Want to write great editorial reports, demonstrate excellence, and make your authors happy? How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report is for you.

Fiction editing isn't just about amending a book file or suggesting changes in comments boxes. It's also about communicating the why of our editing practice.

A high-quality, accessible report is as important as the book edit itself. Join me to find out how to do it.

And if you're already a member of my Facebook group, check out the notification there for your exclusive group-member discount.

Every professional editor is a business owner, and that role requires us to track the health of our businesses from one year to the next. Managing and analysing all that data can be a burden, especially if you’re more interested in words than numbers!

Fellow editor and Excel authority Maya Berger has created a tool that will make life easy. It’s called The Editor's Affairs (TEA).

All the data in one place
When it comes to keeping an eye on the health of my business, simple has always been my goal. I’m an editor, not an accountant.

Essentially, I want as much as possible in one place:

• Project schedule
• Project data
• Business income
• Business expenses

And when it’s time to submit a tax return to (in my case) HMRC and evaluate how things are going, I don’t want to be faffing around with several different apps and spreadsheets.

Instead, I want to see the core data at a glance … data that will tell me the following:

On a project basis:

• Hourly rate
• Start and end dates
• Fees – quotes, paid, pending and overdue
• Baselines data – word count, hours worked
• Client name, project title, how they found me

On a business-health basis:

• Which clients I earn the most money from
• The worth of each client as a percentage of my total income
• Which months are the most lucrative
• Average hourly rates
• Average speeds
• Comparison of data with the previous year
• Income to declare
• Allowable expenses to offset

I don’t want to spend ages collecting and collating this data so it’s easy to access. I want summaries that give me a number – automatically generated by the data I’ve inputted throughout the financial year.

Then, when it’s time to review my business and submit my return to the tax authorities, the numbers are ready and waiting for me.

I’ve been tracking my data for years, and while I’m fairly proficient with Excel, I’ve been aware that there’s more I could do to fine-tune my process. However, like many editors, I have neither the time nor the will. So when Maya asked me to take a look at TEA, I jumped at the chance.

The Editor's Affairs (TEA)
So what is TEA? It’s a one-stop-shop Excel spreadsheet with lots of built-in jiggery-pokery that does all the tricky formula work for you. All you need to do is input the project (and expenses) data as it comes in.

Below are examples of some of the project data an editor can input, and the received data from TEA.

Examples of data the editor can input

• Invoice number
• Start date
• Finish date
• Date of completion
• Payment due
• Payment date
• Client name
• Notes about the job
• How the client found me
• Total word count
• Estimated words per hour
• Desired hourly rate
• Actual number of hours worked
• Amount invoiced
• Amount received

Examples of received data from TEA

• A status alert if the invoice is overdue
• An estimate of actual words/hr
• An estimate of how many hours I’d have to work to achieve my desired hourly rate
• My actual rate per hour
• My actual speed
• My actual rate per 1,000 words
• The amount I need to quote to achieve my desired hourly rate

5 reasons why TEA is worth it
So why is it worth investing in TEA? I identified 5 standout features that I believe make this a must-have tool.

NOTE: The numbers and client information below are for the purposes of illustration only. I made them up because my business affairs are of no concern to anyone but me!

1. Making informed decisions when quoting
TEA allows you to see the impact of the data you’re inputting on your business, and make informed decisions about how you should quote. Let’s take an example:

John Smith asks me to line edit a 100K-word novel. I estimate I can edit at a speed of 1,750 words per hour, so I input that information along with the word count.

• TEA tells me I’ll need to set aside just over 57 hours for the project.

I decide I want to earn £40 per hour. I add that data to the row.

• TEA tells me my estimated rate per 1,000 words will be £22.86.

Now I can build my quote. I type 57 into the hours-worked cell.

• TEA tells me I need to quote £2,285.71.

For argument’s sake, let’s say I know that my client’s budget is £2,000. I can temporarily add this to the amount-received cell.

• TEA tells me my rate per hour would be £35.09.

If I’m happy to work for £35.09 rather than £40 per hour, I’m good to go. If I don’t, I can negotiate with the client. The point is, I can play with the data I’m inputting and see the impact. And that means there are no surprises. I’m making informed decisions.

2. Collecting data for the future
Less experienced editors might not yet have enough older data to know how long a particular type of editing will take, or whether Client A’s work tends to be speedier to complete than Client B’s. TEA helps us build that knowledge via accrued data that we can use later on. Another example …

In April 2019, Jackie Jones asks me to proofread her 30,000-word novella. I have no clue how long it will take so I estimate a speed of 5,000 words an hour. I’m grateful for the opportunity because my business is new. I decide I’ll be happy earning anything over £20 per hour.

TEA tells me my rate per 1,000 words will be £4 and it’ll take 6 hours, so I bill for £120. I get the gig and do the work. In fact, it takes me 10 hours. I input the new data.

• TEA tells me I’ve actually achieved only 3,000 words per hour and that my hourly rate was £12, not £20.

But I’ve learned something. And when Jackie comes back to me three months later with another job with the same word count, this time I can input more accurate data, meaning I’ll earn my desired rate of £20 per 1,000 words.

3. Saving time and protecting the data
At no time am I messing around with a calculator. All I do is input the raw data and review what TEA’s analysis cells tell me.

That saves me time because TEA’s doing the maths for me.

Plus, I can’t break the spreadsheet! TEA’s analysis cells are locked so I won’t inadvertently alter the complex formulae within.

4. Client analysis
Some editors work for repeat clients – an agency or publisher, for example. In those cases, we’re not always in control of the price, and yet those clients can still be valuable because of the amount of repeat work they send us and the percentage of our overall income their business accounts for.

Knowing who our most valuable clients are is essential if we’re to avoid knee-jerk reactions to rates of pay.

If Publisher A pays me an hourly rate half that of Agency A but gives me five times as much work, I’ll want to think very carefully before canning that client because I don’t like their pricing structure.

TEA’s Client Summaries Table does what is says on the tin. It’s here that we can see a list of our clients, the percentage their business contributes to our overall income, the number of hours’ work we’ve done for them and the total income received.

Time for another example …

Let’s say I’m scowling at the row on the Income sheet because I’ve yet to crack £15 per hour from Romance Fiction Press. Just above is an entry for John Smith, the indie author from whom I earned £40 per hour.

Terrible rates, I think. Exploitative, disrespectful, unfair. I’m about to head off to a Facebook group with 10,000 editor members and have a bit of a rant. Then I’m going to tell that press where to stick it.

But hang on a mo! What does TEA have to say?

I nip onto the Summaries sheet and take a look at the Client Summaries Table.

• TEA tells me that work from Romance Fiction Press earned me £11,000, which accounts for 54% of my annual income.
• John Smith is responsible for £2,285.71, or 11% of my annual income.

Yes, John Smith is a more valuable client on a project-by-project basis but he’s not giving me anywhere near the same volume of work as Romance Fiction Press.

Instead of ranting on Facebook, I need to use that time to plan a strategy that will bring in more John Smiths or better-paying publishers and agencies. Once done, I can phase out Romance Fiction Press. That might take a couple of years of intensive marketing. Until then, the press will stay.

Perhaps I can negotiate a raise with them. Maybe there are efficiency tools I can introduce to increase my speed when I’m editing for them. And they pay on time, are pleasant to work with, and have given me loads of fodder for my portfolio that I can leverage on my website and in future marketing.

The work is regular, too, and lands on my lap without my having to promote myself to get it. And that time saved is worth something.

5. Making tracking and tax less taxing
There are two additional and extremely useful summary tables in TEA:

• The Monthly Summaries Table shows income, hours worked, expenses and charitable donations compiled from basic data the editor places in the onboard income and expenses sheets. You can see which months are most lucrative. TEA gives you a sense of the degree to which your work is seasonal, and that helps you to plan ahead and promote your business appropriately if you want to fill some gaps.
• The Allowable Expenses Table has an itemized breakdown of what you can offset against your income.

The totals are the figures you’ll report to the tax office. They’re right there in front of you – no hunting around in different apps and other spreadsheets. All the data filters through from easy-to-fill-in Income and Expenses sheets accessible via TEA’s tabs.

How do I find out more about TEA?
Isn’t the name adorable? Using TEA is like having a cuppa! And it’s all about the editor’s affairs – our business affairs.

The data the editor has to input is basic stuff that all of us have access to or can estimate with every new job or expense that comes in.

The data TEA gives takes the stress out of scheduling, accounting and analysis. 

Every editor needs to understand the health of their business so that they can make informed decisions about who they work with, how much they charge and where the value lies. 

When accessing that data becomes burdensome, the temptation is to wing it. TEA means you don’t have to.

Maya will be making TEA available for purchase in May 2020. For introductory rates or to learn more about customized versions for more complex accounting and analysis, check out whatimeantosay.com/tea.

***
NOTE: I have no commercial stake in TEA, though I was given a free copy to experiment with in return for feeding back my experience of using it.

Every editorial report we write for our authors should achieve 7 goals. Some benefit us, some benefit our clients, but they’re all connected. If you feel your report-writing skills could do with a boost, use this goal-based framework to pep things up.

Let's look at the goals in brief; then we'll dig deeper.

Goals that benefit the editor

• Create the report efficiently
• Demonstrate editorial excellence
• Build trust
• Compel future commissions and recommendations

Goals that benefit the client

• Offer a comprehensive learning tool
• Take a mindful approach
• Provide a solution-based critical review

Efficiency means achieving the three goals that benefit the client without compromising on one iota of quality and without damaging our productivity. We are in business, after all.
​
Creating detailed editorial reports can eat into an editor’s hourly rate. It’s easy – even for experienced sentence-level editors – to omit the time for report-writing when creating a quote; I’ve done it myself. We focus on the number of words per hour we edit, based perhaps on a sample.
​
Or perhaps we have included the report-writing component in our calculations but the author wants to negotiate on price. Every efficiency we incorporate allows us greater choice about whether to accept or reject a client’s proposal.

Our second goal is to demonstrate editorial excellence. Those of you who are members of a national editorial society might well be bound by a code of practice that demands this.

That’s the case for members of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), which says in its CoP: ‘Good communication between client/employer and freelance/employee is essential.’

Editorial excellence isn’t just about being an expert in typo hunting, grammar correction and stylistic revision. 

Neither does it end with clarity on the project brief or issues of privacy, confidentiality and security. ​

​It’s also about communicating the why of our edits. Comprehensive editorial reports are the perfect communication tool, and the reason why we shouldn’t skimp.

When we communicate the why of our decisions, we build trust.

If a client is anxious about how we’ve edited their work because they don’t understand the changes we’ve made and/or because we’re new to them, trust is low.
​
Part of our job is to earn it. A comprehensive editorial report that demonstrates a deep knowledge of our craft creates author confidence. And that’s the key to a healthy business relationship.

​A client with a detailed editorial report that demonstrates excellence and builds confidence in your ability is more likely to do the following:
​

• Come back to you with their next project
• Wait for you if your schedule is full
• Accept your price
• Recommended you to their friends, family and colleagues

Now let's look at the benefits for the author. 

​Our fifth goal is to provide our authors with an outstanding learning tool, rich in problem/solution-focused detail, which they can use to hone their writing craft. 

The independent-author market is huge, and many in the community lack experience – they’re right at the beginning of their writing journey. They might well have talent by the bucket load but the line work we do is nevertheless extensive.

An editorial report gives us the chance to offer our guidance in a format that’s accessible and clear. And because it’s separate from their book file, they can refer to it time and again.

A comprehensive learning tool includes strengths, too. Writers can learn as much from knowing what they’re doing well – and should continue doing – ​as from knowing how they can up their game.

Our penultimate goal is to show mindfulness. As editors, we can never forget that every one of our author clients has a choice – and they chose us. They also have a passion – their book. 

It takes commitment to write a story, and sometimes not a little courage to place it in the hands of a professional editor, particularly one they haven't worked with before. That decision comes with risk.

For the editor, being selected is a privilege rather than an entitlement. We must respect that choice, the risk taken, and their investment (time and money).

Yes, we should report on weaknesses; that’s how they’ll improve their sentence-level craft. But we must do so gently and respectfully, and complement that analysis with reflection on their strengths.

Many indie-author book files end up in our editing studios without having been evaluated by a developmental editor, a critiquing editor, an experienced beta reader or even a colleague or friend in a writing group.

Our reports need to offer a critical review that explores the book’s sentence-level strengths and weaknesses.

What’s essential is that we offer solutions to any weaknesses we identify. Without those, we risk creating a shopping list of what was good and what wasn’t. That kind of analysis won’t help the author grow as a writer. Neither will it reflect our editorial excellence.

Want to learn how to do it, and love it?
If you’re a sentence-level editor and think your reporting skills could do with a boost, or a new editor who wants to nail it from the start, take a look at my new course, How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report. The course will be available in April 2020. 

Writing or editing in Microsoft Word on a PC? Save yourself time by learning these 27 keyboard shortcuts. If you don’t want to learn 27, learn just the first one: Save!

Want to hone your line craft so that the sentences in your novel elevate story rather than burying it? My latest book, Editing Fiction at Sentence Level, shows you how to do it. 

I'm a believer in learning by example. That's why every chapter is packed with studies that show you how to:

• diagnose the problem
• understand what's gone wrong
• implement a solution

It's true that fiction editing is subjective and nuanced, but there’s still plenty of room for practical analysis that unpicks a novel’s vulnerabilities and considers the range of literary tools available to improve what’s on the page.

​Who should read it?
​I wrote this book for beginner and developing authors, but professional editors who'd like to move from non-fiction to fiction will enjoy it too.

​There's a contents list available on the book's page here on my website for anyone who wants to see what's included.

How to get it
If you're happier with a searchable PDF, you can buy it direct from me. If you love a paperback, head to your local Amazon store or click on one of the buttons below. There's a Kindle version available too.

​How much does it cost?
It's £15.99 (though your Amazon store will publish a price in the local currency). PDF orders from me go through PayPal so there's nothing you need to do.

One of my readers told me she felt like a curtain had lifted after reading Editing Fiction at Sentence Level. I was thrilled because I don't think learning about writing craft should be onerous. Nor do I think the teaching of it should be impenetrable. My hope is that you'll find this book enjoyable and accessible, whatever stage of the writing and editing journey you're on.

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

Story-level critiques focus on the big picture – plot, pace, characterization, voice. Line critiques evaluate a book at a micro level, focusing on sentence construction, word choice, and readability. Here’s an overview of what to expect.

Story first ...
Think of your book as a construction project.

First you lay the foundations and build the walls – writing and redrafting to ensure the structure of your storytelling is sound. It’s where you and your editor (if you have one) focus on the big-picture stuff such as:

• Plot
• Pace
• Characterization
• Voice
• Tense choices
• Viewpoint decisions

At this macro stage, you might end up adding, deleting or shifting sections of your prose.

Some authors do their own structural editing because they’re good at it and have studied story craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek professional help, either because they’re at an earlier stage of their authorial journey or because they feel they’re too close to the book to see the problems.

One thing’s for sure – there’s no right or wrong way. Every writer has to make their own choices.

If a full, done-for-you developmental (or structural) edit isn’t the path you take, you might still decide to work with a specialist editor who analyses your book and provides a detailed report on its strengths and weaknesses at story level, and offers suggestions about how to improve your writing.
​
That’s where story-level critiques come into play. You might also hear them called manuscript evaluations and manuscript assessments.

​Line level second ...
Once the foundations and walls are in place, it’s plastering time – smoothing at sentence level to ensure that a reader’s journey through the pages is satisfying. In a sense, it’s still structural work but at a micro level. This is where you (and your editor if you have one) focus on nuances such as:

• Viewpoint
• Spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation
• Dialogue
• Narrative readability
• Character description
• Thoughts
• Action beats
• Shown and told prose
• Tenses
• Formatting

Again, some authors do their own line editing because they’re good at it and have studied line craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek help.
If a full, done-for-you line- and copyedit isn’t an option, a line critique could be just the ticket.

A line critique, like its story-level sister, is an assessment or evaluation of your story but at sentence level. Your report will include examples from your novel that show what’s holding you back.

​You’ll also be offered suggestions on how you can fix any problems identified. Then you can implement what you learn throughout the rest of your book.

Critiques are about learning, not criticizing
Some authors are nervous about critiques. Pro editors get it – it can be tough to put your book in the hands of another and ask them to tell you what’s working and what’s not, especially when you’ve put in so much hard work.

The thing to remember is that a critique (whether at sentence or story level) is not about criticism. It’s about identifying strengths and weaknesses, and offering solutions so that you can move forward to the next stage of your publishing journey with confidence.

And critiques are a long-term investment. They enable you to improve your self-editing skills. That’ll save you time and money further down the line because anyone else you commission will have less to do.

The line critique: the process and the report
What follows is an overview of the way I handle line critiques. Every editor has their own process, but the basic principles will be similar.

1. The service: Mini line critique
Authors email a Word file comprising, say, 5K words of their novel. It’s in a writer’s best interest to include a section that includes both narrative and dialogue. That way we can assess whether both are working effectively.

Furthermore, if there are multiple viewpoint characters in the novel, and different viewpoint styles and tenses have been used, a sample that represents these choices will enable us to provide a report that evaluates the success of those decisions.

2. First readthrough
The first stage of the process is a complete readthrough of the 5K words. It’s not about micro-level reporting, not yet. Rather, we’re getting a sense of the author’s writing style, the characters’ voices, and the flow of the narrative.

 3. Second pass: Identification tagging
We go back to the beginning and start the analytical process, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s line craft.
 
We work through the sample, tagging sections of the text with Word’s commenting tool. The author won’t see these tags – they’re just a tool that allow us to locate the sections we’ll pull from the text and into the report for demonstration.
​
The text in the image below has been blurred in order to respect confidentiality, but you can see the tagging process in the margins of just one page of one of my reports.

 4. Writing the report
Now that we’ve tagged the sample, we can create a report. My line critiques are usually between 20 and 30 pages long, depending on the length of the text samples I’m pulling in and offering recasts for. 

Each report is divided into sections that address the strengths and weaknesses of the following:

NARRATIVE

• Clarity of narrative viewpoint
• Tense choice
• Showing and telling
• Character description
• Filter words
• Action beats
• Sentence length, flow and rhythm
• Adverbs and adverbial phrases
• Tentative language in relation to a told narrative

DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS

• Voice, mood and intention
• Dialogue layout
• Dialogue punctuation
• Effectiveness of dialogue tags
• How thoughts are styled

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS

• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Syntax

FORMATTING

• Pre-proof layout recommendations
• Using Word’s styles tool

The tags in the sample allow editors to search for and locate the text we want to use as examples of good practice and to highlight areas with improvement potential.

​Here’s an example of one of those sections (I’ve disguised the identifying traits of the original in order to respect the author’s confidentiality):

5. Wrapping up and emailing the report
When the report is complete, we save it as a PDF and email it to the author. PDF is the tool of choice for many editors because it can’t be edited. If the client wishes to refer back to it during future writing projects, they can do so safe in the knowledge that nothing’s been accidentally removed.

Summing up
If you want to hone your line craft and polish your book at sentence level, but a full line- and copyedit is beyond your budget, consider a more affordable alternative: the line critique.

Think of a critique as another form of authorial development, of book-craft study. And what you learn from your critique won’t be something you can apply just to the current book. It’s a tool you can use with every story you write thereafter.
​
And here’s a free booklet that outlines the various levels of editing. Just click on the cover to get your copy (and, no, you don’t have to give me your email address!).

It doesn’t matter a jot to me which kind of English an author wants to write in. What does matter is their readers' expectations and perceptions, and being consistent.

​This free booklet shows you how to stay on track.

Macros enable us to edit faster and more consistently. For professional editors, that means a higher hourly rate, a more consistent output, and a happier client. If you want to use macros but don’t know where to start, read on.

Which macros, and when and why?
Which macros should you use? How does the Paul Beverley macro suite fit with an application such as PerfectIt? What should you use when?

No one’s the same. We edit different subject/genres, carry out different types of editing, and have different styles of working. There’s no one size fits all.

A conceptual approach, however, can help us decide which tools to use.

Analysis: Tasks versus goals
A task-centred analysis focuses on what we plan to do and deciding what tools will help with these stages. Thus, in the free book, Macros for Editors, I offer smorgasbord of macros that speed up a variety of specific tasks.
 
However, when we look broadly at what we’re trying to achieve, we may discover different ways of working and different tools – new tools, maybe – that can help.
 
One such contribution to this approach is the Alyse suite – analysis-type macros (DocAlyse, HyphenAlyse, etc.) that provide an overview that reports on the likely inconsistencies in a document without our even having to look at the files.

Computer-aided editing: Teamwork
Think of computer-aided editing as teamwork – you and the computer working together, each playing to your own strengths, with a single aim: to improve communication between author and reader.

A computer brings the following to the team:

• It can work tirelessly
• It is consistent
• It is very fast 

On  the downside, it lacks the ability to look beyond the data. It has no idea of meaning, significance, attitude, feelings – only humans can provide that.

Mechanics versus meaning
Editors spend a lot of time eliminating inconsistencies in the following:
​

• spelling errors
• proper nouns
• headings 
• hyphenation
• formatting issues
• figure, table and box captions
• capitalization
• references and citations

This is the mechanical side of editing.

Editors also spend a lot of time focusing on meaning. It matters little how consistent a document is if the meaning is clouded. Obscure the meaning, and communication between the author and reader is impeded.

Using macros and related applications enables the editor to delegate some of the mechanical work to the computer – those mundane data-led tasks – and focus their minds on communication.

A possible workflow
Here’s one way it might look:

Here are the macros you might use in that workflow:
​

1. To gain an overview, use the Alyse macros.
2. To make and record style decisions, combine the client’s brief with your understanding of the overview in (1).
3. To manage the mechanics, FRedit is one option (my preferred), combined with other global macros. Find out more about what FRedit is and how it works via my free book or this video: FRedit for beginners.
4. To manage the meaning and flow, use a range of line-editing macros to speed up the micro-level changes.
5. To double-check after the line edit, rerun some of the Alyse macros to catch previously missed inconsistencies or newly introduced ones.

If you’re a PerfectIt user (see the Intelligent Editing website), you could use that instead at stages (3) and (5). Or continue to use FRedit for (3) but use PerfectIt for (5). 

The latter is a possible best-of-both-worlds approach if you like the idea of having two different tools, each working to spot errors that the other might have missed.

False positives
False positives are to be expected with any computer tool. We can reduce them by refining the FRedit changes list and PerfectIt’s style sheets. 

For best effect with global change macros, apply them to one chapter at a time, making adjustments that will make it more effective in succeeding chapters.
 
Summing up
To access all my line-level and analysis macros, download the free book. You can also watch almost 100 video tutorials on my YouTube channel. And if you want to know more about PerfectIt, visit the Intelligent Editing website.

Please feel free to email me with suggestions and/or questions about macros.

In this bonus episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat about 10 things an author needs to tell an editor about so that both parties can work out whether they're a good fit.

Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

• Word count
• File format
• Genre or subject
• Previous rounds of editing
• Type of editing required
• Audience and publishing path
• Time frame
• Other published works (online or in print)
• Sourcing editorial assistance

Mentioned in the show

• The Editing Podcast, Point of view: On editing erotica. With editor Maya Berger
• The Editing Podcast, S1E1: The different levels of editing
• The Editing Podcast, S1E6: What is a sample edit?
• The Editing Podcast, S2E9: Writing and editing for the web. With Erin Brenner

The links above take you to The Editing Podcast website but you can catch up with any of the episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podchaser, or your preferred app.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My branding was off.

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what happened when I rebranded:
​

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

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise offer guidance on how to change your editor, and manage the process in a way that ensures everyone comes out smiling!

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 7

​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Other ways to listen

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• Why authors change editors
• Planning ahead and giving notice
• Whether the editor should get involved in sourcing a replacement
• Checking T&Cs and cancellation policies
• Information and tools to share with the new editor

Editing bites

• The NCW Podcast (National Centre for Writing)
• Oxford Dictionary of English Idiom
• Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms

Other resources​​

• The Editing Podcast, S1E1: The different levels of editing
• The Editing Podcast, S1E10: How to find an editor
• The Editing Podcast, S1E7: Style sheets for writing and editing
• Blog article: How do I find a proofreader, copyeditor or developmental editor?
• Blog article: What's a style sheet and how do I create one? (includes a free downloadable style-sheet template)
• The different levels of editing (free booklet: click on image below to download)

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services
• Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise offer some quick tips on formatting your Word file ... final tidy-ups to get your file in shape, and that accord with mainstream publishing standards. And there's a free PDF that includes all the search strings we talk about (or try to)!

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 6

​Click on the image below to download the free booklet and grab all those search strings we try to explain!

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
​Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Editing bites

• Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word: Amazon UK and Amazon US
• Word Tips

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services: bit.ly/CowleEditing
• Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor: bit.ly/HarnbyEditing

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about 10 editing macros that will save you time and improve the quality of your writing.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 5

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Other ways to listen

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• Macros how they work in Word
• CatchPhrase
• CitationLister and CitationListChecker
• CompareWordList
• File Cleaner
• FullPointInDialogue and CommaInDialogue
• MultiSwitch
• PerfectIt
• ProperNounAlyse
• SpellingErrorLister
• VisibleTrack

Editing bites

• ​‘Advanced Find and Replace for Microsoft Word’: Available from Jack Lyon
• ‘20-Minute Macro Course’: Available from Tech Tools for Writers

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services
• Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about adverbs, and how to use or remove them purposefully.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 4

​​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• What Stephen King said about adverbs
• Adverb use versus adverb abuse
• Definition of an adverb with examples
• Definition of an adverbial phrase with examples
• Adverb red flag #1: the double tell in narrative
• Adverb red flag #2: the double tell in dialogue
• Adverb red flag #3: the double tell in dialogue tags
• Fixes: using stronger verbs and strengthening dialogue
• Why adverbial phrases don’t solve the problem
• Extent of overuse

Editing bites

• How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell
• Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts

Other resources

• Stephen King on Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk with Daniel Heuman, founder of Intelligent Editing and developer of PerfectIt – consistency-checking and style-enforcing software for editors and writers.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 3

​​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• What PerfectIt does
• Who uses PerfectIt
• What’s new with PerfectIt 4
• Using the onboard styles
• The PerfectIt 4 interface
• How to access PerfectIt on PC and Mac
• How much a subscription costs and what’s included
• Where to download PerfectIt​

​Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss four different kinds of writers and how identifying what kind you are can help you work out the kind of editing that’s the best fit for you.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 2

​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• The confident writer
• The nervous writer
• The reluctant writer
• The impatient writer

Editing bites

• ‘How to proofread your own writing – 10 tips to clean up your writing’
• ‘Is proofreading enough? Does Your Reader Dance?’

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

Are you spending too much time on your novel’s text design? Here’s how to use the Styles function in Microsoft Word to ensure the various elements are formatted consistently.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the following:

• What the Styles tool is
• The properties you can influence
• How to access the Styles tool
• Why it’ll save you time to use styles
• 3 ways to create a style
• 2 ways to modify a style
• How to assign a style to an element of text
• Troubleshooting
• How heading styles help you navigate

What is the Styles tool?
The Styles tool allows you to apply design consistency to the various text elements in your book. In a novel, you might want to create different styles for the following:

• book title
• author
• chapter titles
• subheadings
• indented body text
• full-out paragraphs in new chapters or sections
• displayed matter such as letters, texts, emails, reports

Microsoft Word has a handy suite of on-board styles, though it’s unlikely they’ll match your specific requirements. Modifying these is still a little quicker than creating fresh styles so take a look at the properties and work out what you’ll retain and what you’ll change.

What properties can you influence?
You can influence every property of your text when you assign a style to it. However, in a novel, you’ll most likely focus on the following:

• paragraph indentation
• spacing above and below the text
• font
• size
• colour
• italicization and bolding
• alignment (left, right, centred and justified)
• page flow (widow/orphan control; ensuring headings and corresponding text don’t fall on separate pages; page breaks)

How to access the Styles tool
There are two ways to access the Styles function onscreen:

1. the Styles gallery in the ribbon
2. the Styles pane

The gallery in the ribbon offers a preview of how the style appears. If I’m working with a lot of different text elements in a document, I find these visual clues useful when I want to locate a style quickly.

On smaller screens, less of the Styles gallery will be visible. To access the previews of all the styles in your gallery, click on the MORE arrow (circled).

A new window will appear containing the full gallery.

Why you should format with styles
Using styles gives you control over design, consistency and formatting time.

Time is money, so when you do the job instead of asking other professionals to do it, your book budgets goes further. Perhaps you can invest a little more time or money on cover design, sales and marketing, or learning how to improve writing craft.

Can you format manually? Of course, but you could be making a lot of unnecessary work for yourself.

Scenario 1
You complete the writing, drafting, and editing, and get cracking on designing the layout. Now that there are 85,000 words in place, your thriller’s looking more like a textbook thanks to the font you’ve chosen for your main text: Arial 14. A serif font like Times New Roman would be easier on your reader’s eye.

The problem is, you can’t select all the text in the file with CTRL A and change it in one fell swoop because that would affect the chapter headings and the emails your transgressor is sending to the police, all of which are formatted differently. Instead, you have to work through the file, locate  the main text elements manually, and change the font.

If, however, you’ve assigned a style to your main text, you can modify that font property in just a few clicks. The change will automatically change all the main text, and only that element, to your new font. Further down, I’ll show you how.

Scenario 2
You’ve written 12 additional paragraphs for your book but they’re in another document. You copy and paste the writing into your book file. Now you have to manually format the new sections so that they match the existing work.

If you’ve assigned styles, however, it’s as simple as cut, paste and left-click. Job done.

How to create a style
There are several ways to create a style in Word:

• manually – 2 options
• by updating an existing unused style to match a piece of text you’ve selected or clicked within

1A. Manual method
Open the styles pane and left-click on the A+ button in the bottom-left-hand corner.

A new window will open (CREATE NEW STYLE FROM FORMATTING). Now you can give your style a name (1) and assign properties to the font, paragraph spacing and page flow (2 and 3). 

1B. Manual method B
Alternatively, right-click on a piece of text that’s already formatted according to your preferences. A mini toolbar will appear. Click on the Styles button. 

A new window will appear. Left-click on CREATE A STYLE.

Name your style, modify if you wish, and left-click OK.

2. Updating method
Select a piece of text that’s already formatted according to your preferences. Now head up to the Styles gallery in the ribbon, or the Styles pane, and right-click on an unused style that you’re happy to update. Hover over UPDATE [STYLE] TO MATCH SELECTION, then left-click.

How to modify a style
There are two ways to modify a style in Word: 

1. via the Styles gallery in the ribbon 
2. via the Styles pane

1. Styles gallery 
Go to the Styles gallery in the ribbon and right-click on the style you want to modify.

​Left-click on MODIFY and amend the properties of your style. Note that this will change every piece of text assigned with that style.

​2. Styles pane 
Go to the Styles pane on the right-hand side of your screen and right-click on the style you want to modify.

​Left-click on MODIFY and amend the properties of your style. Again, bear in mind that this will change every piece of text with that style assigned.

How to assign a style to an element of text
If a piece of text isn’t formatted correctly, left-click the cursor on a word or in a paragraph, or select it by double-clicking.

Now head up to the Styles gallery in the ribbon, or the Styles pane, and left-click on the preferred style. Your style will be assigned.

If you’re working on a smaller screen, you’ll probably find it easier to use the Styles gallery in the ribbon because it takes up less space than the Styles pane.

​To close the Styles pane and free up some screen real-estate, left-click on the X in the top-right-hand corner.

​Troubleshooting
Here’s how to fix some of the more common problems that arise when working with styles.

1. Styles gallery or pane isn’t visible
If the Styles gallery isn’t visible, make sure you’re in the HOME tab in the ribbon. 

If the Styles pane isn’t visible, left-click on the small arrow in the Styles gallery.

2. Style not showing in gallery
If you’ve created a style and it’s not showing in gallery, head to the Styles pane and right-click on the missing style. This opens the MODIFY pane. Make sure that the ADD TO THE STYLES GALLERY box is checked.

3. The gallery is cluttered with unused styles
If your gallery is busy with styles you don’t need to access, there are two ways to remove them. The quickest method is to right-click on an unwanted style, then left-click on REMOVE FROM STYLE GALLERY.

An alternative is to right-click on the unwanted style and left-click on MODIFY. Then uncheck the ADD TO THE STYLES GALLERY box.

4. You’ve renamed a style but Word’s default name is still displayed in the pane
If you’re using the Styles pane to apply styles, the list might appear cluttered if Word’s default names are displaying, even though you've modified them. To fix, left-click on the OPTIONS button.

​Check the HIDE BUILT-IN NAME WHEN ALTERNATE EXISTS box, then left-click on OK.

​Your list  will now display with your modified names.

Heading styles and navigating your Word file
One of the advantages of using the Styles tool for a novel is navigation.

​To access the Navigation pane, press CTRL F on a PC. Now, left-click on the HEADINGS tab. Any style based on one of the in-built heading styles will show up in the menu.

I use this function when I’m editing and want to check that chapter headings (and subheadings) are formatted consistently, assigned the correct level of priority, and numbered chronologically.

Headings with arrows next to them indicate lower-level subheadings. You can expand or collapse subheadings by left-clicking on the arrows.

Furthermore, if you want to shift a headed or subheaded section to another position in your document, left-click on the relevant heading and drag up or down the menu.

Summing up
Styles let you focus on your writing rather than fretting about internal text design.

Applying a style to an element of your book file takes a fraction of the time required for manual formatting. And because any style can be tweaked, you get to change your mind as often as you like.
​
If you have any problems with using Word’s Styles gallery and pane, drop me a note in the comments and I’ll do my best to fix the issue.

Fancy watching a video tutorial? Visit my YouTube channel and watch: Self-editing Your fiction in Word: How to Use Styles.

Semi-colons are disliked by some, misused by others, and avoided by many. If you want to keep them out of your writing, that’s fine. In this article, I show you how they work conventionally. That way, you can omit them because that’s your preference, not because you daren’t include them!

What is a semi-colon?
It’s one of these: 

3 ways to use a semi-colon
There are 3 situations in which you’re likely to use a semi-colon in fiction:

Here, I focus on parallelism and clarity, but sentence pacing comes into play too – a useful addition to any fiction writer’s toolbox.
​
A little bit of grammar
Above, I mentioned independent clauses. An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. In case you don’t know what they are – and many writers know how to write extremely well without knowing grammar terminology so there’s no shame in that – here’s an overview.

Subject
A subject is the thing in a sentence that’s doing something or being something. In the examples below, the subject is in bold.

If you’re not sure what the subject of your sentence is, try this trick: change the subject into a question that you can answer yes/no to, as in the examples below.

​Predicate
A predicate is the part of a sentence that contains a verb and that tells us something about what the subject’s doing or what they are.
​
In the examples below, the predicate is in bold.

If you’re not sure what the predicate is in a sentence that’s a question, turn it into a statement, as in the example below. The result might be clunky but it’ll show you what’s what. The subject is in bold and the predicate in italic.

Independent clauses
Quick recap: an independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. The subject is in bold, the predicate is in italic, and the full independent clause is in red.

​Parallelism and the semi-colon
Take a look at these two independent clauses.

• The FBI agent fell to the ground.
• The gravel dug into her elbows.

The second sentence is related to the first because the gravel that’s digging into the agent’s elbows is what she experiences after falling to the ground. We can therefore use a semi-colon to indicate this relationship, if we wish.

• The FBI agent fell to the ground; the gravel dug into her elbows.

Note that the first word of the clause after the semi-colon does not take an initial capital letter.

Could we use a colon?
A colon is non-standard because colons introduce additional/qualifying information about the first clause, not new information. Think of the information they introduce as subordinate, if it helps.

I recommend avoiding colons to join parts of a sentence that are equally weighted.

Could we use a comma?
A comma is non-standard when joining two independent clauses. Sentences using commas in this way are said to contain comma splices.

​I recommend avoiding this usage.

Clarity and the semi-colon
Heavily punctuated sentences can be confusing and clunky. For the reader, it can mean limping through your prose rather than moving at a pace dictated by narrative intent.

​Take a look at this example from Mick Herron’s Dead Lions, p. 88. There are two semi-colons in the original version, but for this example I’m focusing only on the first (see the section in bold).

​The en dash in the first alternative version looks awkward because we already have two parenthetical en dashes in play.

What happens if we introduce a comma instead? The sentence is already comma-heavy. All we’ve done is bring in yet another to muddy the waters.
​
The semi-colon works best. It effectively links the clauses it connects, but in a way that subdivides the sentence clearly.

​However, pacing comes into place here too. There’s more on pacing below but, for now, compare the original and the version amended with a comma. The creepy voyeurism is starker when set off by the semi-colon.

​More on pacing and the semi-colon
The semi-colon is harder than the comma. It lengthens the pause or increases the distance between two clauses that could have been linked with a comma, making them both stand out.

The semi-colon is softer than the full point. It shortens the pause or reduces the distance between two clauses that could have been linked with a full point, indicating a stronger, more intimate relationship.

Back to Herron for a closer look at the second semi-colon (see the section in bold) and some alternatives we could try:

​In the original, the semi-colon acts as a super-comma, subdividing the whole sentence into two more readable chunks.

However, more marked is the impact on the pace. The semi-colon forces us to slow down. That’s important because the clause that comes after it is about the denial of interrogations. The semi-colon makes us pause a little longer, which makes the sinister information that follows stand out.

Semi-colons and dialogue
Some authors resist the use of semi-colons in dialogue, usually on the grounds that the reader can’t hear the punctuation. Does that mean you shouldn’t use them?

A novel’s dialogue isn’t real-life speech; it’s a representation of it. Speech, like narrative, has rhythm. The writer’s job is to create speech that’s clear and well paced. If a semi-colon helps you to do that, why wouldn’t you use it?

Here’s a great example from David Rosenfelt’s New Tricks, p. 316:

Both versions work but Rosenfelt elects to use a semi-colon because he wants to show the relationship between the two independent clauses. A full point would pull the clauses a little further apart and reduce the intimacy between them.

Should you use semi-colons in your fiction?
Some authors prefer to omit semi-colons for a variety of reasons: they're deemed pretentious, confusing, interruptive or ugly. But I’m not sure we should judge them so harshly:

• They needn’t be pretentious. There’s nothing pompous about Herron and Rosenfelt’s writing. Both authors create compelling modern commercial fiction that keeps their readers on a page, and dying to turn it.
• While not all readers understand the grammatical nuances of the semi-colon, few will be stopped in their tracks if you use it well.
• Are they interruptive? Yes; if you use them too frequently; and your writing lurches; like a driver who’s too heavy on the brakes; too much of anything can grate. And; yes, if; you put them; in the wrong; place. Used purposefully, however, they can affect rhythm and bring clarity to a story.
• As for ugly, well, that’s subjective. I think they’re just lovely!

Further reading and cited works

• Dead Lions, Mick Herron, John Murray, 2013
• Dialogue tags
• How to punctuate dialogue
• How to use adverbs
• How to use apostrophes
• More resources for indie authors
• New Tricks, David Rosenfelt, Grand Central, 2009
• Style sheet template
• Using commas and conjunctions

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss location and whether where your editor lives actually matters.

Click to listen to Episode 11

​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary of Episode 11
Listen to find out more about:

• Local, regional and national knowledge
• Face-to-face meetings
• University policies
• Spelling, idiomatic and dialectical variance
• Pronunciation problems
• Communicating with global audiences
• Refining searches for editors
• Financial transactions
• The type of editing being carried out
• Times-zone advantages

Editing bites

• Oxford Dictionaries Online
• Urban Dictionary

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss how to find an editor if you decide you want professional help.

Click to listen to Episode 10

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary of Episode 10
Listen to find out more about:

• National editorial societies
• Google and other search engines
• Writing networks
• Social media
• Refining your search by subject/genre specialism: editor portfolios
• Refining with sample edits
• Refining with testimonials

Editing bites

• Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
• Alliance for Independent Authors (ALLi)

Other resources

• SfEP Directory of Editorial Services
• ALLi roundtable: Louise, Denise & co on editing
• ALLi roundtable: Louise, Denise & co on editing for profit

Episode transcripts
You can access transcripts of all the episodes via Denise and Louise's websites:

• Denise Cowle
• Louise Harnby

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss the order of play for the different levels of editing, and some ideas about how you can keep costs down.

Click to listen to Episode 9

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary of Episode 9
Listen to find out more about:

• The different levels of editing
• The order of play – when to do what
• Who else can help – beyond the pro editor
• Planning ahead
• Getting comparative quotations for the job
• Honing story craft
• Manuscript critiques or evaluations
• Learning through example – commissioning mini edits
• Word’s onboard tools, macros and add-ins
• Style sheets

​
Editing bites

• PerfectIt (consistency-checking software)
• Proofreading checklist (free PDF booklet)
• Ask A Book Editor (Facebook group)

Other resources

• A nifty little proofreading and editing macro: ProperNounAlyse (blog post)
• Creating your own style sheet (scroll to bottom of blog post)
• Free downloadable style-sheet template (scroll to bottom of blog post)
• How do I find spelling inconsistencies when proofreading and editing? TextSTAT (blog post)
• How Not to Write a Novel (Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman)
• Self-editing your fiction in Word: How to use styles (video tutorial)
• Should a writer hire a freelance editor before submitting to an agent? And should editors accept the work? (blog post)
• The different levels of editing: Proofreading and beyond (blog post)
• The Magic of Fiction (Beth Hill)
• Using proofreading macros: Highlighting confusables with CompareWordList (blog post)
• Write to be Published (Nicola Morgan)

  
Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

You don't need a lot of equipment to create superb audio content. A fellow book editor and I recently recorded 5 episodes for our podcast with nothing but a couple of mics, a splitter and our cell phones. Here's how to do it.

Mobile podcasting at ATOMICON
Denise Cowle and I were at ATOMICON, a one-day digital marketing conference hosted by my two favourite marketers, Andrew and Pete.

The venue was the Assembly Rooms in Newcastle. 300 business owners, all with an interest in being visible online, gathered from near and far to learn, and have a good laugh doing it – Andrew and Pete don’t do anything without putting a smile on people’s faces!

Creating content ... while learning about creating content
In January, Denise and I launched The Editing Podcast. We're both experienced book editors and we use our knowledge and experience to make indie authors' publishing journeys easier by offering writing and editing tips, tools and guidance.

Our target audience is anyone who writes. That means we’re creating audio material related to fiction and creative non-fiction, business, education and academia.

We tackle editing issues from the viewpoint of print and digital publishing because we recognize that our listeners work in a variety of formats and use a range of platforms to distribute their writing.

Now, we'd already planned to invite guests onto The Editing Podcast in Season 2 and beyond, but ATOMICON was too good an opportunity to miss.

​Since some of the 300 delegates had published books – fiction and non-fiction – we thought it would be great to hear their experiences of the editing and publishing process so that other indie authors might understand the various approaches taken and the challenges faced.

The question we asked ourselves was could we do it on the fly? The coffee breaks were short, the venue busy, and the atmosphere buzzing. That meant there’d be a lot of background noise to contend with.

What equipment did we use?
We turned up in Newcastle with our very own micro podcasting studio! It consisted of the following:

• 2 x RØDE Smartlav+ mics; one for us and one for each of our interviewees (available on Amazon for £39.99)
• 1 x RØDE SC6; allows the connection of two mics to one iPhone (available on Amazon for £11.15)
• 1 x smart phone
• 1 x RØDE Reporter app (free via Apple’s App Store, though we could have used our onboard voice recorders)

Total cost: £51.14

That’s a small investment for an audio studio that fits in your pocket! And we can use the equipment over and over.

​So did it work?
Yes, it did! RØDE didn’t disappoint. We plugged in the mics, hit the RECORD button on the Reporter app, and away we went.
​
Our voices come across clearly, and while the background noise of the convention is audible, it doesn't interfere with the conversation. In fact, we think it adds texture to the recordings because listeners can appreciate the atmosphere of a live event.

Who did we talk to?
The following lovely people were kind enough to let us interview them about their book revision and publication journeys:
​

• Tim Lewis, host of the Begin Self-Publishing Podcast and author of Social Media Networking
• Simon Raybould of Presentation Genius and author of Presentation Genius
• Antoinette Oglethorpe, a leadership coach and author of Grow Your Geeks
• Kenda Macdonald of Automation Ninjas, and author of Hack the Buyer Brain
• Kia Thomas, a fiction editor and author of Wings

You can listen to the bonus POINT OF VIEW episodes on The Editing Podcast via your preferred podcatcher.

Editing and publishing the recordings
The recordings are .WAV files that sit in the Reporter app’s library. Download them to your computer or email them to yourself.
​
We edit our audio files in Audacity – this is free, open-source, cross-platform audio-editing software. The dashboard does have something of a NASA feel to it, but it’s easy to learn how to do the basics with any number of free tutorials available on YouTube. 

Here’s one example from by David Taylor: Audacity: Complete Tutorial Guide to Audacity for Beginners.

To upload to most audio platforms, you’ll need to convert the WAVs to MP3s. You can do this in Audacity at export stage.

​Publishing audio content
Denise and I chose Libsyn to syndicate our podcast content because it’s cheap as chips ($5 per month for the basic package) but still enables – post set-up – automatic delivery to the following:

You don’t have to go down that route, of course. If you’re creating audio content more sporadically for the purpose of author book promotion or to communicate your editing knowledge/services, you could go direct to, say, SoundCloud or another free audio-streaming service, and embed the audio on your website rather than going for full syndication. And it won’t cost you a penny.

Why should you use audio?
Audio is a powerful engagement tool because it allows your listeners to hear your actual voice ... your accent, your pitch, your inflection and, perhaps most important, your emotion.

That enables authors to connect with readers, and editors to connect with authors. 

When a conversation takes place, listeners can hear that connection, and enjoy it. Lots of The Editing Podcast's listeners have told me and Denise that they love not just the learning points we share but also the way our friendship plays out on air. It's a richer experience than words alone can provide.
 
Learn how to do marketing better
We had a great time at ATOMICON, and our mobile podcasting experiment was a huge success, with over 300 downloads of the author interviews in the first 2 hours of appearing on air.

​If you’re struggling to be visible online, Andrew and Pete will show you the way. Denise and I are heading back to ATOMICON in 2020. I'm certain we'll be doing more mobile podcasting, too!

​Click on the image below if you fancy joining us.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about about page proofs and the proofreading process.

Click to listen to Episode 8

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary of Episode 8
Listen to find out more about:

• Tangled terminology and how proofreading means different things to different writers and editors
• Designed page proofs versus raw-text files
• Defining page proofs
• Where proofreading and page proofs fit into mainstream publishing industry’s production process
• What to look out for at proofreading stage
• Knock-on effects that could damage designed page proofs
• The benefits of professional interior formatting

Editing bites

• The Penguin Guide to Punctuation (book by RL Trask)
• Quick and Dirty Tips (online hub hosted by Grammar Girl, aka Mignon Fogarty)

Related resources
You can download Louise's free proofreading checklist by clicking on the image below:

Check out two of Louise's blog articles about proofreading too:

• Order! Order! Thoughts on proofreading method
• Proofreading designed page proofs: knock-on effects

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about style sheets, and how they’ll help you keep track of the key themes in your book, and ensure consistency along the way.

Click to listen to Episode 7

Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary of Episode 7 ...
Listen to find out more about:

• Style sheets – what they are and why they’re useful
• What to include in your style sheet
• Which types of written content benefit from a style sheet
• Style sheets for authors and editors
• Two industry-recognized style guides

Editing bites

• Free downloadable style-sheet template (scroll to bottom of blog post)
• Creating your own style sheet (scroll to bottom of blog post)

Episode transcripts
You can access transcripts of this episode via Denise and Louise's websites:

• Denise Cowle
• Louise Harnby

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Other ways to get in touch

• The Editing Podcast on Facebook
• The Editing Podcast on Libsyn
• The Editing Podcast on YouTube

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

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