A BLOG FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

I'm delighted to announce my new online course, Branding for Business Growth, due for release in late summer/early autumn 2018!

This course is especially for editors and proofreaders who want to differentiate themselves. You'll learn how to build an emotion-based brand identity that’s rich in the flavour of you, and compelling to the people you'd love to work with.
​
There's more information on the course page, and a special pre-launch offer. 

​The course will include:

• ​a recorded webinar 
• an ebook (circa 25K words)
• a branding kickstarter toolkit (ebook and templates)
• a branding journal (the course workbook)
• exclusive video tutorials from the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series
• ​quick-access links to related materials

You'll get lifetime access and live support via my Facebook group when you need it.

​Any questions, just ask me!

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 free 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
• ​PRICE: Free
• RUNNING TIME: 46 mins
• ACCESS: Available instantly – no login or sign-up required
• WHAT YOU GET: Webinar and PDF resource sheet
• CAPTIONS: Subtitles/closed captions are included

​
Click on the button below to access the video and the PDF.

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!

Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​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).

I’ll look at those reasons in more detail below. First, here’s the video walk-through. The written instructions are underneath.

​Instructions

• Go to your YouTube channel and select CREATOR STUDIO, then click on your chosen video.
• Click on Subtitles/CC.
• Under the blue ADD NEW SUBTITLES OR CC button, click on the grey language button. This will open up your subtitles stream.
• Click on ACTIONS.
• Select .srt.
• Now go to your computer’s DOWNLOADS folder.
• Locate the .srt file and rename it with a .doc extension (e.g. captions.srt becomes captions.doc).
• Now double-click on the newly created Word doc.

Now you’re ready to edit the text. And you will need to edit it! As I’m sure you’re aware, we don’t speak like we write. I’m always shocked by how much I mumble, how fast I speak, and how non-standard my spoken grammar is when I see my speech in written form!

Furthermore, while even the auto-subtitles generated by YouTube are rather amazing given that they’re free, it’s no surprise that a lot can go wrong.

Still, the basics are there so we’re not starting with a blank page – the core written material is ready and waiting for us.

If you’re creating a transcript, you might decide to leave in some of the time stamps. This is useful if you want to enable people to return to the video and access key themes, or if there’s more than one speaker.

If you’re creating a blog post, here’s how to remove the extraneous information ...

Removing the junk
So this is a partial screenshot of a subtitles file:

Let’s get rid of the time stamps first.

• Open Word’s FIND/REPLACE tool (ctrl-h on a PC)
• Copy and paste the following string into the FIND WHAT field: ^#^#:^#^#:^#^#,^#^#^# --> ^#^#:^#^#:^#^#,^#^#^#
• Leave the REPLACE WITH field empty
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button

​Now your subtitles file looks like this:

Now let’s get rid of those stranded numbers above the main text, again using Word’s FIND/REPLACE tool.

• Place the following string into the FIND WHAT field: ^#^p
• Leave the REPLACE WITH field empty
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button

If your video is long, you’ll have double-digit numbers too. In that case, click the REPLACE ALL button again. If you have triple-digit numbers, you’ll need to repeat it once more!
​
Now your subtitles file looks like this:

​Now we can remove the extraneous paragraph returns. Again, we’re using Word’s FIND/REPLACE tool.

• Place the following string into the FIND WHAT field: ^p^p
• In the REPLACE WITH field, type a space
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button
• Now place the following string into the FIND WHAT field: ^p
• Leave the space in the REPLACE WITH field
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button
• To tidy up any final double spaces, type two spaces in the FIND WHAT field
• Leave the space in the REPLACE WITH field
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button
• If there are a few double spaces remaining, click REPLACE ALL again

​Now your subtitles file looks like this:

Now you can tidy up your text, and copy and paste it into the text editor on your website. There, you can introduce paragraphs, bullet points, headings and any supporting imagery for your blog article.

Now let’s return to why we might decide to do this.

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.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​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.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

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 Society for Editors and Proofreaders 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.
​

• Basic Proofreading: Editorial Skills One (Publishing Training Centre. Despite the word ‘Basic’, this is a comprehensive, flagship, industry-recognized course)
• Essential Copy-Editing: Editorial Skills Two (Publishing Training Centre)
• Proofreading 1–4 (Society for Editors and Proofreaders)
• Copy-editing 1–4 (Society for Editors and Proofreaders)
• 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 SfEP 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.
​

• Introduction to Fiction Editing (Society for Editors and Proofreaders; 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 the recent fiction roundtable hosted by the Norfolk group of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, 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 Society for Editors and Proofreaders 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 SfEP 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 entire Self-publishers page 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?

Good luck with your fiction editing journey!

And one final thing ... here’s a PDF booklet you can download. That way, you can review the guidance on getting fiction editing and proofreading work at your leisure, and on your preferred device.

Blogging for Business Growth is open for registration now! Learn how to build an editorial business blog in 13 steps.

About the course
In 13-steps, ​Blogging for Business Growth shows you how to build a discoverable, captivating and memorable blog-based content platform that drives traffic to your website, makes you visible in the search engines, and compels clients to get in touch.

It doesn't matter where you live. The principles underlying the teaching are relevant to you as a global editor with a potential global client base.

​And there are no time restrictions on the training. Once you've bought a course you can access the materials whenever you wish ... for as long as you wish.

What's included?

• a recorded webinar
• an ebook (circa 24K words)
• an ebooklet with 62 blog-post ideas
• a build-your-blog workbook
• a sample workbook filled in by a fictional editor
• a pre-publication blog post checklist 
• a ready-to-go content log template
• a success metrics checklist
• exclusive video tutorials
• quick-access links to related materials
• a 20% discount coupon

Course curriculum
The course is designed so that you can build a purposeful blog step by step. Topics include:

• Introductory principles of a quality blog-based content platform
• Blog content creation: How to never run out of ideas
• Branding your blog so that it's recognizable and appeals to your target clients
• Hosting and creating second homes to drive visibility
• Blog design: What to include
• Blog promotion: How to get your content seen
• Keeping a content log to enable repurposing and internal linking
• Creating a publication schedule and using scheduling tools
• Building a subscriber list
• Bringing your blog alive with video
• Tips and tools to overcome technical problems and emotional resistance
• Video hosting and embedding
• Measuring the success of your blog

The webinar and written materials

The webinar takes you through the key steps to building a blooming blog that will drive visibility and offer compelling value to potential clients. The complementary ebook includes the core written content and links to all the tools and resources I cite in the webinar. 

Additional PDF booklets help you with the following:

• Generating ideas for over a year's worth of blog content
• Incorporating video into your blogging
• Repurposing blog content creatively for social media

Plus, I've created a sample for you so you can see how you might summarize key learning points and drive your editorial business blog forward. I use the example of an editor who specializes in working with writers of children's books.

Additional video tutorials
Each course comes with additional tutorials available exclusively to Fingerprint students ... videos that show you how to use some of the tools I refer to in the training.

​However, the content will expand over time. If there's something extra you need directly related to the course, just ask me. I'll create a custom walk-through ... but you won't pay a penny more.

​Scroll through the slideshow below to see what's on offer.

Early-bird registration is open!
Registering your interest doesn’t oblige you to buy the course. It just means you’ll be contacted when the course goes live in mid-April and given the option to order at the reduced price.

And if you’ve already bought my social media course, you’ll be able to use the additional voucher on the course page that gives you even more money off!

Early-bird registration closes on 20 April 2018. Register now to save 20%!

• Standard price: £59.99
• Early-bird price: £48

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Some blogs are poorly right from the get-go. If yours is feeling under the weather, here are 6 treatments that will turn it, and your website, into a vibrant resource centre that drives your business forward.

​I’ve been blogging since 2011 and my blog is the single biggest driver of traffic to my website – around 36,000 page views per month. Given that 99% all of my clients come to me via Google and two online directories, having a strong web presence is the difference between being booked up six months in advance and being unemployed.

Those visitors end up on my blog for three reasons:

• They want to hire me because of the job I do (copyediting fiction books)
• They want to find out how to do the job I do
• They’re already doing the job I do but are stuck

Big-picture focus
This article doesn’t focus on the technical minutiae of whether to use Wordpress or Weebly, filling in metadata, writing great headlines, breaking up text with pictures, adding in calls to action, SEO keywords, paragraph length and so on and so forth.

​That’s not because all the micro stuff isn’t important, but because none of it will amount to anything if the macro issues aren’t in order.

Instead, I focus on six big-picture reasons why blogs become poorly, and offer some medicine that will turn them, and the websites hosting them, into vibrant resource centres that drive our businesses forward.

Problem 1: The blog doesn’t solve problems
Some of the blogs I wrote between 2011 and 2015 are a technical disgrace but they worked – and still work – because the content is helpful and shareable.

A blog that doesn’t solve problems is a written exercise in self-indulgence and won’t make us the go-to professionals for anything. At best, we’ll be instantly forgettable; at worst, people will talk about us for all the wrong reasons.

A colleague recently told me about a piece of video content he’d watched: ‘After 10 minutes I’d lost the will to live. After 20, I’d lost the will for the vlogger to live.’ I trust my colleague, whereas I don’t know or trust that vlogger. Consequently, I didn’t watch the video.

There are a ton of online examples of desperate business owners employing attention-seeking methods to get eyes on their content. It can work once, maybe twice. But if we rely on shock, surprise, upset or gaining  sympathy with our audience, and no solution, our content-marketing successes will be short-lived.

Don’t puke over the reader
We all have problems – that doesn’t mean we have to vomit over our audience with our content. Plus, shock and controversy have a short shelf-life. Today’s audiences are easily desensitized and quickly bored, so high-quality problem-solving content will trump the shock factor every time.

Nothing should appear on our blogs that doesn’t help the reader move forward in some way. And if we can’t solve a problem, we should hold off, research and rewrite.
Only once we have a solution should we publish.

When we do solve problems, we make ourselves valuable. People are more likely to talk about, share, like and comment on our blog content.

And that has huge SEO benefits over time because the search engines love seeing evidence of a great user experience. Focus on solving the audience’s problems from the get-go and we are well on the way to building a platform that puts us top of mind and discoverable in the search engines.

Problem 2: The blog is published irregularly
Lack of regularity is probably the most common reason for blog failure. We do it for a bit, then run out of ideas, or time, or passion.

This is how a reader perceives a blog that publishes content irregularly:

• The blogger doesn’t know their stuff well enough to solve problems
• The blogger isn’t committed or can’t be bothered to solve problems

Those feelings don’t inspire trust. If your window cleaner couldn’t be bothered to clean your windows on a regular basis how quickly would you try to find a replacement? It’s the same with blogging. No one’s going to talk about or share our content if we can’t be bothered to create it regularly.

Earning the rankings and referrals
We have to earn the right to be top of mind for referrals and benefit from our colleagues’ and clients’ SEO-driving activity.

And without those likes and shares, Google won’t recognize us as business owners who are actively engaging. That will impact negatively on our rankings.

Build a blog plan
If you don’t have the time or commitment for blogging, that’s absolutely fine. Don’t do it – focus on making your business visible in other ways. Blogging is just one option.
However, if you do want your blog to be your primary content platform, the solution is to build a blog plan beforehand.

Here are four initial steps for your plan:

• Identify your audience. Consider colleagues as well as clients.
• Create 52 draft titles for problem-solving content. If you plan to publish once a week, that’s a year’s worth of content ideas; twice a month and you’ll have two years’ worth.
• Decide on your publication schedule.
• Draft your promotion schedule.

Here are four ideas for how to generate content:

• Take inspiration from your job. What do your clients and colleagues struggle with? What have you struggled with? Answer those questions on your blog.
• Take note of the questions people ask in your industry’s forums and at conferences. Answer those questions on your blog.
• Invite questions on your website via a box or pop-out.
• Review products, apps, courses, books, tools, forums and conferences related to your industry.

Here are four ideas for how to save time:

• Write efficiently – create batches of articles around a theme.
• Repurpose existing content (e.g. from slideshows, presentations, case studies, reports, guest articles, books, meetings and conferences) as blog posts.
• Update stale content using your existing knowledge base. Blogging is a journey and it’s perfectly acceptable to revisit old topics; you’re demonstrating your readiness to review and adapt.
• Set aside time in your working week for your blogging.

Problem 3: The blog is unnavigable
No one searches online for a blog. They search online for solutions. If they click through to our websites, the first place they’ll head for is unlikely to be the blog tab. And even if is, will our visitor find the answer to their problems in the content that’s visible on the first page of the blog?

If we only have 10 pieces of content, yes. What if we have 40? How about 500?

Second homes
The solution is to create second homes for our blog content – libraries, hubs, resource centres ... call them what you will.
​
I have two on my website – a self-publishers page and an editor resources page.

There is not one single piece of fresh content on those pages. They’re libraries of titled images that depict what problem I’m solving. However, if you click on the images you’ll end up reading the full articles on the blog.

These libraries help my audience find my very best content – the stuff that’s most likely to be talked about, get me known, and make my visitors think I’m helpful and knowledgeable.

I only started creating content for one of those libraries in May; it’s already the fourth most popular page on my site ... and that’s because it’s obvious what’s on offer and whom it’s for.

Few business bloggers funnel their content through to other pages, and it’s the biggest lost opportunity I can think of. Do this and you will stand out from your competitors for very little additional effort.
​
Here, we’re using our blog content to turn our websites into resource centres rather than all-about-me-and-how-great-I-am sites.

Problem 4: The blog is shallow
My marketing coaches Andrew and Pete preach the art of creating content that makes people fall in love with you. I love this idea because it focuses on emotion – of getting under people’s skin, making them feel something.

This sits nicely with the problem-solving principle discussed above. When we solve problems we make people feel something – happy, grateful, relieved, empowered.

Emotion born from solutions
Just to be clear, those emotions should be evoked as a result of our solving a problem. For example, our funnies alone won’t be enough to make anyone subscribe to and share our content in the long term. No one will waste time reading a funny photographer’s blog if he or she doesn’t solve photography problems too. That’s because if all we want is a laugh, Dara Ó Briain and Rich Hall will do it better.

Tone on top of solutions
Even if our content is technically good, we have competition. Readers need to hear our voices and our personalities in our posts so that we stand out. I tend to go for warm and friendly.

Other tone options might include cheeky, funny, blunt, sweary or ranty. All of that stuff is great but bear in mind that it’s just dressing at the end of the day. It should always hang on a body of solutions.

Going deeper with solutions
There are already a bajillion blogs with the basics just,  about everything. Repeating the same old stuff is boring, and boring blogs are a killer. We need to bring our blog posts alive with case studies (made-up ones if necessary), and stories based on our own experiences, so that our readers have gravy on the meat and two veg.

That kind of deeper detail draws people in, makes them feel like we’re really talking to them, not just stuffing our websites with keywords. That is not to say we shouldn’t aim our content at beginners or focus on the basics – far from it. Rather, our content needs to have personality and detail.

When we go deep we make an old subject sound fresh because it’s rich with our voices and our experiences.

Problem 5: The blog doesn’t fulfil audience expectations
I don’t visit a dentist’s website expecting to find a treatment for the verruca on my foot. I’m there to sort out my teeth. A blog needs to have a recognizable and understandable raison d’être too.

We’re busy and none of us has time to read everything, join every group, watch every vlog, listen to every podcast, do our jobs, and have a life. Blogs that don’t give people a very good reason to be there are doomed. They won’t be bookmarked, subscribed to or shared. If a reader doesn’t understand why they should bother, they’ll quickly lose patience and go elsewhere.

There are two reasons why an audience could become confused and disengage:
The content is coherent but isn’t aligned with the business creating it. This happens when the blogger has misunderstood the audience’s expectations even though there are myriad specialist solutions that could be offered.

The content is incoherent and there are too many audiences. This can happen when a business – usually a product-based one – can’t sustain long-term content creation around the product alone. To compensate, the blogger covers multiple topics for multiple audiences whose problems are already being solved in depth by relevant specialist bloggers elsewhere.

Here are two examples where those problems have been solved.

Coherent and aligned: The pro presenter
There’s plenty one can write about presenting, and that content can be targeted at non-presenters who need to tackle the process, and those who want to run a presentations business.

Relevant content might cover the following: dealing with stress, introversion, lack of confidence, speech impediments, organization and planning, which software to use, which venues are best, managing acoustics, scheduling, equipment, payment terms, contract problems, learning resources, apps and plugins to aid preparation, training opportunities, marketing a presentations business, getting published, creating engaging slides, finding and retaining clients, and so on.

The presenter is blogging about topics aligned to their core service and targeting an audience with problems related directly to it. The blog is therefore coherent and aligned.

Coherent and side-aligned: The condom company
There’s only so much one can write about condoms. Durex knows that it will not be able to sustain its audience’s interest in latex and lube, and there are only so many flavours and colours.

However, it also knows that its audience is interested in sex, otherwise people wouldn’t need condoms.

Durex has created a blog called Love Sex that offers all sorts of tips about perfect massages, advice on STDs, relationships, other forms of contraception, orgasms, positions ... you name it, it’s there.

It’s a very clever way of creating content about a related but more interesting issue.
If you can’t sustain long-term content creation around your product or service, shift your thinking sideways but make sure it’s focused on your audience’s problems.
Durex isn’t blogging about condoms, but it’s still focusing on content that’s related sideways to its core product. Its blog is therefore coherent and side-aligned.

Nudging with a name
Naming our blogs can help signal purpose. Mine’s called The Proofreader’s Parlour, which should be an indication that my focus is on words.

I also publish a lot of content about marketing, but it’s marketing for editors and proofreaders. And I offer content about training, but it’s training for editors and proofreaders. It’s not as interesting as the Durex blog but it solves my clients’ and colleagues’ problems and that’s all that matters!

Problem 6: The blog is invisible
Blogging without blog promotion is a supreme waste of time. It matters little that we’ve nailed all of the above if our blog’s invisible. We could spend hours crafting beautiful content for our target audience, but if we don’t invest the time or effort in making it visible it will have no purposeful business or economic value.

Superhero delivery
There are numerous ways to promote a blog, and what works for you might not work for me. One thing’s for sure though – social media is the superhero when it comes to content delivery.

Three huge platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – offer a superb suite of tools to help us get seen out there.

What clear is that it’s about more than just posting links and pretty pictures, now more than ever. Indeed, we have to work increasingly hard on these busy platforms with their ever-shifting algorithms.

However, persistence pays and there is no faster way to get your blog content, and your business, in front of people than by embracing social media.

Automating to make space for crafting
Content should be scheduled regularly because on some platforms, Twitter especially, the feed moves so fast that your blog-post links are more likely to be missed than seen. I post on Twitter ten times a day, seven days a week.

Automate your evergreen posts where you can (full automation will shortly not be possible on Twitter via the likes of Recurpost). That will free up time for posting manually on your core platforms. Manual posting allows us to craft our posts with the algorithms in mind.

An example: Crafting for Facebook
Here are some of the ways in which you might promote your blog content on Facebook:

• Upload blog posts natively (direct to the platform) rather than linking.
• Create mini summaries of a blog post on a Page that invite conversations. Place a link to the blog post in the first comment.
• Upload cute, shareable videos that summarize the core themes of a post.
• Run chatbot campaigns that include booklets repurposed from blog content.
• Upload vlog versions of blog content.
• If your broadband connection is stable, go live with a discussion of your content.
• Post links to blog posts in groups if that content answers a specific question. If in doubt check with the admins that this is acceptable practice.
• Join blog carnivals (threads of links to blog posts) in Facebook groups where the practice is encouraged. If it doesn’t yet exist, suggest it to the admins.

Six-tip summary

• Be purposeful with problem-solving
• Build trust with regular publishing
• Spotlight your best content in second homes
• Infuse the key takeaways with deeper stories and case studies
• Align or side-align your content with your business so that it makes sense for your audience to bother with it
• Commit to promotion so that your hard work is visible

​Good luck building a healthy blog!

Here's a free ebook (for those of you who missed it the first time round). Just click on the image to download your copy. And if you're ready to dig deep, take a look below at my new Blogging for Business Growth course.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Here are 5 ways to use audio to promote your book and create engagement with your readers.

This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #88

‘Listening is active. At its most basic level, it’s about focus, paying attention.’ Simon Sinek​

Does sound still engage? It does – audiences still absolutely love sound because they can do something else at the same time. Food for the time-hungry! 

I’ve deliberately not included audio books or podcasting. They’re both valuable ways of delivering your book and the story of your publishing journey, but need scaled-up levels of expertise, planning, equipment, time and money.

I’ve also excluded options that involve video – we’ll look at them in other dedicated resources (e.g. video book trailers, and online video launches). Today is all about sound!

​1. Narrate your own sample chapter
Narrating a chapter of your book is a lovely way to offer your fans the personal touch – for no other reason than they get to hear your voice. It’s a phonic version of Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’!

And it’s a totally different kettle of fish from a full audio book …

In Audio Book Production: A Primer for Indie Authors from an Audio-Book Producer, Ray Greenley, a professional voice narrator, explains how easy it isn’t to create a high-quality audio book yourself – one that’s fit for market and done to the highest standards. The equipment, the noise dampening, the time, the fluency, the editing – the author who takes on all of that has a will of iron and more than just a talent for writing. Narrating is, after all, a very different skill to writing.

With a sample chapter, though, you don’t need to worry about any of that. It’s a taster, a way for your audience to enter the world you’ve created via the sound of your voice. And because you – the author – are providing all the emphasis and tone of voice, listeners know they’re experiencing the world you created exactly the way you intended it.

They’ll even forgive you if you stammer, or mispronounce a word, or stumble halfway through a sentence and have to go back to the beginning. They’ll forgive you if the dog barks, or a siren wails, or your office chair squeaks … because you’re engaging with them, speaking to them.

Don’t get me wrong, it has to be listenable. If it’s such poor quality that the sirens, dogs, and stumbles are so frequent that the sample is painful to engage with, you’ll do yourself no favours. But a little blip here and there is fine.

Audio samples, like written ones, are gifts from you to your reader. They’re charming, and generous, and your fans will love the fact that you’ve taken the time to record one for them.

I asked my own marketing coaches and some of my colleagues what they use to upload audio to their websites. SoundCloud got an overwhelming thumbs-up. There’s a free option, too.

A YouTube video with a thumbnail picture would be another option. If you’re uploading natively to your website this could slow down load times so, instead, embed a link and host the content on your YouTube channel. In case your audience clicks through to YouTube, make sure you include all the relevant book-buy links under the video on your channel. Be sure to include captions for those who choose to engage with the sound muted (it happens … a lot!).

You don’t need an expensive mic either. I have a Blue Snowball, which works brilliantly, looks charming, and came in at under fifty quid. I chose it because I wanted something decent that would allow me to create video without being encumbered with a headset. However, if you’re just doing audio, you can probably get away with a headset/mic system for under £25. Try different options and see what gives the best results.

2. Giveaways – usable audio content
For non-fiction, you could take the audio sample to the next level. Give away an audio version of one chapter of valuable, usable content – something your listener can actually solve a problem with.

This is a powerful offering and goes well beyond the plot taster of a novel.

For example, imagine you’ve self-published a marketing book for small businesses. One of the chapters is dedicated to Pay Per Click (PPC). The chapter outlines the principles behind PPC advertising, and offers guidance on which businesses would or wouldn’t benefit from this strategy, and why.

You create an audio version of this chapter – and because it’s something that your target audience can listen to and use to make informed decisions about an aspect of their digital promotion strategy, they’re compelled to buy the written version and extract all your words of wisdom!
​
In this case, you’ve repurposed valuable business content but in a deeply personalized way. 

3. Host a live sound event
Readers love live author events. The Norwich branch of Waterstones has hosted a stack of live author readings. I’ve been to see Garth Nix, Jonathon Pinnock, and Alison Moore.

With an audio-only version, you’re recreating the feel of a radio author event because the audience gets to talk to you afterwards and ask questions. Ideally, you’ll want the stream to be recorded so that it’s available as archive content afterwards.

Daniel J Lewis, in ‘New live streaming options for podcasters’, says, ‘Maybe you want all the interaction and accountability of live-streaming, but you don't have the technology or bravery for video. That's when an audio-only live stream can be a great choice. It also makes a good option for those with lower bandwidth.’

So what are the options?

Mixlr and Spreaker are Lewis’s recommendations for those looking for lower-cost solutions.

Another option is using the audio-only option of Facebook Live. This has slightly less flexibility in that all the engagement with your listeners will take place in the comments below. Still, this could have some advantages in that you have a record of what people are asking, and if you don’t have time to handle all the questions, you can join in the written discussion later.

Live audio streaming is public and, obviously, live. You don’t get to edit if things go wrong … which is great because it adds emotion and excitement to the event, but requires a little courage. Make sure you have some friends in on the gig who have your back if you’re new to this type of engagement.
 
One of the best things about reader-facing author events is that fans can get a signed copy of the book. In the digital world, this is tricky.
​
How about this as an alternative? Get some promo postcards printed; the front will feature your book’s cover. At the end of the show, invite people to email you with their postal addresses if they’d like to receive a signed postcard with a personal message or dedication. You could team this up with an invitation to join your mailing list so that they don’t miss out on future events.

4. Broadcast an interview
This requires more effort but it’s worth it because it allows you to talk about the journey of your book and your journey as a writer.

You’ll need an interviewer and a script.

It’s tempting for the inexperienced sound eventer to think that a script will detract from the flow and authenticity of the broadcast. It won’t. A script ensures everything stays on track, that the questions and answers are remembered, that neither of you ramble off on a tangent or fall off a pregnantly paused cliff.

You could do a swap with a fellow author, perhaps someone from your writing group – you interview them and they return the favour. That way you both get to promote your books and share your thoughts on the challenges and joys of writing and self-publishing.
​
Again, SoundCloud is a good option here (or YouTube).

5. Audio sign-up requests
In ‘9 ways to use audio’, digital marketer Steve Cartwright asks: ‘When your target audience clicks to get more information for your products and services, do you think it would make a difference if you were actually talking to them with your voice to explain what you have to offer?’

Most of you are probably already building your mailing list. Perhaps you include links at the end of your written books, blog articles and website book pages that encourage people to sign up to your newsletter. This is the perfect place to test whether you can increase your sign-rates by using your voice to ask your readers to join the party.

If you’re not building a mailing list, consider these wise words of experience from full-time, self-published crime writer Jeff Carson:

‘I have a newsletter email list. This is one of those things I heard people preaching but never did anything about. It took me four freaking books to finally put my email list in place. But I finally did, and that’s when I was finally able to write full time. It only took two days to write and publish a short story, which I give away on my blog as a thank-you if somebody signs up for the new-release newsletter. Now, when I have a new release, I launch the book to thousands of people, versus dropping it into a field of crickets.’

How about doing the same thing, but asking people to join that newsletter with your voice?

Other things to consider with audio

• If you fancy adding some animation to your audio, take a look at the Music Visualisation Video Creator.
• Don’t forget to include discount coupons and book-buy links under your audio stream, wherever you host it.
• Always include a call to action, so your listener knows exactly what you want them to do.
• Be available to your readers – let them know how they can contact you.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Available now!
Social Media for Business Growth shows you how to use social media platforms to increase your visibility, expand your audience, reinforce your brand and generate leads ... without falling into a rabbit hole and without spending any money.

This is the first course in the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series ... online marketing classes that enable editors, proofreaders, indexers, translators and other wordy folk to develop a compelling and recognizable business presence.

The social media kit
You'll receive access to a social media fingerprint kit comprising:

• a recorded webinar (1 hour 50 mins)
• a 92-page ebook
• a PDF tip sheet
• a 14-page PDF strategy checklist
• quick-access links to related materials
• additional video tutorials exclusive to Fingerprint students
• a 20% discount coupon

No limits on access
Some online courses restrict the period of access to the materials. I think you should be able to choose when you study. 

After you've bought Social Media for Business Growth you can access the class whenever you wish ... whether that's immediately after you've created your login or 8 months down the road.

And for your convenience, you can download the supporting PDFs to multiple devices, multiple times ... whatever works best for you. Just log in, watch, click and grab whenever you like.

On-demand tutorials ... at no extra cost
My training approach is dynamic. Here's how it works ...

Each course comes with additional tutorials available exclusively to Fingerprint students ... videos that show you how to use some of the tools I refer to in the training.

​However, the content will expand over time. So if there's something else you need that's directly related to the course, I'll create a custom walk-through, visible to you and any other student who's bought the class ... but none of you will pay a penny more.

And because there are no time restrictions, you'll have lifetime access to an ever-expanding library in which to achieve your goals.

For more details about the class content, or to sign up, go to Social Media for Business Growth.

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

The topic of editing and proofreading rates is always hot in our community. And the 'race to the bottom' especially has been known to garner more attention than an Olympic 100-metre final. So what should we do about it?

Competing with cheap
Here in Norwich there’s a mall. In that mall is a discount store selling techie stuff ... phones, tablets and whatnot. You go into that shop expecting a deal.

It’s where people go when they’re price-shopping. Not because they’re terrible people who are always looking for cheap but because the coffers are low. Maybe the car failed its MOT and they had to find an extra seven hundred quid that month. Or they recently lost their job. Or something.

In that mall on the floor above is an Apple store selling shiny things for shiny people. You don’t go into that shop expecting a deal. You go in expecting to pay what you have to pay to get the shiny thing you want.
​
It’s where people go when they’re product- or service-shopping. The coffers are flush. The car passed its MOT and the job is secure. Or something.

All clients are not the same
Now, Apple could decide not to have a store in that mall. It could say, ‘This is ridiculous. No one’s going to buy our stuff when they can get similar products from the shop on the floor below for one fifth of the price. Being in that mall is a race to the bottom.’

But Apple doesn’t say that. Why? Because it knows that the customers who come into the mall aren’t all the same. Some won’t come near its store because the prices are too high. But others – those who are looking specifically for an Apple product, those who are Apple fans, those whose cars passed their MOTs – might pay Apple a visit.

If it doesn’t have a store in the mall, Apple knows it will lose the custom of all the people who’d like to buy there but can’t because it’s decided not to set up shop ... and all because it got the hump about the race-to-the-bottom store on the floor below.

In fact, Apple doesn’t focus on the store below. It doesn’t care what that store is charging. That store can service the price-shoppers – those customers whose budgets are limited – because those customers are NOT Apple’s customers.

Instead, Apple invests its energy in making the service-shoppers – its fans – have an amazing experience ... lots of knowledgeable, passionate staff on hand, a Genius Bar, technicians out back who’ll fix or replace a product in-store or replace it, and lots of lovely shiny stuff to play with while we wait.

Apple knows that there’s room in the mall for both types of store and both types of customer.
​
And it’s the same for editors and proofreaders.

Standing up for the market or hiding behind a curtain?
If you decide not to make yourself visible in particular directories or other online spaces because you know there are colleagues charging what you consider to be unacceptably low rates, and you think no one will hire you because you’re charging more, you’re assuming that all clients are the same. But they’re not.

Some clients will have low incomes or busted cars that need expensive repairs, and they will be attracted to the discount editors. Some will have more flexible budgets and will be focused on finding the right-fit editor first and foremost. Price will not be the clincher for the latter group.

However, clients can only commission services from an editor whom they know exists. If you have the hump about the race to the bottom and have decided not to join the party, you’re not standing up for the editorial market. All you’re doing is hiding behind the curtain, making yourself invisible to those clients who would have liked to work with you if they’d been able to find you.

And don’t forget that Google is the biggest directory of all. There’s no other online space with more editors in it. Some of them are cheap as chips. Has that stopped you having a website? No. The same logic should apply elsewhere.

How to be the Apple editor
Of course, we can’t have it both ways. If we don’t want to compete with discount editors then we need to get attention in a way that shifts the client’s focus away from price.

Expecting to benefit from the same footfall as the discount editor without offering a compelling alternative is just wanting to have our cake and eat it.

We need to stand out for some other reason. We need to make the client think: That editor looks perfect for me, seems to get me, is really generous and knowledgeable. I hope she’s available and that if I save up I can afford her.

Sure, the price-focused clients aren’t going to touch us with a barge pole. But that’s fine because we’re not targeting them; we’re targeting the service-focused clients.

​To be the Apple editor we need to present potential clients with an amazing experience – a story that says we have solutions, that we have their backs, that we can help them achieve their goals ... a story that persuades them we’re worth waiting for and worth paying for.

It’s about the words we use to convey our understanding of our clients’ problems.

It’s about the images we use to convey our professional values. Blurry headshots with our mates or kids in them won’t do.

It’s about how we instil trust. Telling them that we know our stuff – that we have the skills, the knowledge and the experience – is one thing. Showing them with free resources and a knowledge base that helps them more easily walk the publication path ... that’s quite another.

Time well spent on standing out
Every minute we spend worrying about what other editors are charging is a minute in which we could be building our own compelling brand identity and creating our own valuable resources, stuff that helps our potential clients feel we’re the right fit.

Every directory that we don’t advertise in because we think it’s a race to the bottom is another tick on our invisibility list.

If you’re invisible, it doesn’t matter how high your prices are. No one will hire you. Not because your prices are too high but because you can’t be seen. Being invisible is of no economic value to any editor or proofreader.

So charge what you want to charge. If you want to compete on price, go ahead. If you want to compete on compulsion, go ahead.

The compulsion route isn’t easy. It means investing time and effort in standing out – all that content marketing stuff I bang on about! It means thinking deeply about how every word of your directory entries and every page of your website helps a potential client and makes them feel that you’re just too wowser to ignore.

All that hard graft pays off though. You can sit beside the cheaper editors without fear. You can let them have the price-shoppers while you work with those who can afford you.

Just like Apple and the discount store, we’re dealing with two different markets.

​The idea that your business could be undermined by a colleague charging way lower than what you deem to be acceptable is, says Jake Poinier, ‘nonsense. Creative freelancing is a market, and only you can establish the value you bring to it. I don’t view the low end of the freelance rate scale as my competition’ (Stop worrying about freelancers who undercharge). I agree with Jake.

Honestly, there’s room for everyone. Don’t waste your valuable time on the issue. Instead, build your business, your brand identity, your visibility and your value. Therein lies success.

Want a reminder of this article? Download this free ebook to your preferred device. Just click on the image to get your copy!

Yolanda is a self-published author who wants to build a fiction proofreading and copyediting business. In this Q&A I consider the steps she should take to get her editorial business off the ground and fit for purpose.

Says Yolanda:

I am a fiction author located in U.S. and I've been self-publishing for almost 6 years under various pen names. I still work full-time (over 20 years in the administrative field), however I would like to start a freelance career as a fiction proofreader/copy-editor. I am a certified legal proofreader but outside of my day job & my own books I don't have experience proofing. I intend to use freelance job sites & my connections with self-published authors to build my portfolio. As far as blogging, I'm not sure what I would discuss since my focus is fiction & I'm not an expert yet to give other proofreaders advice.
 
What would be my next steps to transition from fiction author to fiction proofreader/ copy-editor for self-published authors as far as getting my business up & running, classes (if any), pricing, etc?
 
Hi, Yolanda!

Thanks for your question. I’ve broken down my advice as follows:

• Training
• Services
• Visibility ... especially content marketing
• Pricing

 
Training
I think you’re wise to consider training. It’s essential that your knowledge of grammar, spelling and punctuation conventions is top-notch. If it’s not, you won’t be able to correct your clients’ files to industry standards.

I'd recommend that you search for a grammar brush-up course as a first step. That will enable you to discover whether your technical knowledge is on point and if there are any weaknesses that you need to attend to. Here are a couple of options for you to consider: 

• Grammar Lion (via Ellen Feld)
• Grammar 1 and Grammar 2 (via Copyediting)

Fiction work does require an empathetic hand because editors and proofreaders are often faced with the dilemma of how to amend such that we remove errors and improve readability but respect narrative voice and flow.

However, it’s only when you know what a problem is that you can decide whether to fix it! Training is absolutely the right place to discover your weak points. Better that than via a disgruntled client.

Your second step should be to undertake professional editorial skills training. This will be of particular use to you because it'll move you into the editing mindset and away from the authorial one that you're used to.

I appreciate that you've self-edited, but editing one's own work is a very different proposition to offering professional services to paying customers, as you clearly realize. 
 
Professional training will also enable you to determine the level of intervention that each type of editing requires. In turn, that will help you avoid scope-creep and undercharging. Especially when proofreading, knowing when to leave well enough alone is an art in itself!

Here are some reputable US-based programmes to consider:

• Editorial Freelancers Association: Education
• Copyediting: Individual Training
• Editcetera: Educational Programs
• University of Chicago: Editing Certificate Program
• University of California San Diego: Copyediting Certificate

Services
You’ll need to develop a service model that differentiates between the different levels of editing. Many self-publishing authors don’t know the differences between proofreading, copyediting, line editing, and developmental editing.

Many editors' definitions vary too. And so while the lines are often blurred, especially when we compare different independent editors’ service descriptions, professional training will help you clarify how you'll describe your services so that your clients understand exactly what’s on offer.

You can see some examples of how I’ve tackled definitional issues here:

• The different levels of editing. Proofreading and beyond
• Louise Harnby: Proofreader & Copyeditor: Services

I’d advise taking a look at a range of editors’ websites to familiarize yourself with the breadth of services on offer and the way your future colleagues describe these. There’s no right or wrong. Rather, it’s all about clear communication and helping the client understand how you can solve their problems.

Visibility
Blogging needn't necessarily be your primary content platform, though I think it works well for editors and proofreaders because our wordy clients are comfortable with wordy information!

Even if you don't concentrate on vlogging or podcasting, at least think about how you can introduce audio-visual material into your marketing mix in order to stand out and offer your audience alternative ways to get what you're offering.

You don’t need to focus on colleagues either. Far from it. Fifty per cent of my content is created for beginner authors.

I’d recommend you consider using your experience as a self-published author of fiction to guide potential clients on how to navigate their own publishing journeys.

Think about what their problems and questions might be. Think about what your own problems and questions were! For example, you mentioned having used a pen name; that would be an interesting topic to any beginner author wondering whether they should publish under their own name.

Great content marketing solves problems. If you decide to blog, offer fantastic value by helping other writers solve their conundruns using all your knowledge and experience ... the rough and the smooth. Everything you’ve learned on your own journey has the potential to help others.

Don’t forget that your experience of self-publishing can be used as a unique selling point that makes you stand out. Combine that with high-quality training and you’ll be on the way to building a compelling online presence.

Consider how you might make your content visible beyond the blog (or vlog or podcast) by creating a resource hub that makes what you’ve created accessible via different pages on your website.

It’s my belief that having an individual, standout online fingerprint is essential for those entering the editorial freelancing market. There’s too much competition out there to create a website that looks just like everyone else’s. So do focus on your marketing so that over time you can be as discoverable as possible.
 
Here are a few examples:

• Louise Harnby: Proofreader & Copyeditor: Self-publishers
• Lisa Poisso. Book Editor. Writing Coach: Clarity: Tools and Skills for Authors
• Julie Gray Story Editing: Writer Resources

Pricing
Many national editorial societies have guidelines or suggested minimums for what editors should charge. I look at these but don’t use them to determine my own rates because they distract me from the important things than any pricing model needs to take account of. These are:

• What I need to earn in order to make my business viable (e.g. my expenses)
• What I want to earn in order to achieve job satisfaction
• What various clients will pay

In relation to your needs, it matters little if the Editorial Freelancers Association thinks that $30–50 per hour is a common and acceptable rate for copyediting if you need $70 per hour to keep the bailiffs from the door.

With that in mind, when you start to think about pricing, work out first what you need to earn as a minimum to make your business viable. That’s your baseline. From there you can work upwards to what you want to earn and what your clients will bear.
 
Self-publishing authors aren’t a homogeneous market when it comes to writing skill, genre or budget. Some will be shopping for an editor whose fees are lower than that which you need to earn. Others will be prepared to pay more than you want to earn. Yet others will sit somewhere in the middle.

It’s not only the budget that will vary; your authors' locations will too. And so if your potential client is based in Sweden, it’s likely that what $40 will buy in Sweden is not the same as what it will buy in the US.

Since the cost of living varies from country to country, what an American client thinks is a high rate might seem an absolute steal to the Swede. And that’s another problem with professional association pricing tables – they focus on the domestic market whereas your potential market lies well beyond the sovereign state in which you reside.

That’s why it makes more sense to build your pricing model on your own needs rather than some notion that there’s one universally applicable rate (or range) for editing or proofreading. There isn’t.

There’s some excellent detailed guidance on editorial rate-setting from Rich Adin on the American Editor blog. Start with the following:

• Business of Editing: What to Charge (Part I)
• Business of Editing: The Quest for Rate Charts

 
Sign-off
I hope all that gives you a few ideas for how to move forward, Yolanda, and I wish you well on your editorial business-building journey!

There’s plenty more information on my blog in the following archives: Money Matters, Marketing, Starting Out and Training. Dig into that and start connecting with other editorial pros online. There are lots of us on Facebook (the Editors’ Association of Earth is a good place to start), Twitter and LinkedIn ... and beyond!

See you there!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

Countdown to Christmas finishes today and this is your final gift – I hope you find it useful!
​
Click on the image below to get your resource!

Merry Christmas!

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

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

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

One of my author clients asked me how to set up automatic blog-post delivery to her subscribers via MailChimp. Here's a video walk-through.

MailChimp frequently updates its settings. If you find this video no longer works for you, feel free to give me a nudge so I can create a revised tutorial.

If you prefer to read the instructions, here they are:

Assumptions

• You have an existing MailChimp account (you can use MailChimp for free if you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers).
• You’ve created a sign-up form on your website to encourage blog subscription.
• That subscription list is managed via your MailChimp account.

Step 1 (as of December 2017)

• Login and select Campaigns from the dashboard.
• Click Create Campaign.

Step 2

• Select Create an Email.

Step 3

• Select Automated.
• Click on Share blog updates.

Step 4

• Give your auto-delivery campaign a name.
• Choose the subscription list you’ll deliver to.
• Select Begin.

Step 5

• Find your RSS feed (try pasting the URL of your blog first. This will usually enable MailChimp to locate the feed).
• If that fails, add the your blog feed icon to your website. Publish your site, click on the icon and copy the feed address in the browser window.
• If that doesn’t work, try clicking somewhere on your blog page and selecting View Page Source. Search for RSS. The feed URL is found between the quotes after href=.

Step 6

• Enter the blog-feed URL.
• Select your delivery options.

Step 7

• Tell MailChimp whom you’ll be delivering to (probably Entire List).
• In the next window, you can leave most of the boxes as they are, though consider checking the personalization box and amending the From Name text to your name.

Step 8

• Now select a template. I use Basic: 1 column so that there’s less to delete when I set up the feed.

Step 9

• Amend the template.
• Click on and delete the preset elements.
• Drag and drop in RSS Items.

Step 10

• Amend the style to determine what readers see.

Step 11

• Preview your feed then select Start RSS.

That's it! You're done!

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

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

This latest Q&A is for Eloise, who is right at the beginning of her proofreading and editing business journey and is keen to get her content marketing underway. Here's her conundrum: should she blog, vlog or podcast? 

Hi, Louise! I’m based in the US and am in the process of setting up a new proofreading and editing business. I’ve been reading your blog and searching online elsewhere for guidance on getting seen.
 
A lot of people are talking about how video and podcasting are the big things. Would I be better off carving my niche with one of those, or is a blog still viable? I’ve read articles saying that blogging is on the way out but it’s still my preferred option. Your advice, please!

Hi, Eloise. That’s a great question! And congratulations on embracing a content marketing strategy early on. The sooner you start, the quicker you’ll see results.
 
I’m going to break down your question into three sections.

• What does your audience prefer?
• Which channel best communicates what you’re offering?
• Why blogging isn’t dead ... and what you need to pay attention to

 
What does your audience prefer?
I think this is the key issue. How you and I would prefer to carve out a niche is less important than what our target audiences want.
 
I know a lot of pro marketers who have podcasts and vlogs and blogs. However, they still tend to focus on one channel and repurpose the content for others because:
 
(a) they need to appeal to broad audiences with multiple preferences, but
(b) they still only have 24 hours in a day.  
 
The situation for the editor is, I think, less demanding. I’m not for a minute suggesting that authors, students, charities, businesses and academics don’t consume audio-visual content. They do.
 
I’m suggesting that since they’re looking for editors and proofreaders to help them with their writing, our providing content in written form makes sense.
Blogging is therefore a good fit – a natural solution – because people with wordy problems are more likely to feel at home on wordy platforms.
 
Think, too, about search. An academic looking for guidance on how to style her citations according to Chicago is more likely to search on Google than on YouTube, and unlikely to search on Pinterest.
 
Now, of course, the search engines don’t link only to written content – not at all – and the more audio-visual content there is, the more it will show up in the search engines.
 
However, highly ranked content holds its position because the search engine algorithms have deemed it interesting and valuable, based on the extent to which it’s linked to, shared, liked, commented on, and for how long people are engaging with it.
 
We’re more likely to get positive responses to our content if we’re using channels that are suitable. And this is where I worry that the podcast and the vlog are not ideal primary platforms for editorial content ...
 
Which channel best communicates what you’re offering?
What works best will be determined by the nature of your content and what your audience wants to do with it. Here are a couple of examples:

• Explaining point of view: Some of my authors are still developing their story craft and I wanted to offer guidance on narrative point of view. I’m not a developmental editor so I asked a specialist, my friend Sophie Playle, to guest for me.
  
  ​What she produced was a detailed, informative overview of what is a complex subject. The written examples from published works that she used to illustrate her examination were superb examples of narrative POV in action. (See
  Slipping into character – understanding the impact of narrative point of view.)
  
  Imagine the pickle we’d have got into if she’d tried to do that with video or audio!

 

• Demonstrating proper citation: Some early-career academics struggle with formatting citations and references according to industry-recognized style guides such as APA or OSCOLA.
  
  Content that shows them how to do it right is high value. Can you imagine doing that with audio? I can’t.
  
  Video could work if there were screenshots, but what a bore it would be for the viewer who wanted to return to the guidance later but couldn’t remember the time-stamp marker where the fabulously useful advice bounced onto the screen.

 
Creating great content is about value, but also about accessibility. We need to ensure that our audience can get the help they need as quickly as possible and in a way that makes it usable. Otherwise they’ll become frustrated and go elsewhere.
 
The beauty of the blog is that our audience can scan, grab, like and share quickly. That’s what marketers call a ‘good user experience’. I call it making people happy.
 
Why blogging isn’t dead
I’ve read those articles too. I’m flummoxed by them. They seem to assume that there’s only one market and that it’s full of people with the same problems, and that those people want to access solutions in the same format.
 
That’s not the case. It can’t possibly be so for the reasons I’ve already discussed.
 
I have evidence too. In 2017, my website received 343,302 page views (green column below). Google Analytics tells me that my blog content was the primary driver. I create content not only for authors but also for proofreaders and editors (it’s how you found me) and it shows that I’m ranking in the search engines for the questions people are asking and that I’m providing answers for.

Of course, that didn’t happen overnight; it’s taken me seven years to generate that level of discoverability. I believe that the increase this year's page views can be accounted for by a more purposeful approach to branding, scheduling, social media sharing, and content scope.
 
And while most of those visitors are colleagues (or people thinking about entering the industry), my being discoverable in Google for keyword search terms such as proofreading drives clients my way.

You might also be interested in technical writer John Espirian's recent analysis. John started posting regularly on his blog only two years ago and he's been purposeful about branding, scheduling, sharing and scope right from the get-go.

​He's found a significant correlation between his page views and his blogging. I think his results are superb and demonstrate how powerful blogging still is in terms of visitors to one's website. 

You can see the full discussion on LinkedIn here.
​
Some of the objections raised in regard to blogging are as follows:

• It’s not mobile-friendly
• It can’t be digested in multiple formats (unlike, say, video, which can be listened to as well as watched)
• People are less likely to subscribe to blogs these days
• Blogs are dense and text-heavy
• Blogs are less emotive than video or audio

 
I believe there are solutions to these potential problems and I’d therefore recommend paying attention to the following:
 
Mobile-friendly
Make sure your website is responsive. That way, all the content – from your blog to your home page – will be readable on a mobile device. (See also Checking your website’s mobile display: Lessons from a proofreader.)
 
Try to keep your paragraphs short – anything more than two to three sentences on your laptop or desktop screen will appear as a wall of text on a smart phone.
 
Multiple formats
There’s nothing to stop you repurposing your blog content and introducing other media into the mix. For example, you could include short introductory videos about the blog post that could be used on social media to drive readers to your site.

You could also introduce video tutorials into the mix, if and when they're relevant. I've done this with the installation instructions for my digital proofreading marks. Some of my colleagues have created excellent tutorials on macros and using Word's styles function.
 
Or you might also create PDF versions of your blog posts so that readers can download the content to their preferred devices and read it at their leisure. Here’s an example of something I created to alongside my article Should a writer hire a freelance editor before submitting to an agent? And should editors accept the work?

Subscription numbers
Just because people aren’t subscribing doesn’t mean they aren’t reading, sharing, liking, commenting and linking to a blog.
 
I began building my subscription list only a few months ago so it currently stands at 673. Compare that with 343,302 page views this year and it becomes clear that readership doesn’t equal sign-up.

It’s lovely to see people subscribing and visiting our sites but there’s a limit to how much we should dwell on the numbers. Someone else might have a website with much lower page-view numbers than mine but be targeting their core clients just as effectively and achieving their business goals.

The big issue is whether we’re discoverable by those who need our help and want to commission our services or buy our books, training courses and other products.

Do we have a visible online fingerprint? Does that help our potential clients to find us? And are we securing the kind of work we want at the fee we desire? Those are the questions we should be focusing on.
 
Density
Current evidence suggests that longer blog posts get more likes and shares (see The Ideal Length for Blog Posts, Tweets, and Everything Else in Your Marketing). That can mean that our content is text-heavy.
 
Two thousand words of waffle won’t do the blogger any favours so quality is always paramount. Focus on solving people’s problems and you won’t go far wrong.
 
And if that means walls of text, break them up – not only with paragraph breaks and headers but also boxes, quotes images (Canva is your friend!), and bites of video or audio.
 
Emotional connection
There’s no doubt that when it comes to hearing someone’s voice and seeing their smile audio and video have the edge. That’s another reason why you might decide to add these media into the mix.
 
But written content can be emotive too. When we solve people’s problems we make them feel something – relief, appreciation, a sense that they’re not alone, that they’re being listened to.
 
I’m hoping you feel I’ve listened to you by dedicating this Q&A to your question and that you feel happy as a result. And I hope that you’ll share this post and visit again. That’s a win for both of us.  
 
And if you publish consistently useful, emotive stuff on your blog on a regular basis, you’ll build trust. When we’re trusted, our content is more likely to be shared and linked to ... sometimes even before the reader has had time to look at it.
 
You can enhance those trust levels by making your blog posts recognizable, for example by incorporating images with a consistent design and your brand colours.
 
Delivery
Getting eyes on your blog is tricky at the beginning. Social media is the most powerful delivery tool available and should be incorporated into any content marketing strategy.
 
Invisible content is of no value to you or your audience so build your network and use it to share what you’re publishing.
 
Even if your blog content is solely focused on clients’ problems, other editors and proofreaders will also be interested because their clients might have similar concerns.
 
Plus, colleagues are advocates. The international editorial community is beyond generous ... unusually so, I think. Engage with it, share your blog content with it, and give back what you get through reciprocation. If you create high-quality posts, your editorial friends will support you, I promise.
 
What should you do?
If your target audience wants to receive your content in written format, and that’s something you want to embrace, you should blog.
 
Blogging isn’t on the way out. It’s as vibrant as ever ... as long as the content is giving people what they need, discoverable by those who need it, and readable on the devices they’re using.

And to answer the final part of your question, I am absolutely going to continue blogging – I think that for our audience nothing beats it. I’m excited (and nervous!) about incorporating audio and video but the blog will remain my primary channel until further notice!

Let me know when yours is live!

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

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​In this series, I’ll show you several ways to use a chatbot to engage with your readers, expand your fan base and put a smile on people’s faces! Today, the focus is on building a bot campaign to market a book on Facebook.

Bots are still a massively underused tool so incorporating them into your book-promotion strategy now will help you to stand out. 

This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #86

What’s a chatbot?
In short, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation. I built my own chatbot in August.

Yes, it's a computer program but it's helping me digitally with my business so I wanted it to have a face and a name that I could work into my chatbot marketing campaigns.

I called it Lulu and asked my friend, illustrator Rachel Holmes, to create the design. I think she did a great job of putting the art into artificial intelligence ... this is what Lulu looks like! Cute, isn’t she?

Here are a few things you should know about the chatbot tools I’ll show you:

• They’re versatile – allowing conversation, navigation, delivery and engagement
• No programming or coding knowledge is required
• Forget Tay – you retain complete control over the interaction
• They’re tons of fun!

Building your bot
My preferred bot-building platform is ManyChat. It’s straightforward to navigate and I appreciate being able to run four simultaneous live campaigns free of charge. 

There are restrictions with the free version – for example, you can’t automatically transfer subscribers to your mailing list – but you can still do a huge amount without spending a bean.

In this article I’m focusing on how to use the Facebook comments growth tool for book marketing. To follow my lead you'll need to have set up your own ManyChat account and linked it to your Facebook Page.

The ManyChat Facebook comments campaign 
Where to find it: Growth tools > New growth tool > Other growth tools > Facebook comments.

Potential goals: Pre-launch promotion, fan-base engagement, mailing-list growth, sample-chapter delivery, conversation, landing-page link, and bookstore pre-order.

Here’s an image of the fake book I've knocked up for demonstration purposes. In my sample promotion campaign, I’m offering fans the opportunity to enter a free draw. The winner will have their name assigned to a key supporting character.

​Let's see how we can use a chatbot and a Facebook Page to deliver this campaign and achieve the goals outlined above.
​
The strategy
Here's how it works. Facebook wants to keep people on Facebook – the longer people stick around, the more likely they are to click on paid ads. And if advertisers generate leads with their ads, they’re likely to buy more. That means more money for Facebook.

Facebook also wants to provide a good user experience because that will encourage more people use the platform.

Users who are having a good time will feel informed, engaged, entertained and helped. Facebook's algorithm identifies content that ticks those boxes and prioritizes it. Key indicators are likes, shares, comments and time spent engaging with a post (e.g. when watching a video).

The more engagement you create on a Page post, the more Facebook will reward you for your neighbourly behaviour by pushing your content beyond your existing community (friends, followers and likers).

Comments are the powerhouse behind this campaign tool.

A great way to generate a comment is to offer something in return. I've given away free ebooklets and checklists that help writers with self-editing, and fellow editors and proofreaders with professional development.

If you promote your book on Facebook by posting a nice piccy and a link to your website where there’s, say, a free sample chapter, you’re pushing people off Facebook. But if you offer that same sample right there on Facebook, you’re keeping your visitors on Facebook’s land. And so you’ll be rewarded with increased audience reach. 

ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool allows you to do exactly this: a trigger word in the comments tells your bot to deliver your freebie to the commenter via Facebook Messenger. Your fan doesn't have to leave the platform to get the goodies.

The offer – ideas for you to steal
Your offer must be strong enough to compel someone to comment. Here are some ideas for you to try:

• entry into a free draw for the commenter’s name to be assigned to a character in the book (this is the offer I've chosen for the sample campaign in this article)
• free ebook (a short story, novella or other book you’ve published)
• sample chapter
• discount voucher/code
• invitation to a book signing/reading

The build
There are two core elements to the build – the onboard ManyChat tool and the Facebook post. 

1. ManyChat
I recommend starting with ManyChat. Here's how to create a campaign:

• Set up your campaign: Growth tools > New growth tool > Other growth tools > Facebook comments.
• Give you campaign a name. Scroll down the page and enter the trigger word you'll be instructing your commenters to writer on your Facebook post (it’s not case sensitive).
• Save and click on Next.

• Now you're in the Auto-response pane. This is where you create the first message that your commenter will receive in Messenger. It’s effectively where they subscribe so it’s important to tell them how they can opt out if they so wish. For the purposes of this campaign, the list of names that the bot collects will be those who are entered into the draw.
• The image below shows the message I created for my mock campaign. To prevent spamming, ManyChat requires that the person carries out another action to opt in. I ask them to type SEND.
• Use the person icon in the black box in the bottom-right-hand corner to personalize the greeting in your message.
• Save, scroll down and select Next again.

• Now you're in the Opt-in Actions pane. This is where you can start to be creative. When creating your message, think about your goals; then add buttons, links, and supporting images to help your customer get what you're offering.
• First, ensure that the middle button is checked in the Sending Options list.
• Then click Edit.

• Now you can create another personalized message and add images, videos, audio, files and buttons. So, if, for example, you were giving away a free sample chapter or ebook, you'd click on the File (paperclip) icon and upload your PDF.

• ​​For demonstration purposes I've kept things simple: an image and a message that tells people when the draw will take place.
• I've also elected to create two buttons: one to allow the commenter to have a real conversation with me on Messenger, and one linking to my book's Amazon pre-order sales page.
• To create the direct conversation button, click on New Button #1. 

• Customize the button text.

• Now use the scrollbar to move down the page. Select Action.

• Select Open Conversation from the menu, and click on Done.

• To create a button with a link to your website (or, as I’ve done here, to the book’s pre-order page on Amazon) click on +Add Button.
• Amend your button text and click on Open website.

• Add the URL and click on Done.

• Now test your setup using the Preview button. You’ll receive a message in Messenger that mimics what your visitor will receive.
• If everything’s working properly, select Publish. 

2. Facebook Page
Now go to your Facebook Page. Create a new post that tells your audience about your promotion and the trigger word they need to write in the comments to get the offer. Including a picture or native video is also a great way to draw attention to your post.

Here's a mock-up design of my sample campaign.

• Publish your post.
• Now head back to ManyChat. Select Growth Tools and click on your campaign.

• Now you need to link the two elements of the build.
• Click the blue Select A Post button

• A window will appear with the Facebook posts available for linking to. If your campaign post is the most recent content on your Page, it'll appear at the top, but scroll down if necessary.
• Select your post; it’ll link to the chatbot build.
• Click the checkbox followed by the blue Save button.
• Now shift the button from Draft to Active. 

• A green button will appear saying Widget Activated. And that’s it – your campaign is live! 

Goal achievement
The mock-up I’ve created here is just the tip of the iceberg. You can be far more adventurous if you wish – it all depends on where you want to direct your visitors, the kind of conversation you want to have, and how many levels you add to the messaging sequence. Here are two more ideas:

• Create a button that enables people to sign up to your author newsletter or mailing list (using the same steps that I illustrated for the Amazon link). That way you can build your audience on your own land as well as Facebook’s while still using the free version of ManyChat.
• Add a short video thanking your commenters for engaging with you.

Here are some additional tactics to consider:

• To build your network, friend the Facebook commenters and ask them to like your Page.
• Say thank-you to each Facebook post commenter – it shows you’re engaged with your campaign and the people who’ve shown interest.
• Use Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat and your writer Facebook groups to tell your followers about the fun that’s going on over at your Page.
• When you receive email notifications from Messenger that someone’s responded to your campaign, click through to your Facebook Messenger inbox. Sometimes the bot will glitch. Don’t worry – it’s an opportunity to have a direct conversation. You’ve made people smile and they’ll forgive a technical problem if you acknowledge it. I’ve created a gif that I send manually when there’s a fault!

Summary
ManyChat’s Facebook comments growth tool is a fun, friendly and effective way to build Page awareness, increase organic reach beyond your existing Facebook community, and generate excitement about your book.

In future articles in this series, I’ll walk you through how to use a chatbot to build your mailing list, help people navigate their way around your website, and take action on a landing page. I’ll also delve deeper into how you might use these tools creatively to build your fanbase and get people talking about your books.

Until then, it’s goodbye from me and Lulu!

P.S. From 1–24 December, Lulu and I will be having a little festive fun on my own Facebook Page. Do drop in to see what’s going on!

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

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

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

So you have a great blog post in mind, or a resource you want to create for your core client group. The problem is, one of your proofreading or editing colleagues has already tackled the issue. What do you do?

For clarity, let’s think of one piece of content that would be a good contender for a blog post and downloadable PDF cheat sheet. Lots of editors and proofreaders work with academics – students, teachers and researchers – and these clients’ publishers.
 
Many of those academics will be dab hands at citations and referencing. Their subject’s preferred style manual will be like an old friend. But what about the beginner – like the student submitting to a journal for the first time – or the experienced scholar who’s asked to create references according to an unfamiliar style guide?
 
Some of the best-known academic style manuals are overwhelming. And that’s why people turn to the search engines for solutions – summary cheat sheets that break the guidance down into accessible chunks.
 
I put the phrase ‘APA style summary’ into Google. There were just under 15 million results. Who got there first? Probably not the American Psychological Association.
 
So, if nearly 15 million people have already created this content, including some of your colleagues, why should you?

Demonstrating your knowledge – and upping your value
Let’s consider a PhD student. She’s submitting a Master’s dissertation in three months’ time and she has two problems:

1. She needs to find a proofreader with experience of the social sciences. Her university insists that a third party cannot style citations and references on her behalf. Nevertheless, she needs someone who’ll spot a mistake.
2. She needs to learn how to style her citations and reference list according to APA guidelines as per her university’s submission guidelines.

First, she heads for a professional editorial directory. From it, she selects ten proofreaders and visits their websites. They all have similar experience and training. All ten proofreaders therefore solve the first problem.

Right now, her problem is whom to choose.

Next, she heads to Google to solve the second problem. The sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association costs just over £22 in 2017 and stretches to 272 pages. She is up to her neck in student-loan debt as it is … and 272 pages? Surely there’s some free guidance online.

​Remember those 15 million results I mentioned above? Now she has to sift through just a teeny-tiny bit of that.

Let’s go back to her first search. Imagine you’re one of those ten proofreaders, but you can solve both of her problems. If you’re the person who can proofread for her and provide her with an accessible summary of APA, you’ve just achieved the following:

1. Saved her time by removing the need for another online search
2. Presented yourself as an editorial professional who understands the bigger academic picture
3. Given her a freebie

Now her problem is not whom to choose but whether you’re available.

That in itself is a good enough reason to get yourself a copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (or any other style manual that your target clients use) and get busy creating blog posts and complementary summary resources.

That someone else has done it already is not the issue. That you’re solving the problems of people who’ve bothered to visit your website is. It’s likely you’re being compared with others, so demonstrating wider knowledge and being helpful adds value to what you bring to the table and makes you stand out.

Multiple problems, and keeping clients on your website
If a potential client is on your website looking for solutions to problems, two things can happen:

1. They find an answer and stick around
2. They don’t find an answer and move on

Most of our clients don’t have one problem (say, finding an editor). They have a stack of problems. The more you can solve, the longer they’ll stay.

I’m told that Google gives brownie points to websites that are lingered on, but even if it didn’t, every minute a potential client is on your website is a minute they’re not on your competitor’s. That’s another minute of engagement, another minute’s worth of trust, another minute where they might visit the Get a Quote or Contact page.

Of course, there’s an alternative. Back to our Master’s student. You’re one of the ten proofreaders she selected. She also needs help with APA citation and referencing. Your website tells her all about what a brilliant proofreader you are.

You want to help her with APA styling. But you don’t want to create a summary because your lovely colleague Josie Proofreader has already done something similar. Instead, you kindly put in a big fat link to Josie’s website so that your potential client can access this fabulous resource.

The client skips over to Josie, sees that she’s also a brilliant proofreader, and promptly forgets the ten she was previously considering (including you). After all, Josie is so helpful, so knowledgeable – her site’s like a one-stop shop.

Now her problem is whether Josie is available.

There’s nothing wrong with linking to colleagues’ sites (links to relevant websites are good for SEO) but when it comes to the really helpful, substantive, stand-out, problem-solving stuff, that should be on your site – written by you, in your voice, your style, and with your branding on it.

Cite your primary sources, of course, (in this case, the APA). We, as editors, know better than anyone the problems of plagiarism and the etiquette of citation. Here’s the guidance I use for creating content (based on the advice of pro white-paper writer Gordon Graham):

• Think like a lawyer
• Research like a think tank
• Cite like a scholar
• Write like a journalist
• Communicate like a person

Quality content you can’t create. Calling the guest contributor
There are some types of content that I don’t feel comfortable creating. For example, I’m a specialist sentence-level editor so I’m not the best person to give advice on developmental editing conundrums. That doesn’t mean I don’t want that content on my website, though – for all the reasons outlined above.

Guest posts are the solution. Not just any old guests – friends and colleagues who have in-depth, specialist knowledge that I think will be of benefit to my readers. Here are just a few examples:

• Developmental editor Sophie Playle has written for me about manuscript critiques and point of view
• Pro marketers Andrew and Pete have discussed using video in editorial marketing
• Non-fiction editor Denise Cowle has offered advice on content quality control
• Technical editor Paul Beverley has provided guidance on using macros in editorial work
• Technical writer John Espirian has given the low-down on working with two screens
• Publisher Chris Hamilton-Emery (of Salt) has helped self-publishers with cover design

Their content helps to keep my readers on my website – that’s a win for me. My readers are made aware of my contributors’ expertise – that’s a win for them. And I and my contributors get high-quality inbound/outbound links to our websites – that’s a win for all of us.

If your editorial blog is new and you’re looking for some guidance on what to expect from your guests, here are my rules for contributor content:

• It must be of outstanding quality – well written, engaging and shareable
• It must solve problems for my core audiences: editorial professionals and self-publishing authors
• It must offer something different to my readers – a different voice, approach, experience or knowledge bite
• It must be substantive – clickbaity 200-word soundbites of waffle peppered with SEO-friendly keywords and a link-juice-driven bio is not where I’m at

Every time we host a guest we have the potential to enrich the quality of the content on our own sites.

Writing for others, and how to bring it back
I’ve written for other people too: The Publishing Training Centre, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, BookMachine, Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands, An American Editor, and several editor colleagues.

Every time we write for others we expand our audience reach via theirs.

This may appear to contradict my earlier advice about keeping your own content on your own site. My approach is me-first, me-most.

Most of the content on my site has been created by me and demonstrates my skills and my willingness to be helpful. However, curation and reciprocity have their roles – you give a little, you take a little. It’s editorial content backscratching!

Repurposing is one way of bringing quality content you’ve published elsewhere back onto your own turf. Just duplicating the text isn't advisable because it can affect your website's rankings in the search engines. Instead, try these three ideas:

1. Turn the blog post you wrote into a PDF booklet and add that to a resource hub on your site and your blog. That way you're recycling rather than repeating
2. Take core ideas from the content and rewrite them from a new angle, or dig deeper
3. Create a slideshow of the key points and create a recorded tutorial

Summing up

• Create content in your own voice and in your own way even if it already exists
• Don’t copy your colleagues; instead, go to original sources and cite accordingly
• Focus on solving clients’ problems; add value to your editorial offering
• Be prepared to host and write for others but take a me-first, me-most approach
• Bring it back; repurpose content you’ve given to others

Happy halloween!

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

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

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

This week’s reader question is from a teacher of English language, literature and creative writing. She’s looking for a new direction – something beyond the school environment that will allow her to use her educational experience and existing knowledge base.

Here’s what Noella had to say:

Dear Louise,

I'm a UK-based secondary-school English teacher of language, literature and creative writing, and am looking to move into editing or publishing.

I feel that I already have some of the skills required but I'm also on a budget and would like to know how someone like me could perhaps sneak into this area of work via a recognized route that isn't too costly.

Essentially, I want a better work/life balance and to feel more in control of my career. Hope you can advise me.
 
Hi, Noella! Thanks so much for your question.

Work/life balance
Given that flexibility is important, I’m inclined to recommend the path of independent editor (freelancer), rather than working in-house. Running your own business will give you control.
​
Setting up on your own will require a lot of hard graft at the outset (as I’m sure you realize). However, it will provide you with the freedom to choose your own hours, set your own rates, and decide which projects you wish to take on.

The different levels of editing
I think it’s worth summarizing the different levels of editing as this will show you where your current skills might slot in.

• Big picture: The terminology is tangled but here we’re dealing with macro solutions that help authors to shape their work. Services include book coaching, manuscript evaluation, manuscript critique, developmental editing, structural editing or substantive editing. Writers learn to develop their novel craft through plot, characterization, pace, narrative point of view, tense and story arc.
• Sentence level: Again, the terms differ depending on whom one talks to but here we’re dealing with micro solutions that help authors to smooth, correct and polish their work. Services include stylistic editing, line editing, copyediting, proof-editing and proofreading. Writers learn to keep their readers engaged through attention to sentence flow, clarity, consistency, and standard spelling, punctuation and grammar.

There’s more information in the following articles:

• The different levels of editing. Proofreading and beyond
• How do mainstream publishers produce books? And should you mimic them? Help for self-publishers

What would suit you?
Given that you’re already immersed in teaching creative writing – albeit to a younger audience –  you might do well to focus your training on big-picture work because you could utilize an already-developed skill set.

Another route to consider is offering private writing tuition. Many first-time authors want to develop their craft, and if you enhance your existing knowledge base with specialist professional training and professional society membership, you'd have a powerful key selling point not only to local writers but those searching online too.

And if you enjoy working with secondary-school students, there’s nothing to stop you offering private tuition to them too. You’ve already proven yourself within the school sector, but this option would allow you to continue teaching while achieving control and flexibility over your working hours.
​
Training
I’ve covered the issue of training in previous Q&As so take a look at the following articles for information about high-quality courses that focus on the broader practice of editorial work:

• Are free online proofreading and editing training courses reliable?
• Q&A with Louise: Can a teacher get work as a proofreader, even with no publishing experience?
• Q&A with Louise: Which online proofreading and copyediting courses do you recommend?
• SfEP: Society for Editors and Proofreaders (courses)
• The Publishing Training Centre (courses)
• Training archive here on the blog
• Why should you bother with professional proofreading training?
• Worldwide list of editorial societies

If you do decide to focus on big-picture editing, I’d recommend specialist training. Perhaps you’ll discover nothing new, but that will be a huge confidence booster. And if there are gaps in your skill set, you’ll find out where they are and be able to rectify the problem before you begin working with clients.

Sophie Playle of Liminal Pages is an experienced developmental editor who runs two relevant courses:

• Developmental Editing: Fiction Theory
• Developmental Editing: In Practice

Also take a look at the Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ Introduction to Fiction Editing. Note that the SfEP assumes basic copyediting knowledge for this course.

Getting noticed
One of the biggest challenges for any new editorial business owner is getting noticed. Again, I’ve discussed marketing in previous Q&As, so you might like to review the following:

• Content Mavericks with Andrew and Pete (webinar programme; complementary book available shortly)

• Content Marketing Primer (book)
• Marketing archive here on my blog
• Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business (book)
• Q&A with Louise: Can a teacher get work as a proofreader, even with no publishing experience?
• Social Media with Purpose (Copyediting masterclass)
• SOS Marketing Strategy (free booklet)

If you were to go down the route of offering creative writing courses for beginners, consider researching local writing groups; and talk to local bookshops to see if you might publicize the courses through them.

How about your local chamber of commerce? Is there support there – perhaps local contacts who are involved in self-publishing? You might collaborate with the chamber to provide a beta course or seminar series that would help you learn what works and what doesn’t. This would enable you to mine your existing teaching skill set while expanding your local network.

And, of course, self-publishers aren’t the only market. Mainstream publishers are a superb client base with whom to build your portfolio once you’ve completed your training because they already understand the value that professional editors bring to the table.

It’s worth bearing in mind, too, that there are fewer specialist developmental editors than copyeditors and proofreaders. Moving in this direction would mean you have less competition once you begin actively marketing your new business.

Budget
One thing I can’t advise on is whether my suggestions are ‘too costly’! Price is always relative in any case. My recommendations are based on quality rather than affordability because I see no sense in suggesting training that won’t help you achieve career independence and fitness for purpose.

Your career background will offer you a strong foundation on which to build your editorial business, and if you’re prepared to combine those skills with additional professional development and a commitment to marketing, I believe you could do very well indeed.

Good luck, Noella!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​How to make your proofreading and editing business stand out
If you're a new proofreader or editor and you're wondering whether you should specialize, here's my advice, all packed up into a 13-page PDF booklet.

I believe that being a specialist makes sense in a global editorial market, and in this free mini ebook, I discuss how using the language of specialism

• helps you communicate clearly what you do
• increases client trust and your authenticity
• brings SEO benefits
• improves client engagement through a demonstration of competence and knowledge
• helps the new starter focus clients' attention on solutions rather than experience

​
To get your free copy, just click on the lemon and limes below!

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

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

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

This week’s reader question is from Pritti, who’s already secured publishing work but wants to move out of her science commissioning role. Lack of practical experience and relevant qualifications are holding her back.

​Pritti says:

Thanks so much for allowing this to be a open forum/platform for beginners like me to ask questions! 

I am a 23-year-old law graduate who currently works as a commissioning editor for a online science publishing company. However, even though this has been a 'foot in the door' type of position, my heart is really set on going into trade publishing and becoming a freelance editor. 

Not only that, my position here as a commissioning editor isn't what it actually says on the tin – it's more on the commissioning side of things rather than editing. In fact, I do no editing whatsoever, in my opinion! So I feel like I'm not gaining the necessary skills I need for the industry. 

I was thinking that obtaining a well-recognized qualification would help get me noticed, as my ultimate goal is to become a freelance editor – but without gaining the necessary experience in my current role, and without the qualifications, I do feel like I'm at loss here. I've also applied for a number of roles but been unsuccessful owing to my lack of experience. Freelance agencies have also rejected my application for the same reasons – not having enough experience. 

Furthermore, there's also no way of acquiring clients where I work. Please help! 
 
Thanks so much for your question, Pritti!

I accept that your current role won’t give you the practical experience you require because you’re in a commissioning rather than production role. However, I don’t think that needs to stand in your way of embarking on training that will prepare you for developmental editing, line editing, copyediting or proofreading in a freelance capacity.

No training provider will turn you away because you don’t already have the experience! The UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders, for example, offers a suite of online training courses designed for novices and experienced professionals alike.

I wonder whether because you’re working in-house you’ve got yourself into a mindset of thinking like an employee. If want to work as an independent editor, you need to start thinking like an employer (of yourself). That means sorting out everything for your business from your training to marketing to administration.

Getting qualifications
My first piece of advice is therefore to sort out the qualifications issue. I’ve covered this in several previous Q&As, so take a look at the articles and the list of national editorial societies below. You haven’t told me where you live but there are several distance-learning options available (in Canada, the US and the UK, for example).

• Are free online proofreading and editing training courses reliable?
• Q&A with Louise: Can a teacher get work as a proofreader, even with no publishing experience?
• Q&A with Louise: Which online proofreading and copyediting courses do you recommend?
• SfEP: Society for Editors and Proofreaders (courses)
• The Publishing Training Centre (courses)
• Why should you bother with professional proofreading training?
• Worldwide list of editorial societies

Once you’ve acquired the practical skills, you’ll be in a position to begin the journey of acquiring work. Again, though, I think you need to shift into the mindset of a business owner.

Getting work
Freelance agencies are certainly one option, but that’s a narrow approach to take given the many others worthy of exploration. Here are some additional ideas:

• Develop your marketing strategy. You can begin this now and add to it as you learn. Check out my books and the marketing archive here on the blog
• Join a professional editorial society and advertise in its directory
• Create a business website that shows how you can solve your target clients’ problems and what services you offer
• Create professional social media accounts (e.g. a Facebook Page and LinkedIn and Twitter profiles) that enable you to engage purposefully with fellow editors and potential clients
• Contact publishers and ask to be added to their freelance banks. I don’t mean two or three – I mean for you to get serious about it! (See SOS Marketing Strategy)

Your subject specialism
You told me that you’d like to work in the trade publishing sector. The term ‘trade’ refers to the publishing of materials for a general audience.

If you want to be found by, for example, independent thriller writers, you’re going to need to be visible, and that may take time while you build your portfolio and your SEO.

If you want to do freelance work for trade publishers (for example, Pan Macmillan or Little, Brown) you’ll might well struggle until you have more experience under your belt (unless you get lucky). I think this is something you should set your sights on further down the road.

In the meantime, focus your efforts on building your freelance business – marketing yourself and practising your post-qualification craft.

I always recommend that new entrants to the field focus attention on the market where they’re most likely to stand out. Specialize in what you know first; diversify later.

You have a law degree. I don’t. That’s why I’d never copyedit for a law student or an academic submitting an article to a legal journal. And while I have proofread law books for academic publishers, those clients never asked me to copyedit.

Your law degree means you speak a language and have a knowledge base that I don’t (and many other experienced editors don’t). You can use that to differentiate yourself.

When I began my editorial business journey, I had professional training, a politics degree and experience of working in-house for a social science publisher. I didn’t spend valuable time trying to get my business off the ground by asking Gollancz if I could proofread their SF Masterworks series (much as I would have loved to do that!).

Instead, I went and knocked on the door of social science publishers and spent several years honing my craft with politics, sociology, philosophy, economics and media studies books.

Over time, new opportunities arose as I became more visible and my marketing efforts began to bear fruit. But it did take time, and while that happened I concentrated on where my strengths lay so that I could gain experience. I believe that you need to do the same.

I think you should focus on the following client groups to begin with:

• Publishers with law lists
• Social science and humanities publishers (think related disciplines such as criminology, international law, public policy and administration, and philosophy and ethics)
• Legal students and scholars
• Independent authors of commercial non-fiction (this is your where you'll get your related trade experience that you can sell on later to trade publishers)

Some academic publishers also have trade divisions/imprints and so the academic work can deliver trade opportunities to the independent editor.

Summing up
I hope that helps you get your thoughts in order, Pritti. If you take things one step at a time, I’m confident you can get to a point where you’re immersed in the trade sector. But I’d recommend building up to it by playing to your market strengths.

​Good luck!

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​Should you edit or proofread pornography? What if it’s erotica? Is there even a difference?

​Does sexually explicit written material deserve to be edited? What is it exactly, and what is it not? And if you want to edit it, how do you make yourself visible to its authors?

​Perhaps you have strict criteria for the types or subgenres of pornography or erotica that you’ll edit. In that case, how can you communicate these to potential clients?

Here’s my take. And it is only my take. Some of my colleagues won’t touch the stuff with a bargepole. And those of us who will? Well, we all have our individual boundaries.

​What is pornography? And what is it not?
If only there were a universally accepted definition of pornography. There isn’t, alas. What you consider porn may not be what I consider porn. Or one of us might think a written work is more erotic than pornographic. Others might not even bother making a distinction.

And that’s the first thing any editor needs to recognize. The term ‘pornography’ is loaded with subjectivism and preconceptions, many of them heteronormative, so what you’re expecting and what actually ends up in your editing studio could be two very different things.

‘Pornography is notoriously difficult to define, and overburdened with assumptions concerning – at the very least – gender, sexuality, power, globalization, desire, affect, and labour,’ say Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee.

Oxford offers the following broad definition: ‘Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.’

And broad it is. Too broad, in my opinion, because it doesn’t exclude materials with descriptions or displays of non-consenting performers and minors, which are illegal.
What we can say is that definitions are contested – in society, in the courts, and in academic literature.

​That makes it difficult for the editor who’s asked, ‘Do you copyedit pornography?’ because even if you think you don’t, others might think you do because they have different opinions on what constitutes porn.
​
So what do we do? I think custom guidelines are the answer, particularly if you decide to publicize the fact that you’re happy to edit sexually explicit material. Before we discuss these, let’s consider erotica.

Is there a difference between pornography and erotica?
If there is a difference, it’s unlikely that the lines of distinction so clearly drawn in your own head will be shared by everyone else you consult on the matter.

Echoing Sullivan and McKee, Leon F Seltzer notes the degree to which ‘the criteria used for distinguishing between the erotic and pornographic [are] … steeped in personal moral, aesthetic, and religious values’.

And he goes on to say that the erotic ‘doesn’t appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal appetites. It also engages our aesthetic sense.’

Tracy Cooper-Posey’s distinction draws specifically on novel-craft: erotica isn’t ‘only about sex, unlike its gutter-cousin, pornography. At its purest, the new erotic novel is a brilliantly-written story with super-nova sex that compliments the caliber of the writing, and is fundamental to the plot and characters. In other words, if you remove the sex, the story can’t be told.’

And so it may be that if you, the editor, decide a manuscript’s sexually explicit content contains enough celebration of the human form and is written to a high enough standard, or has a good enough plot, then it’s erotica. If not, it’s porn.

It seems to me that getting bogged down in the definitions will get us nowhere fast. The terminology is as tangled as that used to describe editorial services (well, maybe not that bad!).

If the author’s struggling to write well, but is trying to create erotica, who am I to say it’s porn? And if it’s just sex that aims for nothing but titillation, but it’s written beautifully, artfully, does that mean it’s no longer porn?
​
If your decision is down to the art-versus-smut argument, one thing’s for sure: you’re going to need to see a sample. And if you want to work on only certain types of material, you’ll do well to create some guidelines.

Creating guidelines to keep you comfortable
Guidelines don’t just help you and the writer decide whether you’re a good fit. They’re also a great way of demonstrating your engagement with the subject and your willingness to have a conversation with a nervous or embarrassed author.

What should you include? There’s no one way of going about this; include whatever’s important to you and what you want the author to know. Here are just a few ideas:

• Your personal definitions of pornography, erotica, and romantic fiction (or other genres and subgenres), with an acknowledgement that the author’s might differ.
• An explanation of what kinds of materials don’t constitute pornography (e.g. law-enforcement agencies, social services agencies and criminologists don’t use the term ‘child pornography’ but rather ‘child-abuse materials’).
• A summary of the laws in your jurisdiction regarding sexually explicit material.
• The genres and subgenres you’re comfortable editing, and those you’d rather not.
• Your approach to depictions of adult sexual violence and to what degree you’d feel comfortable editing this.
• How you identify (re sexuality, gender, faith, race, ethnicity, etc.) and to what degree you’d feel confident editing material in which the characters identify differently.
• Clarification that you’re comfortable with profanity.

Are pornography and erotica worth editing?
‘Even filth needs editing,’ said my colleague Louise Bolotin when she wrote about the issue on my blog back in 2012, and I agree.

The porn and erotica writers for whom I’ve worked are as committed to their writing as any crime fiction, thriller or literary fiction author.

A client recently told me, ‘I love my writing and with your help I hope it can lead to something else. If we don’t dream, then we don’t create. I’m proud of my stories but this is a whole new world for me, and like anybody who writes, there’s insecurity.’

What was I dealing with? Not plot, no. Seltzer’s and Cooper-Posey’s definitions chimed here. But my client needed a lot of help with punctuation to make the narrative readable. He’d omitted all speech marks, so the dialogue was invisible. There were repetition and syntax problems. But the writing was strong – imaginative, funny, clever, sexy – ​and in this book at least, I think he had a great turn of phrase (almost poetic at times). The pace was good, the language potent, and the sex appropriately disgraceful. All in all, I think he did an excellent job!

Even so, prior to editing, the book wasn’t publishable because it didn’t conform to recognizable standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The reader would have struggled to enjoy the story because they’d have been pulled out of it with every missing full point and speech mark.
​
And that’s my job (and yours) – to help the author help the reader. So, yes, I think pornography and erotica are absolutely worthy of being edited.

A word on the market
We know there’s a market for pornography and erotica. There are readers with an appetite for these genres, and writers ready to feed it. Those writers need editors to make those stories as good as they can be.

If you’re comfortable working on adult material, then you’d do well to make this clear because there seems to be a dearth of professional editors advertising the fact.

​Here are some numbers generated by searching the UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ Directory of Editorial Services and the Editors Canada Online Directory of Editors using the following key words:

​In both countries, you’ll have the least competition in these directories if you’re prepared to edit porn and erotica (unless your author hyphenates science-fiction!).

Being visible – getting work
If pornography and erotica are genres you want to edit or proofread, approach the issue as you would any other subject specialism.

The political science professor will be drawn to editors and proofreaders who make it explicit that they welcome this type of work, have experience of editing the subject matter, and provide resources and guidance that demonstrates that expertise.
Pornography and erotica authors are no different. And so:

• If you have some relevant works in your existing portfolio, make sure they’re part of your visible portfolio (website, directory entries for example).
• Look at the description of your website in the search engines. The following is clearly visible in mine: Proofreading and editing genres include crime, science fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, fantasy, horror, supernatural, speculative fiction, and erotica and pornography. Make sure your website description is complete and contains keywords that you want to be found for.
• Create resources and articles that help solve authors’ problems. For example, some authors might struggle with biology, others with repetition, yet others with clarity. Some might benefit from advice on how to approach an editor without fear or embarrassment. Are there useful writing resources about pornography and erotica writing that you might curate? All this content tells the author that you’re engaged and willing to discuss the subject.
• Publishing those resources on your website will make you more visible in the search engines, especially when they’re talked about, recommended, shared and linked to.

Anxiety – yours and the author’s
Some editors are keen to take on the work but anxious that it might reflect badly on them. Does being public about your willingness to edit pornography and erotica damage your reputation?

I don’t believe so. Pornography and erotica are recognized genres. As long as we present our willingness to edit them with the same professionalism as we’d approach politics or philosophy, science fiction or romance, I see no problem.

I and several of my editor friends are open about the fact that we work on adult material and none of us has suffered problems acquiring work.

I think that’s down to the fact that we’re all committed to marketing our editorial businesses, and focusing on the value we can bring to the table.

That’s what clients concentrate on, not the things that are of no interest to them. The thriller writer cares that I work on thrillers, not that I also copyedit erotica and historical fiction.

Editors aren’t the only Nervous Nellies. Some of the writers who’ve contacted me about editing porn and erotica are anxious too. The emails usually start with something on the lines of ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this but …’ or ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’

Again, guidelines and resources can help to reassure an author before they send the email.

Summing up
If you’re happy to edit porn and erotica, go for it. If you aren't, that's fine too. As independent business owners we can choose what material we want to work on and what we don’t.

Wanting to edit a particular genre isn’t enough. Make sure your willingness to edit porn and erotica is visible – on your website and in the editorial directories you advertise in. If you don’t say it, you won’t be heard.

Further reading

• Leon F Seltzer, ‘What Distinguishes Erotica from Pornography?’, Psychology Today.
• Louise Bolotin, ‘Editing Adult Material’, The Proofreader’s Parlour.
• Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee’s Pornography is an accessible and highly readable exploration of the subject through an academic lens.
• Tracy Cooper-Posey, ‘An End to Euphemisms: Is Erotica Right for You?’, Tracy Cooper-Posey | Stories Rule.

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

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

If you're an author, you might like to visit Louise’s Writing Library to access my latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.

​How to use social media with intention
If you're an editor, proofreader, translator or indexer, you're probably already using social media. If that's the case, but you feel like you're struggling to keep it under control, this training course could be just what you need.

Social media is great for chattering – updates about our kid’s first day at school, little notes about how badly we need coffee, pics of our cats sitting on our keyboards. It’s all great fun and long may it continue.

But when it comes to using social media for business, we need to think about intention. Otherwise the dreaded rabbit hole will beckon.

Laura Poole and Erin Brenner of Copyeditng kindly invited me to present an online masterclass for editors and proofreaders on social media marketing and engagement. I'll be your instructor for Social Media with Purpose on Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 11 am–12:30 pm Eastern Time.

​Key learning points
In this 90-minute masterclass, we'll cover the following:

• What is social media?
• Why you should use social media
• What social media wants from you
• Taking a holistic approach (social media in relation to general marketing, content marketing, searchable content curation and SEO)
• What to do if your clients aren’t using social media
• Which platforms to choose – being audience-centric
• Within-platform considerations
• Top tips for using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• How to bring supplementary platforms into the mix (Pinterest, YouTube, Google+)
• Time management, scheduling, tracking and analytics
• Branding your social media channels

Registrants will also receive a free 53-page, 10,700-word ebook that addresses all the learning points, plus a list of links to recommended resources to help make your social media engagement persuasive, emotive and productive.

I do hope you'll join me for the class. Details of registration fees and how to sign up are available on the Copyediting training page.

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

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

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

Lisa got in touch to ask for help with getting her proofreading career off the ground. She’s feels as if she’s between a rock and a hard place because of a lack of academic qualifications, career experience and time. 

Lisa asks:

Hello, Louise! It seems that a lot of future editors have great educational experience. They can build on that to start with as a marketing tool. What can I do if I have spent 25 years raising children, and I don't have more than an associate's degree in General Studies, no experience, and not a lot of time to spend on learning marketing? I am a dog-walker and pet-sitter during the day, and I want to start marketing myself as a proofreader. Help!

Hi, Lisa! Thanks so much for your question.

I can appreciate that you probably feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall at the moment. I do have two books that take you through the steps of editorial marketing, and one free booklet.

I’ve posted links to those at the bottom of the article. They’ll give you the detail; here on the blog, I’m going to focus on the basics and try to get you in the right mindset.

Time constraints
Time management is a tough one, but it’s something that everyone who’s set up their own freelancing business has experienced. The challenges don’t go away once we’re established either.

Take me for example. I have to find time to work on my business, too – time for marketing, time for administration, time for advanced training, time to train others! I, too, have a family and a business to run (my fiction editing work) during the day. Time for the business of running my business has to be found, and it’s tough.

That’s why I’m writing a blog post now, at 9.30 p.m. on a Monday evening on my laptop in front of the TV. The dog’s to my left, the girl’s in her room, the hubbie’s on the other sofa! My life is all about multitasking and there’s no way around it.

I know a lot of people who do their marketing out of hours, or chunks of it at least. We all have the same 24 hours in a day and we all juggle our backsides off to make it work. It’s just the way it goes. There’s no way of cheating it, no shortcut for any of us!

Here are some ideas:

• When you’re dog walking, could you listen to some audio masterclasses? Copyediting.com has a bunch of recorded classes that you could listen to while you pitter-patter with the pooches. That way you get to build your training portfolio and marketing skills, do some exercise and get paid at the same time! Yes, some of those courses will have complementary slides and written materials, but you could review those when you’re pet-sitting (rather than walking).
• When you’re at home in the evening, what are you doing? If you’re cleaning, ironing, washing or vacuuming, could you do some of these things a little less often? I’m not saying give them up completely, just cut down a little so you can devote time to your professional development and marketing.
• How about cooking? If you’re the person who takes responsibility for feeding your family, can you delegate the task to others so that they’re at least sharing the burden? You could redirect that time towards an hour of business-building. Explain to your family that they’re supporting your career. If you live on your own, might you go down the ready-meal route a few times a week? Better yet, get a cheap slow cooker. Chuck everything in first thing in the morning, go to work, come back and lift the lid. Dinner! I luuuuurve my slow cooker – healthy food for no effort!
• Do you spend time in front of the TV and take baths? I did an entire 7-hour content marketing programme in front of the TV over the course of several weeks (earphones plugged in, tablet on my lap). The course required some deep thought and self-brainstorming exercises; I did some of them while taking a long soak in the bath. In fact, I came up with some of my core brand values while in the bath! (See the resources for info on that programme).

​Do you work 7 days a week, 365 days a year? For some people in the world, that’s a reality not a horror story, and if that’s you, you have my genuine sympathy. But if you do take weekends off (or one or two other days during the week), and if you do take some annual leave, might you consider using it as a busman’s holiday – devoting it to your business (marketing, training, etc.)?

This isn’t most people’s idea of fun; it’s certainly a sacrifice. But if it gave you that 50 hours of professional training that you need to get off the starting blocks, it would be a sacrifice worth making, an investment for your future.

Training
Once you’ve borrowed some time, you need to decide what to do with it. I mentioned training briefly above but let’s dig a little deeper. You didn’t tell me what pro training you’ve completed, so for safety’s sake I’m going to assume it’s limited.

Professional training is, I think, a requirement for anyone wanting to be taken seriously in today’s editorial freelancing market. It gives you confidence, ensures you’re fit for purpose and puts you on a par with the thousands of trained colleagues with whom you’ll be competing.
​
Having pro training is no longer stand-out, it’s stand-ard. You might be worried that you don’t have time to do in-depth professional classes – you’re at work all day so can’t attend on-site training.

Above, I talked about Laura Poole and Erin Brenner’s online classes via Copyediting. The Society for Editors and Proofreaders and the Publishing Training Centre in the UK both offer outstanding distance-learning courses for copyediting and proofreading, too.

Those are just a few examples, but nailing the classes means you can demonstrate on your website that you’re a professional – with pro training, a pro attitude and pro commitment.

I believe that our marketing messages should focus on our clients’ problems first and foremost, but backing that up with training is a no-brainer. So let’s talk about marketing.

Marketing
The thing about marketing is that you can get right on it – start doing it while you’re learning it.

Perhaps there are some editorial freelancers who have client lists as long as their arms and can rely completely on word of mouth. Or they have lots of publisher clients who offer repeat work (I’ll talk about that below). But the new starter in today’s market has to think bigger.

Some types of marketing are slow burn; some can have a much quicker impact. Here are some ideas that fit into both categories:

• Get yourself a website now so that you can start building it into your shop front (just like you’re already doing for your pet-sitting/walking business).
• Create a professional editorial Facebook page to complement your existing timeline. You won’t have much to put on it right now so use it as a curation resource – useful stuff for colleagues and clients that shows you’re committed and engaged with the editorial profession and the problems your clients face.
• Use social media purposefully! I’m a great one for messing around on social media – I love seeing what people are up to on Facebook and Twitter – but I’ve learned to use it with intention, too.
  The chattering aspect is great for building relationships with editorial friends (especially as a large percentage of my edi-pals don’t live nearby), but I use it to build trust and engagement too – it’s a place where I share the resources that I and my colleagues have created to help each other (and our clients). If you’re interested, I’m presenting a masterclass on purposeful social media marketing via Copyediting.com in December (see below).
• Join a professional editorial society. I think you’re in the US, but if I’m wrong, no matter. There’s a list of worldwide pro editorial societies at the bottom of this post. If your national society’s directory has a directory of editorial pros for hire, make sure you’re in it. If you don’t qualify, use your borrowed time (or your busman’s holiday) to do what’s required to get in it. My SfEP and Reedsy profiles are valuable lead drivers, second and third only to Google.
• Once you’ve got your initial training sorted, follow the instructions in my SOS Marketing Strategy booklet (see below) and start contacting publishers. If you focus on the arts and humanities, you’ll likely not need a higher degree. Publishers are great clients, especially while you’re developing your visibility. They already know what we do and why we’re valuable, so we don’t have to persuade them; they already have their hands raised.

​And that final point leads us onto something else worth considering …

Client focus
When it comes to marketing, every editorial business owner needs to think about which clients they’re going to target. For you, this may feel trickier because you don’t have a career background that lends itself to a particular subject specialism.

Here are just a few examples that will help you develop your marketing message:

• Publishers – professional industry-recognized training: We’ve already talked about how you might secure that.
• Publishers – readiness to take a test: Publishers increasingly use tests to evaluate their freelancers. That’s because each press works differently and they want to make their own assessments of a candidate, not rely solely on a piece of paper. This could play to your advantage. Though I came into the professional with a politics degree, during my days working exclusively for publishers I proofread books in law, philosophy, economics, research methods, education … you name it! The publishers didn’t want a scholar; they wanted a pro proofreader.
• Students – many students are looking for help with language polishing. English isn’t their first language, so being a native speaker is a selling point in itself.
• Students – citation and reference styling. Being able to say you know, for example, The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed., like the back of your hand will be a great selling point because getting citations wrong can be a grade-breaker. That’s something you can learn in your borrowed time online or by grabbing yourself a second-hand copy of the manual. The same could apply to any of the industry-recognized style guides.

Focusing your message on solutions to your clients’ problems means they see you concentrating on them rather than on you.

Imagine this … you walk into two shops, intent on buying a new pair of shoes from one or other. In store A, the assistant spends half an hour telling you about her feet. In store B, the assistant asks you about your own. Where do you want to buy your Jimmy Choos – A or B?

All of us need to make our clients want to buy editorial services from us, so we need to focus our message on their problems and their needs, not how brilliant we are. And in fact, though, we can demonstrate our brilliance precisely by being focused on them. It comes down to good old-fashioned customer service.

Hope that helps. I wish you well on your editorial business-building journey, Lisa!

Resources

• Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers (book)
• Content Mavericks with Andrew and Pete (webinar programme; complementary book available shortly)
• Content Marketing Primer (book)
• Copyediting.com (courses)
• Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business (book)
• SfEP: Society for Editors and Proofreaders (courses)
• Social Media with Purpose (Copyediting masterclass)
• SOS Marketing Strategy (free booklet)
• The Publishing Training Centre (courses)
• Worldwide list of editorial societies

Louise Harnby is a fiction copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in helping self-publishing writers prepare their novels for market.
​
She is the author of several books on business planning and marketing for editors, and runs online courses from within the Craft Your Editorial Fingerprint series. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. Louise loves books, coffee and craft gin, though not always in that order.

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

If you're an author, take a look at Louise’s Writing Library and access her latest self-publishing resources, all of which are free and available instantly.