.

Next time, we'll look at yet another alternative: doing it yourself!

Until then, thanks for reading!

​Resources

• ACX Rights Holder’s Checklist
• Royalty Share Contracts and Marketing
• So You Want to be an Audio Book Narrator
• 5 Tips for Successful Audio Books
• Michael Kozlowski, Editor in Chief, Good e-Reader

Contact Ray Greenley
Website | Facebook | Twitter

Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer
This 26-page primer includes over 5,000 words of guidance from Ray, a professional voice artist, on the following:

• Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX)
• Terminology and definitions
• Pricing options: Pay for Production, Royalty Share, and Hybrid
• Production time
• Choosing a voice artist
• Red flags
• Sampling the first 15 minutes
• Doing it yourself
• Equipment and environment
• Pre-production manuscript editing
• Distribution rights
• Briefing a narrator

It's available free to members of Louise's Writing Library. To get your copy, simply join the library.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

This recent question was submitted by a colleague who wishes to remain anonymous. I’m calling him Johnny. He says:

I'm just starting my freelance copyediting and proofreading business, working with authors.

My client has a publishing contract with a small independent press. He’s published three novels with them to date.

My client said: ‘I always like to have an external person read my work before I submit it [to my publisher], so perhaps you could let me know what it would cost.’ The pre-submission editing work in the past was carried out by writer friends rather than an editorial professional.

We’ve agreed on a price and what should be included. The price is more of a token payment because this is my first client and he's writing a series.

Is this the right way to go? Why pay me to copyedit and proofread his work to make it as error-free as possible before he sends it off to his publisher? Surely they’ll want to go through a batch of revisions for which he’ll need to pay.

Much as I'd like the work, should I tell him that the publisher will handle it and that he should save his money? Or am I making assumptions about the small-press publishing process that I shouldn't be?

Louise, I want to do this right – he’s already agreed to introduce me to his publisher as a freelancer, whether I do the work for him or not. However, if I do a good job, his recommendation will be more qualified.

​So, I'm wondering what your thoughts are and what you would advise in this situation.

Thanks for your question, Johnny! It’s not unusual for an editor or proofreader to be confronted with this conundrum. Here’s my take on your situation ...

There’s quite a bit going on so I’m going to consider the following, just so you get a sense of the big picture:

• The client’s preferences, motivation and knowledge
• Editorial processes in small presses – who pays, and for what?
• The press’s expectations
• My proposed ethical solution
• Your token fee – precedent versus leverage

 
The client’s preferences, motivation and knowledge
One of the things that stood out when I read your email is that your client was explicit about his preference for commissioning third-party editorial work prior to manuscript submission.

True, he hasn't paid for this work in the past because he's used writers rather than a professional editor. You and I both know that being a good writer does not a professional proofreader or copyeditor make! What pleases me is that he recognizes this too. I think he’s willing to pay because he believes you’ll bring additional value to the table.

I think he also recognizes he’s getting a good deal here. And he is. I’ll talk about this in more detail under ‘Your token fee – precedent versus leverage’. For now, let’s accept that while this is costing him more than if he’d tapped a writer pal on the shoulder, it’s not costing him anywhere near what he’d have to pay if you’d offered him your standard fee. And that’s a motivation for him to work with you.

He knows you’re new to the business and he might well have figured that he’s going to get a pro service for an amateur price. And while you're worrying about whether you’re exploiting him, he might be thinking that this is nothing short of a win for him. I’d be inclined to agree!

He’s also not new to the publishing process. He has three novels under his belt with this press, so he understands how they work and what they’ll do for him. You, however, are in the dark.

Which leads us nicely on to ...

Editorial processes in small presses – who pays, and for what?
You’re right to question your assumptions about small presses, indeed any press.

Mainstream production flows tend to follow a model that looks something like this:

• Shaping (structural, developmental, or substantive editing – big-picture stuff)
• Smoothing (line editing – sentence-level work that focuses on structure, flow and sense)
• Correcting (copyediting – sentence-level work that looks at spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency and logic)
• Checking (proofreading – quality control for spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency and professional layout)

The larger press usually (but not always) pays for all of these levels of editorial work. Smaller presses don’t have the same economies of scale. Any of the following might happen:

• They do all the editorial work in-house (along with the marketing, accounting, publishing, and everything else under the sun).
• They do some of the editorial work in-house and buy in, and bear the cost of, other services from third-party providers like you and me.
• They do some of the editorial work in-house and buy in other services from third-party providers. The external costs are borne by the author.
• They buy in whatever editorial service package the author agrees to pay for, but offer no in-house editorial support.

No doubt there are other models, but these four give you a flavour what’s on offer.
In your case, you don’t know what the deal is.

Which leads us on to ...

The press’s expectations
Here’s a scenario (A) that would make sense in your author’s situation:

The two people who run the press have worked with your author before. They know that he tends to submit files that are in good shape.

• He’s a good self-developmental editor so there are no structural problems that they need to take care of.
• His writer friends have pointed out some of his purple prose and sticky grammar, so a lot of the copy- and line-editing work has been done – enough to satisfy the press, anyway.
• They therefore offer an advance and royalty that reflect this, and agree to do a final pre-publication proofread in-house prior to publication.

The point is that they expect to have a decent manuscript submitted. Anything else would change the terms; his publishing contract is based on an understanding that most of the work has been done prior to submission.

Here’s another scenario (B) that I think is less likely but still possible, and it’s the one you’re worried about.

• He’s not a good self-developmental editor.
• You sort out the purple prose and sticky grammar during a two-pass process.
• The press receives the file and suggests a ton of changes, which your author makes. During the process, he introduces a lot of errors.
• The revised drat is submitted and the team advise him that they’ll need to hire a copyeditor to sort out the mess, but they’ll do a final in-house pre-pub proofread themselves to keep costs down for him.
• He ends up paying for three rounds of external editorial work when one would have sufficed if things had been handled logically.

However, because you don’t know what the agreement is between the author and the publisher, you can’t know for sure whether it’s a good or a poor decision for him to hire you.
​
My proposed ethical solution
To give yourself peace of mind, I’d advise the following:

• Ask him if he’d be kind enough to walk you through the publisher’s production process – what they do for him in-house, what they contract out, when these things happen, and who pays.
• If he describes something that looks like scenario A, you’re good to go.
• If he describes something that looks like scenario B, explain the problem and do the right thing.
• If, with B, he insists on hiring you anyway – perhaps for personal pride or perceived reputation maintenance – you’re good to go because he has all the facts with which to make an informed decision.

If he walks, you’ve still got the introduction with the publisher, you’ve upheld the terms of your professional code of conduct, and you’ve demonstrated to him that you’re trustworthy. If at some stage he decides to self-publish, or if one of his writer friends needs an editor, guess who’ll get the call?

Honestly, even if you are facing scenario B, I don’t think he’ll walk because you’re a winner in his eyes – recall my comment above about offering a professional service for an amateur price!

A quick word on that …

Your token fee – precedent versus leverage
I want to talk about this because some readers’ hackles will rise in response to your offer of a ‘token payment’.

My view is that your decision is fine as long as your eyes are open, and your author’s are too.

• Do make it absolutely clear what your standard rate would be – that you’re offering X (rather than Y) as a special rate for him; that you see this as a collaboration from which you will both benefit. You’re gaining experience and building a client portfolio, and you’re excited about having the opportunity to support an author and a small indie press. It’s essential that if he passes your name on to other clients or presses they don’t automatically assume you’re a cheap option. The token payment is a private arrangement between the two of you, and it avoids your setting a precedent.
• When your work for the author is complete, ask for a testimonial, and for his permission to use it on your website, online channels and other marketing materials (including your CV). Also ask him if he’ll act as a referee if required.
• Ask for permission to use a thumbnail image of the book you’ve edited on your website, online channels and other marketing materials.

You want to be able to leverage this lower-paid work at every opportunity so that the value you extract from it lies well beyond a number on an accounting spreadsheet or lump sum in your bank account.

Publishers and indie authors value training, of course, but experience should never be underestimated. Getting that first break is one of the biggest challenges a new entrant to the editorial field faces. This could well be yours.

I have no problem with a bargain being offered as long as the following apply:

• It’s for a client who wouldn’t have hired you otherwise.
• You’re not using a low price to undercut other professionals.

If you use this book (and the series, should you get it) as a foundation for acquiring more and better-paying clients, you can view the exercise as a strategic marketing activity that will serve you well into the future.

I wish you the very best of luck!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you're an author, you might like to join Louise’s Writing Library. Members receive monthly updates featuring self-publishing news and resources.

Online writing courses
Just a quickie ... a member of Louise's Writing Library asked me if I'd put together a list of online writing courses. It's a work in progress and I'll be adding new resources as I become aware of them.

If you think I've missed something, drop me a line at louise@louiseharnbyproofreader.com.

You can access the current list via the Self-publishers page on my site, where all the library resources live.

Just look for Online Tutoring for Self-Publishers: Writing Courses and click on the image to download the free PDF.

Until next time ...

For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. ​Or join the library to get monthly updates.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

​What if …? Learning from non-editors
My fellow editors and proofreaders are brilliant at giving me ideas and inspiration for how I can grow my business. Sometimes, though, it can help to step out of one’s known zone and see what people in other industries are doing.

That doesn’t mean that everything on offer will be relevant, but delving into other business owners’ worlds can inspire us to spend a valuable half hour asking simply, ‘What if … ?’

So here’s one what-if experience from recent months … something offered by a non-editor that made me take a step back and think about my proofreading and copyediting business from a different angle.

First of all, though, I offer an overview of my most-often used approach.

Measuring value in terms of time
At the base level, I approach pricing in terms of what my time’s worth to me. The questions I ask are:

• What are the client’s problems?
• Can I solve them?
• If I can, how many hours will it take to solve them?
• What fee do I want/need to earn in those hours?

I then create a price based on what’s required and on the word count.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not at all unhappy with that approach. It provides me with an effective hourly rate that meets my needs and desires, and it allows for flexibility.

Not all my hours are of equal value.

• My working week starts on a Monday and ends on a Friday.
• My working day starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m.
• I take off the school holidays, too.

When a client requires my editing services on Saturday, Sunday, before 10 a.m., after 4 p.m. or during the school holidays, that’s out-of-hours work by my definition and it comes with a premium rate attached to it (if I accept the work, of course).

What if, though, one approaches pricing from a different angle?

What if we set a fee based not just on the value of our time but also on the risk the client attaches to not hiring us?

I’m not saying that this is a better way, just that it’s useful to at least think about it, perhaps in relation to some of the clients we work with.

What if …? Measuring value in terms of risk
In ‘Part Three/Money Talk: Pricing Design’,* Chris Do, founder of Blind, a brand strategy design consultancy in Santa Monica, discusses pricing the client (or more specifically, their perceived risk) rather than the job.

He asks a group of logo designers, ‘What does it touch?’

The video is 30 minutes long but it’s well worth watching.

The nub of it is this: a bad logo on one niche website, 10 booklets and 50 promo flyers is a different problem to a bad logo on 40 aeroplanes, 20 helicopters, 14,000 vending machines and a million mailshots.

The cost of rectifying the problem is different in those two scenarios, and so the cost of ameliorating the risk of it happening in the first place is different.

So the questions editors might ask themselves are:

• Do I have clients, or might I have clients in the future, for whom errors in the text would have a significantly higher negative impact than is the case for my other clients, and should I therefore price those jobs differently?
• Do those clients understand that risk? How can I articulate it if they don’t?
• How would shifting to client-type-based pricing rather than time-to-do-the-job pricing affect the way I publicize my prices (e.g. on my website)?

I know some editors who already have a differential pricing structure based on type of client rather than time to do the job, but I know many who don’t. I offer this as a what-if moment for those in the latter group – nothing more.

Those editors with relatively homogeneous client types are less likely to find this approach useful; generalists, however, might well consider testing it.

These days, I specialize in proofreading and copyediting for independent and self-publishing authors. That’s a homogeneous client base in terms of client-perceived risk so my rates are based on time to do the job.

But if I were working with a lot of corporates, Chris Do’s approach would be food for thought.

How about you? Do you have what-if lessons from non-editors that made you step back and ask whether there are other approaches to thinking about your editorial business practice? I’d love to hear about them!

*Thanks to my pal Averill Buchanan for alerting me to this link and thinking I’d find it interesting. She was right!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

Abigail is based in the UK and has been proofreading and editing for around five years. Most of her work thus far has come via existing contacts, personal referrals, and a third-party site.

Until recently, that was sufficient. Consequently, she hasn’t spent any time thinking about a website, marketing, or other forms of outreach. Furthermore, the third-party site has changed the service-fee structure so that the work is no longer as lucrative.

She asks:
‘At the moment, I do a lot of academic work, which I love and would like to continue; I just want to secure it privately rather than through third-party sites. In addition, I would like to move away from website copy, blog posts and more generalised proofreading, and start working with publishers on longer and more interesting projects. However, I don’t know where to start, what’s required, or how to approach them. Many thanks for any guidance you can provide!’

Thanks for your question, Abigail!

So, something else you mentioned in your email to me is that you’re undergoing professional training. I was really pleased to hear this because I think it’s an essential element in the mainstream publishing market.

So, I’m going to focus on the following:

• Why targeting publishers is such a good step
• A quick note on earnings and work stream
• Training for academic publishers – what you need to know
• Where academic publishers search
• Why going direct is still your best bet
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
• Taking academic publishers’ tests
• Asking for testimonials and building a portfolio

Why targeting publishers is such a good step
Publishers are still the preferred client group for many editorial freelancers. There are several reasons for this:

• Publishers do all the project-acquisition work for us, which means we can sit back and allow the work to come to us (if we have enough publishers in our pockets).
• They understand what we do – we don’t have to nail our brand identity in a way that’s becoming increasingly critical if we want to be visible in the search engines! No proofreading or copyediting course will teach you how to build a compelling brand, and doing that is an art in itself! Getting a publisher’s attention requires a strategy that’s skills- and experience-focused.
• The definitions of proofreading, copyediting and developmental editing are homogeneous. You won’t be asked to proofread an academic textbook but expected to sort out the structure. The terminology in the rest of the world is rather more tangled (see the Untangling Proofreading booklet below).

​A quick note on earnings and work stream
There’s a lot of talk in the online international editorial community about publishers and low fees. The situation is not straightforward.

There is no universal fee for copyediting or proofreading. I rarely work for publishers these days, but when I did I was offered proofreading fees from academic presses that worked out as low as £10 per hour and as high as £40 per hour.

It depends on the complexity of the project, the press, the brief, the length, the number of authors, and a ton of other things. After you’ve done a few projects for a publisher, you’ll start to get a sense of how things work and what you can expect to earn on average.

Some publishers will offer you a fee of £X per hour, and a guideline for the number of hours they expect the project to be completed in. Some will offer a flat fee for the job. Some of my colleagues (like Liz Jones: see her excellent post in Further reading, below) have successfully negotiated fees when they encountered scope creep.

With some presses, I found that I could counter what seemed initially to be a less favourable fee by being as efficient as possible.

You’ll also speed up as you become more familiar with a press – their house style, the format of their books, and their preferred professional style manuals and reference systems.

Regardless of their fee structure, they do all the project-acquisition work for you, which means you can sit back and focus on the proofreading and editing rather than worrying that your Google Search rankings aren’t as high as you’d like!

Here are three supplementary booklets: Proofreading for Publishers: Do They Always Pay ‘Low’ Fees?, Editorial Efficiency: Rates, Data Tracking and Digital Tools, and Untangling Proofreading.

​Training for academic publishers – what you need to know
In order to ensure you’re fit for purpose with publishers, ask them which style guides and reference systems they prefer, and take time to familiarize yourself with these manuals. Most presses will provide you with a summary of their preferences.

Your training course should draw attention to the importance of following a brief. Publishers are usually rigid when it comes to scope, and going beyond the brief without querying first could have detrimental consequences.

For example, if you’re training to proofread, you’ll need to practise when to change, when to query and when to leave well enough alone – no in-house editor will thank you for recasting sentences to improve the flow in a proofread.

That’s because: it’s expensive to make extensive changes on page proofs; the pagination could be affected; cross-references might be impacted; and the index could be damaged if it’s being created simultaneously.

Also check that the training course you’re doing is recognized by the UK publishing industry. You won’t go wrong with the following organizations, though they’re by no means the only ones to consider:

• The Publishing Training Centre
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders

Certainly, if you want to proofread for publishers, you’ll need to be familiar with the industry-recognized proof-correction markup language (BS 5261C: 2005). Even if a publisher asks you to proofread on PDF, you might be required (or find it efficient) to use digital versions of these marks.

Where academic publishers search
Some publishers do search for editors and proofreaders. The SfEP’s Directory of Editorial Services is one port of call. Some also attend the SfEP’s annual conference and the London Book Fair, so those two events are worthy networking opportunities to put yourself on the radar of academic presses.

Recently, I was contacted by a publisher via Reedsy. It’s the first time I’ve received a request to quote from a press via this platform, and it was for a fiction title, so I’m not convinced that this would necessarily be a primary channel for you if you want to acquire academic work, but I’m mentioning it just as food for thought.

Why going direct is still your best bet
My top tip for getting in front of publishers is to contact them direct, by email, phone or letter. The reason why many don’t search online for editorial freelancers is simply because they don’t need to.

Build a list of UK academic publishers, then find out the name of the person in charge of hiring – it’s probably someone in the production department – and get in touch with them.

You already have lots of experience, and you’ll have a top-notch training course under your belt. I recommend customizing your CV and cover letter/email for each press so that your portfolio of projects sells you as a perfect fit.

Read Philip Stirups’ article for more top tips (see Further reading).

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
I recommend you build a bank of around ten publishers. If you stick to one or two you could end up in deep water further down the road. If one of those clients were to merge with another, you might fall off the freelance list during the transition. If your other client were to go bust, you’d be scuppered.

Having a larger bank of publishers means you have a safety net.

It’s likely your publisher client base will grow exponentially; each time you acquire a new client you’ll be more likely to impress another. It’s a small world, and many of the in-house staff know each other. That will work in your favour.

Taking academic publishers’ tests
Some publishers will ask you to take a test. There are two articles in the Further reading section that offer excellent overviews of how to approach these: ‘The Business of Editing: Editing Tests’ by Rich Adin, and ‘Test Taking Tips For Editors’ by Cassie Armstrong.
​
Asking for testimonials and building a portfolio
Are you able to ask current academic clients for testimonials? If so, do so – however embarrassing you find it! This kind of social proof won’t on its own get you work, but it’s one way of demonstrating that you’re capable of fulfilling a client’s brief.

I mentioned your portfolio above. If you’ve been in business for five years, chances are you have an amazing project portfolio. Make sure your CV, LinkedIn profile and website reflect your body of completed works. Publishers love to see experience!

I hope that brings you a little clarity, Abigail. Good luck with building your new client base!

Further reading

• ‘Does Training Matter? What Publishers Say about Proofreading & Editing Courses’ (Louise Harnby; The Proofreader’s Parlour)
• ‘Not all proofreading is the same, Part 1’ (Louise Harnby; The Proofreader’s Parlour)
• ‘Not all proofreading is the same, Part 2’ (Louise Harnby; The Proofreader’s Parlour)
• ‘Test Taking Tips For Editors’ (Cassie Armstrong; Morning Star Editing)
• ‘The Business of Editing: Editing Tests’ (Rich Adin; An American Editor)
• ‘The economics of working with publishers’ (Liz Jones; Eat, Sleep, Edit, Repeat)
• ‘The Proofreader’s Corner: Page Proofs and the Domino Effect’ (Louise Harnby; An American Editor)
• ‘Undercover editor: Selecting new editorial freelancers’ (Philip Stirups; The Proofreader’s Parlour)

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

​Amanda is a UK-based primary-school teacher.

She says: ‘I have zero experience in publishing. However, I have a first-class degree in Education Studies and enjoy reading and grammar. I've been reading your blog recently and have thought of qualifying as a proofreader but appreciate how competitive it is. What is the likelihood of me obtaining work based on my background?’

Many thanks for your question, Amanda!

So, the short answer is, there’s a strong likelihood if you get your marketing head on.

Because, essentially, this is a marketing issue.

Here’s my current favourite mantra:
We have two jobs: the work we do, and the work we do to get the work we do.

In your email to me you talked in terms of ‘qualifying’ so you’re clearly prepared to embark on professional training – a wise decision. It tells me you’re prepared to make yourself fit for practice – the work we do.

Now let’s look at what you could do to get that work.

1st-stage marketing (pre-qualification)

• Start working on your editorial website
• Create an editorial Facebook page
• Create an editorial Twitter account
• Create an editorial LinkedIn page
• Join the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and introduce yourself in the forums there
• Think about your target clients

These are the basics, but they’re enough to give you a solid set of standard online profiles that represent you and your proofreading business, and that will enable you to connect with like-minded professionals – old hands and new.

In reality, your potential client base is rather wide, but I believe that in the start-up phase, when you’re building a proofreading business, it makes sense to target publishers. That’s because:

• They already have their hands in the air – the want your services. You don’t have to persuade a publisher that hiring a proofreader is a good idea!
• Their definitions of proofreading match what you’ll be taught when you train. Outside the publishing world, things become more tangled. Many indie authors call proofreading what a publisher would call copyediting.
• They’re easy to locate and contact. You’ll need to find out the name of the person in charge of the freelance pool – it’ll probably be someone in the production department.

2nd-stage marketing (post-qualification)
So why would a publisher be interested in you, Amanda? Here are some reasons:

• By stage 2, you have a professional proofreading qualification (perhaps from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders or The Publishing Training Centre, since both of these are known and respected bodies in the mainstream publishing industry).
• You have teaching experience, so you’re used to working to fixed lesson timetables (think production schedules), following curricula to the tee (think editorial briefs), are good at working with people – albeit small ones – who need careful handling (think sensitive authors), and are used to working to rigorous educational key-stage standards (think publishing industry).
• You understand the language of academia (your degree) and the language of learning (education), so you’re already primed for academic publishing.
• You’re (naturally!) prepared to take a proofreading test to demonstrate the skills you’ve learned and prove that you’re ready to hit the ground running.
• Your education degree and career experience mean you know the language of education theory and practice. That means that for education publishers you have a USP that I don’t (with my Politics degree).

And who are those education publishers?
Google is your friend here, but here’s a short list of publishers in the UK who have education lists or imprints. In your position, I’d start by getting in touch with every single publisher you can find in the UK who publishes education content.

• Bloomsbury
• Cambridge University Press
• Collins
• Edward Elgar
• Heinemann
• Hodder Education
• Macmillan Education
• McGraw-Hill Education
• Out of House Publishing (packager)
• Pearson Higher Education and Professional
• Policy Press
• SAGE Publications
• Scholastic

My bet is that most (many, certainly) academic or scholarly publishers in the UK will have books, journals and electronic products in the field of education at some level.

​Find out who’s in charge of hiring editorial freelancers. Email or post a cover letter and CV. Be sure to emphasize your training, background, society membership and subject specialisms.

In the early stages, education will be your core specialism but, honestly, if you can proofread an educational research book, you can proofread a politics book or a social theory book, so you might decide to expand your list of interests to education, social sciences and humanities.

Or you might talk in terms of education teaching, theory, practice, governance, and research, and other key related terms.

It’s something to think about. When you start looking at what else all those publishers with education books are putting out to market, you’ll get a sense of how you might customize each contact letter/email so that you really engage with each press’s list.

3rd-stage marketing
As you build up your publisher list, your portfolio of completed works, and your testimonials from all those satisfied in-house production editors, you can really start to make your online presence stand out.

Perhaps you now meet the criteria to advertise in the SfEP’s online Directory of Editorial Services.

This is one way of making yourself visible to clients outside the publishing industry – I’m thinking here of master’s and PhD students preparing dissertations and theses in the field of education and beyond; academics (particularly those whose first language isn’t English) preparing articles for journal submission); independent non-fiction authors, and so on.

For a broader look at different marketing approaches, check out the Marketing archive here on the Parlour, or my book Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

If accessing a market outside the mainstream publishing industry is something you’re serious about, start your content marketing as soon as possible. I have a wee primer that will give you the basics.

If you want to get serious, visit the Andrew and Pete website. I bang on about these two all the time, but they know their stuff.

I wish I’d known them 10 years ago. Unfortunately for me, they’re a fair bit younger so were probably doing their GCSEs when I started my editorial business! But I’m using them now to help me get the very best I can from my marketing.

Summing up
So, yes, I think you can obtain work if you are practice-fit and ready to plant a big marketing hat on your head and really commit to it!

The fact is, it’s noisy out here, and getting noisier. But the market is bigger too – global, in fact – so there’s more competition, but more opportunities too.

Another mantra – be interesting and be discoverable.

• It doesn’t matter how well-qualified you are if no one knows how to find you.
• And it doesn’t matter how visible you are if you can’t do the job.

Get your training and your marketing licked and there’s no reason why you can’t create a successful proofreading business. It will take time and hard graft, but it’s perfectly doable for those with the right mindset.

Hope that helps! If you have additional questions, just pop them in the comments below.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

I'm so, so grateful to Ray Greenley for taking the time to write a comprehensive primer on audio-book creation for me! It's absolutely brilliant.

Ray's a professional voice artist (he's the narrator behind, among other audio books, Philip K Dick's The Unreconstructed M and Other Stories) but he's a fab writer as well.

I love listening to audio books, but creating them? That’s quite another matter. And yet I wanted to know more, and I figured some of you would too.

And because it’s one of those aspects of self-publishing that’s just too expensive to get wrong, I felt that my writing a guide to the process simply wouldn’t do.

I wanted to offer you something that would give you in-depth, honest and usable insights. That way, if you do decide to create an audio book, you can do it right.

​I hoped a professional narrator could furnish you with those insights, and Ray hasn’t disappointed.

​The following article is an excerpt from the full 26-page primer. At the bottom of the post there's information on how to access Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer.
​
Enjoy! (And thank you, Ray!)

An introduction from the voice artist, Ray Greenley
Hello, dear author! Congratulations on your latest book!

Have you considered having an audio book of your work produced? If not, you should! More and more consumers are buying audio books for a variety of reasons, and audio-book sales are booming compared to digital print sales (see Resources: Kozlowski).

As an author, you absolutely want to be a part of that growing market. But audio books are an entirely different beast from print books. Getting into a new market is always intimidating. Where do you even start?

I’m here to help. I’m an audio-book narrator who has worked with indie authors to produce audio-book editions of their work.

In Audio-book production I give you a high-level look at what you need to know to get your book produced as an audio book. In this post, we're focusing on platforms and prices.

There’s work to be done, but it’s probably not as difficult as you might think. Read on!

‘So how can I get my book produced as an audio book?’
It wasn’t all that long ago that virtually all audio-book production was handled by a few big publishers, and getting your book produced was probably a similar feat to getting a big print publisher to publish and distribute your book.

That’s all changed. Getting your book produced as an audio book is easier now than it’s ever been.

Probably the biggest factor in that change is a site called ACX. That stands for Audiobook Creation Exchange. It’s run by Audible.com (the world’s largest distributor of audio books, and owned by Amazon.com).

It’s essentially a meeting place where rights holders (that’s you!) can list their books in order to find producers (like me!) who are interested in producing the book as an audio book.

Producers (that’s the term used by ACX; consider it synonymous with narrator for the sake of this discussion) can see the listed book and submit an audio audition for it. 
The rights holder listens to the auditions and can offer a contract to the producer they think will do the best job. 

Once the producer accepts the contract, they produce the book and submit it through ACX. The rights holder can then listen to the book, and if they approve it, it gets prepared for release. ACX manages the contract, the payment of royalties, and distribution to the associated platforms (Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.com).

‘That doesn’t sound so bad, but cut to the chase: How much will all this cost me?’
Cost is, of course, always a factor. With ACX, there are multiple options that allow virtually anyone to have their book made into an audio book. But as with many things in life, you often get what you pay for.

First a quick note that there is no fee from ACX for registering on their site or for listing your book. They get their money on the back end once the book goes up for sale, so they just want to encourage as many books to be produced as possible.

ACX allows rights holders to offer producers two types of contracts: Pay for Production and Royalty Share. Note that regardless of the type of contract, the rights holder always gets full ownership of the audio produced.

A Pay for Production contract means that you’re paying the producer a flat fee for their work. Once you’ve paid the fee, the audio book is published and you’ll receive royalties from sales of the audio book.

So what’s a typical fee? Well, first off, the fee is based on the length of the completed audio book. When you offer a contract, you agree to pay a certain amount Per Finished Hour (PFH) of the audio book. So if the audio book ends up being 10 hours long, you’ll pay the agreed-upon amount times 10.
​
What sort of PFH rate can you expect to pay? Well, it depends on the type of talent you’re looking to attract. If you want a top-rate, full-time professional narrator, you can expect to pay around $300 PFH, or even more.

​‘Wait, what!? That means for my 10-hour book …’
… you’d pay around $3,000, yes. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, it is a lot, and I touch on why that number is what it is in the full ebook.

But for now, let’s get back to the discussion on cost. Because you don’t have to offer that much for a Pay for Production contract. You can offer less, and are likely to get producers willing to record your book for less.

Just keep in mind that as you go lower in what you’re offering, so the caliber of producers you attract to your project will change. I’d say that once you get below $200 PFH you’re pushing out of the zone where most quality producers feel like they can get a reasonable return on their time, but that may not always be the case.

A quick note: There absolutely can be an aspect of negotiation with regards to the contracts you offer. ACX doesn’t care what the final number is. That’s entirely something to be worked out between you and the producer.

‘I really don’t want to put up that kind of money. Is there another option?’
Yes, there is! 

It’s the Royalty Share contract that I mentioned above. 

In this contract, you don’t pay the producer anything up front, but instead split the royalties on sales of the book with that person.

‘Hang on – I can get my book produced as an audio book without having to actually pay anything?’
Yes, that’s pretty much it! Sounds great, right?

‘It sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?’
The catch is that the top producers are VERY selective about the Royalty Share contracts they’re willing to accept.

It takes lot of time and effort to produce an audio book, and producers who are trying to pay their bills and feed their families with money from their work won’t take a second look at your book unless it has a record of strong sales.

Even if your book isn’t breaking any sales records, you can still list it and are likely to get some auditions. Just be realistic about the kind of producers who are going to be sending those auditions. They may be low on experience, talent, or both.

That’s not to say it’s a hopeless case. We all have to start somewhere.

Once upon a time, I was that producer who was low on experience and sending out my first auditions. The author who picked me to narrate my first audio book was an indie author who had just written his first book.

While I’ve learned quite a bit since that first book, and there are definitely things I would do differently now, I’m still proud of my work on it and the critical reception has been overall quite positive.

But it’ll be entirely up to you to make that determination. Just as ACX allows rights holders to sign up and post their book for free, they also allow anyone to sign up as a producer and send in an audition for free. And I do mean ANYONE. Do NOT assume that just because someone is a Producer on ACX that they actually know what they’re doing.

In the full edition of the ebook, I offer guidance on how to assess whether the narrator/producer is doing a good job.

​For now, thanks for reading!

Resources

• ACX Rights Holder’s Checklist
• Royalty Share Contracts and Marketing
• So You Want to be an Audio Book Narrator
• 5 Tips for Successful Audio Books
• Michael Kozlowski, Editor in Chief, Good e-Reader

Contact Ray Greenley
Website | Facebook | Twitter

​
​Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer
This 26-page primer includes over 5,000 words of guidance from Ray, a professional voice artist, on the following:

• Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX)
• Terminology and definitions
• Pricing options: Pay for Production, Royalty Share, and Hybrid
• Production time
• Choosing a voice artist
• Red flags
• Sampling the first 15 minutes
• Doing it yourself
• Equipment and environment
• Pre-production manuscript editing
• Distribution rights
• Briefing a narrator

It's available free to members of Louise's Writing Library. To get your copy, simply join the library.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
​
For more self-publishing resources, visit my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.

Georgia got in touch with a training query. She’s asked to remain anonymous in order to not jeopardize her existing client relationships. I’ve therefore changed her name and removed all the details from her email that might enable colleagues or clients to identify her.

She’s based outside the UK. She has only two clients, both of which I believe are exploiting her. One pays months late on a regular basis, though it expects its freelancers to meet its tight deadlines; the other (more recent) expects her to wear far too many editorial hats given what she’s being paid for each project.

Although Georgia has several years’ copyediting experience, she has no formal training and feels that scope creep has exposed gaps in her professional knowledge. These are proving to be a challenge in her current roles.

Georgia’s budget is limited (not a surprise given that she’s not being paid in a timely manner).

She asks: ‘Could you suggest further steps for me? Are there any reputable online training courses you would recommend that would advance my skills and that would not be too expensive?’

So, what should she do?

Training and beyond
So, Georgia, first of all, I’m really impressed that you’ve focused on upskilling rather than complaining. Few editors and proofreaders know everything about everything; there’s always more to learn!

Of particular interest to me, though, was the fact that you framed your query purely in terms of skills gaps and training solutions. Actually, I think there’s a bigger issue at stake: your limited choice.

Your current clients expect you to be able to carry out more levels of editing than you feel capable of. And yet there are plenty of clients in the world who would benefit from – and be glad to hire you for – your existing capabilities. However, they can’t find you.

With that in mind, I’m going to break down my answer into several parts:

• online training
• book training
• mentoring
• other types of work, and how to be visible

And if that sounds like I’m looking for an excuse to bang my marketing drum yet again, I won’t apologize! The fact is that the work we do and the work we do to get the work we do are connected.

Having appropriate skills is of course the foundation of good practice, but it’s next to useless if we’re still rendered vulnerable to clients who expect the earth, and believe they can ask us for it, because we have nowhere else to turn.

But let’s deal with the training issue first, since that’s what you asked me to address ...

Online training
So the bottom line is that, as far as I’m aware, there are no ‘cheap’ distance-learning courses that will provide you with the baseline skills that mainstream publishing houses and university presses will expect from a copyeditor or proofreader. You get what you pay for when it comes to professional training.

Of course, what’s cheap to you might seem pricey to me, or vice versa. Given that the pound is rather weak as I write in June 2017, perhaps some of the UK online training courses I’m about to recommend might be well within your budget today even if they wouldn’t have been three years ago!

The two institutions I’ve worked with, and so can vouch for with confidence, are as follows:

• The Publishing Training Centre
• Society for Editors and Proofreaders

Bear in mind that if you decide to do proofreading training, the proof-correction markup language taught (BS 5261C: 2005) on UK distance-learning courses will differ a little from that used where you live, so there’ll be some tweaking to do when you apply the training to your practice.

Below, in the comments, my colleague Corina Koch MacLeod kindly posted some additional links to online courses (see Professional Studies at Queen's University, Canada). They're open to anyone, anywhere.

• Fundamentals of Editing Standards
• Copyediting Standards
• Stylistic Editing Standards
• Proofreading Standards
• Structural Editing Standards

Books
Online proofreading and copyediting courses are superb options because of the flexibility they offer and, in some cases, the available feedback from a tutor (that's one of the reasons why they're not the lowest-cost option).

Given that you’re on a budget, though, you might want to consider books, too. Here are seven to think about:

• Basic Editing: A Practical Course (Nicola Harris)
• Basic Editing: A Practical Course: The Exercises (Nicola Harris)
• Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, 4th ed. (Judith Butcher)
• Copyediting: A Practical Guide (Karen Judd)
• Copy-editing: With Exercises and Model Answers (Barbara Horn)
• Proofreading Practice: Exercises with model answers and commentary, 2nd ed. (contact Margaret Aherne direct)
• The Effective Editor's Handbook (Barbara Horn)

These books most definitely aren't up-to-date in terms of technology (the on-what issue), but the best-practice elements are still spot on.

The fourth edition of Butcher's is also pricey. Second-hand versions of the third edition are going for a song on Amazon, though.

If you find that some of these books are out of print, ask in editorial forums if anyone has copies they’d be happy to pass on.

​Mentoring: formal and informal
Another option is to seek either formal or informal mentoring.

I don’t think you should feel embarrassed about explaining to colleagues in editorial forums that you’re looking to raise your skills to meet publishing-industry standards, and asking whether anyone would be prepared to mentor you. I'm impressed when even the most experienced editor or proofreader asks about CPD.

Some may expect a fee, others will do it for free, though there might well be a wait list.

Moving beyond mainstream publishers
Mainstream publishers, as you know, tend to have rather rigid definitions of what a copyediting or proofreading job entails. Editorial freelancers who specialize in working for these clients do have a smoother ride if they’ve formally trained because that training accords with industry expectations.

Things take a different (though not always easier!) turn when working with independent authors, students, businesses, and so on.

I would not be at all surprised if the experience you’ve already acquired with your two mainstream clients means that you're more than capable of working with many non-publishers effectively.

So let’s say you offer copyediting. While a publisher might expect you to edit the index or the bibliography as standard, you could decide to exclude these from your service for non-publishers.

And perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that many non-publisher clients come to me, and thousands of my colleagues, looking for so-called proofreading services. What they’re actually asking for frequently falls under the rubric of what we'd call copyediting (correcting the raw-text files) rather than annotating final page proofs.

You're in a position to support this market given that you’ve already demonstrated your capabilities with several years of successful practice.

See the following for more on the tangled world of non-publisher proofreading and copyediting:

• Not all proofreading is the same: Part I – Working with page proofs
• Not all proofreading is the same: Part II – Working directly in Word
• Should a proofreader work for self-publishing clients who haven’t hired a copyeditor?
• The Proofreader’s Corner: Untangling Proofreading

A key issue for you to consider is therefore how you are going to make yourself discoverable to those types of clients.

Make sure your website, social media profiles and directory entries are bang up to date and presenting you as a compelling prospect for potential clients.

If you’re not advertising in the key industry directories, then that’s something you can fix immediately (whereas making your website visible is a more complex and slower-burn solution).

Think internationally. If you can access key industry directories, do so. You’re not a member of the SfEP, so you wouldn’t qualify for entry in its Directory of Editorial Services, but you might be eligible for other national societies listings (see this list of national editorial societies).

Then there’s findaproofreader.com, which is very reasonable. Consider other online business directories in your region, too. If their advertising rates are affordable, test them for a fixed period so you can evaluate whether they’re working for you.

One channel is rarely enough for any of us. Make yourself visible on multiple platforms so you can see what drives clients your way most effectively.

​To make your editorial more visible to clients searching online, I’d recommended a content-marketing strategy. This requires consistency, creativity and commitment, but it is an effective strategy if you're prepared to work hard at it.

I won’t use this Q&A session to delve into the issue because there’s far too much to say. If you want a taster, read my Content Marketing Primer for Editors and Proofreaders. (I also have a more general book on marketing an editorial business that might be of interest: Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.)
​
But, first, head over to the Andrew and Pete blog (they’re my content-marketing coaches, and my top recommendation for anyone wanting to dig deep and do it properly) and watch this short video: WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING? (IN 15 GIFS). Honestly, no one makes the task as fun as these two do!

Summing up
So, Georgia, there you have it – 2 online proofreading and copyediting training options, 7 paperback alternatives, 1 brief mention of mentoring, and my thoughts on promoting yourself into a position whereby you get to define the scope of your services rather than being forced into wearing hats that aren’t made to measure!

Good luck with the next steps!

Louise

​Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

Chris Hamilton-Emery of The Cover Factor and Salt discusses what makes a great book cover ...

This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #82
​

Managing the process of book cover design
So you’ve written, edited and prepared your book’s interior for your preferred distribution channels.
 
Now you need the cover. And, as I know all too well, being able to write in no way qualifies one for being able to design.  
 
When we’re self-publishing, there are some parts of the process that are, for most of us, best bought in. When it comes to book jackets and digital covers, that means talking to a designer.
 
Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a designer will depend on your budget. Either way there are some design basics that are well worth bearing in mind to help you make your book wow itself.
 
Great words compel your readers to finish your book ... A great cover compels them to start it.
​
Chris Hamilton-Emery, design director of The Cover Factory and co-founder of the gorgeous independent publisher Salt (based here in mostly sunny Norfolk!) has been kind enough to share his expertise (and his fantastic sense of humour!).
 
The advice below will help both the self-publisher and those looking for publishing contracts. Chris's core mantra? Avoid being dull.

​Design by committee
For authors with a publishing contract, it’s not uncommon for a team to be involved in briefing a designer – they may not be acting as a team, but there’s often one involved.
 
... A sales manager who has her eye on that cover that’s on display in Book Bonanza’s shop window.
 
... The marketing manager who keeps up with the new trends and the language around covers: ‘It needs some spacy calmness for the furniture to show up the title text.’
 
... Perhaps the bookseller: ‘Put a snake on it in a herby sort of border.’
 
... The managing director: “We don’t do serifs or colour at Gubbins & Potsdamer.”
 
... And then there’s the production manager, the print buyer, the design manager. Everyone has something to add to the sauce, not least an expectation of stellar sales.
 
Then someone rings the author. “He says blue reminds him of his dead mother, and the goat is the wrong breed.”
 
Which all goes to say that cover design has its contexts.
 
The person that truly matters is, of course, the reader – yet a cover has many important audiences before we reach that goal. That’s because it’s the chief means by which people make their investments in the book in the supply chain long before the bound paper book block (or its digital sister) touches the shelves.
 
A cover signals commitment from the publisher (even if that publisher is you, the author); it signals desire among booksellers; it signals prospects among the supply chain, and its critics and reviewers. Many will be spending their money before anyone has read a word.
 
For those with publishing contracts, it’s entirely possible that the author will have no contractual say in the matter, though few publishers would be brave enough to go to press with a cover that an author despised.

To boldly go?
Many covers are compromises and copies, and covers, like many parts of our modern lives, are influenced by fashion.

A cover that breaks ranks and stands out has as much chance of failure as success and so many covers play it safe. Being bold can also mean being ignored. As one friend put it, ‘The cutting edge is also the bleeding edge.’

Some markets have their own design universes, like crime, or romance – and it will take a brave soul to depart from the conventions of the genre.

Yet we all aspire to good cover design, and we all recognize that in the fiercely competitive environment of today’s global book trade, a cover can really help make a book work, by which we mean, distinguish itself.

Whomever compiles the brief has no easy task; they will be serving the multiple masters listed above and trying to find a way forward to inspire a designer to deliver a pot of gold in the shape of a small rectangle.

The brief
Do provide a synopsis, but not necessarily the entire book 
List three powerful visual moments. List one or two key visual themes. If the book had a palette, of which colours would it be comprised? How would you like readers to react to it?

Do not ask for your entire book to be illustrated on the cover
‘There must be a gold sky with twenty-six ravens, and a golf house, a small bus, traffic cones and a trifle, but no jelly. And on the trestle tables, bunting. And a seal. There are two main characters, one tall, the other taller, each has a mole. They are wearing jacquard ties. They must be shown in front of the thirty-seven villagers, all attempting to get into a train. The train is going to Doncaster.’ Hmm.

Detail is the great enemy of good design. 

Yet so, too, is needless abstraction. ‘Can it be wavy green with splashy washy bits? Except blue.’ 

Inspiring a great design can frequently be found in seeking out the monolithic and iconic message a successful cover often presents, ‘If she had eyes, they would be stones.’ Leave plenty of room for the designer to imagine, to take risks, and above all to surprise you with their own art. 

Never ask a designer to work up your own ideas. If you have ideas, especially strong ones, express them as visual journeys. Don’t offer destinations.

Ask questions
Perhaps the best way to ask questions is to show things that you believe work for you – other covers that appeal, especially ones relevant to the text. 

Create a visual space for the designer to work in, and add your brief to provide context and challenges. 

Good questions expose the problem, good questions get to the central, even the reductive, theme of the book. ‘If there was ever a home like this, it would be a songless house on a wet hill with a red rat at its heart.’ 

So, again, ask for three visuals, perhaps some early sketches, to see where things are leading. Or be bold and say, I am prepared to be surprised. 

Consider the compulsion factor
It’s also important to know the mechanics of a cover – once it’s passed through its committees and is en route to the bookstore, its role really comes into its own. 

Among the tens of thousands of books being put in front of readers, in stores or online, the cover’s job is simply to attract the browser, that momentous millisecond of compulsion that makes someone pick the book up, read the blurb and break open the spine. Or scroll down a page and click Look Inside.

Think of it. You spot something, your eye stops its movement, you lean forward and pick up the book, you turn it over and read an endorsement, your eye flickers, you read down. Ah, it’s about the last water mill in a land of drought ... You open the book and a journey begins (one that starts at the till).

Think back. The cover merely had to stop you moving on and its work was almost done – such a simple and perplexing thing. Would something more complicated have worked better? Something less fussy? Something less drab?

The essentials ...
Not everyone can afford a £3,000 cover budget; nor are they willing to have a six-month internal circulation list for everyone to argue over within a publishing house.

You may be going it alone; you may be self-publishing.

The problems are still the same – your cover must be distinctive, distinguishable, memorable, singular and arresting. 

• Stock art can provide a basis, but rarely a solution, to your needs. 
• Typography should be clear and maintain some personality. 
• Avoid a title top, a box for an illustration and your name at the bottom.
• Avoid the reverse, too. 
• Above all, go into a bookstore and look at covers. Lots of them. What’s going on in the world of covers? What are the expectations? Know your market and address it. Understand who the readers are. 

Free fonts can help in devising sketches. Test your ideas out with professionals. Don’t test them out with friends. 

Look at your cover in the context of your competitors.

And give it time. If you’ve spent years writing your book, at least give a few months to considering the cover. 

Be aware of your own prejudices. Be aware of your own tastes. 

Pay attention to space and position, to colour and clarity. 

And if your book is to be printed, above all, remember the spine, for this is what most readers will see. 

Don’t mistake a poverty of design as the representation of authenticity. Don’t over elaborate, either. Look at your cover from twelve feet away; can you recognize it, read it?

Working with the designer ...
Let’s roll back through these notes towards a design. If we’re using a designer, we want to enthuse and inspire, we want to ignite not instruct. We want to understand the context in relation to other covers.

We want to be aware of those who will put our book in front of readers. 

We want the readers to pick it up or click on it.

Whether we use a designer or produce something ourselves, we are all chasing something singular, clear and memorable. We are avoiding complexity. We are signifying the book more than illustrating its contents. 

Above all we are branding it. 

Remember that brands symbolise and represent complicated relationships and stories by simple means.

Simple doesn’t mean dull. In fact, perhaps the best mantra is, don't be dull. The world needs its little moments of glamour.

Chris Hamilton-Emery is Design Director at The Cover Factory:
​Web: www.thecoverfactory.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCoverFactory
Twitter: @thecoverfactory
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/thecoverfactory/

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

In 'When one client isn’t enough – emergency marketing for editors and proofreaders', I offered an emergency marketing plan for proofreaders and editors who’d either lost their sole source of income or ended up in a situation where they were reliant on one client.

The first stage of the marketing plan asked for a commitment to active marketing.

If you’re simply waiting for a solution to present itself, you’re merely involved. And that’s a very different proposition from being committed.

I love this quotation from Martina Navratilova:

Editorial freelancers, especially new starters, need to be the ham. Committing to marketing as soon as we set up our businesses ensures that we’ll never be client-reliant or, worse, lose our sole source of income.

Acquiring work: commitment versus involvement
Involved: being passive
Most experienced editorial freelancers take advantage of passively acquired work. I have a number of repeat clients who fill some of my schedule.

If you’re highly visible, experienced, trusted and respected, this strategy could well be effective for you. For the new entrant to the field, though, it’s a non-starter.

That’s because these opportunities are a consequence of active marketing.

Passively acquired work might come through a variety of channels. Here, for simplicity, I’ve focused on three:

1. Referrals
2. Repeat work
3. Online profiles (e.g. social media, directories and your website)

Committed: being active
​Active marketing is the work you do to generate these passive opportunities. Here, again, I’ve focused on three:

A. Networking with colleagues and clients (e.g. on editing forums, at conferences, professional society meetings, social media platforms). This kind of marketing leads to an awareness of what your specialist skills are. If a colleague needs to direct a client or prospect to someone with skills or availability that he or she doesn’t have, you’ll be in the running (see 1, above).

B. Cold-calling and writing letters/emails to target clients (e.g. publishers, packagers, businesses, marketing agencies). This is direct marketing and if you do it extensively you can quickly build a solid list of similar client types. If the clients are satisfied with the work, they’ll rehire you, which leads to repeat work (see 2, above).

C. Just creating online profiles in itself is not enough to make you discoverable. Action that maximizes the visibility of those profiles in the search engines is key. This is where content marketing comes to the fore – creating and distributing (via your online platforms) advice, knowledge, tools and resources that your colleagues and clients will find useful, valuable. Examples include blogs, booklets, video tutorials, checklists and cheat sheets. High-quality content offers solutions to problems and makes your online profiles more findable (see 3, above).

In a nutshell, being active enables you to reap passive rewards later (if your office buddy will give you the space, that is).

Why word of mouth (WOM) is often misunderstood
‘But my colleague said that all her work is via word of mouth.’

I don’t doubt it. But if she’s been running her business for 20 years and has a portfolio and client list as long as your arm, she’s not in the same position as the new entrant to the field.

She’s benefiting from 1, 2 and 3 because she invested in A, B and C.

New starters should indeed commit to WOM marketing. What they shouldn’t do is assume that it’s a passive approach that requires no effort. Nor will there be short-term results. Top-notch WOM marketing requires an intense level of commitment to action and an acceptance of slow-burn impact.

Awareness and trust aren’t built overnight, especially in our field. Editorial freelancers aren’t selling a product that promises something that swathes of people have wanted forever – an anti-aging cream, a painless leg-waxing treatment, a broadband connection that never, ever buffers even if you live out in the sticks and there’s more chance of getting a wi-fi signal on Mars. Our services have to prove their worth.

For the editorial business owner, WOM marketing is like creating a garden from scratch. If you’re proactive, it will take many months to knock it into shape. If you hold back, it’ll take years. If you’re passive, the garden will remain barren.

WOM and colleagues
There are a lot of us, and many have already developed niche networks of friends and colleagues to whom we refer work.

When an editor or proofreader ends up on my radar, it’s because they’ve instilled trust in me.

• Perhaps they blog regularly about, offer training on, or deliver presentations about specific aspects of editorial work that I don’t offer.
• Perhaps they’re visible on social media and professional forums, often sharing valuable knowledge that answers questions, solves problems, and demonstrates their skills, experience and expertise.
• Perhaps they’ve helped me solve a problem.

Only then am I likely to add them to my referral network.

WOM and clients
As for client A telling client B about you, you’ll need a lot of mouths to share the good news if you want to have a full schedule! That’s not where you’ll be if you’re a new entrant to the field, not because you’re not an effective editor or proofreader but because you don’t yet have a large enough bank of clients.

Effective WOM
Find out which networks (online and offline) your clients and colleagues recommend and join in the discussion. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions but be prepared to offer solutions too. Even new editorial freelancers have specialist skills and background experience that are relevant and valuable to the debate.

In 'Why word of mouth marketing is the most important social media', Kimberly A. Whitler, Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, breaks down WOM marketing into the three Es:

• Engage – talk to your colleagues and clients via social media, online forums and local networking groups.
• Equip – give your colleagues and clients a reason to engage with you and your business – advice, knowledge, tools, support, great-quality proofreading ... whatever helps them and solves their problems.
• Empower – enable your colleagues and clients to engage with you in ways that work for them. What’s useful for one person will not be useful to another. Not all of my colleagues want to trawl through a dense blog with hundreds of articles about editorial business planning and marketing, so I offer them books, too. Not all of my potential clients want to fill in a contact form on my website, so I provide my phone number, too. Not all of my readers want to read long articles, so I sometimes produce infographics, booklets, checklists, podcasts and videos (though, admittedly, the latter is a work in progress!).

​Action first, passivity later
Clients can come via active and passive marketing strategies. It’s not a case of the right strategy but the right order.

If you’re a new starter, make active editorial business promotion a standard part of your working life, just like copyediting or proofreading, invoicing and updating your software. Assign space for it every week so that it becomes commonplace rather than a chore or, worse, something to be feared.

Be active. Be committed. Be the ham!

Once your business is established, you’ll be able to take advantage of the passive benefits that result from your effort. Just take care not to hand over the chill space to your Labrador!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

In my latest guest article for the BookMachine blog, I take a look at how publishing professionals, from the freelance editor to the mainstream publishing house, can stretch their marketing budgets by repurposing one in-depth piece of amazing content.

The fabulous Gordon Graham, otherwise known as That White Paper Guy, was my inspiration, and I'd recommend you take a look at his guidance on ways to create brilliant resources to make your clients' lives easier.

​Click on the stretchy guy to read the article in full!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

Maya has a PhD in social anthropology, and is an experienced editor and proofreader. She’s in the process of expanding her editorial business while continuing to publish academic research.
 
To date, she’s focused on acquiring work through a freelancing website, but the work flow is unpredictable and she’s not convinced it will supply her with a viable income stream in the long term.
 
She’s created a website but recognizes that it’ll take time to become visible to potential clients, and to earn their trust.
 
She asks: ‘There are a couple of other freelancing websites that look promising, as well as academic editing agencies. Does it make sense to try to sign up to those as well, or is it better to focus on one thing at a time? I'm planning to blog and make YouTube videos about academic writing on top of these things. But is this a case of "less is more" or "more is more"? I’m an experienced editor but completely new to marketing!’
 
Great questions, Maya.
 
Two things to consider
There are two different elements to your strategy here:

• agency and directory marketing, where you wait to be selected
• content marketing, where you build trust and engagement by creating compelling content that makes you appear delicious to potential clients!

 
Both approaches are important in the editorial industry, so hats off to you for recognizing that even though you’re new to marketing. You’re doing brilliantly!
 
The reason why both approaches are important is because directories and agencies have already done the online visibility work on your behalf. By using them to make your business visible now, you’re freeing up your marketing hours to focus on the longer-burn stuff – your blog and videos.
 
Broadly speaking,

• freelancing directories and agencies: more is more
• content marketing: less is more (sort of – see below)

 
I’ll explain why further down, but first I wanted to ask you whether you’ve considered approaching publishers too. You didn’t mention it in your email so I think it’s worth my taking the time to discuss it here.

Publishers and freelance editors – a gift
Directories, agencies and content creation are all great ways to acquire clients, albeit over different time frames.

The biggest problem the editor faces, however, is getting the client to raise their hand in the first place. ‘I’m interested in you, Maya!’ is what your directory entry, agency listing, blog article or YouTube video needs to make your audience member feel compelled to say.

That means working hard to create stand-out information that sets you apart from the competition surrounding you. Furthermore, in the directory and agency fields, there will always be a group of clients looking for cheap rather than brilliant. And in the marketplace more generally, there are potential clients who don’t even realize they need you, or, if they do, which of the different levels of service will be the most appropriate.

But here come the publishers! (Sing it, like the Boots ad!) We’re in a rather privileged field of having a core client group who understands exactly what we do, why we’re necessary, and the value we bring to the table. We don’t have to get them to raise their hands; their hands are already in the air!

Some publishers will take the time to scour the SfEP’s Directory of Editorial Services, but to my knowledge the single best way to get noticed by a production manager is still to go direct. Email, letter, phone call – whatever you prefer.

I worked almost exclusively for publishers for the first half of my freelance career. I had about 10 publisher clients who kept my schedule as full as I needed it to be. Feast and famine? Nope, just feast.

Like you, I have a background in the social sciences, so that’s where I focused my initial wave of inquiries. You mentioned in your original email that you’d 'bought my marketing books', so you’ll find more information on how to tackle that in Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

Take a look, too, at the SOS Marketing Strategy PDF below. You’re not in an emergency situation but the basic principles about how to proceed still stand.
​
Publishers, like agencies, will give you regular work, and that means you can focus all your marketing juice on creating compelling blog posts and irresistible YouTube vids.

Publishers are a bit of a gift like that – while their rates aren’t always top-notch, the time they free up for you by handing you a steady supply of work certainly is. And creating valuable, usable, accessible content does take time.

Directories and agencies: more is more
Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration! By more is more, I’m not saying you should sign up with 20 directories and agencies; you’ll spend more time being busy creating the entries than you will being productive finding the work!

I do think, though, that you needn’t limit oneself to one. If you identify a group of, say, four or five that are used by your core clients to find people like you, I’d recommend you sign up. More is more, as long as you’re selective.

There are SEO benefits, too. For certain medium-tail keyword searches, I rank first on page one of Google – but it’s not my website showing up. It’s my SfEP directory entry.

And, anyway, you’re in control. You get to accept work, or decline it – whatever suits your needs.

The key thing to remember is that if you get too many requests to quote from the directories and agencies, you can always trim and focus on those that deliver the best-quality clients to you. Plus, you’ll never know what’s working if you don’t test in the first place.

Testing is something else you’ll see me bang on about in my books, but only because it’s the foundation of any solid marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if you try something, and that something doesn’t work. You’ll still have learned something, and having learned it you can make an informed decision about what to do next. Otherwise your marketing is just guesswork – which is exhausting at best!

So, yes, go ahead. Sign up for a few more and find out what works for you. Evaluate in a few months’ time. Then leave behind the ones that don’t work out and try something else instead.

Now let’s deal with the content strategy.

Creating delectable content! Less is more (sort of)
When I say less is more, I’m talking about platforms, not the actual content itself.

This isn’t just me banging my drum. The professionals emphasize this. My own content marketing coaches Andrew and Pete recommend focusing on one or two platforms, and really honing them. Plus, I’m halfway through the online conference Summit on Content Marketing, and speakers Rand Fishkin, Ilise Benun, Dave Jackson, and Stoney deGeyter agree: concentrate on what your core clients are using – in other words, choose the platforms your customers prefer, rather than the ones you prefer.

So, you’re planning to use a blog and YouTube to deliver your advice on academic writing. If those are platforms that your core clients like using, then go ahead. And stick to those two – really craft them into something special, something compelling.

Some quick tips (you might know the following already but other readers might not, so bear with me!) …

Quality
Make sure your content is really useful so that it offers solutions for your potential clients. Don’t sell – just solve. I used to call content marketing ‘value-added marketing’ (see the marketing book you’ve bought). Seriously, I didn’t know ‘content’ marketing was a thing until a year ago! I still think it’s an oddly bland name for such an exciting strategy.

Anyway, I don’t get to make the rules, so content marketing it is!

Focus on value above all else. Value trumps everything (unless your great writing is so blurred as to be unreadable, or the audio quality of your video so poor as to make it unwatchable).

If you create a beautiful video, or a blog post with loads of fancy pictures, but the story you’re telling your viewers or readers is of no use to them and doesn’t help them, you won’t grow that audience.

But if your video is a little flawed, or your blog post a little ugly, you’ll still grow your audience and build trust and relationships if you’ve made someone’s life easier. It’s no different to friendship. I don’t pick my mates because they look gorgeous – it’s all about the relationship and how we make each other feel. Content marketing’s no different.

I’ve tried hard to make my blog look prettier this year. But you know what? Some of my most popular posts are still those I wrote years ago – posts with really long paragraphs of dense narrative – 1,500 words of me telling people what publishers think about proofreading training courses, and another 1,500 of me on how to upload custom stamps of PDF markup symbols. No pictures. No clever SEO titles. Just loads of text. But it’s text that answers the questions that (some) people are asking.

Consistency
Be consistent with how often you deliver your blogs and videos. The expert view is this: whether you post twice a week, once a week or once a month is less important than choosing one of those and committing to it. That way your readers and viewers get into the routine of engaging with you.

Furthermore, if you commit to once a week, but you don’t have enough content to fill that schedule, you’re more likely to feel deflated and stop. Which would be a huge shame! It's better to excite an audience by raising your game than disappointing them by going backwards.

Quantity
If you write great blogs that are 400 words long, perfect. If you need 2,000 words, perfect.

If your videos need to be 5 minutes long to solve your client’s problems, make them 5 minutes long. If they need to be longer, and that’s what your audience wants, make them longer.

Just make sure that every word and every minute is full of value. I know I’m a right old rambler so I struggle to make every word count. Let’s just call me chatty!

Delivery
Think about how you’ll direct people to your blog and YT channel. I post to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to make editors and writers aware of what’s new on my blog.

​I’ve also recently created a mailing list for writers to enable me to alert them when new self-publishing resources are available.

And, these days, Google Search is working wonders for me. In time, it’ll work for you to if you commit to creating all that delicious stuff for your potential clients!

If academic writers are also using Twitter, FB and LI to get their updates, those are the channels you should use to direct them to your blog and video platforms. If they’re using some other channel to get their news, that’s where you should be.

Again, it’s about what your listeners and readers want, rather than your own preferences. (I really, really hope authors aren’t big Snapchatters! If they are, I might just have to break my own rule and say, ‘Stuff what my clients are doing!’)

If one of the books you told me you’d bought was my content marketing primer, you’ll get a good overview of the basic principles. You can always post another question if you want to dig deeper.

Hope that’s helped, Maya. Thanks so much for asking two great questions. I hope my response has told you what you wanted to know. 

Cheers!

​Louise

P.S. Click on the image below to access the PDF.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

​One of the Parlour’s UK readers contacted me with some questions. I’m answering them here because they’re the kinds of things that are often asked by those who are thinking entering the field of editorial freelancing.

Out of respect for my reader's privacy, I’ve masked his identity. Let’s call him Charlie (after my Labrador!).

So what did Charlie want to know?

• How will clients pay me?
• How do I register with HMRC?
• How do I keep track of the hours I spend working?
• How much should I charge?
• How do I acquire assignments?
• Can I use prior career experience?
• Do you accept volunteers or offer apprenticeships?

​Phew! That’s a lot of questions, Charlie, so I’ll only be able to scratch the surface, but I’m confident I can point you in the right direction.

First things – going deeper
Here are four resources that dig deeper into all your queries , though you’ll have to cough up a few quid for them!

• Going Solo: Creating your freelance editorial business (Sue Littleford).
• Pricing a Project: How to prepare a professional quotation (Melanie Thompson).
• Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers (Louise Harnby)
• Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business (Louise Harnby)

​

​
They’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to know about starting out and keeping going.

Might I also suggest you join the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), the UK’s national editorial society? The forums provide a warm and supportive environment for old hands and newbies alike.

How will clients pay me?
A better question might be how would you like to be paid? For example, I accept cheques (reluctantly!), PayPal (convenient for international clients), and direct bank transfer (easy-peasy). Other options include Stripe and CurrencyFair.

I send an invoice as soon as a project’s complete, but some of my colleagues prefer to do all their invoicing for the month in one fell swoop. It’s a matter of personal choice and what works for each business owner in terms of efficiency. You can download an invoice template from my Other Resources page.

How do I register with HMRC and what do I need to tell them?
Quite honestly, the easiest way to deal with HMRC is to give them a call. I found them incredibly helpful when I first started my editorial business. Believe me, they’ll put your mind at rest.

Sue’s book (mentioned above) has lots of information about dealing with HMRC. My primary piece of advice is to keep a record of what you spend and what you earn in relation to your business. There’s an accounting template on the Other Resources page that shows you what I record for each project.

How do I keep track of the hours I spend working?
I record my hours in the accounting template. That way, everything’s in one place. I keep track of time the old-fashioned way – with a pen and a piece of paper! Other colleagues use various time-tracking tools and widgets, e.g. Toggl.

Keeping track of how much time you spend on a project is important for gauging how efficient you are. Bear in mind, though, that not all clients will be prepared to pay you for the hours you work. Rather, they’ll pay you for the hours they think the job should take you. This is often the case with publishers and packagers.

When you’re in control of the setting the price of a project (e.g. with independent writers, students, businesses etc.), you’ll need to assess how long the project will take and how much you want to earn from it. This comes with experience; it’s likely you won’t hit the mark in the start-up phase of your proofreading business.
​
Don’t fret about this, though. You’ll get better at estimating over time. And by tracking how long each project takes to complete, and what you earned, you’ll get a sense of what’s possible in an hour or per 1,000 words.

How much should I charge?
Take a look at the following articles here on the Proofreader’s Parlour:

• The highs and lows of editorial fees (or how not to trip up during rate talk)
• The rates debate: Looking at the value beyond the fee
• Increasing editing income – raising fees and declining lower-paid work

What you charge will be determined by your particular needs, your ability to access clients who’ll meet those needs, whom you’re working for, and what you’re doing.

If you work for publishers and packagers, they’ll control the price – you’ll be a price-accepter.
If you work for businesses, independent authors, academics, and students, you’ll offer a price in the hope that they’ll accept – you’ll be a price-setter.

If the second option sounds a better financial option, bear in mind that, even if it is, it’s harder work! Publishers and packagers do all the client-acquisition work on your behalf, while acquiring clients for whom you’re a price setter means you need to actively promote your business on a regular basis so that you’re interesting and discoverable to clients across the platforms they’re using to find people like us (e.g. Google).

How do I acquire assignments?
My line on this is: when you set up your own business you’ll have two jobs:

• The work you do – proofreading in your case.
• And the work you do to get the work you do – marketing your proofreading business.

​I’ve shared all my experience of editorial business promotion in these three resources:

• Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business (Louise Harnby)
• Content Marketing for Editors & Proofreaders (Louise Harnby)
• Proofreader’s Parlour: Marketing Tips

​

What I’ll say here is that there’s no single way to go about it, not least because different client types use different platforms to find their proofreaders and editors.

For example, content marketing is not the most efficient way to go about acquiring publisher clients – honestly, just get on the phone or write a letter/email instead. If you want to work for independent authors, though, it’s one of the most powerful methods of being discoverable.

Conversely, phone calls to publishers will reap results (if you make enough of them), but for indie authors this method will take you into Ghostbusters territory – who you gonna call?!

My advice is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask:

• Who are your target clients?
• What are their problems?
• How will you solve those problems?
• How will you demonstrate your ability to solve them?
• How will you find the clients?
• Or, if they need to find you, where will they look, and how will you make yourself visible in those places?

Can I use my prior career experience?
Absolutely – it will be one of your unique selling points. For example, I’d worked for a social science publisher for many years prior to starting my business, This, along with my politics degree, helped to make me an interesting prospect for social science publishers with politics lists.

Wordsmith Janet MacMillan is a former lawyer – now her client base includes legal publishers, legal students, academics and law firms.
​
Both of us understand the language our respective disciplines, and that means we’re more likely to spot errors in related texts than someone with, say, a nursing background.

My advice to new starters is: always specialize first in what you know. Later, if you wish, you can diversify, or transition to another specialism (I’m now a  fiction copyeditor and proofreader).

So, in the start-up phase, use your career experience to help you determine which core clients you’re going to target. Then think about how you'll communicate with them in a way that makes them want to consider you as their proofreader.

Here are two resources to help you think about how to create a stand-out brand identity using a client-centric approach: 

• Pen portraits (free article by technical editor and writer John Espirian)
• The Hippo Campus (book by content marketing pros Andrew and Pete)

​Do you accept volunteers or offer apprenticeships?
I don’t, Charlie – sorry. I’m a one-woman show. That’s critical to my business model. My clients hire me and only me to work on their books.

That doesn’t mean that mentoring programs aren’t a superb option. Time to think about training!

I’d strongly recommend you do some professional proofreading training to prepare yourself for market. It’ll show you where your strengths are, and help you fix your weaknesses.

Training has three core benefits:

• It instils trust in your clients – you’re demonstrating professionalism. Trust is critical in an unregulated market where anyone can set up as a proofreader.
• It instils confidence in you when you take the initial client-acquisition steps, e.g. calling publishers, creating directory listings, publishing blog posts, etc.
• It increases client-retention rates – you’re more likely to do a fantastic job if you approach it like a professional.

The SfEP and The Publishing Training Centre are my recommendations … purely because I have personal experience of their courses on which to base an opinion. There are other options available, though. 

The SfEP runs a mentoring programme, too, though you must have completed some initial training beforehand.

Last things
That’s it, Charlie – a whirlwind tour of how to set up a proofreading business! I hope you find the guidance useful. I realize there’s a lot to think about.

If you decide to join the club, you’ll find a supportive community awaiting you, one that stretches well beyond the geographical boundaries of the UK.

Good luck!

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #81

This week's post is a cracker. Self-published author Jeff Carson has kindly agreed to discuss his writing journey.

Jeff's a mystery and thriller writer from Colorado. Writing is his full-time job and he makes a living from his self-published series.

That's a dream for millions of independent authors; below, Jeff shares 11 tips on how he turned that dream into a reality.

If you're at the start of your self-publishing adventure, this is definitely for you!

My name is Jeff Carson and I’m the author of a series starring David Wolf, a cop living in the fictional town of Rocky Points in the Colorado Rockies. Right now, I’ve written ten books in the series.

When I first started out writing, I remember being tormented at night by questions swimming in my head (and by mosquitos … at the time, we were in Italy for a year, and they were thick that summer, I tell you). Questions like: Can I really do this? Can I make a living at it? Is this just a waste of my time? What if everyone hates the books?
 
By finding a few people online who’d made a success of becoming a self-published author, I was able to get a lot of my questions answered and some inspiration that propelled me towards making a living as a fiction writer.
 
I despise playing the guru, and I’m cringing a little as I write this, but I have accomplished the goals I laid out five years ago. So I have to say that I feel l’ve succeeded in the self-publishing realm.
 
There are others, many others, who would scoff at my level of accomplishment, but this blog post isn’t for them. This is for those who are in the position I once was, in that sweat-soaked Italian bed.
 
Here are 11 things that have helped me succeed as a self-published author. 

1. I want to make a living doing this
That’s been the over-arching goal from the beginning. I wanted my paycheck to come from writing. I wanted to make money twenty-four hours per day from people reading my books.
 
I’ve met many people who approach writing as a therapeutic tool for their lives. That’s fine. But 100% of people who write get the therapeutic benefit. One only makes money from it if it’s a goal.

You don't wake up with a horse one day by random accident. There’s a lot of intention and action that goes into suddenly having a hay-eating animal roaming around in the back yard. Same thing goes with earning a living from writing. 

2. I wrote a book series
I learned that if you want to make money from writing fiction, the odds of success go up dramatically by writing a series. Since my goal was to make money with this gig, naturally I wrote a series. 

Harlan Coben is the exception, not the norm. 

On this note, I learned the hard way to not leave books ending on a cliff-hanger. I'd done this with book one and received a lot of negative reviews. I’ve since fixed the novel so that all story goals are resolved and it ends completely. 

In my series, my characters grow and their lives change from each book to the next, but I try to make each book a stand-alone. 

This helps with marketing, too, since anyone can pick up one of the David Wolf novels at any point in the series and feel grounded and up to speed. 

3. I over-estimated, or realistically estimated, the level of work it would take to achieve my goal (of making a living writing) 
I knew that one book in a series, the first book I’d ever written and published in my entire life, would make no money. Pessimistic? It’s not.
 
First, I was learning how to write a story. Second, I wasn’t expecting to gain a wide audience with a single book taking up a single slot in the vast Amazon universe.
 
I knew book one was the hook – the mouth of a funnel – that would lead to the rest of the books in the series. In fact, I knew I was probably going to offer the first book for free.
 
I needed multiple books in multiple categories grabbing people’s attention, all of them leading readers to the other books sitting in other categories. The series would act as a big net.

I figured that after three books I’d be making some ‘extra money’. I hoped that after five I’d be making enough money to quit all other work and concentrate on writing only. Then I doubled that number.

Therefore, I created a goal of writing ten books; then I’d judge the venture one way or another.

In reality, after five books I was able to write full-time and make a full-time living wage. Now that I’m on book eleven, my goals, expectations, and earnings have elevated. 

At the beginning, I felt that if I set my work expectations too low, I’d become discouraged, and fast. Because if after, say, four books I was still irrelevant and making nothing, then my hopes would be dashed.
 
Some people would call a ten-book ‘realistic expectation’ pessimistic, but in my mind it’s the reason I kept going when, after three books, I’d known months that wouldn’t have paid for a week’s worth of groceries. 

4. I concentrate on what I want every day
I’ve filled two college-ruled notebooks with lists of my goals. Every day (or most days) I open up a notebook, list the writing goals/life goals with specific deadlines, such as when I’ll finish the first draft and when I’ll publish, and then I get to work. 

I learned this technique by reading this Brian Tracy book on goal-setting: Goals! How to Get Everything You Want – ​Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible.

That book definitely changed my life. I'd never even had goals before reading that book. 

Now I always set goals. Deadlines always get pushed back, which would be depressing if I let myself to think about it. But the system doesn’t allow for that. Each day is a new sheet, and a new list of goals with either the same deadlines or adjusted deadlines. Looking back on previous lists of goals is not permitted. 

5. I read the bad reviews
This is a biggie. I’ve heard some authors say, ‘I just ignore the bad reviews.’ I adopted that stance for quite a while, actually. But there’s always something to learn from a bad review. 

In fact, I think it’s dangerous and irresponsible if you ignore the one- and two-star shellacking some people take pride in giving out between hangover-induced trips to the bathroom, the sons of bitches. 

Some people get specific – ‘Nice try. A Sig Sauer P226 doesn’t have a safety! Amateur writer at best. I will not be reading another piece of filth by this author.’

So, fine. You skim past the amateur comment and go fix the book so that the special agent DOESN’T flick off the safety as she steps out of her SUV. I think my books are orders of magnitude better because of the bad reviews. 

I figure that if somebody came up to me on the street, pointed, laughed, and criticized my outfit, I’d shake my head and move on, not in the least worried about that person a few steps later. But if her criticism is, ‘Your fly’s down … oh, yeah, and your pants are on backwards. Idiot,’ well, then, I want to know that. 

6. Screw it. I don’t need social media
Early on, I adopted the stance that I needed to write my way into relevance as a writer, not tweet, post, or whatever my way into it. 

Once I adopted this mindset, a weight lifted off my back. I hated it for some reason. I couldn’t get a grasp on social media, so I just let go of it. 

My investigation leading up to my decision showed a correlation between how much an author published books and how successful they were, between how many positive reviews a book had and how successful it was. I could check an author’s success by looking at the rankings of their books on Amazon and other market places.

There was no correlation, however, between how present people were on social media and their book rankings. 

In fact, more often than not, I saw that people who were successful had all but abandoned their social media accounts. In contrast, there were people all over Twitter and Facebook, with hundreds of thousands of friends/followers, and books lost in obscurity. 

Clearly there are exceptions, and some people have great success with social media, but my reasoning was: you write your way into being a writer. 

I rarely post on Facebook, and when I do, it’s usually a link to my new books – classic poor social media behavior. Screw it. I don’t care. 

7. I am accessible
​I respond to every communication sent to me. I think this is huge as a writer, or as a person in general. Nothing irks me more than somebody simply not responding to something.
 
The most surprising thing about writing, and that I sometimes get all teary-eyed about, is the amount of love people will send your way after they’ve read your novel. People will click on the email address (which I put in the back of the book) and contact me, telling me how much they like my book. For me to not say thanks is plain psycho.
 
Plus, it’s just good business. People who like you are more likely to share the news about your work.

8. I have a newsletter email list
This is one of those things I heard people preaching – you have to have an email list of readers – but never did anything about. It took me four freaking books to finally put my email list in place. But I finally did, and that’s when I was finally able to write full time.
 
It only took two days to write and publish a short story, which I give away on my blog as a thank-you if somebody signs up for the new-release newsletter.
 
Now, when I have a new release, I launch the book to thousands of people, versus dropping it into a field of crickets.

9. I write in sprints first, edit later
This is one of those huge game-changers for me. I was getting upset sitting in front of the computer every day but only coming out with one or two thousand words.
 
Now, I write in sprints, which means I write in thirty-minute blocks, take a five-minute break, and then do it again. Using the backspace button is not allowed (a rule I break all the time … my OCD won’t allow David Wolf’s name to be Wols for more than a few seconds).
 
It took me six or so books to employ the sprint tactic, and now I’ll never write any other way.

10. I have a self-editing PLAN
After tapping out a real crappy draft of a terrible book, then going back through a few times, editing, ironing out inconsistencies, tightening up descriptions of dead bodies, etc., I have in the past simply read and re-read the book, then tweaked until I felt it was ‘as good as I can get it’.
 
I’m ashamed to say, it’s only been recently that I’ve implemented a self-editing plan.
 
The plan is something like …

1. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of ‘there were’.
2. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of ‘there was’.
3. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of ‘was’.
4. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of ‘just’.
5. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of ‘really’.
6. Search and remove all/rewrite all instances of helping verbs.
7. Etc.
8. Etc.

Since I’ve begun to remove all extraneous wording with a set plan, I feel my finished products have improved drastically. There’s a lot of literature out there on how to approach this. [Note from Louise: bookmark my Self-publishers page; I have a post due shortly on how to highlight unnecessary words using a free, easy-to-use macro.]

11. I hire an editor who does it for a living, for a rate that allows her to do it for a living
After seven books, going through three editors, and becoming frustrated with the service I was getting, I realized that I needed to hire an editor who was an editor and only an editor, and who charged a rate that clearly allowed her to feel properly compensated.
 
The alternative is hiring somebody who does the work on the side for cheap. They’re pressed for time. They’re secretly (I imagine, because I would be) pissed off about being underpaid for a job that deserves more money.
 
The equation adds up to a poor editing job on the finished product … suspicious stretches of pages – five, ten at a time – without a single mark on them.
 
The saying goes, ‘You get what you pay for,’ and it can get tricky when paying for editing services. For years, I tried to get away with paying less. And I definitely got less.

... In today’s publishing environment, I know that, for me, every bit of advice helps. I hope at least one of the tips above helps you on your journey to becoming a successful self-published writer.

​Where to find Jeff and his books

• Jeff Carson: contact
• Jeff Carson: newsletter sign-up
• Foreign Deceit (David Wolf #1) 
• The Silversmith (David Wolf #2)
• Alive and Killing (David Wolf #3)
• Deadly Conditions (David Wolf #4)
• Cold Lake (David Wolf #5)
• Smoked Out (David Wolf #6)
• To the Bone (David Wolf #7)
• Dire (David Wolf #8)
• ​Signature (David Wolf #9)
• Dark Mountain (David Wolf #10)

For instant access to more self-publishing and indie-author resources, visit my Self-publishers page. ​Or join the library to get monthly updates.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you’re at the beginning stages of your writing career, you’ll still be navigating your way through the world of publishing. And you probably have a ton of questions.

One of those will likely be: What kind of editor do I need to help me get my book ready? The natural follow-up to that is: How do I find that person?

I offered guidance on what kind of editor to hire and when in ‘​The different levels of editing. Proofreading and beyond’. Today, I’m focusing on how you should source that person.
​
​So as not to muddy the waters, I’m assuming you’ve already decided what kind of help you want: developmental, copy/line editing or final prepublication proofreading. If you’re still not sure, I’ve included a PDF that summarizes the different levels of editing at the bottom of this article.

Now let’s look at how to find the right person. My recommendations fall into two categories:

• the initial search
• the refinement process

Search (1): Professional associations
Your national editorial society is a great place to start, for four reasons:

1. Most have membership directories.
2. Those membership directories are a great deal smaller and easier to navigate than the internet, which means you can concentrate your search.
3. You can often search on key words. So if you’re a crime writer looking for a proofreader, you’ll be able to narrow your search to specialists with experience in both proofreading and crime fiction.
4. Some professional associations require members to meet certain criteria in exchange for the right to be listed in their directories. This means you’re able to access editors and proofreaders who are fit for purpose. I don’t need to tell you why that’s good news for you!

Being able to target your search means higher-quality results for less of your valuable time. Woo hoo!

The UK’s professional editorial association is the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and there’s a global list here: Professional societies and associations.

A limitation of national professional editorial societies is that they’re national. There’s absolutely no reason why you should source editorial help from someone in your own backyard. Many editorial pros work with clients from all over the world.

Search (2): The internet
The internet is the biggest and most amazing directory on the planet so it’s a brilliant place to search. Your perfect-fit editorial pro is out there, just waiting for you to touch base.

There’s a problem, though: the internet is the biggest and most amazing directory on the planet so it’s a terrible place to search. Your perfect-fit editorial pro is buried, waiting for you to dig her out.

Go too broad with your keywords and you might miss her. Go too narrow and … yep, you might miss her. Of course, you might find her, too. As Google sometimes prompts us: are you feeling lucky?

And there’s something else to bear in mind – and I say this as someone with page-one Google rankings for the term ‘proofreader’, so it’s not a case of sour grapes – being high up in Google doesn’t mean the proofreader or editor is necessarily the best fit for you; it means they’re an effective marketer.

And, conversely, just because someone’s website is ranked highly for niche long-tail keyword searches doesn’t mean that another person who didn’t pepper their website with those particular terms isn’t worth considering, too.

That means you need to do a lot of Google legwork to find the best fit and to get a really good batch of potential people to work with.

I’m not saying don’t use the internet. Its global nature is an appealing feature, one that the national editorial societies can’t compete with. I’m saying recognize its limitations. It’s amazing but it’s crowded, so you’ll need to invest some time to make it work for you. And that’s why I’ve given professional associations the number-one slot in this list of search options.

Search (3): Your network
If you’ve developed a solid network of fellow writers, that could be a super resource from which to get recommendations. Bear in mind, however, that the best fit for your writer pal is not necessarily the best fit for you. It’s a small resource given the size of the decision.

You might be writing in a different genre, or you might need help with a different level of editing. Some professional editors specialize in one or two levels (e.g. proofreading and copyediting; or developmental editing and manuscript evaluation). Others offer all of the levels but still feel most comfortable in one or two.

So tap your network for advice, but back it up with other searches.

Search (4): Social media
Social media platforms can be useful. They’re global but they have their limitations:

• Editors use social media platforms in different ways. For example, some are active primarily on Twitter, and have a LinkedIn profile but only use Facebook for personal use. Where you go will determine whom you find and whom you miss.
• Most social media profiles are restrictive in terms of what can be included, so you might not get the best sense of fit from the information provided.
• Some platforms are noisy, which makes effective targeted searching problematic.

Again, back up with other searches.

Here's a summary of the tools you might use to search for an editor or proofreader:

Now let’s take a look at how you might refine your initial searches.

You’ve found 37 developmental editors or copyeditors or proofreaders … whatever you need. All of them look great – they all have experience; can spell properly; are well educated and professional; and have a keen eye for detail and the appropriate training and qualifications.

How are you going to narrow that down to something manageable?

Refine (1): Genre experience
One way is to look at their portfolios, which tell you whether they’re used to working with books in your genre.

• At the final prepublication proofreading stage (which takes place after all the previous rounds of self- and professional editing are complete), genre experience may not matter as much.
• At copyediting, line editing or developmental editing stages, though, specialist genre experience could be a relevant factor. For example, line/copyediting crime fiction requires a different touch to line/copyediting historical romance. The styles of writing, the characters’ language, the length of sentences, even the punctuation used, are often very different.
• At developmental editing stage, genre will affect how the likes of pace, plot and characterization are handled such that reader engagement is maximized.

A portfolio does not an editor make, and it shouldn’t be the sole determiner of whom you choose by any means. It will, though, give you a feel for who’s used to working with writing like yours.

Refine (2): Best versus best fit – samples
Best versus best fit is worth considering when it comes to choosing third-party editorial help. At proofreading stage, you need precision; it’s all about quality control. At the earlier stages of editing (e.g. copy/line) emotional engagement will come into play.

It’s therefore a good idea to ask for a sample (either free or paid for). A sample will allow you to see who ‘gets’ your writing. Sentence-level tweaking is subjective to a degree (when it comes to suggesting minor recasts, for example) and it may be that five editors all spot the same typos and grammar errors but handle the wordiness rather differently.

It’s not about right or wrong, but rather about responsiveness.

Refine (3): Endorsements
A third narrowing-down technique is to look at what other writers say about a proofreader or editor. Take a look at their testimonials. Have other writers been prepared to publicly endorse the editorial pro? Have mainstream publishers stuck their necks out and praised the work?

Testimonials aren’t a foolproof way of determining excellence; like portfolios, they give you a glimpse of what the editors have done, whom they’ve worked with and the impressions they’ve made. They’re just one way of evaluating what’s on offer.

So that’s it – a potted guide to finding a proofreader, copyeditor or developmental editor. I wish you luck with your search and with your writing journey!

Here’s the information on the different levels of editing I promised. Just click on the image to download.

For more self-publishing resources, visit the library on my Self-publishers page. Or join the library to get monthly updates.

​Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and copyeditor. She curates The Proofreader's Parlour and is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors and proofreaders.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.