Making time for editorial marketing

A common stumbling block for editorial business owners is making time for marketing. Here’s why we must make time, and some resources to help you organize your business-promotion schedule.

​What’s in this post …

Read on to find out more about:
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• Why running a business means finding clients
• Working for others – being an employee
• Working on your business and in your business
• Setting up a business and marketing: The order of play
• Shifting from a no-time mindset to an all-the-time mindset
• Taking a strategic approach to marketing

​Why running a business means finding clients

Every time an editor or proofreader says they don’t have time to build and implement a marketing strategy, they’re saying they don’t have time to find work.

None of us can run a business if there’s no business to run. Editing and proofreading work is essential. Otherwise we’re nothing more than a fancy title on a business card.

​If marketing isn’t a part of your business model, it’s time either to work for someone else or shift your mindset.

​​Working for others – being an employee

There’s nothing wrong with being an employee. For some it’s a more suitable career choice. Unless you apply for a job in the marketing department, it will be someone else’s responsibility to do the company’s promotional work, to pull in the clients.
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If you want to do your own thing, however, a commitment to business marketing must be part of the mix. That’s the difference between being self-employed and self-unemployed.

Working on your business and in your business

Every independent editorial business owner has two jobs:

• The work they do
• And the work they do to get the work they do

There’s no way around this. The approach we use to find work will depend on who our target clients are. Think social media, content marketing, advertising, directory listings, professional membership, a visible website, letters, emails, networking, phone calls, and SEO. All or some of these will be in play.

If a no-time mindset is tripping you up, ask yourself whether you can imagine saying any of the following:

• I don’t have time to do editing.
• I don’t have time to send invoices.
• I don’t have time to check the spelling of a word in a dictionary.

Those statements sound daft, don’t they? Of course we’d make time for editing, invoicing and checking spelling! We’re professionals and we’re business owners – those things are essential.

Finding work is just as important. If we don’t, there’s no editing to do, no invoices to send, no spellings to check.
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Since we’re employers (of ourselves), not employees, we must do our own marketing, right from the get-go, and continue to do it for as long as we’re in business.

Setting up a business and marketing: The order of play

Marketing doesn’t come after we’ve set up our business. That’s a misfire. It views marketing as if it’s a separate entity.

If we spend 12 months training to be a professional editor but dedicate no time to our marketing strategy, all we’ll have at the end is a skillset that’s invisible to everyone but us.

I know how to make lasagne, change a tyre, and remove a thorn from a Labrador’s paw, but those skills in themselves don’t mean people are offering me work as a chef, a mechanic or a veterinary nurse. Why would they? No one but me, my husband, my kid and my dog know I can do that stuff. I’ve not promoted those skills or set up a business around them (nor do I plan to, just in case you’re wondering!).
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If you’re serious about becoming a professional editor, so much so that you’ve invested your hard-earned cash in a high-quality training course, start working on your marketing strategy at the same time so that you don’t end up as a professional thumb-twiddler! 

Shifting from a no-time mindset to an all-the-time mindset

Whatever marketing approach(es) you choose, do them regularly so that they’re a normal part of editorial business ownership.

Invoicing and tax returns are my least favourite aspects of running a business but I do them anyway. I have to. We all do.

Same thing with marketing. You don’t have to love marketing. You don’t even have to like it. Just do it anyway, all the time. Dedicate time in your business week to the task.

​Every time you’re tempted to use that slot in your schedule to do something else, remind yourself that you don’t want to be self-unemployed, that you do want to earn a living from your editing business, and that when the client cupboard is bare it makes you feel miserable and stressed.

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Taking a strategic approach to marketing

Here are three things every editor needs to recognize about strategy:

• ‘I'd better do a bit of marketing because I’ve got no work lined up next month’ is not a strategy. It’s an emergency.
• ‘Great! I just got some work for next month so I don’t have to do any marketing for a while’ is not a strategy. It’s a recipe for a future emergency.
• ‘I’ll accept that horrible low-paid job because it’s better than nothing’ is not a strategy. It’s a business model that puts others in control.

A long-term marketing strategy is planned, targeted, and implemented continuously. That’s what keeps the cupboard full of good-fit clients, and what gives us the power to decide a project’s not a good fit, the price isn’t right, or the scheduling’s too tight.

​Summing up

If you’re already marketing your editing business, fantastic. If you’re not, start now and don’t stop!

You don’t have to do your marketing the way I do my marketing. The foundation of my strategy is content marketing, but that’s because I work exclusively with independent authors in a specialist genre, and want those authors to find me via Google.

Your marketing strategy should reflect the best method of being visible to your ideal clients. That might mean sending emails, making phones calls, engaging in a group or forum, or advertising in a particular space.

And even if you don’t like marketing, make it part of your business practice anyway. Place it alongside the other aspects of your business that you’re obliged to do but would rather not. Why? Because marketing can mean the difference between working and walking away. If you’ve already invested your energy and money in training, that’s a waste of your valuable skills. You deserve more than that.

And who knows? You might even enjoy promoting your business once you start reaping the fruits of your labour! 

More marketing resources

Check out these additional resources about building a sustainable editorial business:
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• Blogging for Business Growth (course)
• Branding for Business Growth (course)
• Business Skills Collection (6 ebooks)
• Marketing resource library (books, booklets and blogs and podcasts)
• Marketing Toolbox for Editors (multimedia course)
• Marketing Your Editing and Proofreading Business​ (book)

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

• Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
• Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
• Learn: Books and courses
• Discover: Resources for authors and editors