A note from Louise: The Parlour's series on Work Choices for editorial freelancers continues with this super post from my colleague Liz Jones. It's particularly pertinent given a recent discussion on the Society for Editors and Proofreaders forum about getting work based on particular subject specialisms. Several contributors made the point that it's not only the freelancer's education and career skills that come in useful, but also practical and hobby-based skills and knowledge. With that in mind, I was delighted when Liz suggested a guest article on editing cookery and craft titles. Read on ... When you’re thinking about potential areas of publishing to target or publishers to focus your attentions on, it’s worth considering the cookery and craft* genres. They account for a big chunk of the market, with hundreds of titles being published anew every year, or updated or repackaged. The two genres share certain characteristics and considerations. *Under the banner of "craft" I’m including a range of practical subjects, including knitting, crochet, dressmaking, spinning yarn, quilting, painting, drawing, origami, calligraphy, jewellery making … the list is long. Who can do it? In the case of both cookery and craft books, while practical experience and a working knowledge of the subject are both helpful, common sense and a willingness to engage with the material are arguably more important. It is your editorial skill set that you’re being hired for, and any subject-specific knowledge is a bonus. If it’s a subject area that’s a little outside your comfort zone, by all means confess this to the in-house editor, but don’t necessarily let it stop you taking on the job. Having said that, if you are passionate about any particular practical discipline, do draw attention to this when you approach a publisher in these genres. It’ll make you instantly more memorable – and employable. Does practical experience help? You don’t need to be a fantastic cook or a highly accomplished needleworker to successfully edit or proofread a book on the subject. However, some practical experience helps. Take cooking: it’s desirable if you can picture what a pinch of salt looks like, or 4 tablespoons of flour, or 50 grams of butter. A basic understanding of the science behind baking a cake, or a working knowledge of how to make pastry will stand you in good stead. You might not be the next Heston Blumenthal, but you need to care about why a recipe might work … and why it might not. It also helps if you’re into food – possibly even passionately so, even if you don’t do much cooking yourself. (In our house, my husband is the main cook, but we talk about food and recipes all the time.) Know your ingredients. Keep up with food trends. And read lots of cookery books! If you love food, this won’t be a chore. By reading around the subject you’ll get a feel for how recipes are put together, what new ingredients are on the market, how different publishers present similar kinds of information, and what’s desirable in a finished recipe. For craft, it’s important to understand how publishers like their instructional text presented, and to be able to get to grips with the specific jargon relating to the subject. Again, familiarity gained from reading the kinds of titles you’d like to work on is essential. Once you get to know the conventions of the genre, you are as equipped as anyone else to spot problems and inconsistencies in the text. This applies especially to proofreading, and once you’re more comfortable with the subject area it’s straightforward to move into copy-editing if you want. It can be reassuring to know that for cooking, crochet and knitting titles, publishers will often employ a freelance tester or pattern checker who will make up the recipes or projects, as well as an editor and proofreader. What characteristics do these books share? Both genres depend on the reader being able to understand a set of instructions in order to be able to exactly reproduce something at home. Therefore these instructions need to be unambiguous and clear. They should also be free from waffle – the reader does not want to get lost in flowery descriptions while they’ve got their hands covered in icing sugar or superglue. It’s likely you’ll have to wrestle with units of measurement. Sometimes these are given in both metric and imperial, and many jobs therefore require a certain amount of conversion or checking of measurements, or adding-in of missing information. This may seem dull – but it becomes considerably less boring when you consider how much your reader is depending on these measurements being accurate. You need to develop a sixth sense for those that seem "a bit off". Surely they can’t mean 15 kg salt? Why on earth would a patchwork skirt for a human take 35 metres of corduroy? How could a delicate beaded necklace possibly be threaded on wire 25 mm thick? Practical texts are often integrated with images, often in the form of numbered step-by-step sequences. Sometimes the publisher will send you the pictures to look at, and sometimes they won’t. If you have the pictures you need to look closely at each one against the text it accompanies. In this way, especially for craft subjects, a willingness to engage with visual material is important. With instructional text, editing can be about moulding the material to fit a publisher’s paradigm. Many craft titles are templated before they are written, with the author writing to fit a set of presentation layouts. Finally, we’ve all been taught to reject the received wisdom that the passive voice is inherently evil. However, this is less the case when editing cookery and craft texts. The active voice is often preferred – some publishers will even specify this. And when editing instructions, the imperative is often used to get the point across quickly. How should I approach a craft or cookery edit? The heart of any cookery or craft book is the recipes or projects. These often break down into three parts:
Editing the introduction is just like editing any other kind of text – try to retain the author’s voice as much as possible, as this is what gives the book its particular flavour. Then there’s the list of ingredients, or tools and materials in the case of craft. This is where you need to start getting really picky about consistency. The publisher’s house style will often tell you what units of measurement they prefer – metric, imperial, by volume (spoons and cups), or some combination of these. It may also detail exactly how you should phrase the specification of particular items. For instance, is it "a handful of chopped fresh parsley"? Or "a handful of fresh parsley, chopped"? It doesn't only look messy to vary this kind of information – it also makes a difference to accuracy. The ingredients (or materials) should usually be listed in the order in which they are used in the method or instructions. This area often requires your attention, and it should go without saying that every ingredient listed needs to be mentioned in the method, and that every ingredient mentioned in the method needs to be listed. The method or instructions for a dish or project are essential to get right. You need to weed out any ambiguities and inaccuracies; don’t leave the reader wondering what to do with that bowl of freshly melted chocolate, or one bead short of a pair of earrings. Eliminate as much redundancy as you can so that the text is clear and to the point. If a process is repeated throughout the book, try to keep the wording that describes it the same or very similar each time, so the reader understands that it’s the same process. Make sure you understand everything, and can picture what is meant to be happening, even if the subject matter is slightly unfamiliar to you. Don’t assume that an expert reader will be able to understand a description of a process that makes no sense to you. And do watch out for silly mistakes, such as an oven that gets preheated the night before the rest of the recipe happens. What work opportunities are there? In terms of the work you might be asked to do on craft or cookery titles, of course there is copy-editing and proofreading, as well as project managing. There is also plenty of work to be found if you can turn your hand to Americanizing or anglicizing text. Cookery and craft titles, as mentioned, frequently feature units of measurement, and converting these into a format acceptable for the US or UK market is a bit of a headache. This is where you come in. In this case, being prepared to work onscreen, in InDesign, can be a major benefit; publishers often make the UK or US edition of a book in a great hurry after the primary edition has gone into production. As well as the measurements, you’ll also need to adjust the grammar and vocabulary, of course. Both craft and cookery subjects feature a lot of jargon that is different in UK and US English (frying pan/skillet, coriander/cilantro, selvedge/selvage, double crochet/single crochet, cast off/bind off … etc.). There are many specialist publishers out there, and it’s worth approaching packagers, too, who often produce complex, highly illustrated titles for major publishers and can be a great source of freelance work. So … should I go for it? Craft in particular might not seem the most highbrow area of book publishing (let’s face it, no one is ever going to win the Man Booker Prize for a book about painting watercolour flowers), but it can be interesting, and reasonably well paid once you get used to the subject matter. You’re also fairly likely to work on books that you’ll later see in your local Waterstones, which can be a buzz in itself. Cookery and craft books are often gorgeously designed and produced, which is nice if you’re a bit of a book fetishist (aren’t we all?). You might even have the thrill of working on a high-profile title that receives lots of media attention – though in this case, don’t necessarily expect to be able to tell anyone about it. At the end of the day, you’re not helping to disseminate information that will one day bring about world peace, or a cure for some terrible disease. But you will have the satisfaction of knowing that the books you work on are helping to make a lot of people happy – or, if you mess up, extremely frustrated. Copyright Liz Jones 2013 About Liz: Liz Jones has worked as a full-time freelance book editor and project manager for the past five years, following ten years as an in-house editor for four different publishers – the last of which was a packager specializing in practical art and craft titles. Her work has two distinct strands: highly illustrated non-fiction books, and educational resources. When not editing she is usually playing with her children, playing the flugelhorn or writing. Visit Liz Jones Editorial Solutions for more information.
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If you're looking for an easy and free way to schedule your editing and proofreading projects – clients, income, payment-due dates – this free Excel template is for you.
Keeping track of editing and proofreading projects is essential for every professional editor.
Download this free Excel template to get you started. The figures are completely made up but show the basic structure. If you're a newbie, you can use this as an interim way of managing your accounts and your schedule; one less thing to worry about for now! This template includes a number of columns with formulae that I find useful.
I like to differentiate between different stages of the process:
It helps me to see, at a glance, what's going on in my schedule, especially when a client asks about availability. I also track how the job will be returned to a client: via email, the post office or courier (at the client's expense). The UK's HMRC allows the freelancer to offset a percentage of mileage costs against their tax liabilities. There's a summary box at the bottom of the spreadsheet. This shows me my average earnings, my average hourly rate and my average rate per 1,000 words. These figures are really only for curiosity, since each job varies quite considerably in size, type, budget, difficulty and speed. If I was doing any serious analysis I'd look more deeply into the data to assess whether there are patterns in terms of, say, client type, service offered and subject matter. Still, it's useful for grabbing quick-and-dirty data for annual comparisons. Feel free to copy, amend or ignore as you see fit. You can add your own formulae to particular columns if the way in which you charge for your work differs.
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses. A note from Louise: Do you issue a contract before you start an editorial project? If not, take a gander at the advice from my editorial colleague Cassie Armstrong. Working without a net Most of you wouldn't think of beginning an editing project, or making a major purchase, without a contract in place. I was like that, too. I never began a new project without either a signed contract on file or an email where both parties made it clear what they would and would not do. But I didn't do that with a recent project. That mistake cost me time and money. Take a minute and learn from my mistake. I answered a job post for a proofreader a few weeks ago. The project was interesting, so I sent an email to the person who posted it. We talked about what the work involved, why a proofreader was needed, and about my hourly fees. I was thrilled to be accepted because the project piqued my interest. I could relate. But in my haste to begin, I didn't take the time to discuss a contract with my client. I should have stopped right there and corrected this mistake. Ask if there’s a budget In the early talking stages, when you and your potential client are discussing the project, take the time to ask if there is a budget for the work. I usually always ask. If I like the project and want to be involved, I will often times accept it even if the potential client’s budget is lower than my hourly fee. That decision is up to you, but it’s one that you need to consider in the beginning talking stages for any project. Money isn’t the only reason to be involved. In the recent project I suggested an hourly fee but didn't ask about a budget. For the next piece of work, I plan to avoid this mistake and ask the question. It would be in your best interest to ask the question, too. Remember to ask it during the project’s conversational phase, before you accept job. Don’t do anything without a contract I didn’t suggest or push for a contract because my client wanted the project completed in a week. I thought requesting a contract would slow down the process. This was my third mistake. Always take the time to draw up a contract. If you don’t want to be that formal, you can write the potential client a letter that explains what you will do and how you will do it. The letter and contract don’t have to be complicated and KOK Edit has some good examples that you can review and modify to suit your needs in her Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base (Contract between editor and book publisher; Contract between editor and client). An email will also serve as a contract If you don’t want to draw up a formal contract and take the time needed for both parties to sign it and return it, an email where you specify what you will do, how long the project will take, and the overall or hourly fee will also suffice as long as you have a statement of agreement from your client in a return email. This acceptance email will serve as the contract for the job. Ask for a deposit Just as a contract is important in any project, so is a deposit. Depending on the length of the project, you may want up to 50 per cent in advance and payment on billable hours every two weeks. The amount of deposit as well as the project’s billing cycle is as individual as the project and editor. These items should also be spelled out in the contract. For some small projects, I have edited without a deposit. For me, it’s a gut reaction. Just as each contract is different, so is requiring a deposit. For short projects with rapid turnarounds, deposits may not work. Do what works for you and is best for your circumstances at the time. In all cases, make sure you have complete contact information and consider using PayPal. Add a kill fee No matter what kind of contract you write, either traditional, a letter or email, make sure the contract contains a kill fee. The kill fee will save you a lot of grief and will provide an out for both you and your client if things don’t progress the way you'd planned. Just as a deposit helps protect you from doing a lot of work and then not getting paid for it, a kill fee, cancellation fee, or rejection fee serves a similar purpose. The kill fee ensures that you’re paid for all the work you’ve done up to the time the client notifies you that they are not going to work with you any longer, or when you decide to walk away from the project for one reason or another. Both you and the client may decide to cancel the project for any number of reasons, including timing, money, or change of focus. You both may decide to cancel the job because you aren't happy with the initial work, may think that you aren't working well together, or may not want to continue for some other reason. Whatever the grounds, the kill fee helps cover your billable time and any tangible expenses (delivery fees, for example) incurred so far in the project. Make sure you understand what the project entails Through conversations and drafts, make sure that the project requirements are crystal clear for all parties involved.
Offer to fix any errors If you make a mistake in a project because of a lack of communication or because the client is not happy with one aspect of your work, offer to fix the problem. Taking a few hours to make a client happy will be your best reward in the long run. It will make you feel good and there’s also the possibility of receiving future work from a satisfied customer. Keep the lines of communication open Communication in a project is key. You can communicate via email or via the telephone. Establish the best way to keep in touch before the project begins and discuss how many times a week you will be in contact. If the client prefers telephone conversations, exchange numbers. Ask when the best time to talk is and keep in mind any different time zones between you both. Keep all conversations brief and on point. Be courteous but businesslike. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied If you find yourself in the position where you’re doing more than the contract specified, take a minute and regroup. Go over the contract specifics. Make sure to review the specifics and discuss the new project requirements with your client. Explain that the new requirements will take more time and will cost more than the original fee. Offer to fulfil the new requirements for an additional fee and specify how this will be paid. Keep all conversations light but remain in control. Don’t allow yourself to be pushed into doing something that you’re not comfortable with or making changes that weren’t discussed previously. If you have to make changes or correct an error, don’t allow the client to deduct the cost of these changes from the original project fee. Explain your position to your client and stand your ground. Standing your ground is something that many of us aren't comfortable with. However, in business, and real life, it’s necessary if you don’t want to be bullied. If a situation like this occurs early on in the project, the kill fee you included in the contract, letter, or email will come in handy. Use it and walk away. Never put yourself in a situation where you are not in control or where you have second thoughts about a client or project. It isn't worth it. Bottom line Bottom line: a well-designed contract should avoid any potential problems in a project. Before I begin another project, either with an individual or with a publisher, I plan to make sure that the job specifics are spelled out and crystal clear. I will also add a kill fee to the contract and if there’s an inkling that the project is not going well, I will walk away. Copyright 2012 Cassie Armstrong Cassie Armstrong is a professional editor and the founder of MorningStar Editing. She's a recovering college English teacher and member of the Editorial Freelancers Association with over six years' editing experience. Her clients are primarily individual authors and trade publishers who specialize in fiction and non-fiction subjects, from biographies to YA novels. Cassie enjoys working with yarn and thread in her spare time and is developing a complementary speciality in editing books about crafting. Contact Cassie via her website MorningStar Editing, Twitter @MorningStarEdit, and LinkedIn.
If you’re building your editorial business, you can’t afford to sit back and hope the work will come to you – too many colleagues will be taking a more proactive approach.
So, this time around, I thought it would be fun to pretend to be someone else – someone with a different educational background and career history.
I’m going to pretend that I’m new to the field but that I have completed some sort of recognized training in proofreading/editing and have joined my national editorial society. My technical skills are there but I’ve got to work out how to get myself noticed, and how to make myself stand out. So who am I today? My name’s Basil Rhoueny [it’s the best anagram I could come up with – alternatives on a postcard].
So how am I going to create awareness of my new business? I know it’s not going to happen overnight, but I have a plan! That plan starts with providing clarity for myself about who I am and what I have to offer. At first glance, this is me:
My name is Basil Rhoueny, and I’m a fully trained copyeditor and a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP).
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