FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

Editor Harriet Power discusses how moving from in-house to freelance editing meant upping her marketing game. Here's what she achieved in 6 months.

• What kickstarted the marketing focus
• Marketing activity #1: Website
• Marketing activity #2: Blogging
• Marketing activity #3: Creating a Reedsy profile
• Marketing activity #4: Social media
• Marketing activity #5: CIEP meetings
• Marketing activity #6: Emailing former contacts
• Marketing activity #7: Cold emails
• Marketing activity #8: Write Useful Books Slack group
• 6 months later: Has the marketing paid off?
• The plan for the next 6 months
• Lessons learned as a newbie marketer

I’m not new to freelancing or editing – I spent 8 years working in-house for publishers like OUP and Pearson before going freelance 4 years ago.

However, I am new to marketing, because I spent the first 3 years of my freelance career coasting along on repeat work from a handful of former in-house contacts. That work dropped off in the summer of 2020 thanks to the pandemic.

I was happily distracted for a while by the arrival of our new lockdown puppy, but towards the end of the year I was still limping along on 2 or 3 days’ work a week. That prompted me to get serious for the first time about marketing my business.

At the start of this year I read Louise’s book Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business, which I thought was brilliant. Of course I’m hardly going to say otherwise here, but it’s still true; I skimmed through it again this week and although bits of it feel a little dated now (it was published in 2014), it’s packed full of useful advice and ideas.

The case studies and examples are really helpful, and I love the way it moves from overarching principles (‘put yourself in the customer’s shoes’) through to specific activities (‘cold email publishers’). I’d happily recommend it.

Six months ago my immediate goal was simply to get more work. My longer-term goal is to get better-paid work, and also to carve out a niche for myself in prescriptive nonfiction, which is a fairly new area for me.

After reading Louise’s book I ended up with a 5-page list of ideas. Here’s what I’ve achieved so far.

I did a full revamp of my website at the end of 2019, but after reading Louise’s book I went back and completely redid the Services for authors page in an attempt to make it more useful/persuasive. 

There's probably still too much text, but I’m pleased with the ‘editor’s creed’, a summary of the principles that guide my work (in marketing-speak these are my brand values).

I doubt these principles are unique to me, but I think stating them on my website helps fill out who I am as an editor. And at least one author has commented on how they liked my editing philosophy. 

So far, I’m managing about one blog post a month. Anything more would be too much because blogging is a LOT of work, a point that Louise provides a nice big warning about in her book.

I’ve concentrated on developing two series, both with a target audience of nonfiction writers:

Books that work
Each post focuses on a well-received prescriptive nonfiction book and analyses why it’s done so well. I also invite the author to contribute their thoughts. My aim with this series is twofold:

• To gradually expand my network of interesting people.
• To hold myself accountable in regard to continuing professional development (CPD)

The first in the series is available here: Books that work #1: Obviously Awesome by April Dunford.

Q&A on the editing process
Each post features an author whom I’ve worked with, but I’m hoping the series will be of interest to writers more generally. You can find the first post here: Q&A on the editing process with Dietmar Sternad.

I was quite leery of Reedsy before I joined, but I’ve come around to it and think it’ll be a useful backstop whenever work quietens down. It’s certainly been a good way to get more work with nonfiction indie authors, particularly while I'm waiting for my website to generate leads.

So far I’ve completed two edits, including one for an author who’s just set up his own publishing company. He's commissioned me to work on two more books.

I’ve started using social media. I'm here on Twitter; say hello!

I’m also on LinkedIn. I have to admit I struggle with it – it’s very motivational, and a lot of posts (even the more personal ones) are either trying to teach a lesson or sell something. But I’m going to persevere for a bit longer, mainly because I know it’s an excellent place to connect with prescriptive nonfiction (i.e. business and self-help) writers.

I’ve also taken part in a few online CIEP meetings. As a complete introvert, I’m not someone who naturally enjoys Zoom meetings with strangers, and I need to make the effort to keep going with these.

However, I do appreciate getting to know fellow editors better because it’s lovely to meet others with the same professional focus as me. Plus, from a marketing perspective, once I’ve earned their trust, they might one day even consider referring work to me.

I’ve emailed old in-house contacts (or contacts of contacts). I appreciate that this is a no-go if you’ve never worked in-house, but if you have then it definitely pays off.

Just one email along the lines of ‘Hey, I used to work at OUP for a different team – hopefully they can put in a good word for me. Can I help you at all?’ has led to a considerable amount of work this year.

I expected the return on my round of cold emailing to be lower. However, I had nothing to lose so I gave it a try. And just a few months after I’d sent an email to a publisher, a new project landed on my desk.

Write Useful Books is a brilliant craft book by Rob Fitzpatrick on how to write prescriptive nonfiction. The book comes with optional access to a Slack group.

I’ve offered free short beta reads for group members. To date, two writers have taken up my offer, and one of those beta reads has led to paid work.
​
Plus, it’s interesting to hang out with a bunch of nonfiction writers and see what questions they have about self-publishing.

I have to keep reminding myself that some of my marketing activities probably won’t bear fruit for months, maybe longer. I haven’t had a single person contact me through my website, for example.

But I’m now fully booked for the next 3 months, and starting to turn away work – a novel experience for me. And while some of that work is probably down to publishers getting over their initial pandemic jitters, I think the marketing has made a difference.

Where’s this work coming from? A lot is from the two publishers who gave me most of my work pre-Covid, although this workstream currently feels more secure because there are now three teams at OUP who might pass jobs my way, rather than one.

​Most of the rest has is coming from Reedsy authors. I’ve also had some work from a new publisher who found me through the CIEP Directory of Editorial Services.

Here’s what I’d like to achieve over the next 6 months, time permitting:
​

• Engage more on Twitter and LinkedIn; connect with more writers, rather than just editors.
• Keep blogging, and do more guest blogging.
• Learn more about self-publishing and create content to help indie authors with their publishing journey.
• Set up a monthly mailing list. The main hurdle here is convincing myself that anyone would actually want to read it.
• Add a portfolio/testimonials page to my website. I’ve definitely got better at asking authors for testimonials since reading Louise’s book, and am slowly building up a nice bank of praise.
• Do some market research with nonfiction writers to find out how they go about finding an editor, what they look for in an editor, and what they most want help with.
• Design and create a PDF that I can send out to potential clients. It will include information on the different types of editing and the blog series I’m developing.
• Join an accountability group.
• Make more of an effort to join online meetups.
• Do another round of cold emailing to nonfiction publishers.

Working through the time-sink
Marketing sometimes feels like a never-ending time-sink and it requires a lot of perseverance. There’s always more to do, and that makes it hard to switch off from it.

When it feels overwhelming (and that’s often the case now that I’m busier), it helps to follow Louise and Denise’s advice to think in ones: one blog post at a time, one LinkedIn post at a time, or even one tweet at a time.

I also try to remind myself that my business isn’t going to collapse just because I didn’t go on Twitter for a week.

On the upside, being proactive about strengthening my business is satisfying. And in the long run, I hope it will lead me to a point where I can charge enough to be able to work a little less.

CPD
I’m also enjoying the creative side of marketing. It’s fun coming up with ideas for content, and I’m enjoying the writing.

I’ve found that marketing goes hand in hand with CPD. It’s forced me to do more professional development so that I have something useful to say, and has helped me get over feelings of imposter syndrome.

Specializing
Specializing definitely helps. This is an idea that Louise promotes and I completely agree with it. Focusing my marketing efforts primarily on prescriptive nonfiction indie authors has given me direction and made the marketing more manageable.

Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.
This is another lesson I learned from Louise’s book. I worked hard on this when tweaking my website, and it’s been a useful guiding principle in deciding what to tweet or post about.

The principle links well to the concept of specializing because you can only put yourself in the customer’s shoes when you’ve identified who that customer is.

Value-based pricing
Another concept from Louise’s book that struck a chord is thinking of how I can add value to my basic service of performing an edit – either in terms of how I market myself or what I can offer to the client.

This approach has helped shift my mindset such that I hope that in the future I’ll garner the confidence to charge more.

Say hi to interesting people
My own humble piece of advice would be to say hi to interesting people that you stumble across, even if this makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, or because it takes time to sit down and write an email, or because it’s just something you’d never normally do. (All of these things apply to me.) You never know where those connections might lead you.

I was very happy to stumble across Rob Fitzpatrick and join his Slack group, for example. Another interesting person I’ve become acquainted with recently is Francis Miller, who’s helping publishers and authors create nonfiction that’s easier to learn from. It’s also been lovely to gradually get to know some fellow editors.

For better or worse, I very much identify at heart with that saying ‘Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence’. This means I struggle with adding to the general noise of social media when much of the time it feels like talking for the sake of talking.

​To some extent, it helps to think of the online version of me as a different persona. I try to post things that I believe will be useful or interesting. And, again, the CPD element of this work has helped to mitigate the sense of imposter syndrome.

If you want more interesting work, or better-paid work, or just more work, it makes sense to take marketing seriously.

Don’t worry about being late to the party – it took me over 3 years, after all. Instead, read Louise’s book. Think long term and keep chipping away at it. And say hello if you’d like to join me on the journey!

Find out how to choose a name for your editing or proofreading business with Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle.

• Brainstorming a list of possible business names
• Considering your target clients
• Identifying your core brand values
• Using a business name to tell the client what's on offer
• Checking the name is available
• Does the name reflect your brand identity?
• How findable and SEO-friendly is the name?
• Will the name stand the test of time?

‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle share 3 more tips about how to beat the overwhelm that can come with making your editing and proofreading business visible.

• Why everyone has something to shout about, even if they think they don't
• Why some editors appear to do more marketing that is humanly possible, and why that shouldn't deter you
• The tricks those busy editorial marketers have up their sleeve and how you can mimic them
• Managing marketing by thinking in ones

'Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Editing Podcast, Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle discuss marketing for editors and proofreaders, and offer 3 tips on how to overcome the fear.

Listen to find out more about

• Giving yourself permission to be an imperfect marketer
• Concentrating on your own marketing rather than comparing yourself with everyone else
• Following your own path and developing a strategy that’s appropriate for you, even if other people are doing things differently

Dig into these related resources

• Book: Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business
• Books: Business Skills for Editors series
• Blog and booklet: Overcoming marketing paralysis: How to turn overwhelm into action
• Podcast collection: Editorial business tips​
• Blog: 2 business mindset tips for new editors​
• Blog: Why you MUST market your editorial business. Part I
• Blog: Why you MUST market your editorial business. Part II

Music Credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, ​Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle talk about why audio is such a great medium for editors who want to build brand trust and grow their businesses

​Listen to find out more about

• The popularity of audio content
• Stability during playback
• Native hosting on websites
• Voices as unique brand identifiers and trust builders
• Audio as an accessibility tool that allows communication with a diverse audience
• Why it's a less intimidating option than video
• The kit you need
• Options for recording, editing and hosting
• Editorial goals, and how audio helps us achieve them

Dig into these related resources

• The blog version: Why editors and proofreaders should be using audio
• Free booklet: How do I do my own audio-book narration?
• Podcast: 6 ways to use audio for book promotion
• Blog: 4 good reasons to edit your author podcast transcript

Music Credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/​

Is your editing or proofreading business new? Here are two mindset tips that will help you frame every action you take in terms of multiple goals, and stay positive while you’re waiting for the fruits of your labour to ripen.

Linear vs holistic thinking: Beyond the to-do list
I love a list! Recording the stuff I need to do helps me organize my thoughts. It also steers me away from procrastination and towards action.

What follows is therefore by no means a call for the abandonment of the to-do list. New starters and old hands alike can benefit from a list of actionable points.

Caution is required though. The to-do list does have the potential to encourage linear thinking, and this can be a hindrance when it comes to the business of editing and proofreading.

Linear thinking can lead us down a road of focusing too heavily on one part of our business in the belief that if we get X just right, everything else will fall into place, or that X is more important than Y and therefore must be completed in full before Y is considered.

Holistic thinking, however, recognizes that X impacts on Y, which impacts on Z, and that – together – X, Y and Z drive success.

Let’s look at what this means for our business practices.

A simplified example
Shami is in the process of setting up an editing business. She’s completed a comprehensive training course followed by mentoring. She’s confident in her skills and believes she’s fit for purpose. And she is – from a technical point of view.

However, there’s a potential problem. She’s been so focused on her training that she’s not spent any time considering how she’ll make herself visible to paying clients.

Training was at the top of her list – and while this is certainly no bad thing to be at the top of any freelance business owner’s list, focusing on it alone won’t bring in paying work.

Shami's business to-do list
Shami’s to-do list looks like this:

​Shami could do one thing at a time, and tick all those jobs off as she goes. But might she benefit from looking at her editing business in a different way?
​
An alternative view: The business wheel
What if, instead, Shami visualized her business as a wheel rather than a list?

The list and the wheel address the same issues, but the wheel helps Shami to visualize her business holistically; it shows her the interconnectedness of the various elements.

Let’s consider her training in relation to other aspects of business development.

Other ways to use the business-wheel mindset
I could go on, but you get the point. Training isn’t something you do before marketing. Rather, it’s connected to marketing. They are but two spokes on a wheel, and they link the hub (the business) to the rim (clients and colleagues).

Training gives substance to the marketing message. Marketing generates visibility and, therefore, new clients. New clients become regular clients because of the standards embedded by training. And up and down the spokes and round the rim we go.
​
We might carry out a similar exercise when considering the links between pricing, an accounting schedule and stationery; or resource creation and business promotion; or brand awareness, accounting and stationery.

Taking the long view
Developing a successful editing business doesn’t happen overnight. No matter how good our skills, how creative our marketing, how professional our practice, it takes time.
​

• Time to rank in the search engines
• Time to become so discoverable that we’re never without work offers
• Time to build a wait-list
• Time to fill that wait-list with people who trust our skills and judgment, return to us time and again, and pay our price

And, even then, we can’t sit on our heels because our industry, broad as it is, is always changing.

• The technical skills our clients wanted five years ago might not be what they want next year
• The fees our clients were paying five years ago may not be what they’re paying this year (we might even be worse off in real terms).
• The types of clients hiring us five years ago might have become more varied (consider the expansion of the self-publishing market over the years).
• The software or hardware we used five years ago might no longer be fit for the purpose or compatible with what our current potential clients are using and expect us to use.
• Two companies we worked for five years ago might merge tomorrow; or one might acquire the another. This could reduce the number of editorial freelancers hired, and we could end up on the cut list.
• The publisher we work with directly today might outsource its proofreading and editing to a packager in two years’ time. That could affect the rate we’re paid and the security of our freelancing relationship.

Moving from entitlement to investment
This means that, as business owners, we need to be keeping our ear to the ground so that change is something we embrace, not resent, and something we view as providing opportunity, not marginalization.

When we own our own businesses, we don’t have the luxury of spending time on blaming a lack of success on others who are now doing things in ways that don’t suit us.

When we own our own businesses, we’re not entitled to be paid X by a publisher whose profit margins are being squeezed its own customers. Nor are we entitled to work on paper because that’s the way we prefer it. For example, most independent authors want us to work in Word or on PDF.

Instead, we have to invest in what makes us interesting and discoverable to those we want to work for and who will pay us what we want/need to earn if our businesses are to be profitable.

Whether that means acquiring new skills, learning how to use new tools, changing the way we do our tax returns, targeting new client types, replacing old equipment, or testing and evaluating new and innovative marketing activities that increase customer engagement, the responsibility lies with us, and us alone.

Time and hard work are part of the deal
We might not see the fruits of our labour for months. None of us can say how long it will take for an individual’s marketing strategy to put them on pages 1–3 of Google. And that’s okay. It’s normal for it not to happen overnight.

None of us can predict whether a favourite publisher client will merge with another press and freeze its freelance rates.

None of us can know whether the skill we learned in 2008 will still be relevant in 2025. When I first started proofreading back in 2006, I was working almost exclusively on paper. At the time of writing in 2020, I edit exclusively in Word.

What we can be sure of is that there are no shortcuts – building an editorial business takes time, effort, and not a little courage because there will be times when we’re pushed out of our comfort zone.

Taking the short view leads to disappointment, frustration and stagnancy:

• Disappointment that the creation of a website alone didn’t generate fifty new leads a month
• Frustration because the client we’ve worked for solidly for six years is now squeezing 200 additional words on a page but still paying us for the same page rate
• Stagnancy because we didn’t keep up to date with new developments and are no longer able to compete with colleagues who are providing a service that we consider unusual but that they consider run-of-the-mill

Embracing that longer timeframe means we’re less likely to feel deflated when our hard work doesn’t give us immediate results. Instead we could do the following:

• Commit to tracking our webpage metrics and thinking of ways to more ideal clients to our site
• Work regularly on finding new clients so we feel comfortable with ditching the word-count squeezer
• Make technical skills development a part of normal business practice

Summing up
If you’re the type of person who’s capable of looking at a list without feeling compelled to move through it only from top to bottom, go for it. List away!

However, if you think that your to-do list is leading you into a mode of thinking that ignores the connections between the various aspects of running your business, try redrawing it as a wheel.

It may be just the ticket to seeing your editing or proofreading business in a whole new interconnected light – and focusing your energy accordingly.

And it's okay to set a realistic time frame for getting your editorial business to where you want it to be. The hard work we put in at the beginning doesn’t necessarily generate immediate results. Taking the long view means we give our efforts space to breathe.
​
[An older version of this article first appeared on An American Editor.]

Audio content has never been more popular. Publishers recognize this; so do independent authors. Here’s a list of tips and tools for freelance editors and proofreaders who’d like to introduce audio content into their business workflow and amplify their editorial voices – literally!

5 advantages of audio
Here are my top 5 reasons why I think audio is a superb tool for the editor or proofreader who wants to use audio as a marketing and business tool.

2 pieces of kit
Contrary to what a lot of people think, you don't need a lot of expensive and difficult-to-use kit. Assuming you already have a computer, here's what you'll need to get hold of.

3 ways to record
Recording audio content needn't cost you a single penny. Here are three resources you can use. You might even have two of them already.

3 ways to host
Here are three hosting options to consider. There's something for everyone – whether you want to keep your costs down while you experiment or you want to go full on in to audio content creation.

6 ways editors can use audio
One of the reasons why I love audio is that it's versatile. If marketing makes you nervous, think of how you might use your voice as a business or educational tool. Below are six things you could try.

5 ways to make audio interesting
Here are five ideas to help you add a cherry on your audio cake! None of them will cost you a bean!

Listen up! Audio content is now showing up in search engines. Editors and proofreaders who use it to solve problems and engage with clients and colleagues will increase awareness about themselves and the profession they love.

Fancy learning how to do this step by step? Me and my brilliant podcasting partner Denise Cowle are creating a course that will show you the way. It’s called The Audible Editor. Watch this space!

[An earlier version of this post was originally published on The Editors’ Weekly, the official blog of Canada’s national editorial association.]

Related marketing and audio resources

• 5 ways to use audio for book marketing and reader engagement
• Beyond editing qualifications: Gaining author trust
• Branding for editors and proofreaders – beyond me-me-me
• How to become a better editor while secretly promoting your business
• How to go mobile with audio: Book-editor podcasting on the go
• Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business
• Overcoming marketing paralysis: How to turn overwhelm into action
• The Editing Podcast

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss the growth of audio in the book world, and how using sound creates reader engagement and helps build a fan base.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 9

Listen to find out more about:

• Narrating a sample chapter
• Creating free audio content that's usable
• Host a live sound event
• Broadcast an interview
• Encouraging sign-ups with your voice
• Starting a podcast
• Captivate: podcast hosting, stats and audience growth

Editing bites and other resources

• Write to be Published, Nicola Morgan, Snowbooks, 2011
• Twitter chat #indieauthorchat hosted by Tim Lewis
• Captivate
• Libsyn
• Soundcloud
• Music Visualisation Video Creator
• Audio-book Production (free booklet)
• ‘How to turn YouTube subtitles into blog posts and transcripts’ (blog post and video tutorial)
• Cleanfeed
• Zoom

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise answer more questions about how to run and grow an editing and proofreading business.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 6

Listen to find out more about:

• Increasing organic lead generation
• Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) and the impact on freelancers in California
• The benefits of working with publishers, packagers and project-management agencies
• Content marketing: Solving clients problems
• Facebook marketing: Ads, chatbots and website pixels
• Google ads and sourcing professional expertise
• Managing impostor syndrome
• Attracting indie genre-fiction authors: content marketing and branding
• Getting work with publishers
• Ethical promotion to a primed audience
• Technical writing and copy-writing
• Choosing a business name
• Building an editorial business on a tight budget
• Using career expertise as a foundation for an editing specialism
• Choosing the right training course
• Building a marketing strategy
• Starting an editing business when we care for young children
• Scaling a business: Passive income streams, price increases, training, and premium services
• Researching markets and audiences
• Making a website visible

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.​​

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise answer questions about how to run and grow an editing and proofreading business.

Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 5

Listen to find out more about:

• When editorial projects don't arrive on time ... how to manage it and how to prevent it
• Dealing with burnout and procrastination
• How to get fiction work with indie authors
• Making time for marketing
• Increasing efficiency
• Contracts, and whether email is sufficient
• What to tell publishers when we're asking to be placed on their freelance lists
• How to link up with other editors
• Billing in different currencies
• What to include on an invoice
• Starting an editing business, and the best order for tackling branding, website creation, social media networking, marketing, and investing in productivity tools

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise talk to technical writer and editor John Espirian about content marketing, editing and bringing a book to market.

​Click to listen to Season 4, Episode 3

Listen to find out more about:

• Content DNA - the book
• Developing the book's concept: The shape of you
• Writing the book
• Tackling the editing process
• Cover design and branding
• The benefits of a foreword
• Content marketing, and why it works
• Social media focus and email-list building
• Pricing, marketing and sales
• Creating an audio book
• Finding an audience to use as a springboard for business books
• Building a personal brand that acts as a buffer
• Targeting clients' problems and offering solutions
• What is technical writing?
• Who uses technical writers?

Contacting John Espirian

• Website
• Content DNA
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog

Editing bites and other resources

• AgentQuery.com
• The Tao of Twitter, by Mark Schaefer
• KNOWN, by Mark Schaefer
• Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)
• Col Gray, graphic design and brand design: pixels ink; YouTube​

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

Been asked to quote for editing or proofreading services? There are steps you can take to maximize your chances of securing the work. In this article and free booklet, you'll find out how to add value to quotations and move the conversation beyond price.

Few of us will bag every client who asks us to quote for them. Rejection is to be expected – we won’t be the best fit for everyone.

Perhaps the price or the time frame doesn’t work. Maybe the client has been in contact with an editor who’s a better fit in terms of skills and experience.

Still, there are steps we can take to maximize our chances of turning a request to quote into paying work.
 
Think of quoting as targeted marketing
Every request to quote is a marketing campaign with just one recipient. We have an advantage once we’ve been asked to quote – we’re probably competing with five or six colleagues, not five or six thousand.

Since the odds are so much better, it’s worth investing time in making the quote the best it can be. A couple of lines that include a price won’t cut the mustard – unless the client has specified that they want nothing more.
 
Acquire relevant information
Before we can reply, we need information – a word count, the type of editing required, the levels of editing that have already been completed, the client’s preferred time frame, and a sample.

If that information hasn’t been supplied, asking for it is legitimate. A professional editor can’t quote without it.

There are advantages too: it keeps the conversation going, demonstrates an understanding of the editorial business process, and creates a foundation for trust.
 
Frame with solutions
A potential client doesn’t want an essay – we do need to stay on point – but we can still frame our quotations in terms of solutions to problems.

• Solution-focused language demonstrates empathy.
• Being empathized with evokes positive emotions.

Once they’re in play, the conversation’s no longer about price; it’s about a relationship. If the client’s looking for the cheapest editor, yes, this tactic will fall flat. If they’re looking for a good fit, it will give us an edge.

Linking to or attaching useful resources builds empathy and trust.

Here’s what I included in a request to quote in addition to a price (the writer had included a sample):
​

• a booklet about the various levels of editing
• a booklet about punctuating dialogue
• a booklet about narrative viewpoint
• an article about filter words

Other information
Each of those resources complemented a short paragraph outlining problems I’d identified in the sample, and would fix if I were to secure the project:

• Viewpoint drops
• Telling rather than showing: too much exposition of doing been done that reduced immediacy
• Punctuation and standard paragraph layout problems

And the great thing is, I can use these resources over and over. Yes, it took time to create them but they’re evergreen.

Every author I send them to gets value from them. But every time I send them, there’s value for me too: a return on my initial investment in the form of an increased likelihood of securing the job.
 
A client who trusts
The writer thanked me profusely ‘for such a thoughtful reply’. I got the gig. And they agreed to wait 12 months and paid the deposit promptly.

I can’t prove that those resources nailed it for me, but those words – ‘such a thoughtful reply’ – tell me the client reacted emotionally to the empathy I’d shown.

Creating that kind of content is time-consuming but the job need be done only once. After that, the resource can be used in myriad ways: marketing, quoting, linking to in reports.
 
When the quote’s rejected
If we don’t get the gig, should we ask why? I don’t think so. It annoys me when I decline a service or product and am asked to give reasons for my decision. It’s my business, end of story.

Receiving feedback is useful for editors, of course, but we’re asking people who have chosen another editor to spend their valuable time engaging with us. Why should they? They have other priorities that don’t involve us and we need to respect that.
​
If a quote is rejected, move on and focus on improving your next quotation.

More resources on business growth and pricing

• Online courses
• Books
• Resources about business growth
• Resources about pricing
• The Editing Blog
• The Editing Podcast

Editorial training is critical. However, when it comes to attracting the attention of indie authors, we need to add value beyond the baseline. This article and free booklet show you why it's worth investing time in standing out.

You’re a professional editor or proofreader and you want to work with indie authors. 
Should be a doddle, right? After all, your tutor gave you amazing feedback. Your scores were high, your pass solid. 

The course was intense – it tested your skills and knowledge to the limit. That’s good because now you’re feeling confident. Fit for purpose and fit for market. 

And to prove it, you’ve got that shiny certificate.

The problem is, you’re not alone.

Editorial training – critical but standard
The next time you’re in a room or online forum with a bunch of fellow editors, ask them to shout out if they’ve taken editorial courses or carried out continued professional development.

Scratch that. Ask those who haven’t to shout out. It’ll be much quieter!

​The fact is, most pro editors have studied. Which means it’s not a compelling proposition for an indie author trying to work out who to hire.

Training is critical – of course it is. It teaches us what we don’t know, allows us to discover our weaknesses and fix them. That way we’re in great shape by the time we start searching for clients.

Training is a solid baseline. When it comes to being practice-fit, that’s its strength. But when it comes to attracting the attention of indie authors, that’s also its weakness.

The snag with competing at the baseline
Imagine walking into a hospital. How impressed would you be to discover that all the doctors have been to medical school?

Not very. It’s critical, yes, but not impressive. Rather, it’s expected. 

The same applies to editors and proofreaders. No indie author seeks to hire an editor who hasn’t learned how to their job. 

And why would they? That’s no more likely that any of us walking into a hospital hoping there’s an untrained medic on the premises. 

Our being fit for purpose is expected too. And so, if we want to stand out, we need to add value beyond the baseline.

Adding value by solving problems
You might be wondering what that value looks like and why it will appeal. The answer comes in the form of solutions to problems. 

Let’s revisit the hospital. If we or someone we care about is a patient, there’s a problem. And the moment we enter the building, we’re not focusing on the qualifications of the doctors; that’s baseline stuff. Instead, we’re focusing on ourselves or our loved ones, the problem in hand, and whether one of those professional, qualified people in scrubs can fix it.

If the medical pros succeed, we feel immensely grateful. And we trust them.
When editors solve their target clients’ problems, the same thing happens. Those clients feel grateful and warm towards us. And they trust us.

That’s how we add value.
​
The problems indie authors have
The problems indie authors have lie in what they don’t know. Their expertise can be found elsewhere – maybe they’re one of those doctors in our hospital. Perhaps they’re a taxi driver or a plumber or a teacher. 

They have a ton of skills and knowledge related to their professions but they don’t have the skills and knowledge related to ours.

That’s great news because it gives us a whole raft of stuff with which to start building our trustworthiness – an online basket of free goodies ... gifts that solve indie authors’ problems and make them feel warm and fuzzy about us. 

‘But somebody’s already done that!’
Maybe you’re thinking it’s a waste of time. After all, loads of people have already created online content – blogs, vlogs, podcasts, booklets – about spelling, punctuation, grammar, story structure, line craft, the types of editing, and a thousand other things that indie authors query in Google Search.

Trust me – that’s not the point. The point is that when they go searching for that stuff, we’re in the mix. 

Indie authors do not search for ‘Louise Harnby fiction editor’. They search for things like ‘What’s third-person limited viewpoint?’

If my website’s all about Louise Harnby, I won’t appear in the search engines when an author hunts for information about narrative point of view. If my website’s about viewpoint – and other questions that authors ask – it’s a different story. 
 
Content that solves problems enables us to become visible, add value and build trust.

The solutions your clients are searching for need to be:

• on your website
• created by you
• presented with your voice and with your angle

even if other people have already covered these topics in their own unique way elsewhere.

Trustworthy added value: 7 ideas
Here are 7 ways in which you can add value. Each can be published on multiple platforms, including your website and social media:
​

• Write a blog post that shows a client how to fix one writing problem.
• Turn it into a PDF booklet – make it look pretty in Canva!
• Create a slide deck in PowerPoint. Use images to illustrate each learning point. Do a voice-over with a script based on your blog post.
• Save the deck as an MPEG4 video. Upload to YouTube. Use the cover image of the booklet as a thumbnail image.
• Take the key themes and create an infographic.
• Create a promo video. Go to Canva. Choose eye-catching images and overlay the text from the headings in your blog post. Upload the images to MoShow. Choose a motion theme and music.
• Record an audio-only version of your slide-deck script. Upload to Soundcloud. Embed your one-off podcast episode on your website.

Rising above the baseline and the noise
The web is big and noisy. Editors and proofreaders who want to attract best-fit authors from within that online space need to be discoverable there. 

A list of qualifications isn’t enough to cut through. We must add value. When we do so, we show our worth rather than telling it. That’s about trust. We get found, too. And that’s about business success!

Does your editorial conference budget include provision for travelling abroad? If it doesn’t, here's why you might want to consider it and what you need to factor in to make it viable.

I’m a Brit who’s been to three editorial conferences in the past 12 months. Two of them required me to pack my passport.

First up was the one day mini-conference hosted by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders Toronto Group. I travelled to Canada in early November. I bought a new winter coat for the occasion because Toronto in November is cold cold cold. The weather foxed me – it was balmy – but the conference was everything I expected. Brilliant.

Nine months later, I headed for Chicago, this time for the Editorial Freelancers Association meeting. The sunshine came as promised, not just on the lake shore but in the Swissôtel, too, where the conference took place. I received a lovely welcome and had a ball.

Three weeks after that, I was learning again, but this time in the UK. The annual Society for Editors and Proofreaders conference took place at Aston Business School. Rain threatened but never arrived, and the meeting was smashing.

Three different conferences. Three different countries. And one thing in common ...

The delegates were international.

And that’s the thing about the editorial community – we’re from everywhere, and our conferences reflect that.
​
Still, attending conventions, especially those abroad, means an investment in money and time for the professional editor, so why bother? 

Being an editor isn't a national occupation
Our clients don’t all live where we live.

Take me. I’m a Brit but I’m not an editor of British novels. I’m an editor of novels written in English ... or I should say, Englishes.

And as all pro editors know, there is more than one English. And while those Englishes come with variances in spelling, punctuation, grammar conventions and idiom, all of that can be learned and understood.

And that's one of the pulls of international conferences. What better way to hone your craft than by spending time in the places where those Englishes are spoken and written, and hanging out with the people who speak and write them?

Other factors to help you decide
Here are some ideas to help you decide whether to cross the border for your editorial training:

 1. Look at the conference programme
Are there sessions on aspects of editing, or the business of editorial work, that you can’t access elsewhere?

For example, take a look at the 2019 Toronto SfEP mini-conference programme (Wednesday, 6 November). You can learn how to identify the missing parts in a fiction narrative, how to use macros, how to master templates, how to edit indexes, and how to tackle fast-turnaround editing. There’s also an optional pre-conference workshop on raising rates.

2. Who's speaking?
Are the presenters offering learning opportunities that will be easier to learn face to face? Or perhaps there are keynoters or after-dinner speakers you’d be unlikely to meet otherwise.

At the 2019 SfEP conference in Aston, bestselling crime-fiction author  Chris Brookmyre , linguist Rob Drummond, and broadcaster/writer David Crystal were all on the schedule. We learned hard ... and laughed harder because all three make what they teach memorable through humour.

3. Can you leverage being an international speaker?
Think about whether speaking at editorial events beyond your borders is something you can leverage professionally and that will pay back your investment in the long run.

Some of our potential clients value knowing we have international speaking experience because it reflects a global trust in our specialist knowledge.

4. Is an honorarium available?
If you’re prepared to speak on a specialist topic, you might qualify for financial support.

Of course, this depends on the organizer’s budget and the value they think you’ll bring to the conference, but editorial societies are increasingly recognizing the benefits of international speakers in view of the global nature of our community. Don't assume that assistance isn’t available.

Even a contribution to flight, accommodation or meals might be the tipping point for your saying yay rather than nay.

5. Can you buddy up to reduce costs?
If a flight’s involved, you’ll have to bite the bullet. If you can drive across the border, however, you can share the cost of travel. 

And how about sharing a room? I did this with my podcast pal Denise Cowle at the 2018 ATOMICON marketing conference. We halved our costs. And neither of us snored. Promise.

We’re talking about doing ACES in a couple of years. Being Airbnb buddies will be one way we’ll make it viable.

6. Find out who else is going
Face-to-face networking is powerful. Spending time with international colleagues could lead to referrals that will earn you a return on investment further down the line.

And if you have books, courses or other training materials relevant to your editorial colleagues, you could reach new markets when you take the time to put yourself in front of your audience and speak at an international event.

We’re much more likely to buy from those we trust, and while online networking is great, and the online editorial community is vibrant and generous, nothing beats getting in front of people, talking with them face to face, when it comes to building relationships and trust. 

7. Cost it out and save up
Work out what it’s going to cost. It’s all very well my talking about the benefits of international networking and learning, but I’m not going to pretend there isn’t hard cash on the line here! 

Costing it out is the first step to creating a savings plan. That way you can prepare ... if not for this year’s meetup then for one a year or two down the road. Start with the basics:

• The journey: get some ballparks for petrol, the flight, or car hire. Share where you can.
• Accommodation costs: the conference hotel isn’t necessarily the cheapest option. A motel or Airbnb might suit you better. And with a pal on board, you can save even more.
• Meals: not all conferences include meals in the price. If you’ll need to feed yourself, check out what’s available outside the hotel. In-room dining and hotel restaurants are the quickest ways to drain your budget.
• Bar money: you’ll be socializing. A glass or two might be included in the main conference dinner or reception, but otherwise you’ll be paying for your own plonk.
• Time away from work: budget for the days (including jet-lag recovery) you won't be available for paid editing work. Budgeting sensibly is as much about knowing what we can earn as knowing when we can't.

Summing up
International conferences require more planning and a bigger investment of time and money, but if you’re canny about your preparation, think in the long term, and use them as opportunities to speak, they’re hugely beneficial.

​Where will you go next? Maybe I'll see you there!

What do people say about your editing and proofreading business when you’re not in the room? Whatever it is, that’s your brand. Here’s what happens when you show who you are by talking about the problems you solve for others. 

You’ve got work coming in but your analytics make you wonder whether you should be getting more requests to quote, given the volume of traffic.

Or perhaps you’re a new entrant to the field and have just begun to think about who you want to work with and what your message is.
​
Do yourself a favour and take a look at your branding. Is it on track?

Brand blurriness
I spent the first five years of my freelance career specializing in proofreading for publishers, first in the social sciences, then in fiction.

Over time, my client base began to shift. Now, I do sentence-level editing exclusively for indie fiction authors.

Here’s the thing, though. For a long time, my website and directory entries didn’t reflect this shift. And while the content on my blog began to reflect my passion for supporting self-publishers, especially beginner writers, you wouldn’t have known this from the way I communicated my business mission in the rest of my marketing materials.

I was playing safe. I was nervous. I was getting a lot of visitors to my website and a lot of requests to quote. However, only about 25% of those requests were from my target audience – the indie authors. And while the other 75% was work I always referred elsewhere, I felt safe having that as an option.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That was my mantra. I had enough work that I wanted to do, and plenty of offers to quote for work that I didn’t want to do.

Still, I spent a lot of time sending work elsewhere. And I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that a lot of effort was going into marketing that ended up as jobs in other people’s hands. Why not just make things leaner? 

Discovering the problem
I found my courage and decided to make some changes. I amended the lead text on my page to make it clear that I was a fiction specialist.

And I readied myself for losing the 75% – those requests to quote that had made me feel all warm, cosy and safe for so long. Over the next three weeks the numbers plummeted. Most of those students, businesses and academics stopped getting in contact. 

But things were leaner. I was spending less time sending work elsewhere that I didn’t want to do anyway. I became more efficient, more productive, more focused. I was using my time wisely. I was streamlining my business. I felt great, right? 
Honestly? I’d lost my safety net. And I didn’t feel great at all. 

I reminded myself that I’d been fully booked for the past two years without having to dip into that 75%, so I should just relax. As you were – that was my new mantra. It’ll be fine – that was my other new mantra. Stop overthinking things – yet another new mantra. Louise Harnby | Mantra Queen is what I should have changed my business name to.

I took a look at my home page, my directory entries, my business cards, and I noticed something. All the passion I felt about championing my target clients was missing. 

My branding was off.

Making the message about the client
I completely overhauled my home page, resources page, my SfEP directory entry, my Reedsy profile, even my blog, so that everything started to work together in harmony.

Now I’m telling my target client group about what makes me tick but in a way that focuses on solutions to their problems. It’s all about them, not about me.

Here’s what I learned. Even if you’re findable, when your message doesn’t make your client feel like you get them, then you’re doing a lot of marketing work for a poor return.

And even if that return is enough to keep your schedule full, it’s not giving you as much choice as you could have if your message was on point.

Getting in the right gear
Being findable but having a weak brand is like driving along a motorway at 70 miles an hour in second gear. The car has to work really hard to get you where you want to go! Getting the branding right is like slipping into cruise-control.

Here’s what happened when I rebranded:
​

• Within days, requests to quote started coming in thicker. I now have a 90%/10% split, but the indie authors are the larger percentage. That means more choice for me and a stronger pricing strategy.
• Authors say nice things when they ask for a quote – like ‘I love your website. I’d been nervous about finding an editor and you took that feeling away.’ That tells me I’m on the right track.
• A higher proportion of clients are prepared to wait up to a year for me than was the case before I rebranded because my brand identity talks to them. 

Sorting out our branding is the most powerful gift we can give our businesses. If we don’t understand our own brand values, we can’t expect potential clients to. Make sure yours are evident at every touchpoint of your editorial business.

If you’re struggling to decide what to call your new editing or proofreading business, here’s a 6-step framework to set you on the right path.

Deciding what to call your editing or proofreading business is part of the BRANDING process and needs careful consideration. Follow these steps to work out what’s right for you.

Step 1: Brainstorm a list of possible business names
Let your imagination fly. Put your silly hat on. Then your serious one. Then your smarty-pants one. Anything goes at this point. This is all about you and what floats your boat. There’s no wrong or right – just ideas.

For demonstration, let’s imagine a new proofreader called Basil Rhoueny. Basil is trying to decide on a business name and comes up with the following ideas:

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
4. Comma Sutra
5. Full-proof Editorial Services
6. Norfolk Editorial
7. Perfect Prose
​8. Responsible Editing

Step 2: Identify target clients
The next step is for Basil to identify his target clients. If he doesn’t know who he wants to work for, he can’t create a message that compels them – via his business name, his mission statement, his elevator pitch, his web copy, or any other marketing materials.

And if he doesn’t have a compelling message, why would anyone choose him over any one of the tens of thousands of colleagues who are also offer editing services? ‘I’ll edit and proofread anything for anyone’ isn’t a standout proposition. Basil needs to do better.

Even if an editor is prepared to be something of a generalist, I recommend talking like a specialist when communicating with different client groups. On our websites, that means giving visitors signals so that they can navigate to specialist messaging on different pages that focus on solving group-specific problems.
​
Some people know who they want to work for right from the get-go. Some have no clue. Some think they do, but seven years ahead find that they’ve completely shifted their client base. We’ll deal with that issue in Step 6.

For now, let’s imagine that Basil thinks his editorial training, educational background and former career make him best suited to the following client groups:

• academic publishers
• students
• independent academics

Identifying these groups will help him with Steps 3 and 4.

Step 3: Identify core brand values
A brand can be loosely defined as what others think about us – external perceptions. A brand identity is the distinctive business persona we present that nudges target clients to notice the things that we want them to notice. It’s what allows us to influence those external perceptions.

Brand values are the essence of our brand identity. They represent the kind of editorial pro we want to be seen as – the things we stand for, what we’re passionate about, what makes us tick, why we’re different.

Our business name, photographs, colour palette, web copy and marketing materials should reflect our brand values so that the clients we’d most love to work with will most love to work with us.

It’s no small thing to develop a brand identity. If you need help, I have an online course called Branding for Business Growth that can help you develop an emotion-based business brand identity.

Let’s imagine that Basil has identified the following brand values that he wishes to convey at every touchpoint of his business:

• The Editorial Professor – this reflects his desire to proofread knowledgeably and respectfully
• The Green Editor – this reflects his commitment to environmental sustainability and socially responsible, ethical business practice
• The Globalist – this reflects his passion for working with people whose first language isn’t English

Identifying these brand values will help him with Step 5.

Step 4: Serving the client
In this step, Basil revisits his list of business-name ideas and considers whether they’re appropriate for his target client groups: academic publishers, students and independent academics.

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
4. Comma Sutra
5. Full-proof Editorial Services
6. Norfolk Editorial
7. Perfect Prose
8. Responsible Editing

He asks himself the following questions:

• Do the business names tell the target client what he’s offering? If people find him online, they’ll likely be deciding in seconds whether he can solve their problems, and therefore whether he’s worth investigating further.
• Is the name available? If existing services exist, clients might become confused about who’s who. Basil’s competitors will be less confused than furious that this newbie is diluting their carefully developed brand identity.
• Will the name be findable by clients who are searching online for someone who can solve their problems?

Names (1) , (2) and (8) best reflect exactly what he’s offering.

Names (3), (5) and (6) are next in line, though they’re less specific.

Name (4) alludes to sentence-level editing work, and some will think it amusing.
However, Basil wonders whether some of his non-native English-speaking clients will get the joke and bypass him.

Name (5) is a problem – there’s an existing established business called Full Proof | Professional Proofreading Solutions.

Names (4) and (7) give him cause for concern regarding their searchability. It’s likely that the words ‘proofreading’ or ‘editing’ or ‘editorial’ will be searched for by potential clients. It’s far less likely that someone will search for ‘comma sutra’ or ‘perfect prose’ if they need proofreading assistance, though they are distinctive.

Name (6), however, might be great for being found in the search engines by local clients.

Basil decides to remove Comma Sutra, Full-proof Editorial Services, and Perfect Prose from the list of contenders.
​
Now he turns to the branding issue.

Step 5: Serving the brand
In this step, Basil revisits his list of business-name ideas and considers whether they’re good brand practice. His remaining names are:

1. Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
2. Basil Rhoueny Editorial
3. Bulletproof Editorial
6. Norfolk Editorial
​8. Responsible Editing

He asks himself the following questions:

• Are the remaining business names distinctive? After all, branding is about showing potential clients those things that set us apart from other editors, not what will make us look like every other editor.
• Do they reflect his brand values (BVs): Editorial Professor, Green Editor, and Globalist?

Basil has an unusual name. If he’d been called John Smith, he might have been easy to confuse with other editors called John Smith, at least in the West. However, either of his remaining business names would work.

There is, however, a good chance that his name might be misspelled. Is this something he needs to worry about if people are searching for him by name? This could be an issue if he’s referring someone to his website by phone, or if a word-of-mouth lead is trying to find him.

Here’s a test. Type ‘louise harby editor’ or ‘louis hornby proofreader’ into the search engines. Can you find me? I can find me! I’m not convinced that tricky-to-spell names are as problematic as we might think.

Back to Basil. Name (3) is at odds with the sentiment of BV-Green Editor. This brand value seeks to nudge potential clients towards thinking of Basil as compassionate, respectful, broad-minded, ethical, warm … someone who can see the bigger picture. The word ‘bullet’ might bring to mind thoughts of violence, death, harm and brutality.
It’s potentially a negative nudge rather than one that evokes positivity.

Name (6), while potentially clickbaity for local searches, doesn’t sit so well with BV-Globalist. Basil would be happy to work with local clients, but he’s not sure he can build a sustainable business on this alone.

Name (8) has a definite though subtle nod to BV-Green Editor.
​
He elects to remove Bulletproof Editorial and Norfolk Editorial from the list of contenders.

Step 6: Think ahead but don’t get bogged down
Can any of us be absolutely sure that what we want to do now is what we will want to do in the years ahead? Choosing a business name requires us to think ahead, but also to be true to who we are and what we’re offering in the present time.

In case you didn’t spot it, Basil’s name is an anagram of mine. When I set up my business in 2005, I was a dedicated proofreader who specialized in working for social-science publishers. If you’d told me back then that by 2016 I’d be specializing in line- and copyediting for indie fiction authors, I’d have been a tad surprised.

But that’s exactly what happened. My original business name was Louise Harnby | Proofreader. My URL was and still is: www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com. My business name now is Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor.

It wasn’t actually a big deal to add an ampersand and the word ‘copyeditor’ into my business name and didn’t affect my findability in the search engines. Would it have if I’d changed it to Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor, or Fabulous Fiction Editing, or something else?

Possibly, but Google Search is a tricky beast to master and shifts the goalposts often in a bid to thwart those who’d use black-hat SEO techniques rather than genuine attempts to be interesting and discoverable online.
​
Basil is left with choosing between the following:

• Basil Rhoueny | Academic Proofreading Services
• Basil Rhoueny Editorial
• Responsible Editing

​There are good arguments for the SEO-friendliness of the first two, and the flexibility of the third. My view is that any would work because they are true to his business’s brand identity in different ways.

What’s right for you?
Basil’s brand identity and your brand identity will not be the same because you and Basil are individuals, each with your own businesses, ideal clients, goals, hopes, dreams and passions. The decisions you make will therefore be different to the one Basil makes. That’s fine.

Will there be a perfect solution? Unlikely. There will be choices to be made.

• You might decide it would be to your advantage to have a short name rather than a long one.
• You might choose a little SEO clickbait over humour.
• You might choose a punny name over a more straightforward business name.
• You might opt for flexibility over specificity.
• You might choose memorability at the expense of spellability.
• You might elect to incorporate the essence of your political or social values.

What’s important is that you choose a business name that you feel comfortable with: one that reflects your brand identity and nudges your ideal clients towards an awareness of the kind of editor you are and why you’ll be a great fit with them; one that alludes to what you do.

Here are just a few of my favourites:

• A Novel Edit: Beth Hill specializes in helping authors prepare for submission to agents and publishers. The gentle and humorous play on words in her business name evokes a sense of freshness and vision.
  
• Enigma Editorial: Cally Worden specializes in editing mystery, crime and thrillers. Her business name tells us what she's passionate about. It's also short and snappy, and avoids cliche.
  
• Denise Cowle Editorial: Denise specializes in editing non-fiction for businesses and publishers. Her surname is unusual, and her business name capitalizes on this. We know immediately who we're dealing with, and that makes it personal.
  
• Le Mot Juste: Sarah Patey specializes in non-fiction editing and translation. The business name reflects her language skills and her commitment to detail and accuracy.
  
• Liminal Pages: Sophie Playle specializes in editing speculative fiction. Her business name reflects the pushing of boundaries that exists within the novels she works on. It's also sounds elegant to my ear.
  
• Radical Copyediting: Alex Kapitan specializes in helping authors and publishers use equitable and inclusive language. The business name reflects Alex's values and includes some SEO functionality.
  
• Wordstitch Editorial: Hazel Bird specializes in non-fiction editing and editorial project management. Her business name embodies a sense of editing as a craft, and evokes a strong sense of her commitment to detail and precision.
  

It’s likely your choice will not be clear cut. Try not to get bogged down by that. Business names alone will not make you visible or discoverable. The compromises you make can be offset by other business-promotion activities that strengthen your online presence.

Happy naming!

Does standing up in front of a room full of editors terrify you? I know that feeling. Still, I learned how to love it, which rather took me by surprise. In this post I show you how I did it.

Let’s talk about nerves
I haven’t conquered my nerves about speaking at editing conferences, but that’s okay. Nerves are normal, even for presentations experts like my friend Simon Raybould.

More on him later, but for now it’s enough to say that feeling nervous is not the same as suffering from a level of anxiety that renders you unable to step out of your comfort zone and try something that could push your editing business forward.

Pushing your business forward
Speaking at editing conferences will push your business forward. You’ll get yourself seen and heard. People will understand more about who you are, what you specialize in, and what you stand for (your brand).

That will lead to opportunities: work referrals, awareness about courses or books that you offer, discounts on the conference registration price (even payment for some gigs), and invitations to speak at other conferences taking place in cities that require a little more effort to get to.

Take me. I live in Norfolk (the UK one). On 7 November, I’ll be speaking at the Society for Editors and Proofreader’s mini-conference in Toronto (register here if you want to join me – it’s now open to non-SfEP members). It’s a massive honour to be invited. I get to talk about my two editorial passions – fiction and marketing!

In 2016, I’d probably have shied away from doing this, despite the opportunity to hang out with my favourite Canadians (and a few of my favourite Americans). The words ‘I’m busy’ would have flown from my mouth just in time to curb the nausea.

In 2017, I might have agreed to do it as long as I was sharing the spotlight with a pal, though the thought would still have made me queasy.

But it’s 2018 and, to my surprise, I’m more than happy to fly solo.

​One way to learn to love it
Loathing turned to love because I changed one thing: I dumped the script.

This is where I get to talk about Simon again, because he’s the person responsible for making me love speaking at editing conferences. In May 2018, he wrote a blog post for me called 6 tips to help you speak in public with confidence. Tip 4 asks us not to use a script.

I was gobsmacked. There was no way in hell I’d dare stand up in front of a group of my peers without having every word of my presentation memorized!

We had a long chat about it over Skype, and by the end of that conversation he’d convinced me it was worth testing.

And so when the SfEP’s conference director, Beth Hamer, asked me to do a two-hour session, on my own, at the annual conference in Lancaster, I promised her I would. And I promised myself I’d do it without a script.

3 snags with scripts
Scripts are inherently problematic.

Snag 1:  They take time to learn, especially if you’re going to be talking for an hour. Unless you have a brilliant memory. Which I don’t.

Snag 2: They’re hard to remember. If they were easy to remember, more of us would be on the stage. Which I’m not.

Snag 3: They’re difficult to deliver well. If they were easy to deliver well, more of us would have Oscars and BAFTAs. Which I don’t.

No wonder so many of us cringe at the thought of speaking at editing conferences.

Even if we manage to learn the damn script, what are the chances that we’ll remember it, given how nervous we are? And if we’re uptight about remembering, what are the chances that we’re going to deliver our script in a way that’s engaging and informative?

This is the kind of stuff that’s always been in my head when I think about presenting. All of which can be summed up as follows: at what point will I fail?

Going scriptless
You can’t fluff a script that doesn’t exist. That in itself gets rid of snags (1) and (2). All you can do is talk about the thing you’ve agreed to talk about.

We’re not in the pub or having lunch with our mates, so we still need a structure.

I am not a perfect presenter, not by any stretch. But I have embraced an approach that means I will present, and I will enjoy it.

This is how I do it:
​

• Create a list of every learning point my audience needs to know by the time they walk out of the lecture room.
• Create a slide with an image that illustrates that learning point – that’s my trigger to explain it.
• Glance at the slide for the trigger, then face my audience and talk about that learning point.
• Click to the next slide. Glance at it, then face my audience and talk.
• Repeat until I’m done.

Because you’re talking rather than delivering a script, you’ll sound more natural. And because you can’t forget any of the key learning points, you’ll feel more relaxed. That’s snag (3) dealt with.
​
There are caveats, of course. You must know your stuff. And you should rehearse. Each rehearsal will be different because you don’t have a script, but you will prove to yourself that you can talk through every one of the key learning points.

Being imperfect – audience expectations
Will you stumble if you’re scriptless? Maybe. Probably. I stumbled several times in Lancaster. But I loved every minute of that workshop. I felt relaxed, and as I talked I was in the moment, not tuned into the next thing I needed to remember.

And the delegates gave me some amazing feedback. That they enjoyed it is the most important thing of all. I’m sold on scriptlessness!

Plus, having a script doesn’t mean you won’t stumble. You’re human, after all. The difference is that when you’re scriptless, you get to stumble just because you stumbled, not because you forgot anything important or because you were distracted by the pressure of having to remember what’s up next.

Here’s something Simon told me during our Skype chat:

Your audience will forgive you if you trip up over a word.

Your audience will forgive you if you stammer.

Your audience will forgive you if you fluff a line and have to restart the sentence and explain something in a different way.

Your audience will forgive you for just being an editor rather than a TED Talk speaker.

What your audience will not forgive is your failing to deliver the key learning points that you promised you would ... for wasting their time.

At the larger editing conferences, delegates have to choose which sessions to attend. So I know that when someone chooses to come to mine, they’re probably missing at least two workshops they’d have learned something valuable from. That I don’t teach them what I promised is unacceptable. And that is the only way I can fail.

When will I see you again?
If you can get to Toronto on 7 November 2018, please come and listen to me talking about how to build a knockout home page, getting fiction editing work, and marketing an editing business.

Will I fluff my words? More than likely. Will I fail? No. I’ve already created slides for my key learning points and rehearsed what I’ll chat about.

I might well stumble and stammer, but I will smile at you as I do so, and I will deliver what I've promised!

Here’s how to build a knockout editing portfolio page even if you’re relatively new to the field.

Deciding what to include, what to omit, and how to lay it out so that it grabs a potential client’s attention can be tricky. If your business is new you might not have a lot to shout about. If you’re established, you might have too much.

One thing’s for sure, though – an editing site without a visible portfolio is at a disadvantage. It’s the next best thing to the social proof of a testimonial because it demonstrates that you practise what you preach.

Using stories is a method every editor can use to bring their portfolio page to life.

Moving from mechanics to emotions
Stories are lovely additions to any portfolio page because they give us the opportunity to take our potential clients behind the scenes ... to show them how we helped and how the project made us feel.

That’s important because it shifts the attention away from mechanics and towards emotion.

Those of us who work with non-publisher clients such as independent authors, academics, businesses and students are asking our clients to take a big leap ... to put their project in the hands of someone they’ve never met, and pay for the privilege.
It’s a huge ask and takes not a little courage for some. Think about it from the client’s point of view:

• An indie author has put their heart and soul into a work of fiction. It’s personal. They’ve used their own experiences to give life and depth to their characters.
• An agency has developed a series of advertisements for a big-name corporation. It’s not just the agency’s rep on the line. There’s a global brand at stake.
• An academic whose first language isn’t English is submitting their research to a peer-reviewed journal. Getting published could be career-changing for them.

These clients will be looking for an editor they can trust, someone who gets them, understands what their problems are and can solve them without making a song and dance about it.

Trust is something that is usually earned over time – think about your friendships and partnerships. Editors and their clients don’t always have the luxury of time. What’s needed is something that will fast-track the growth of trust.
​
Word-of-mouth recommendations are fantastic for this. Testimonials from named clients are also excellent social proof. Portfolios work in the same way. The problem is, they can be boring.

A partial screenshot of my boring but useful list!

The list: boring but powerful
I’m not going to suggest you dump your long lists. Boring though they may be, I believe there’s power in them, and for two reasons:
​

• Keyword juice: Book and article titles, and author names can be good for SEO. Some years ago, I secured a proofreading job with an academic who’d come across my website while searching for information about a social theorist. One of the theorist’s books was included in a bullet list in my academic portfolio, and the page popped up in Google’s search results.
• Demonstration of experience: Lists of completed projects can pack a punch because they show at a glance that you can do what you say on your editing tin.

So, if you want to keep your long lists, do so. I have. Make them more accessible and aesthetically pleasing by breaking them into subjects or genres.

Add thumbnails of book jackets, journal covers or client logos (subject to securing permission from the client).

Use a carousel or slideshow plug-in to show off multiple images without cluttering up the page.

Adding pizzazz with stories
​Now it’s time to add the wow factor. Stories take the portfolio one stage further. They’re basically case studies of editing and proofreading in practice. Can you recognize yourself in the following list?

• The established editor: You have a long, boring list but you want to keep your visitors awake.
• The NDA-bound editor: You’re prevented from publishing a long, boring list because of the non-disclosure agreements you’ve signed.
• The new editor: You’d love to have a long, boring list but that’s not yet your problem. Filling space is.

Stories work for all three groups of editors:
​

• The established editor: You can focus on two or three projects and talk about what the client was looking for, how you helped, what you loved and what you learned.
• The NDA-bound editor: You can omit brand names and concentrate on the client’s problems, how you solved them, and what the outcomes were.
• The new editor: Even if you’ve completed only 4 projects, you can make your portfolio page sing by going deeper into the story behind the editing project.

What to include
It’s up to you what you include but consider the following:
​

• The ideal client: What kind of voice will be most compelling to them? What’s worrying them, and how might you fix that? How do you want them to feel when they’re on your website?
• Your brand values: What do you stand for? What makes you tick? What excites you about your job?
• Problems and solutions: What challenges have you faced, how did you overcome them and what was the result?

 
​Crafting stories about relationships
​If your home page is all about the client, the portfolio page can be all about relationships. By crafting stories for our portfolios, we can invite potential clients onto the stage and let them experience – if only fleetingly – editing in action.
​
And because the case studies are real, they’re a powerful tool for knocking down barriers to trust. They show a client how we might help them, just as we’ve helped others.

Three questions for you:

1. Do you hate marketing, or at least dislike it?
2. How about editing or proofreading. That’s your job. Do you like it?
3. What about learning how to do your job better? Those courses you take, books you read, and conferences you attend – do you enjoy those?

​
​If the answer to all three is yes, you’re in marketing heaven!

I’m not kidding you. If you love learning about how to do your job better, and are prepared to make time in your business schedule for this continued professional development (CPD), you have at your fingertips all the marketing tools you need.

Here’s another question:

Do you think there comes a point when you’ve learned all there is to learn about being a better editor?

If you answered no to that, you’re in even better shape from a marketing point of view because you will never run out of ideas to connect with your target client.

And here’s another question:

Do you think you have no time in your schedule to learn how to become a better editor?

If you answered yes, you need to make time. Every editor needs to continue learning. Our business isn’t static. New tools, resources and methods of working are a feature of our business landscape. Language use changes as society’s values shift. Markets expand and retract, which requires a response from us in terms of how we make ourselves visible.
​
If you answered no, that’s great news because it means you have time for marketing. I know – you don’t like marketing. But that’s fine because we’re not calling it marketing. We’re calling it CPD, which you do like!

Making time for business
Everyone who knows me knows I love marketing my editing business. Lucky me – it’s much easier to do something necessary when you enjoy it.

What a lot of people don’t get is how I make time for it and how I get myself in the mindset to devote that time to it.

I don’t have a problem with calling it marketing. But the truth is that so much of the marketing I do is not about marketing; it’s about communicating what I’ve researched and learned.

I love line and copyediting crime fiction. I think I’m really good at it. But I don’t think I’ve learned everything there is to learn. Not for a single minute.

That leaves me with stuff to do. I have to learn.

So off I go to various national editorial societies’ websites. I head for their training pages. I look for courses that will teach me how to be a better crime-fiction editor.
There aren’t any.

I turn to Google. Plenty of help for writers, but not specifically for editors. That’s fine.
And so here’s what I’ve done: read books about crime writing, and attended workshops, author readings, and crime-writing festivals (I live a stone’s throw away from the National Centre for Writing and the annual Noirwich festival). And I’ve continued to read a ton of crime fiction.

And to help me digest what I’ve learned, I’ve taken notes along the way. It’s what I’ve done all my life when I’m learning – O levels (as they were called in my day), A levels, my degree … notes, notes and more notes.
​
How much time has it taken? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been having too much fun. I love reading; I don’t count the hours I spend doing it. How long did the author event last? I’ve no clue. My husband and I had dinner afterwards though, so it was like a date. And it would have been rude to look at my watch.

Is it a blog post?
I wrote a blog post recently about planning when writing crime. I couldn’t churn out 2,000 words just like that; I’m not the world’s authority on the subject.

So I referred to my notes from the event with a famous crime writer (the one where I had a dinner date with hubby). Turns out the guy talked about planning, and told us about his and a fellow crime writer’s approach to the matter. I reread a chapter from a book on how to write crime and found additional insights there. More notes. I read 14 online articles about plotting and pantsing too. Yet more notes.

And then I put all those notes together, which really helped me to order my thoughts. I created a draft. Redrafted. Edited it. And sent it to my proofreader. Soon I'll publish it and share it in various online spaces.

It’ll be on my blog and on the dedicated crime writing page of my website. Some people might call it content marketing. And it is, sort of, because it helps beginner self-publishers work out when they will attend to the structure of their crime fiction – either before they start writing, or after.

From that point of view, it is useful, shareable, problem-solving content, which is a perfectly reasonable definition of content marketing.

Or is it CPD?
But look at it another way. I learned a lot of things I didn’t know before. I can use that knowledge to make me a better editor.

I took notes and drafted those notes into an article. This is no different to what I did at least once a week at university. I wasn’t marketing then; I was learning.
​
What is different is that no one but my professor was interested in my article. That’s not the case for my planning piece. That article will help some self-publishers on their writing journey. A few might just decide to hire me to line or copyedit for them.
It’s happened before. Maybe it will happen again tomorrow, or next month, or next year. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter – the article will stay on my site for as long as it’s relevant.

Change your language
If the idea of marketing your business leaves you feeling overwhelmed, rethink the language you use to describe what’s required.

You probably don’t consider attending an editorial conference a marketing activity, even though it might lead to referrals. It’s more likely you think of it as a business development and networking opportunity.

You probably don’t consider a training course to be marketing. It’s more likely you think of it as editorial education.

You probably don’t consider reading a book about the craft of writing to be marketing. It’s more likely you consider it knowledge acquisition.
​
So how about this?

• Pick up a book, attend a course, watch a webinar, complete a tutorial – whatever you think will teach you how to be a better editor and do a better job for your clients. This is training.
• Make notes based on that research. This is embedding knowledge.
• Turn those notes into something readable, just like when you were at school or uni. This is writing an essay.
• Place that essay somewhere other than your teacher’s in-tray. Like a blog or somewhere on your website where a potential client might learn from it too. This is publishing research.
• Now use social media to drive awareness about that essay. It’s a kind of open-access thing … just like the academics do. This is sharing subject knowledge.

Training, embedding knowledge, writing essays, publishing research, sharing subject knowledge. Smashing stuff. Nicely done.

And between you and me, it’s great content marketing too. But, shh, let’s keep that quiet. I know you don’t like marketing.

Make your marketing about your editing
If you don’t like marketing, maybe that’s because the kind of marketing you’re doing isn’t likeable. In that case, think about what you do like about running your business, and make those things the pivot for your marketing. [Click to tweet]

In other words, it doesn’t need to be about choosing between marketing your editing business and learning to be a better editor, but about the former being a consequence of the latter. Two birds. One stone.

Me? I’m off to read the latest Poirot. Just for fun, mind you!

If you're suffering from yet another dry spell, this webinar will help you get editing and proofreading work in the next few days and weeks.

I'll show you 10 steps you can take to move out of famine mode quickly.

​Forget theory. This is all about doing ... step-by-step guidance on short-term fixes that will give you peace of mind in the now, and head space to dig deeper in the future.
​

• AUDIENCE: Editors and proofreaders whose cupboards are bare
• RUNNING TIME: 46 mins
• WHAT YOU GET: Webinar, ebook and PDF resource sheet
• CAPTIONS: Subtitles/closed captions are included

​
Click on the button below to find out more.

Running an editing or proofreading business is a journey, not a moment in time. Some of us will be offered work that’s not ideal because of fee, content, client type, time frame, or for some other reason.
​
Some might tell us it’s a bum job, that we should run a mile. But is it? Should we? Would acceptance be a compromise or an opportunity?

The problem with ‘ideal’
Ideal is something to aim for but rarely what lands in our laps, especially in the start-up phase of a business.

• Perhaps the fee is a lot lower than we’d like or than some of our editing friends are earning.
• Perhaps the subject or genre on offer isn’t what we dreamed of when we set up our business.
• Perhaps the client is a publisher whereas we’d prefer to work with corporates.
• Perhaps the client wants the project completed in a time frame that means we’d have to work outside our preferred office hours.

The challenge of visibility
Being discoverable is a challenge for many new starters. Ideal projects are out there, but the editor or proofreader isn’t yet visible enough in the relevant spaces.

And even if they can be found, they might not yet have enough experience to instil the trust that leads to initial contact.

Broadly, it’s easier to get in front of publishers because we know who and where they are. They’re used to being contacted by us, too, so we can go direct and cold.

With non-publishers, it’s more difficult. Not every business, charity, school, indie author, or student wants an editor or understands the value we might bring to the table. Going direct and cold is a trickier proposition.

The issue of trust
It’s not just the mechanics of visibility. Emotion plays a part too, especially trust.

With publishers it’s easier to overcome the trust barrier. They know what they want, what we do, are used to working with us, speak our language, and are experienced in evaluating our competence.

Non-publisher clients are more of a challenge. They might not be familiar with the different levels of editing.

Many will not have worked with a professional editor before.

Some – for example fiction writers – might be anxious about exposing their writing to someone they don’t know.

And for the inexperienced client, evaluating a good fit is more difficult.

In the start-up phase of business ownership, editors and proofreaders with less experience might therefore find it easier to acquire work with publishers than with non-publishers.

The choices on the business journey
So visibility and trust issues mean that new entrants to the field might not have the same breadth of choice as the more mature business owner.

It might mean deciding to accept work that isn’t ideal in the shorter term.

We could describe this as a compromise, but might it in fact be an opportunity?

Does the terminology matter?
I believe the terminology does matter because a compromise has negative connotations.

• A compromise implies a cost; an opportunity implies a benefit.
• A compromise implies a loss; an opportunity implies a win.
• A compromise puts us on the back foot; an opportunity pushes us forward.

Negatives leave us feeling dissatisfied, that we’ve been ripped off, that we’re not in control. We’re more likely to begrudge the choices we’ve made.

Positives are empowering. We’re more likely to see the choices we’ve made as rational and informed.

All of this might sound like a mindset game but there’s more to it than that. Decisions to accept work that isn’t ideal have measurable benefits.

​However, we need a longer-term approach, and that can be tough for the new starter who’s surrounded by colleagues who are booked up months in advance with the work that they want.

If that sounds like you, think of your editing business like a garden.

The editorial garden
What you do this year is not separate from what will happen next year, or the year after, or five years down the road. All the choices you make on your business journey are connected.

The seeds you plant now will grow if you look after them. Give them a little additional feed and they might sprout this season ... if the weather holds and you’re lucky. However, you will not get a tree, not this year, I guarantee it. Trees come later.

If you don’t plant anything, however, nothing will spout, not now, not next year, not five years down the road. You will be treeless.

Is planting the seeds a compromise? I don’t think so. It’s the opportunity to grow a tree.

Should we begrudge all that work of watering and feeding for just a few green shoots in this season? Again, not to my mind. The effort we make now will bear fruit later.

Our businesses are the same.

A patch of my editorial garden
I thought it might be helpful to share a story about my own business journey. It’s about how I accepted work that was way below my ideal price point, and did so with pleasure, because I believed I’d be able to leverage it later.
​
See these books?

• The Rats ​– this is a reissue of one of the UK’s most famous horror author’s first novels.
• Dracula – this is the centenary edition of possibly the most famous Gothic horror ever written.
• Then we have the Pulitzer-prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad.
• Three Moments of an Explosion is a short-story collection from one of the hottest ‘weird’ fiction talents in the market.
• And even if you haven’t read the books, you’ve probably heard of or seen the movie adaptations of The Stepford Wives and Cool Hand Luke.

These are some of the books I was commissioned by publishers to proofread a few years ago.

I proofread these books for about 13 quid an hour.

These days, I aim to earn between £35 and £40 per hour. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I hit my mark in the last financial year when I averaged out my annual project earnings. A few years ago, my aim was around the £30 mark.

Those books pictured above earned me less than half what I was aiming for. Did I compromise? Well, it depends how you look at it.

If I believe that each decision I make exists in the bubble of now, and that nothing affects anything else further down the road, then yes, I compromised. If I think that what I’m earning now is despite my decision to accept those proofreading projects, it was a massive compromise.

If, however, I decide that each decision I make can affect my choices down the road, that the walls around those individual decisions are permeable, it’s a different story. If I think that what I’m earning now is because of my decision to accept those proofreading projects, it’s a story of opportunity.

Authors make decisions to work with editors based on a whole host of factors, but the first step is deciding to get in touch in the belief that the person they’ve found feels like a good fit.

Back to trust
To take one example, those of us who edit fiction for self-publishers are asking those authors to put their novels into the hands of complete strangers.

Many of those authors have never worked with an independent editor. Some are anxious about the process of being edited. And for some, the editor’s might be only the second pair of eyes to read the text.

It’s a big ask that takes courage. And that’s where the trust comes in.

The editor who can instil trust quickly is more likely to compel authors to make the leap and hit the contact button.

And what better way to instil trust than offer a portfolio of mainstream published books written by big-name authors?

And that’s how I leveraged those half-my-ideal-fee books. They tell an anxious indie author that publishers of big-name books trusted me a few years ago. And that helps the author trust me now.

Those proofreading projects – and the £13 ph fees that came with them – encourage authors to contact me now, and trust that my £35­–£40 ph line/copyediting fee is a worthwhile investment. And I know it’s true because they’ve told me it's so.

I didn’t compromise. I planted a seed. Now the tree has grown, and I’m able to harvest the fruit. I had to wait a few years but the decisions I made then affect the choices I have now.

And that’s how an editing garden grows.

Your choice
I’m a great believer in leveraging for future opportunity. It’s not everyone’s bag. It doesn’t fit with every editor or proofreader’s business model. And that’s fine.

I offer this not as THE way of thinking, but as one approach. It’s something that those at the beginning of their journey might like to consider if they are still building visibility, but struggling with the age-old rates debate!

As independent business owners, we are free to accept or decline fees from price-setting clients as we see fit. We are also free to propose rates that meet our individual needs, regardless of what our colleagues are offering.

If you’re offered work, can see the benefit of that work for your portfolio, but can’t stomach the price, decline. But if you wish to accept, even though others tell you the price is ‘too low’ or ‘unfair’, go for it.
​
The hive mind of the international editorial community is there to offer support and to share its wealth of experience, but no one knows your business and your needs better than you!

More resources

• How to Develop a Pricing Strategy (book)
• Resource library: Money matters

​If speaking in public gives you the heebie-jeebies, professional presenter Simon Raybould has some advice that will improve your performance and calm your nerves.
 
Over to Simon …

You edit words for a living, right? It’s a cool job, I admit, and not one I could conceivably aspire to.
 
As someone once put it, 'Simon, being your proofreader must be like being Seán McGowan’s dentist.’

​And yes, it’s true. She once sent me an email with the words ‘… first paragraph alone! Are you doing it on purpose? Are you trying to annoy me?’

But I think I have an even more cool option for you. Instead of editing words, why not edit minds? I’m not talking about some sci-fi concept – it’s what I do for a living.

A good presentation will change someone’s mind ... and with it, their world. A good presentation is a form of telepathy – sending ideas from your mind to someone else’s.

The upsides are awesome, but the downsides are pretty serious too:

• sleepless nights
• cold sweats
• fear of looking people in the eye
• more sleepless nights
• a fervent wish for the ground to open up and swallow you whole
• a haunted feeling and a sense of paranoia

But all is not lost – there are cures … or at least things that will help.

Here are a few quick-to-master ideas and tools that will help you to present at conferences (or anywhere else) with confidence.

Some are easy, some are harder, but all of them work. 

1. The least popular tool – just doing it
Let’s start with the least popular option.

When I ask people why they want to be confident, I often receive answers such as ‘If I were confident I’d be able to XYZ.’

And that’s great – they have a specific thing in mind.

What’s not so great is that they seem to think that confidence alone will mean they don’t have to invest time in doing XYZ.

I’m going to be blunt … you can’t shortcut your way to confidence. Don’t try to get confident before you do something. You can only get confident by doing that thing.

Think about how you learned to ride a bike.  Did you look at it, thinking, Cool! What an awesome bike. As soon as I’m a confident cyclist I’ll hop right on and go for rides in the hills? Nope. What you did was sit on it, fall off, get back on, fall off, get back on … and so on.

Presenting is like that.

Of course, with bikes you have stabilizers (and parents) holding you up. Stick with the analogy for a moment and figure out how you can make presentations in safer ways and places – stabilizers, as it were.
 
How about making presentations under the following conditions:

• When it doesn’t matter much if you screw it up

• Where the audience members are your friends
• When you have only three slides (one of which is your title and one of which is black!)?

I’m sure you get the idea.

To mix my movement metaphors … don’t run before you can walk. 

2. Know what success looks like
We all know what could go wrong, right? People might laugh at us; we could fall off the stage; cold sweat might drip down our backs or melt our mascara.
 
And that’s the thing… we know what the bad things look like. But what about success? Not fainting on stage doesn’t count. Things like this count:

• Explaining the new policy on (A) well enough that 60% of the audience act on it within (B) days.
• Making what you do sound so cool that two members of the audience ask you to work with them.
• Getting people so excited about a new website/resource that 10 people in your audience hit the site within a week.
  
  

The trick lies in knowing what success looks like.
 
Define it.
 
After all, if all you can identify is failure, that’s what you’ll concentrate on. But if you can define success, you stand a chance of concentrating on that instead.
 
(Defining success also helps you to design your conference presentation more effectively. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you’re more likely to omit core material.)

3. Sentence zero ... the breathing tool
When we’re scared, we breathe from the top of our lungs. Air comes out in a rush, making our voices sound thinner, breathier and – frankly – less authoritative.
 
Hold that thought in your head for a moment and think about this: Lots of people tell me that once they get going in a presentation, things get better. So the important thing is to start well, right?  Right.
 
If you can control your breathing at the start, things are going to go better. Sentence zero is a handy tool for doing just that.
 
Get the very first sentence of your presentation straight in your head. Be specific. For now, let’s pretend that Sentence One is ‘Hello, my name is Simon.’

Now think of a sentence that could go before it, finishing with the word ‘and’.
 
For now, let’s pretend it’s 'Goodness, what a hideous lime green that back wall is, and …' We’ll call this Sentence Zero.

Now, as you start your presentation, say Sentence Zero+Sentence One in one breath, but only use your voice for Sentence One.
 
What that means is that your audience only hears Sentence One but you’ve already used the high-pressure, anxiety-sounding breath from the top of your lungs on the silent Sentence Zero.

• Pro tip 1: Make sure Sentence Zero is clean and positive (just in case you do inadvertently say it out loud).
• Pro tip 2: Make absolutely sure you don’t breathe in between Sentence Zero and Sentence One; that negates the effectiveness. 

4. Ditch the script
Writing is difficult. That’s why authors need you, right? So what on earth makes you think you can write a script for your presentation?
 
If it was that easy, we’d all be writing massively successful West End and Broadway plays. Don’t try.
 
Instead, define your structure.

• Start with the main point (think about success – what are you trying to achieve with your presentation?)
• Then move iteratively deeper into the finer detail.
• You’ve now got the structure. Stop.
• Jot down keywords.

 
Then, when you stand up to present, use the keywords as markers around which you improvise.
 
Trust me, you’ll sound more natural and be much, much more interesting.
 
Plus, you won’t spend time worrying about the massive confidence-drainer that is 'Did I get the wording absolutely right according to the script?'
 
As an aside, the answer is no.  No one does unless they’re RSC-grade actors.
 
What you’ll lose in the occasional fumble you’ll more than gain in sounding more relaxed and natural.
 
Plus, you won’t commit the ultimate presenter’s sin of using Latin words. It’s an over-simplification but we’re more likely write using the Latin-orientated words (‘commence’ rather than ‘start’) and speak using the Saxon versions (‘guts’ rather than ‘intestines’).
 
Ditching the script means you don’t speak like a textbook.

5. Wasp-swatting: The power of the list
A while ago, my team and I sat down for a meeting. Pizza and wine might have been involved. One of the things we asked each other was what made us nervous.
 
It turned out that about one-third of our conference nerves came not from the presentation but from the logistics that went with it.

• When am I on?
• Where’s the venue?
• Do I have the right version of Keynote or PowerPoint?
• Have I printed off the right slides?

 
Logisitical/trivial problems are like wasps. One seems manageable. A swarm’s a different matter. Each issue might be negligible on its own, but all of them together have a noticeable impact.

Similarly, each on its own is easily dealt with, but taken together the problem loses its perspective.

The solution is simple: a list.

At least two weeks in advance of the conference, create a simple checklist – one line for every issue. For example, I don’t have a 'cables' tick box on my list; I have entry for the power cable, another for the VGA adaptor, and another for the HDMI adaptor, and so on.

Before you go live, check the list. That way, when it’s time to perform, you can do so confident that you’ve not forgotten anything. It also frees up the parts of your brain you’d otherwise have wasted on trying to remember things.

6. Practice and rehearsal
This is so fundamental it probably shouldn't come last. It also needs the fewest words.

You will perform better if you go over your presentation and practise improvising using your keywords.

Wrapping up
There’s a lot more you can do to conquer your nerves – ideas range from breathing techniques to standing in certain positions – but these are good starting points. So go change the world and edit people’s heads!

Want to know more?
Simon's a presentations expert and productivity guru. If you want to get in touch beforehand, here's what you need:

• Presentation Genius | @presentations​

• AIR | @AIRproductivity​

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.

​This tutorial shows you a fast and free method to turn your video’s subtitles/closed captions into text that can be repurposed for blog posts and DIY transcripts.

There are 2 reasons you might want to do this:

1. To generate keyword juice for SEO purposes
2. To respect customer/client preferences

Using the subtitles files in your existing videos means you can create content in a written format without starting from scratch.

That saves you precious time, allowing you to focus your attention on creating words (if you’re an author) and amending them (if you’re a proofreader or editor).

​Watch the video or use the written instructions below.

​Instructions

• Find your video on YouTube.
• Click on the three dots underneath the video on the right-hand side.

• A new window will open.
• Click on 'Open transcript'.

• The transcript window will open. 
• Click on the three dots in the upper ribbon.

• Click on 'Toggle timestamps'.​

• Note how the timestamps have disappeared.
• Click your cursor at the beginning of the text and drag to the bottom of the transcript.
• Copy the selected text (Ctrl C in Windows; Cmd C in iOS).

• Paste your text into a Word document.

• Now it's time to remove the extraneous paragraph returns using Word’s FIND/REPLACE tool.
• Place the following string into the FIND WHAT field: ^p
• In the REPLACE WITH field, type a space.
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button.

Your subtitles file now looks like this:

Edit your text to ensure the spelling and grammar are correct, and tweak the writing so that it meets your audience's expectations of written content.

If you're creating a blog post, introduce paragraphs, bullet points, headings and any supporting imagery.
​
Generating keyword juice for SEO purposes
Video is compelling. It allows our audience to see our faces and hear our voices. That intimacy can be compelling, and it’s a fast-track to building trust. That’s important for authors seeking to build a readership, and editors wanting to attract clients who need editing help.

However, there are no keywords in a video. Yes, YouTube is a search engine in its own right, but it’s not the first point of search for every member of our audience.

​By repurposing video as blog content, we’re increasing our chances of being found in the likes of Google and Bing too.

Being findable on multiple platforms makes sense in an online world that’s becoming noisier by the minute.

Respecting customer/client preferences
Not everyone wants to watch video, and even if they do, it’s not always the most convenient option. Imagine the following scenarios:

Our reader’s broadband speed is slow
A blog post will load faster than a video on those occasions that the internet seems to be creaking at the seams.

If we’ve solved a reader’s problem in our videos, but they can’t play those videos, they could become frustrated and go elsewhere. If we’ve offered a written alternative, we’re more likely to keep them on our websites.

Video is difficult to scan
Written content is easy to scan and digest quickly. That makes it attractive to busy people. If our visitors can’t work out whether we’ve solved their problem without watching a video in its entirety, we might lose them.

When we provide written content as well, we can quickly show them what’s on offer with headings and bullet points. Our readers can scan this information and decide whether to dig deeper.

Blog posts can be printed
Some people still like to print useful content so that they’re not reliant on digital means to access it. A video can’t be printed; a blog post can. Again, it’s about respecting what’s convenient for our readers, rather than focusing on our own preferences.

Other options
What I’ve offered here is a DIY solution for authors and editors who need to keep an eye on the purse strings when they're repurposing vlog content.

It’s the method I use when I’m starting with a video rather than a blog post. Plus, I rather enjoy the process. However, it’s not everyone’s bag.

If you have the budget, you can commission a professional transcriptionist or content repurposer. They’ll have the tools and expertise to create top-quality written content from video that fits your brand and voice.

Summing up
Editors and authors who are creating valuable content to make their books and editorial services visible can repurpose it in multiple ways. No one method trumps another – audio, video and words all have their place.

However, our audiences will have different preferences. What’s convenient today might not work tomorrow. Repurposing content allows us to respect those preferences.

The trick is to find shortcuts to that repurposing so that we’re not starting from scratch each time. This is one of them.

Acknowledgement
Thanks to JavaScript Nuggets for sharing this new and improved method of accessing transcript text. Much appreciated!

Related resources

• The Author's Proofreading Companion
• How to edit YouTube subtitles/captions free and fast in MS Word
• Self-editing your fiction in Word: How to import styles
• Self-editing your fiction in Word: How to use styles
• Blogging for Business Growth (online course for editors and proofreaders)

​If you’re an editor or proofreader who finds marketing your business overwhelming, here are 6 ideas to help you rethink your mindset and pull you out of the mire.

Recent discussions with colleagues on social media made me realize two things:

• Some editors are perceived as busier marketers than is actually the case.
• The struggling marketers aren’t always inspired by the busy bees. A sense of overwhelm and disillusionment takes over.

It made me sad to think that some of my colleagues could be negatively affected by those of us who find marketing easier or who enjoy it more.

If you're one of those who's struggling, this article is for you. It looks at the perceptions that might be triggering your discomfort and offers you new ways of thinking about each problem so that you can move forward.

If you want a reminder to pin on your wall, download the infographic at the bottom of the post. Or download the free PDF booklet to your preferred device.

Perception 1: It shouldn’t be done unless you can do it perfectly
Some editors are suffocated by their perfectionism. Not being able to do marketing perfectly and completely stops them from starting it. And so nothing gets done.

Here are five examples that reflect the truth of the matter:

• It is ideal to have a consistent and regular promotion strategy, but it is better to market a business sporadically than not at all.
• It is ideal to have a complete LinkedIn profile, but it is better to have a partial LinkedIn profile than none at all.
• It is ideal to have testimonials on each page of your website, but it is better to have a website with no testimonials than no website at all.
• It is ideal to have a strong headshot on your website and social media profiles, but it is better to have a cropped holiday snap that shows off your smile than no photo at all.
• For would-be bloggers, it is ideal to have a blog banner that identifies the space for what it is, but it is better to have a blog without a banner than no blog at all.

I have been blogging since 2011 and I only just got around to uploading a banner image that reflected the parlour theme of the blog. I’m confident that my audience will forgive me. Those who won’t are likely not my audience.

If you’re someone who finds themselves falling into this trap, give yourself a break, please. Everyone else will. Social media profiles can be tweaked, banners can be uploaded, testimonials can be added, and headshots can be updated.

In fact, everything about your marketing strategy can be amended, deleted or completely rethought whenever you wish.

Ask yourself this: When you edit for a client, do you guarantee perfection? Do you think it’s even possible? I don’t. One reason is that much of what I do depends on brief, style, preference or voice. Editing work isn’t an exact science.

I have some good news for you – nor is effective marketing. 

​Perception 2: Everyone else is doing way more than you
It might look like that but the reality is probably different. A colleague recently told me: ‘I know how hard you work on marketing. I can tell by how many posts you write and share on LinkedIn each day.’

I tend to share 7 blog articles throughout the day on both LinkedIn and Twitter. That’s 49 social media shares of my blog content every week on each platform. But I write one blog post a week. Just one. 

I share that new post on a Monday. The other 48 are reshares of older blog articles that I hope my community will be interested in if they missed them the first time around.

And people might well have missed them. Tweets and posts on Facebook are more likely to be missed than seen on busy social feeds with ever-changing algorithms. That’s why many editors reshare their older content.

Those of us who’ve been blogging for a few years have a lot of content banked, which means we have plenty to share. If you’re starting out on your blogging journey, you’ll have a smaller bank.

And that’s absolutely fine! It’s not a numbers game; it’s a content-delivery game. If you have older blog posts, reshare them. If you don’t, wait until you do and then reshare.

And if you'd rather write an article every two weeks, or once a month, that's your choice too. 

It matters not that I’m sharing 49 articles and you’re sharing 2 or 5 or whatever. What matters is that we’re delivering articles that will solve our colleagues’ and clients’ problems, and making our businesses more visible.

Don’t waste precious time worrying about my 49. Those are mine and for me to worry about. ​You need to think only about how to promote your 2 (or 5 or whatever) posts because those are what will drive traffic to your website.

​Perception 3: Some editors don’t do any marketing but have loads of work anyway
Marketing has many faces.

Remember my 49 blog-post shares? Those are part of a strategy to make me discoverable online and appealing to self-publishing authors of fiction.

What I do with my blog is a very visible form of marketing because the international editorial community is active on social media, and I use social media as one delivery tool for my blog content.

But what if an editor has a different target client base? Imagine Dan. He’s a copyeditor who specializes in social science books. His primary client base is publishers.

Last week he did the following:

• Sent emails of introduction to four presses for whom he’s never worked
• Sent hello-how-are-you emails to five presses whom he’s worked for in the past but whose radars he’s slipped off
• Updated his SfEP directory entry with a new testimonial, a reworked pitch, and several book jackets

None of this marketing activity has been tweeted, liked, shared or commented on. No one knows what Dan was up to last week. However, it’s excellent, targeted promotion, and worth every minute he spent on it.

What one editor does to put themselves in front of potential clients will not necessarily mirror what another is doing. An editor whose schedule is full but who doesn’t appear to be busy with marketing is likely promoting their services in less visible but just as powerful ways.

None of us is handed work. We have to find it, or enable it to find us.

Perhaps the marketing work you need to do is not about blogging, vlogging, tweeting or chatting. Maybe it’s about making a telephone call, attending a networking group, writing an email, sending a letter, or advertising in appropriate spaces.

​Perception 4: Unlike everyone else, you don’t have anything to show off about
I bet you do! Once a week in my Facebook group, I host a marketing #Carnival. It’s a celebration of wins. Any wins – big or small.

And it isn’t just shiny-shiny stuff like winning an award, securing a new client, launching a new product, or publishing a 2,000-word blog post.

It could also be completing a test, sending out 10 letters to prospective clients, filling out a LinkedIn profile, uploading a picture to a website, booking a course, securing a testimonial, creating a marketing to-do list, buying a domain name, or applying for a membership upgrade to a professional editorial society.

Anything that takes our businesses forward is worth celebrating. I’m good at holding a list of my wins in my head but you might prefer to keep a physical record of your achievements.

You don’t need anything fancy – a spreadsheet, a notebook or a space on your wall for Post-it notes.

​Then, when the overwhelm hits, look at that spreadsheet, notebook or wall, and remind yourself of all that you’ve achieved. That focuses attention on what’s been done rather than what’s left to do.

​Perception 5: Editor X is producing a seemingly impossible amount of regular new content
Unlikely! I suspect repurposing is what's going on. Bear in mind the following:

• Old content can be updated
• Guest content can be offered in a new format
• Existing content can be republished on other platforms and in different formats

I've done the following with some of my older blog posts:​

1. Republished on LinkedIn's native blogging platform using copy and paste
2. Republished on Facebook's native blogging platform using copy and paste
3. Edited drastically and created a Twitter thread
4. Reformatted as a booklet
5. Reformatted as a video
6. Reformatted as a slideshow
7. Used the content to build some of the key themes discussed in an online round-table discussion
8. Used the content in a conference presentation
9. Used the content in a live video in a closed Facebook group

There are even more ways to repurpose content for promotional means but you get the picture. 

Repurposing is quicker than creating from scratch and therefore great for the time-poor editor. But it also respects the fact that people like to access help in different ways and at different times.

Even if an editor appears to produce a lot of visible content, it’s more likely that they’re taking shortcuts to make life easier. And so can you!

​Perception 6: There’s just way too much to do at once
You’ve made a list of all the things you’ve seen others doing and it’s huge. Overwhelming, in fact. Ugh. There’s so much:

• Social media engagement
• Blogging
• Learning how to do video
• Advertising in directories
• Building a list of publishers, packagers and project management agencies and contacting them all
• Creating or refining your website
• Developing a newsletter mailing list
• Attending online and offline networking meetings
• And a bajillion other things

You don’t have nearly enough time in your life to get all of it sorted. It would take months and months and months to do all that!

Yep, it would. It might even take a couple of years to get up to full speed. And you know what? That’s fine! It’s supposed to be like that because you're a professional editor not a professional marketer.

So, if you feel overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, take a breath and think in ones.

Even the most visible and active of marketing editors started out with just one blog post, just one tweet, just one small list of publishers, just one directory entry, just one page on a website, just one online group they lurked in.

Everyone has to start somewhere. None of us creates a marketing strategy and nails it a month later.

And marketing gets easier over time because there comes a point where it starts to work for you instead of being a burden. Take me, for example ...

• I can use scheduling tools to quickly access old content and share it.
• I have old blog content that I can repurpose.
• My website’s up and running so I’m tweaking rather than building.
• I’ve already created my directory entries so I only need to renew and tweak once in a while.

Some years back, I was still in the process of developing that stuff. I didn’t do it all at once. I did a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more. Over time, the foundational work was completed, leaving me space to focus on the marketing activities that work best for me now.

Look at your marketing list. Instead of seeing it as an ocean in which to drown, break it down into cups from which you can sip.

Create a doable schedule. Choose a couple of things and an acceptable time frame in which to do them. Then choose a couple more and do those ... small steps that respect and reflect your client base, your personality, and the demands of your work and personal life.

​Beating the overwhelm: A downloadable checklist
There’s more than one way to do marketing. Your way might look different to mine. It might be less visible. It might involve targeting different clients. It might require a different pace. That's all fine.

Download the infographic below and pin it on your wall. It'll remind you that marketing is not about catching up with colleagues. It's a journey, a building process. It does require your time, but you get to choose the methods and the schedule.

If you feel the paralysis setting in, join my Facebook group, tell me what's holding you back, and we'll work out some steps to get you moving in a way that works for you.

How do you get fiction editing and proofreading work? This post offers some pointers for newbie freelancers, and experienced editors looking to shift specialisms.

1. Start with baseline training
To be fit for working in any editing discipline, fiction or otherwise, training is the foundation. Even if you’ve been devouring your favourite genres for years, you need to understand publishing-industry standards.

This isn’t about snobbery. It’s about serving the client honestly and well, especially the self-publisher, who might not have enough mainstream publishing knowledge to assess whether you’re capable of amending in a way that respects industry conventions.

It’s about the reader too. Readers are canny, and often wedded to particular genres. They’re used to browsing in bookshops and bingeing on their favourite authors. They have their own standards and expectations.

One of our jobs as editorial professionals is to ensure we have the skills to push the book forward, make it the best it can be, so that it’s ready for those readers and meets their expectations.

And so if you want to proofread or edit for fiction publishers and independent authors, high-quality editorial training isn’t a luxury: it’s the baseline.

What kind of training you need will depend on what services you plan to offer.

Courses
I recommend the Publishing Training Centre and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) for foundational copyediting and proofreading training. I’m based in the UK, and those are the two training suppliers I have experience of so I’m in a position to recommend them.

That doesn’t mean that other suppliers aren’t worth exploring. Rather, I don’t recommend what I haven’t tested. Keep an open mind. Check a range of suppliers and their course curricula. Then choose what suits your needs.
​

• Essential Proofreading: Editorial Skills One (Publishing Training Centre)
• Essential Copy-Editing: Editorial Skills Two (Publishing Training Centre)
• Proofreading 1–4 (CIEP)
• Copy-editing 1–4 (CIEP)
• See also this list of professional editorial societies; they’ll be able to advise you if you live outside the UK

If you want more information about how the PTC and CIEP courses compare, talk to the organizations’ training directors.

2. Decide which fiction editing services you want to offer
Some beginner self-publishers don’t understand the differences between the different levels of editing, which means they might ask for something that’s not in their best interests (e.g. a quick proofread even though the book hasn’t been critiqued, structurally edited, line- and copyedited).

It’s essential that the professional fiction editor is able to communicate which levels of editing they provide, and recommend what’s appropriate for the author.

That doesn’t mean the author will take the advice, but the editor must be able to articulate her recommendations so that independent authors can make informed decisions.

3. Invest in appropriate specialist fiction training
The next step is to gain skills and confidence with fiction editing and proofreading work. As with any type of editing, the kinds of things the editor will be amending, querying and checking will depend on whether the work is structural, sentence-based or pre-publication quality control.

When deciding what specialist fiction editing courses to invest in, bear in mind the following:

• Even if you have experience of developmental editing non-fiction, this skill will unlikely transition smoothly to story-level fiction editing without specialist training.
• Even if you’re an experienced sentence-level fiction editor, this skill will not make you fit to offer structural editing or critiquing without specialist training.

Courses and reading
Explore the following to assess whether they will fill the gaps in your knowledge. Check the curricula carefully to ensure that the modules focus on the types of fiction editing you wish to offer and provide you with the depth required to push you forward.
​

• Switching to Fiction (Louise Harnby; course: webinar and book)
• Introduction to Fiction Editing (CIEP; course)
• Developmental Editing: Fiction Theory (Sophie Playle, Liminal Pages; course)
• Developmental Editing: In Practice (Sophie Playle, Liminal Pages; course)
• Editing Fiction (Publishing Training Centre; introductory e-learning module)
• Introduction to Developmental Editing (Author–Editor Clinic; course)
• Write to be Published (Nicola Morgan; book)
• The Magic of Fiction (Beth Hill; book)

This isn’t a definitive list but it’ll set you on the right track.

4. Get in the right mindset
Fiction editing requires a particular mindset for several reasons:

Style and voice
We’re not only respecting the author, but the POV character(s) too. The fiction editor who doesn’t respect the voices in a novel is at risk of butchery.

Being able to immerse oneself in the world the writer’s built is essential so that we can get under the skin of the writing. If we don’t feel it, we can’t edit it elegantly and sensitively.

Intimacy
Non-fiction is born from the author’s knowledge. Fiction is born from the author’s heart and soul.

If that sounds a little cheesy, I’ll not apologize. Many of the writers with whom I work are anxious about working with an editor because they’ve put their own life, love and fear into the world they’ve built.

A good fiction editor needs to respect the intimacy of being trusted with a novel. If that doesn’t sound like your bag, this probably isn’t for you.

Unreliable rules
At a fiction roundtable hosted by the Norfolk group of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, guest Sian Evans – an experienced playwright and screenwriter – talked about how punctuation in screenplays is as much about ‘the breaths’ the actor is being directed to take as about sentence clarity.

These ‘breaths’ exist in prose. They help the reader make sense of a sentence ... not just grammatically, but emotionally. And so the addition or removal of just one comma for the sake of pedantry can make a sentence ‘correct’, or standard, but shift tone and tension dramatically.

The fiction editor needs to be able to move beyond prescriptivism and read the scene for its emotionality, so that the author’s intention is intact but the reader can move fluidly through the world on the page and relish it.

All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that if you want to get fiction editing work, and keep on getting it, you’ll need to embrace rule-breaking with artistry!

Fiction work requires us to respect both readability and style. The two can sometimes clash so gentle diplomacy and a kind hand will need to be in your toolbox.

5. Read fiction
If you don’t love reading fiction, don’t edit it.

And if you don’t love reading a particular genre, don’t edit it.

Editing the type of fiction you love to read is a joy, and an advantage. If you read a lot of romance fiction, you’ll already be aware of some of the narrative conventions that readers expect and enjoy.

I started reading crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers before I’d hit my teens. I turned 51 in March and my passion for those genres hasn’t waned. That stuff makes up over eighty per cent of my work schedule too. Here’s the thing though – my pleasure-reading has supported my business.

I get to see first-hand how different authors handle plot, how they build and release tension, how they play with punctuation, idiomatic phrasing, and sentence length such that the reader experiences emotion, immediacy and immersion. And that helps me edit responsively.
​
Honestly, reading fiction is training for editing fiction. In itself, it’s not enough. But professional training isn’t enough either. Love it and learn it.

6. Learn from writers
​If you want to understand the problems facing the self-publishing author community, listen and learn.

Join the Alliance of Independent Authors. Even lurking in the forum will give you important insights into what self-publishers struggle with an how you might help.

Take advantage of online workshops aimed at beginner writers. Penguin Random House offers regular free online webinars via The Writers' Academy. Experienced writers and instructors take you on whistle-stop tours of setting, dialogue, characterization, point of view, crime fiction writing, children's books and a whole lot more.

Listen to published novelists’ stories. My local Waterstones hosts regular author readings/signings. I’ve seen Garth Nix, Jonathan Pinnock and Alison Moore speak. In April 2018, Harry Brett is chairing a session on how to write crime with Julia Heaberlin and Sophie Hannah.

In May, fellow editor Sophie Playle and I are attending 'Why Writing Matters', an event hosted by the Writers' Centre Norwich in association with the Norwich & Norfolk Festival. And Jeffery Deaver's coming to town too. Ticket booked!

These workshops cost from nothing to £12. That's a tiny investment for any fiction editor wanting to better themselves.

7. Get in front of publishers
The best way to get publisher eyes on your editing skills is to go direct. Experienced fiction editors are sometimes contacted direct but sitting around waiting to be offered work never got the independent business owner very far and never will.

Experienced ... but not in fiction
If you’re an experienced editor or proofreader who already has publisher clients but they’re in a different discipline (e.g. social sciences, humanities) you’ll likely have built some strong relationships with in-house editors.

Publishing is a small world – in-house staff move presses and meet each other at publishing events. It might well be that one of your contacts knows someone who works in fiction and, more importantly, will be happy to vouch for your skills.

With specialist fiction training, you’ll be able to leverage that referral to the max. So, if you have a good relationship with an in-house academic editor, tell them you’d like to explore fiction editing and ask them if they’d be prepared to share a name and email and give you a recommendation.

Newbie
If you’re a new entrant to the field, it’s unlikely that a cold call to HarperCollins or Penguin will be fruitful. The larger presses tend to hire experienced editors with a track record of hitting the ground running.

There are two options:
​

1. Target smaller, independent fiction presses. Ask if they’d consider adding you to their freelance list. Be clear about the training you’ve done and your genre preferences. The fees might not be great, but I recommend you look at this as a paying marketing and business-development opportunity. You’ll be able to leverage the experience, the testimonials and the portfolio entries later.
   ​
2. If the small press responds by saying that they aren’t in a position to hire external editorial work, ask if you might do a one-off gratis proofread/edit for them as a way of gaining experience and supporting their independent publishing programme – mutual business backscratching. Again, you can leverage this experience when targeting paying fiction clients (publishers and indie authors).

8. Be visible online
There’s no excuse for any twenty-first-century professional editor to be invisible. There’s no one way to visibility – take a multipronged approach.

Directories
If you’re a member of a national editorial society, and they have a directory, advertise in it as a specialist fiction editor/proofreader.

If you’re not a member, become one. It won’t be free, but running a business has costs attached to it. If we want to succeed, we need to be seen. That doesn’t land on our plates; we must invest.

If your society doesn’t have an online directory, lobby for one to be set up and promoted. I’d go as far as to argue that a professional editorial society that isn’t prioritizing the visibility of its members isn’t doing its job properly.
​

• The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) IS doing its job properly. I rank highly in Google for certain keyword phrases, but it’s not always my website that shows up – sometimes it’s my CIEP directory entry. It thrills me to know that my membership sub is providing me with networking, friendship, training opps, and visibility in the search engines.
  
  If you don’t qualify for inclusion, make doing what’s necessary a key goal in your business plan.

 

• Reedsy – despite what you might have heard – does NOT set low rates that encourage a ‘race to the bottom’. Editorial professionals set their own rates and Reedsy takes a cut of the fee. I receive several requests a month to quote for fiction copyediting or proofreading via Reedsy and have worked with some wonderful authors. Entry in Reedsy’s database is free but you must have a certain level of experience to be invited.
  
  Again, if you don’t qualify for inclusion, make doing what’s necessary a key goal in your business plan.

Create content for indie fiction authors
Any self-publishing fiction writer looking for editorial assistance is more likely to think you’re wowser if you help them before they’ve asked for it.

Create resources that offer your potential clients value and you’ll stand out. It makes your website about them rather than you. And it demonstrates your knowledge and experience.

Doing this might require you to do a lot of research, but what a great way to learn. Don’t think of it as cutting into your personal time but as professional development that makes you a better editor.

And think about it like this: Who would you rather buy shoes from? The shop where the sales assistant tells you all about her, or the shop where the sales assistant helps you find shoes that fit? It's no different for authors choosing editors.
​
I have an several pages dedicated to resources for fiction authors. I’m not alone. These fiction editors have resource hubs too: Beth Hill, Sophie Playle, Lisa Poisso, Kia Thomas and Katherine Trail. There are others but I’m already over the 2,000-word mark!

Shout out your fiction specialism
Shout your fiction specialism from your website’s rooftop. Why would a fiction writer hire someone who doesn’t specialize in fiction when there are so many people dedicated to it?​

Related reading
Here are some additional articles that you might find useful if you're considering moving into the field of fiction.

• The different levels of editing: Proofreading and beyond
• How do mainstream publishers produce books?
• What makes a good fiction editor?
• Should a writer hire a freelance editor before submitting to an agent?
• What's a sample edit? Who does it help? And is it free?
• Fiction editing resources for editors
• Resource library
• Resource library for editors

Good luck with your fiction editing journey!