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Editors on the Blog is a monthly column curating some of the best posts from the editing community – articles written by editors and proofreaders for colleagues and clients alike.
My thanks to this month's contributors! 
THE BUSINESS OF EDITING
CLIENT FOCUS
EDITING IN PRACTICE
FREELANCE LIFE
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.
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If speaking in public gives you the heebie-jeebies, professional presenter Simon Raybould has some advice that will improve your performance and calm your nerves.
Over to Simon … 
You edit words for a living, right? It’s a cool job, I admit, and not one I could conceivably aspire to.
As someone once put it, 'Simon, being your proofreader must be like being Seán McGowan’s dentist.’ And yes, it’s true. She once sent me an email with the words ‘… first paragraph alone! Are you doing it on purpose? Are you trying to annoy me?’ But I think I have an even more cool option for you. Instead of editing words, why not edit minds? I’m not talking about some sci-fi concept – it’s what I do for a living. A good presentation will change someone’s mind ... and with it, their world. A good presentation is a form of telepathy – sending ideas from your mind to someone else’s. The upsides are awesome, but the downsides are pretty serious too:
But all is not lost – there are cures … or at least things that will help. Here are a few quick-to-master ideas and tools that will help you to present at conferences (or anywhere else) with confidence. Some are easy, some are harder, but all of them work. 
1. The least popular tool – just doing it
Let’s start with the least popular option. When I ask people why they want to be confident, I often receive answers such as ‘If I were confident I’d be able to XYZ.’ And that’s great – they have a specific thing in mind. What’s not so great is that they seem to think that confidence alone will mean they don’t have to invest time in doing XYZ. I’m going to be blunt … you can’t shortcut your way to confidence. Don’t try to get confident before you do something. You can only get confident by doing that thing. Think about how you learned to ride a bike. Did you look at it, thinking, Cool! What an awesome bike. As soon as I’m a confident cyclist I’ll hop right on and go for rides in the hills? Nope. What you did was sit on it, fall off, get back on, fall off, get back on … and so on. Presenting is like that. Of course, with bikes you have stabilizers (and parents) holding you up. Stick with the analogy for a moment and figure out how you can make presentations in safer ways and places – stabilizers, as it were. How about making presentations under the following conditions:
I’m sure you get the idea. To mix my movement metaphors … don’t run before you can walk. 
2. Know what success looks like
We all know what could go wrong, right? People might laugh at us; we could fall off the stage; cold sweat might drip down our backs or melt our mascara. And that’s the thing… we know what the bad things look like. But what about success? Not fainting on stage doesn’t count. Things like this count:
Define it. After all, if all you can identify is failure, that’s what you’ll concentrate on. But if you can define success, you stand a chance of concentrating on that instead. (Defining success also helps you to design your conference presentation more effectively. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, you’re more likely to omit core material.) 
3. Sentence zero ... the breathing tool
When we’re scared, we breathe from the top of our lungs. Air comes out in a rush, making our voices sound thinner, breathier and – frankly – less authoritative. Hold that thought in your head for a moment and think about this: Lots of people tell me that once they get going in a presentation, things get better. So the important thing is to start well, right? Right. If you can control your breathing at the start, things are going to go better. Sentence zero is a handy tool for doing just that. Get the very first sentence of your presentation straight in your head. Be specific. For now, let’s pretend that Sentence One is ‘Hello, my name is Simon.’ Now think of a sentence that could go before it, finishing with the word ‘and’. For now, let’s pretend it’s 'Goodness, what a hideous lime green that back wall is, and …' We’ll call this Sentence Zero. Now, as you start your presentation, say Sentence Zero+Sentence One in one breath, but only use your voice for Sentence One. What that means is that your audience only hears Sentence One but you’ve already used the high-pressure, anxiety-sounding breath from the top of your lungs on the silent Sentence Zero.
4. Ditch the script
Writing is difficult. That’s why authors need you, right? So what on earth makes you think you can write a script for your presentation? If it was that easy, we’d all be writing massively successful West End and Broadway plays. Don’t try. Instead, define your structure.
Then, when you stand up to present, use the keywords as markers around which you improvise. Trust me, you’ll sound more natural and be much, much more interesting. Plus, you won’t spend time worrying about the massive confidence-drainer that is 'Did I get the wording absolutely right according to the script?' As an aside, the answer is no. No one does unless they’re RSC-grade actors. What you’ll lose in the occasional fumble you’ll more than gain in sounding more relaxed and natural. Plus, you won’t commit the ultimate presenter’s sin of using Latin words. It’s an over-simplification but we’re more likely write using the Latin-orientated words (‘commence’ rather than ‘start’) and speak using the Saxon versions (‘guts’ rather than ‘intestines’). Ditching the script means you don’t speak like a textbook. 
5. Wasp-swatting: The power of the list
A while ago, my team and I sat down for a meeting. Pizza and wine might have been involved. One of the things we asked each other was what made us nervous. It turned out that about one-third of our conference nerves came not from the presentation but from the logistics that went with it.
Logisitical/trivial problems are like wasps. One seems manageable. A swarm’s a different matter. Each issue might be negligible on its own, but all of them together have a noticeable impact. Similarly, each on its own is easily dealt with, but taken together the problem loses its perspective. The solution is simple: a list. At least two weeks in advance of the conference, create a simple checklist – one line for every issue. For example, I don’t have a 'cables' tick box on my list; I have entry for the power cable, another for the VGA adaptor, and another for the HDMI adaptor, and so on. Before you go live, check the list. That way, when it’s time to perform, you can do so confident that you’ve not forgotten anything. It also frees up the parts of your brain you’d otherwise have wasted on trying to remember things. 6. Practice and rehearsal This is so fundamental it probably shouldn't come last. It also needs the fewest words. You will perform better if you go over your presentation and practise improvising using your keywords. Wrapping up There’s a lot more you can do to conquer your nerves – ideas range from breathing techniques to standing in certain positions – but these are good starting points. So go change the world and edit people’s heads!
Want to know more?
Simon's a presentations expert and productivity guru. He's running a session at the SfEP annual conference in Lancaster in 2018 so you can meet him there. If you want to get in touch beforehand, here's what you need:
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.
Today, I discuss the negative impact that just one word can have on narrative tension: Suddenly.
I’m not suggesting writers eradicate it, but rather use it judiciously and with intention. 
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #92
I edit a lot of crime fiction written by beginner and emerging authors. I’m an avid reader of the genre too. Reading a genre isn’t enough to make anyone an expert in it, but it does afford the editor plenty of opportunities to see it written well, and to experience it as a punter ... to ask: Why do I like that? What is it about that scene that works so well? What’s hooking me here?
There’s one word that great crime writers put on the page with care – suddenly. However, many new or developing writers struggle to leave it out. Two reasons for overuse stand out:
I’ve grabbed a handful of crime fiction from my own bookshelves, and taken examples from these books to show how suddenly-free writing can be more immediate and immersive. 1. Countering wordiness Some developing writers record every nod, every furrowed brow. All that mundane stuff happens in real life. And in the movies we get to see it played out onscreen. That doesn’t mean it all needs to go into a novel. Readers don’t behave like viewers. When I’m watching a film I expect to be spoon-fed to a degree – dialogue, facial expression, action, and a healthy dollop of incidental music to tell me who’s feeling what and why. The reason it works with film is because a chunk of that stuff happens simultaneously, and even I, impatient soul that I am, don’t get bored. When I’m reading a book, my brain works differently. I don’t want all that stage direction. Too much of it distracts me and that’s when I’m most likely to lose interest. When a new writer hasn’t learned the art of crafting the story so that there are just enough nudges to keep the narrative rich, but not so many that it becomes tedious, suddenly rears its head. Suddenly becomes an apology for overwriting – an exciting reward for sticking around. Only it doesn’t work. It’s just one more word on the page that the reader doesn’t need. Solution: Keep your crime writing lean Not every writer wants to strip their writing back to the bare bones but ask yourself whether you’ve introduced a sentence with Suddenly purely to reengage the reader. If so, tighten up the preceding narrative so that you don’t lose them in the first place. Less is sometimes more. Example Here’s a scene from Tell No Lies by Gregg Hurwitz, featuring the protagonist, Daniel Brasher (p. 393):
A less experienced writer might have been tempted to overwork the preceding description and the line conveying Daniel’s anxiety ... and that could have led to a Suddenly barging its way onto the starting blocks of the final sentence to drag the reader out of the protagonist’s head and back into the external action. It could have gone like this:
He was ushered through the door into a small, dank, grey windowless room with a stall terminating in a shield of ballistic glass that looked onto the mirror image of a facing stall. Only a steel table and two chairs furnished the room. A coaster-size speaking hole in the glass rendered jailhouse phones unnecessary.
He waited, counting the seconds, working to stay calm. Sweat dripped from his forehead, ran down his back and soaked his shirt. He massaged his temples to stave off the growing panic and raked a clammy hand through his damp hair. Just relax, he thought. You’re in control. Suddenly, a metallic boom announced the opening of an out-of-sight metal door ... Instead, Hurwitz has given us just enough to know that our protagonist is fretful. We hear the metallic boom in the same moment Daniel does. We imagine how it might make him jump. There are 58 words instead of 114. And the writing in the shorter, published example is tighter, the tension higher. The boom comes suddenly, but Hurwitz doesn’t tell us so. He doesn’t need to. 2. Redundancy – the verb’s already done the work Even those novice writers who’ve conquered their noisy narrative can still be tempted to nudge unnecessarily with suddenly. I see this most often in the following scene types:
Certainly, writers who use suddenly are doing so with good intention – to give the reader a now-nudge. However, in most cases it’s unnecessary to convey immediacy and adds nothing to the narrative. In the above examples, the immediacy is rendered perfectly with the verbs launched, dawned, lit up, exploded, trilled and slammed. By adding suddenly into the mix, the reader is pulled out of the story, as if the author has tapped them on the shoulder and whispered, ‘Hey, you, something big’s coming. Just so you know. Right then, as you were. Carry on reading.’ That’s an interruption – the opposite of what the writer intended. Now the reader’s no longer moving at the same pace as the character. They’re one step ahead rather than immersed in the moment. Solution: Test the sentence out loud Say it first with suddenly, then without. Ninety per cent of the time, the slimline version will work better. When that’s the case, hit the delete button.
Published suddenly-free examples Here are some published examples for comparison. None of the authors felt the need to nudge the reader into immediacy.
The Barclay example is particularly interesting. The narrative point of view in this chapter is that of the antagonist. From his perspective, the violence is almost mundane, which renders the scene all the more horrific for the reader. A now-nudge in this paragraph wouldn’t have been just superfluous; it would have countered the perversity of our tension being heightened through being forced to immerse ourselves in Cory’s psychosis. When suddenly works a treat Suddenly-free isn’t a rule. Don’t ban it from your novel! There are times when it works beautifully:
In this made-up example, the inclusion of suddenly subtly changes our perspective of Pip’s situation. There's a subtle immediacy to his discomfort has emerged only now, that in the seconds before he’d watched bu not felt threatened. And so it’s not that suddenly does or doesn’t work. Rather, it depends on the writer’s intention. Your turn ... how do you maintain tension with minimal interruption? Are there particular adverbs you use with caution? If you'd like to access more tips and resources for self-publishers, visit the Self-publishers page on my website. Try these in particular:
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
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:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Related resources
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's a treat for PerfectIt users ... a custom style sheet that includes the find-and-replace strings in my free ebook, The Author's Proofreading Companion.
If the Companion has made your life easier, you'll love what my colleague Andrea Kay of Yours Truleigh Editing has done. Yep, she's upped the efficiency game for all of us by creating a custom style sheet that can be imported into PerfectIt.
Thank you so much, Andrea! For those unfamiliar with either the software or the booklet, I've provided an overview of both, and the benefits of importing the style sheet. Andrea's also created a style sheet for the Student Proofreading Toolkit. Double thanks! Below that are the installation instructions and the ready-to-download files for the Companion and the Toolkit.
What's PerfectIt?
For those readers who are not familiar with this software, PerfectIt is a sophisticated consistency checker that works with Microsoft Word. By customizing its built-in style sheets, or creating your own, you can define your preferences and let PerfectIt locate variations and possible errors. I recommend every professional editor add it to their toolbox. You can read my more detailed review of the product here: PerfectIt 3 – must-have software for the editorial freelancing pro. If you don't yet have PerfectIt, contact Intelligent Editing for pricing and download information.
What's The Author's Proofreading Companion?
This free ebook helps editors and self-publishing authors tidy up Word documents. In addition to showing you how to use some simple macros, it includes search strings to help you locate and fix potential problems, including rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs, double line returns, tabbed paragraph indents, lower-case letters at the beginning of paragraphs, paragraphs that end with no punctuation, and more.
What's the style sheet?
Andrea Kay just saved PerfectIt users a ton of time by building an importable custom style sheet that features the key search strings from the ebook! That means you don't have to manually type the strings into your Word document one by one, then repeat the process each time you work on a new document. Instead, import the style sheet, run PerfectIt, and let the software locate the potential problems for you. All you have to do is decide whether to implement the suggested change in your document. How to import your style sheet Importing the style sheet is a doddle, I promise, Follow the instructions and screenshots below. If PerfectIt is already installed, the process will take no longer than 20 seconds. 1. Unfortunately, I can't upload the files to Weebly, so I'm using my bot Lulu and delivering via Messenger. Click on the green button below. That will take you to a post on my Facebook page. There you can comment with the word 'perfect' and Lulu will send you the files. Click on each one to download to your device.
2. Once you've installed PerfectIt, open the Word document you want to check.
3. Launch PerfectIt. 4. Click on Manage Styles. 
5. Click on the Import button.
6. Select the pft from your device and click OK.
7. Click OK in the Manage Styles window.
8. Select the your pft from the Current Style drop-down box.
9. To run PerfectIt on your current Word document using the custom style sheet, press Start.
If you're not a PerfectIt user ...
If you're not yet ready to invest in PerfectIt but still want access to the find-and-replace strings and other tools in the ebooks, click on the images below. They'll take you to the download pages. They're free and you won't have to hand over any personal data to access it. Enjoy!
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 we’re serious about setting up an editing and proofreading business, free resources will get us so far, but only so far.
What free is good for
Free is brilliant when we’re starting out, particularly in the following circumstances:
Free is equally great when we’re experienced but looking to shift the goalposts:
Free stuff is about discovery, so that when the time comes to reach into the coffers we’re spending money in the right place. Free helps us to turn expense into investment. What free is not good for Free isn’t great in the long term because the offering usually comes with limitations. It will give us a glimpse, enough to help us on the journey. But that’s all. The reason free has its limitations is because even creating free stuff and offering free help takes time, and time is money. Imagine the following scenarios:
CASE STUDY 1
Jane wants to offer developmental editing but has no experience. She does some research and finds the following:
CASE STUDY 2
Jack has identified a skills gap. He’s a great editor but a poor marketer and is dissatisfied with the rates he’s earning from his existing client base. Currently, he works with project-management agencies who find publisher work for him. And those publishers find authors for the agency. There’s a cost to that author-acquisition work – those agencies and publishers take a cut of the fee at each stage because they have to invest their own time and expertise in making themselves visible. It's that visibility that puts the editing work on Jack's desk. He starts a discussion in a large editorial Facebook group about his concerns and is offered the following:
What tasters teach us ... and what they don't In both cases, the freebies are of exceptionally high quality and Jane and Jack learn a ton from them. Creating that content must have taken time and effort. However, free articles, blog posts and webinars are tasters. Those kinds of things help us understand the lie of the land, and give us a deeper sense of what more we need to learn. What they won’t do is teach us everything we need to know. We can’t learn how to become professional developmental editors from those resources alone ... any more than we could learn to cut hair or wire a house to acceptable standards without proper training and guidance. Same goes for marketing. Take me, for example. It’s not luck and Google that made me a strong marketer. I pay a monthly sub to learn how to do it well from professional marketers, and invest time in implementing the strategies I’m learning. If Jane wants to become a professional developmental editor and Jack wants to become a strong editorial marketer, both need to take all those freebies and use them to make informed decisions about the money they will invest to turn their investigations into reality. Examples might include:
Free will help Jane and Jack make decisions. Investment will make them fit for professional purpose. 
A better money mindset
It’s perfectly okay to decide that you can’t afford to run a professional editorial business ... but only as long as you decide not to run a professional editorial business. No one on the planet owns a business that doesn’t have operating costs. Business owners have to take responsibility for training, equipment, invoicing, money transfer, software, marketing, client acquisition, office space, pension provision, taxation responsibilities, and more. It’s true that the international editorial community is incredibly generous, which means that free resources and guidance abound on multiple platforms. However, those who are serious about running an editorial business know they have to avoid hobbyist and employee mindsets.
The shoe on the other foot – when you’re asked for a freebie
We can’t have everything we want when we want it. We have to make choices. Freebies help us make the right choices so that the money we spend actually increases our prospects and income in the longer term. And imagine yourself on the other side of the fence for a moment. A potential client calls you. They have a book that needs copyediting. ‘The thing is,’ they say, ‘I can’t afford professional editing. How can I get out of paying you? To be honest, I’m just looking for free stuff.’ How fast would you hang up? Now imagine another writer calls you. ‘I’m in the middle of doing as much self-editing as I can using some free tutorials I found online and some advice from my writing group. There’s a fair way to go,’ they say, ‘but I figured I’d start saving now. Can you give me a rough idea of how much it might cost and how much notice you’d need? That way I can start planning my book budget.’ That’s the kind of client I’m excited about working with. The editor with the same mindset will be rewarded with guidance and help because they deserve it. The editor who wants it all for nothing won’t and doesn’t. By all means, grab all the freebies. The creators of those resources want you to have them. Making free stuff that’s invisible and unused is a waste of time and effort. Just don’t forget that free is the starting blocks. Investment is what gets us to the finish line! Further reading
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:
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:
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. OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 1
You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to do it.
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. OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 2
Focus on delivery not numerical comparisons.
All that’s relevant is what you do for your business. 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:
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. OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 3
Follow your own path. Marketing doesn’t have to be shiny and out there. Good marketing focuses on your business and clients not your colleagues’.
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. OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 4
Create your own carnival. Record what you’ve achieved as well as what’s left to do. Busy people's wins deserve to be celebrated.
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:
I've done the following with some of my older blog posts:
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! OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 5
The busiest marketing editors are not magicians; they’re just good at recycling! You can repurpose your content too.
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:
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 ...
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. OVERCOMING OVERWHELM: TIP 6
Think in ones. Schedule step by step so that your goals are achievable in the long term and suit your business, not mine or anyone else’s.
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. 
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD
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.
Editors on the Blog is a monthly column curating some of the posts from the editing community – articles written by editors and proofreaders for colleagues and clients alike.
There are some absolute corkers in this inaugural edition. Thank you so much for contributing! 
THE BUSINESS OF EDITING
CLIENT FOCUS
EDITING IN PRACTICE
FREELANCE LIFE
LANGUAGE MATTERS
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, making Word work hard for you is a must. The new and revised edition of Editing in Word 2016 is one of my recommended resources. Here's why.
I’m a fiction editor who works solely for indie authors and self-publishers. I work on raw-text files, and Microsoft Word is one piece of software that I cannot afford to be without.
Word has its snafus but I don’t know of any word-processing software that comes close to offering its superb functionality. I don’t just edit in Word; I’ve also created print- and digital-ready books directly in it. So when fellow editor and author Adrienne Montgomerie asked me to review the second edition of Editing in Word 2016, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I’ve been using Word since 1991, so could Montgomerie teach this old dog a few new tricks? How about younger pups? Let’s see ... More than an ebook This is a digital self-study course. Yes, you get the ebook with all the contextual information and foundational teaching. But there are also videos that show Word in action, and a bunch of exercises with which to practise what you learn at each stage of the process. I love the fact that the advice is actionable. You read, you see, you learn, and then you do. There’s no better way to ensure it’s all sunk in. A focus on core tools
‘We need a resource that gets right to the tools editors can’t live without; the tools that make our job easier and faster. We need to know about the tools that are the very reason we use Word at all.’
PREFACE, Editing in Word 2016
We certainly do. Here are some of the tools that Montgomerie focuses on:
If you don’t know 8 out of 10 of the above tools inside out, you’re likely not as efficient or productive as you could be. That alone makes this course a worthy purchase. That it’s a steal at just under 25 quid (excluding VAT) makes it a no-brainer. Let’s dig a little deeper ... Screens, operating systems and how we work with Word One of the best things about this course is its acknowledgement that editors work in different ways.
Top tips This course is rammed with useful and actionable tips on how to get stuff done and in ways that respect your preferences. For example:
And along the way, Montgomerie includes ‘Pro tips’, ‘Read more’ and ‘Troubleshooting’ callouts to keep you on track. Video demos I’m a big fan of multimedia learning. And when it comes to editing, sometimes just hearing your tutor’s voice and watching them go through the motions onscreen can trump the written word. In addition to the ebook, there's a support website with 27 video tutorials for both Mac and Windows users. 
This feature is excellent. I’ve come across a lot of editors who’d like to enhance their digital skills but are held back through fear. Montgomerie takes the stress away via accessible walkthroughs that even the most tech-nervous of nellies will be able to follow.
Here are just 3 examples:
Practice makes perfect There are 24 exercises in this course that help you to hone your skills and start doing what’s written in the book and shown in the videos. Just a few examples include:
A note on versions This course was created in 2017 using Word 365 on Windows 10 and Sierra OS. Given that the author’s using the latest software and operating systems, you might find that the instructions need a little tweaking here and there if you’re using medieval Word (or should that be Wordeth?)! For example, older versions of Word might have different ribbon displays, icons and menu options. That’s unavoidable, and a reminder that, as professionals, we should be aspiring to use up-to-date equipment. I’d prefer my dentist not to fill my teeth with 10-year-old composites; we should treat our clients similarly. My verdict Did I learn anything new? Yes, I did. But editorial training isn’t just about finding out what you don’t know; it’s also great for affirmation of what you do know. I was pleased to learn from a pro that a lot of my Word usage is on track. Here’s another thing, though: there are functions in Word that I use infrequently (e.g. erasing time stamps). I know it’s possible but I’ve simply forgotten how. And instead of trawling Google or spending valuable time asking questions in editing forums, I can have Editing in Word open on my desktop. From there, I can search, locate and solve my problem in seconds. I recommend this without reservation for any editor who wants to get the very best from Word with a one-stop shop, especially those who've been held back by fear. Montgomerie will take that away from you – I promise. Information and access
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.
Crime fiction falls into a range of subgenres. Knowing where your novel fits helps you understand what readers expect, which published writers you can learn from, and how you might stand out.
This post featured in Joel Friedlander's Carnival of the Indies #91
If you'd prefer to watch a video, scroll down to the bottom of the article.
This article provides an overview of some of the established subgenres, though the list isn’t exhaustive.
There’s crossover certainly and, depending on the commentator, crime fiction gets chopped up into subgenres variously. I’ve elected not to focus on inverted-detective fiction, heists and capers, LGBTQ mysteries, feminist crime fiction, or romantic suspense, but these subgenres and more all have their place in the market. One thing’s for sure: ‘Crime fiction is never static and never appears to be running out of ideas,’ says Barbara Henderson. Two more reasons to know your subgenre If you’re going it alone, one of your publishing jobs will be to help your readers find your book. When you upload to Amazon, Smashwords or any other distribution platform, you’ll need to decide which BISAC headings to place your book under. And if you’re going down the traditional publishing route, identifying your subgenre(s) will help a literary agent understand which publishers have a best-fit list and where in a bookstore your novel will be shelved. If the fit isn’t obvious to you, it could be harder to convince your agent that your book’s marketable. Ultimately, though, it's the writing that needs to be top-notch, not strict conformity to one or another subgenre. These days, it's probably harder to find crime fiction that isn't fusion of subgenres!
Cosy crime fiction
If much of today’s crime fiction seems gritty, even gratuitously violent, and that’s not the way you want to write, fret not. Cosy crime is alive and kicking (though gently).
Publishers are rushing to bring “lost” golden-age authors such as Annie Haynes back into print, and to repackage the likes of Margery Allingham and Francis Durbridge. (Alison Flood)
What distinguishes the cosy? Murder yes, but leave out the gore, the pain, and depressing social commentary. Your protagonist might well be flawed but no more so than anyone else in the novel, and your readers will embrace your hero’s quirkiness with a skip in their step. That doesn’t mean the cosy isn’t tight on plot and well-paced action that drive the novel forward. Contemporary readers want fantastic mysteries with twists and turns that will keep them guessing. Cosies can be liberating for the playful crime writer who wants to explore the genre with non-traditional characters placed in non-traditional settings:
Classic detective – the Golden Age and beyond
RD Collins locates the start of the genre with Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. It found its feet with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and entered into a Golden Age in the 1920s with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, among others.
The Golden Age introduced ‘rules’ for the genre. Reba White Williams summarizes these as follows:
See also the quote further down from Otto Penzler about locked-room mysteries – no cheating with doubles and magic! Today’s authors must abide by the same rules, no matter whether their tales are set in Oxford with Morse, LA with Bosch, or Reykjavik with Erlendur.
Hardboiled crime fiction
Los Angeles had never been written about. California had been written about, a book called Ramona ... a lot of sentimental slop. But nobody in my time had tried to write about a Los Angeles background in any sort of realistic way.
That’s a quote from Raymond Chandler in conversation with Ian Fleming in 1958. Chandler’s response was to write crime fiction that was gritty, depressing, violent, cynical and seedy. Hardboiled crime writing, as it came to be known, pulls no punches. The protagonists aren’t invulnerable superheroes. And the environments within which they operate are those of contrast – urban decay and tourist hotspots, hope and corruption. If your crime writing falls into this category, don’t set an amateur protagonist sleuth alongside foolish law-enforcement officers who have neither brains nor access to detection resources. Hardboiled isn’t pretty but it’s rich in believability. Plots are fattened with complex characters, social commentary and, of course, murder. Says Matthew Lewin on the contemporary hardboiled crime fiction of James Lee Burke and James Ellroy:
There is a fury and desperation in this new writing that touches on the violence and depravity of our time as well as the grace and beauty of the best in human nature and the physical world.
Think Harry Bosch. Tim Walker refers to his creator Michael Connelly as ‘the modern Raymond Chandler’. ‘Connelly says he still sees it as a duty to acknowledge the social climate in his novels’. Think also Rebus; Ian Rankin, like Connelly, fuses hardboiled with police procedural masterfully. With hardboiled, even when the crime is solved, your readers won’t expect to close the book feeling that everyone will live happily ever after.
Historical crime fiction
Popular series feature CJ Sansom’s Shardlake, SJ Parris’s Giordano Bruno, Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner, and Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael.
The genre is as interesting for its criminal investigations as for the lessons in social history afforded to the reader. And because the reader needs to understand the historical setting, these novels are often long. Sansom’s Dark Fire comes in at a whopping 600-plus pages. I have the hardback version and I’m sure I bulked up my biceps just carrying the book from Waterstones to the car park. If historical fiction floats your writing boat, be prepared to put in the research. Many of your readers will know their history so you’ll need to dig deep. It’s no accident that the protagonists in these novels are curious renegade monks, lawyers, scholars and the like. The criminal justice system as it exists in our era bears little resemblance to that in these bygone days. Consider the following:
Some historical fiction is cosier and shorter. Consider David Dickinson’s Lord Powerscourt and Emily Brightwell’s Mrs Jeffries. These Victorian mysteries offer plenty of intrigue and good old-fashioned murder, but we’re spared the grisly details. Don’t be surprised to see this lighter crime fiction splashed with a dose of humour as the authors cast their gaze over the social-economic and gender disparities typical of the era. Still, if the Regency or Victorian cosy is your bag, you’ll still need to gen up on period details.
Legal and medical crime fiction
Courtrooms, labs and hospitals make for great crime fiction, and ‘lawyers and doctors make effective protagonists since they seem to exist on a plane far above the rest of us. Although popular, these tales are usually penned by actual lawyers and doctors due to the demands of the information presented,’ writes Stephen D. Rogers.
Here are some examples:
That old trope of writing what you know comes into play here and it’s a good reminder that using your own specialist knowledge to bring authenticity to your crime writing makes good sense. And if you’re not a former cop, doc or lawyer but you have friends who are, be sure to pick their brains. In particular, research the role of your legal or medical protagonist and ensure that the powers of investigation you assign to them are appropriate for their location. Even if you’re pushing the boundaries of existing science, to give your reader the best experience the foundations will need to be solid.
Locked-room crime fiction
The crime scene is that of a moving train, a secluded and heavily guarded house, an aeroplane, a single-track road with only one way in and one way out ... less whodunnit, more howdunnit.
A locked-room novelist is the illusionist of crime writing, the creator of ‘impossible’ fiction. And yet not so impossible as it turns out, as our brilliant protagonist gradually reveals all. Take care though. No cheating is allowed with locked-room crime. Says Otto Penzler:
The solutions to none of these locked room murders and thefts have supernatural elements and there is no cheating about hidden panels, long-lost twins, waking from dreams or hallucinations. No, they are deduced by detectives, who explain all to the incredulous characters and the baffled reader.
Well-known examples include:
The artistry of the locked-room mystery lies in the author’s ability to deliver a reveal that doesn’t rely on a device that doesn’t exist in real life, that doesn’t require information to be deliberately withheld from the reader, and isn’t so obvious as to be deducible at the beginning of the story. I recommend The Locked-room Mysteries, Penzler’s superb anthology for aspiring locked-room crime writers who want to see masters at work. It's huge – over 930 pages – and heavy, but literally worth its weight.
Police procedural
If you’re writing a police procedural, your in-depth research will need to be top-notch. The angle you take will be determined by your protagonist’s skills. Examples include:
Procedurals are notable for their thoroughly researched and authentic rendering of detection, evidence-gathering, forensics, autopsies, and interrogation procedures in order to solve the novel’s crime(s). Wowser tools and tech don’t come at the cost of strong characterization though. Rhyme is paralyzed following an on-scene accident. Cooper is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage. Rebus has a history of trauma dating from his former military career. Wallander has diabetes, and his daughter attempted suicide in her teenage years. These in-depth backstories provide complexity and conflict – a kind of layering that fattens the plot without complicating it. I find Cooper a little whiny, Rebus grumpy, Scarpetta arrogant, Wallander depressing. That doesn’t stop me falling in love with them though. In fact, flawed characters can balance the sterility of the procedural details. And you, the writer, might find a protagonist with foibles more enjoyable to write. Mankell did:
It’s quite true that I don’t particularly like [Wallander]. But then I think most writers would say it’s more interesting to write about a person you don’t like. I’m quite sure Shakespeare enjoyed writing Iago much more than he did writing Othello. [...] It’s much better to have something between you and your main character that grates.
Spy thriller
When it comes to spy stories, your protagonist is a spook, the nation’s safety the hook. It’s a race against time – against a larger-than-life antagonist – in order to save, well, everyone. The plots are usually complex and the action high-octane.
‘When you’re writing spy fiction you have one overriding goal: to keep the reader turning the pages,’ says Graeme Shimmin. Here’s some great advice from Kathrine Roid: Don’t wing it when it comes to plot:
A spy novel needs to be thought out beforehand, even more so than novels of most genres. Unlike, say, a quest fantasy, where plot points can be shuffled or cut out or added without too much trouble, everything needs to be compactly connected to the main plot. (Unplotted) whims simply do not have a place.
If you’re wandering into spy-fi territory, you’ll have a little more freedom to play with gadgetry. If you’re keeping it real, do the research. Know your guns and your gear so that your protagonist doesn’t end up more tactifool than tactical. But old on a mo. Your spy crime fiction doesn’t have to be a sprint like Robert Ludlum’s or Clive Cussler’s. Mick Herron is one of my favourite writers. The pace might be a little gentler but the brooding narrative is utterly believable. His Jackson Lamb series features the ‘slow horses’ – MI5 agents who’ve messed up and been put out to graze in the backwoods of inactive service. Herron’s crime isn’t spy-fi – there are no wacky gadgets to get Lamb’s crew out of a fix. The characters are vulnerable, disgruntled, and bored ... until there’s a crime and Lamb suspects the spooks. It’s a fine example of character-driven writing with attention to detail on Service procedural and detection legwork.
Private eye and amateur sleuth
The private-eye tradition crosses subgenres: from cosy to hardboiled to classic thriller.
Telling your story through a point-of-view character who works outside law enforcement has its advantages: your protagonist can behave and move in ways that a detective can’t, at least not without risking their job. On the other hand, your sleuth won’t have access to the wealth of contemporary resources available to the police. And take care not to make your amateur’s successes depend on witless professionals. Certainly, every organization/service has its fools and bad apples, and crime fiction is the perfect tool with which to explore police and state corruption, but contemporary readers are unlikely to engage with a novel whose chief investigator is an oaf.
Transgressor/noir
If this is your bag, you’ll go where others fear to tread. Whodunnit is still in the mix, but whydunnit is close behind.
It shares the grit of hardboiled but is distinctive for its focus on the narratives of the transgressor (Eoin McNamee: Resurrection Man), the victim (Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), or both (Lippman: I’d Know You Anywhere). The authors who do this subgenre best seem almost to be able to channel their characters’ psychosocial conflict, and dig deep into the predator–prey relationship. And even when the detective is the protagonist, they’re less superhero than anti-hero, troubled by demons, working despite – rather than within – an establishment as troubled as them (James Ellroy: LA Confidential; Antonin Varenne: Bed of Nails). Says Penzler in ‘Noir fiction is about losers, not private eyes’:
There are no heroic figures in noir fiction. [...] The noir story with a happy ending has never been written, nor can it be. The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities.
Regional variants – e.g. Tartan, Scandinavian, Emerald – that represent the landscape, culture, idiom, and social and political identity of their settings have emerged to international acclaim.
A quick note on subgenre fusion
Your book might well fall into what Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish calls genre syncretism: ‘the hard-boiled detective story, the police procedural, Gothic fiction and the psycho-social novel’. She offers Rankin’s Rebus novels as an example.
Consider also China Miéville's The City & The City. In this novel, two locations occupy the same physical space. At heart, it's a police procedural, but there's a speculative/fantasy take on the hardboiled tradition: the shiny surfaces of one city butt up against a grubbier alternate, yet residents of each are legally bound to 'unsee' each other. As such, Mieville incorporates a subtle commentary on state authoritarianism, surveillance and corruption into a murder investigation. Genre syncretism can help your work stand out, but take care to recognize the conventions of each so that the core subgenre elements are all done well. No reader will thank you for promising a fusion of hardboiled and police procedural if both are half-baked. Good writing trumps everything. I hope you find this useful and wish you sleuthing success on your crime-writing journey! And there's that video I promised for those of you who'd prefer to watch or listen.
Further reading
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
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. 
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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.
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. 
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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:
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.
This isn’t a definitive list but it’ll set you on the right track. 
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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. 
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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:
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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.
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! 
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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.
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. 
Louise Harnby is a fiction line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in supporting self-publishing authors, particularly crime writers. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, and an Author Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.
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?
Course curriculum
The course is designed so that you can build a purposeful blog step by step. Topics include:
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:
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%!
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:
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:
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:
Here are four ideas for how to generate content:
Here are four ideas for how to save time:
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:
Six-tip summary
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's the fourth part of my audio-book creation series. In this article, professional voice artist Ray Greenley discusses distribution options, the importance of having your manuscript edited prior to narration, and briefing your voice artist or producer. Here's Ray ...
Distribution decisions
So you’ve listened to your auditions, you’ve researched your potential producer and think they’re the one for your book, and you’ve come to an agreement on payment terms. There are a few other bits you’ll need to work out before you can offer the producer a contract. One is whether you want to distribute exclusively through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for a higher share of the royalties from sales (royalties are 40% of sale price), or non-exclusively, which means you can set up distribution yourself through other platforms, but you’ll get a smaller share of royalties from sales through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes (royalties are 25% of sale price). Note that if you want to do a Royalty Share or Hybrid contract on ACX, you MUST do exclusive distribution. There’s some other information you’ll need to work out with the producer:
Different producers work at different paces; and many will have other books already waiting to be recorded. They might be able to start on your book right away and have it done in a week or two, or they might be scheduling out months in advance. Talk to your producer and let them know if you have any schedule in mind, but be ready to be flexible. Once you have those dates, you can offer the contract, and when it’s accepted you’re almost ready to go! There’s just one more thing you need to do, and that’s provide the producer with your final, ready-to-record manuscript. 
Editing your manuscript
Now, I promise this isn’t just me sucking up to my gracious host, but please, for the love of all that’s good and holy, make sure your manuscript is edited and proofed by someone who knows what they’re doing. It makes the project many times more difficult when we have to struggle through bad grammar, missing punctuation, and poor formatting. In some cases (as happened with me early on), we can’t do it and the contract has to be canceled. If you find a producer who you like working with and does good work for you, then you’ll want to build that relationship into something ongoing. Handing them a manuscript that they can barely get through isn’t going to help. And while those grammar errors may seem innocuous enough on the page to your eyes, they’re VERY hard to hide in audio. Now, we producers know enough to not expect perfection. We can handle a reasonable number of errors in a manuscript. But in the end, it’s best for you, for us, and for your readers to get your manuscript properly edited, so please do it before sending the manuscript to us. 
Briefing your producer
From here on out, it sort of depends on you and the producer. One thing that’s often very handy for a producer is to get some additional information about the characters in the story, including:
Also, if your book has words that your producer might have a hard time finding pronunciations for (particularly with made-up names in science fiction or fantasy books), having a key is really helpful. It’s really important to get this sort of information as early as possible while the producer is preparing to narrate the book, but before they’ve actually hit ‘record’. None of that stuff is vital; if you picked your producer well, they’ll be ready to handle all of that on their own. But having some guidance can definitely help. In the final article, we'll look at evaluating the first 15 minutes and production approval. Until then ... Resources
Contact Ray Greenley Website | Facebook | Twitter
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 thinking about self-publishing a book, there 's something you need to know about prepping your prose before you go public: Proofreading is the last thing you need.
Begin on the starting blocks
When I say proofreading is the last thing you need, I mean it literally. Proofreading is the final stage in the editorial process prior to publication. The self-publisher who moves straight from writing to proofreading is trying to win the race by starting on the finish line. And unless you’re an extraordinary self-editor, you’ll be disappointed because it’s likely your book won’t be ready for market. Retain control but mimic the mainstream The beauty of self-publishing is the control you have over the process – you get to write the book you want on your terms. This means:
Still, the mainstream publishing industry knows a thing or two about producing books, and so they should – they’ve been doing it for long enough. And in their production world, proofreading comes last. This isn’t because it’s less important than the previous stages of editing, or easier, or quicker, but because it’s the final quality-control check to pick up what the interior designer, copy-editor, line editor and even a developmental editor missed – anything from an inconsistent character’s name to a misplaced apostrophe, a missing page number to a misspelled word, a rogue paragraph indent to an incorrectly formatted reference. This staged approach to editorial production, carried out by fresh, specialist sets of eyes, increases the likelihood that when the book hits the shelves – even the digital ones – most of the errors will have been fixed. If you mimic the mainstream publishing industry when you self-publish, you reach for the same bar. The different stages of editing When it comes to the different stages of editing, things are complicated by the fact that there are no universally applied terms used within the publishing industry or by the thousands of independent editors and proofreaders. However, what the industry doesn't disagree on is the order. Here's a framework to help you visualize the process: 1. SHAPING
This is the big-picture work that focuses on stuff like structure, plot, pace, narrative point of view and characterization. Terminology varies but look out for the following: developmental editing, content editing, substantive editing, story editing or structural editing.
2. SMOOTHING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on flow, form, readability and engagement. You might hear it called line editing or stylistic editing.
3. CORRECTING
This is sentence-level work that focuses on correct and consistent spelling, grammar, punctuation and layout. It might include fact-checking, too. It’s usually referred to as copyediting.
4. VERIFYING
This is the quality-control stage that picks up anything missed beforehand. This is where proofreading comes into play. If working on designed page proofs, the proofreader will also be checking that the layout matches the brief.
Be realistic: artistry versus wizardry Some new writers think that hiring a round of proofreading will be enough to make their book ready for market. It comes as a shock, not least to the wallet, when they realize what mimicking the mainstream publishing industry will entail. However, I promise you this – a proofreader will not be able to fix 14,000 spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, strengthen the narrative arc, and omit all the wordiness – all in one pass – and hand the file back to the writer with a guarantee of perfection attached to the invoice.
8 tips for self-publishers on a budget Here are some ideas that will help you make the tough decisions. Click on the image to save and download your own copy of the infographic. 
Last but not least … the proofreader One pass is not enough. Proofreading is an essential part of the self-publishing process, but it’s only one part. Staged editing isn’t cheap – ask any mainstream press – but it’s the surest way to professional self-publishing that turns discerning readers into fans. And fans won’t just buy this book; they’ll buy every book you’ll ever write. Related reading
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 think there's no place for macros in fiction editing, think again. My friend Paul Beverley has collated a core group of macros that will have any fiction line editor, copyeditor or proofreader drooling! Self-publishing authors will love them too!
I don't use all of these (every editor has their preferences) but some of them are staples and save me oodles of time! 
Some of the macros apply when you’re looking at the whole text of a novel, while others are selective ... for use while you’re editing line by line. Bear in mind that they're designed to be used with MS Word files.
Macros that work with the whole text These macros are ideal near the beginning of the edit, when you’ve put together the whole book in one single file, and you want to look for inconsistencies. ProperNounAlyse searches the novel for any words that look like proper nouns; it counts their frequency, and then tries to locate, by using a variety of tests, and pairs of names that might possibly be alternative spellings or misspellings, e.g. Jayne/Jane, Beverley/Beverly, Neiman/Nieman, Grosman/Grosmann etc. 
FullNameAlyse is similar to ProperNounAlyse, but it searches for multi-part names, Fred Smith, Burt Fry, etc.
ChronologyChecker is aimed at tracing the chronology of a novel. It extracts, into a separate file, all the paragraphs containing appropriate chronology-type words: Monday, Wednesday, Fri, Sat, April, June, 1958, 2017, etc. This file is then more easily searchable to look at the significance of the text for the chronology. WordsPhrasesInContext tracks the occurrence of specific names through a novel. You give it a list of names/words/phrases, and it searches for any paragraphs in the novel that contain them. It creates a separate file of those paragraphs, with the searched element highlighted in your choice of colour. CatchPhrase searches your novel for over-used phrases and counts how many times each phrase occurs.
Macros for when editing line by line
FullPoint/Comma/Semicolon/Colon/Dash/QuestionMark/ExclamationMark These macros change he said, you know ... into he said. You know ... or he said: you know ... or he said – you know ... and so on. FullPointInDialogue and CommaInDialogue These two macros change “Blah, blah.” He said. into “Blah, blah,” he said. and vice versa. 
ProperToPronoun
This macro looks along the line to find the next proper noun, deletes it and types ‘she’. But if you then type Ctrl-Z, it changes it back to ‘he’. MultiSwitch You give this macro a list of changes that you might want to implement: Jane Jayne Beverley Beverly that which which that When you click in a word, and run the macro, it finds your alternate and replaces it. It also works with phrases and can also provide a menu of alternates: he said he opined he shouted he voiced she said she opined she shouted she voiced 
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 looking for an online network of fiction and creative nonfiction specialists, the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals (AIPP) is worth checking out. I became a member earlier this year after being drawn to the organization's global outlook and creative niche.
My guest today is AIPP co-founder Crystal Watanabe. Here's what she has to say ...
The power of private networking Being a freelancer can be an amazing experience. You get to work at home, you have no commute, you can work in whatever clothing you like, and if you’re an introvert, you really don’t have to talk to anyone. That said, with those wonderful benefits usually comes the inevitable problem. Or worse, an irate client. Ask any editor who has been in business for longer than a year whether they have a Client from Hell, and the likely answer is yes. After all, we’re in the business of pointing out other people’s flaws. It’s a touchy subject for many. Usually when something like this occurs, the foremost thing on a freelancer’s mind is to feel lost. Like you’re alone, and no one but you has been through such a terribly stressful ordeal. This is where networking becomes an invaluable resource. There are many networking options open to people working from home: Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups, LinkedIn, and forums. But oftentimes these methods of communication are open to the public, and if there’s one thing to learn about airing frustrations online, it’s that you never know who is silently reading your negativity and judging you for it. This is where more private modes of communication come in handy, and to find the most relevant and helpful discussion and advice on any problems that come up, a professional organization is more often than not the best place to go. When I had my first problem client, I’ll admit, I was sobbing on my couch, feeling awful and alone. After I wiped my tears away, I went searching for people like me, and I ended up at the Editorial Freelancers Association. I joined, began interacting, and learned a lot from other members. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure the EFA was exactly what I needed. The AIPP – focusing on fiction and creative nonfiction I work primarily in fiction, and I found myself skipping over a number of discussions pertaining to a variety of other editing fields. In the end, I helped cofound the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals (AIPP) with fellow editors Anne Victory and Nikki Busch in 2016. Starting an organization is no easy feat, but nearly two years later, we’re still growing. The AIPP is dedicated to freelancers who work primarily in fiction and creative nonfiction, including both self-published authors and authors hoping to submit their manuscripts to traditional publishers. Our membership includes but is not limited to:
Membership benefits and fees In addition to a wealth of wonderful benefits (discounts on Merriam-Webster, PerfectIt, Deposit Photos, 17Hats, FreshBooks, and more), the AIPP has introduced a new lower membership fee in 2018. Applying to the AIPP is just $45, including a nonrefundable $10 application fee. Renewal is just $35 per year. Whether you’ve recently opened your business or have worked on more books than you can remember, the AIPP may be the right organization for you. Our members praise the sound advice given when problems arise and in general enjoy the feeling that they’re not alone. Click on the button below to find out more about the AIPP. 
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 feeling the pinch because publishers, packagers and agencies aren’t offering your desired fees, think about the issue from a marketing perspective.
The fees on offer from publishers and packagers are a perennial topic of conversation for professional editors and proofreaders. Some feel frustrated and anxious about the rates; others enjoy the security afforded by a stable workflow that requires no client-acquisition effort.
It’s important to remember that not everyone’s lowest-paying clients are publishers. If yours are, it might be that you need to switch clients not types of client. Here’s my wise friend and fellow editor Liz Jones: ‘It’s often said that publishers don’t pay as well as non-publishers. In my experience, this isn’t necessarily true. There isn’t much difference in the mid-range, and fewer of my non-publishers feature at the low end, but my highest payers in 2016 were still publishers.’ Crunching the Numbers
Here are a couple of made-up case studies. The numbers are inevitably loose – editorial earnings vary hugely depending on subject area, type of editing, country of residence, and individual experience so it’s impossible to generalize. And global comparisons are problematic because of currency fluctuations and cost-of-living variances.
Just think of these examples as glimpses rather than universal statements of how the market is! 
Case study 1: Working with publishers
Joe Word-King is a professional proofreader specializing in the social sciences. He works exclusively for publishers. In the past 12 months he’s been commissioned by 5 publishers to proofread 32 books by 32 authors. Joe’s working day Joe starts at 9 a.m. and finishes at 4.30 p.m. He takes an hour for lunch and 15-minute breaks every 90 minutes to give his eyes a rest. This means he has a total of 6 hours per day available for proofreading. During the breaks he does stuff like checking his emails, grabbing cups of tea and something to eat, and taking a little fresh air. How he acquired those publisher clients One found him in the Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ Directory of Editorial Services. Four added him to their freelance list after he emailed them and asked if he could take their proofreading test (which he passed). How the work offers come in The publishers do the author-acquisition work. The book production managers from those presses email him to ask if he’s free to take on a project of A pages, B words, with a budget of C hours and a total fee of £D. Joe decides whether he will accept or decline the work. 
Case study 2: Working with self-publishers
Alicia Sentence-Queen is a professional copyeditor. She works exclusively for independent fiction authors. In the past 12 months she’s been directly commissioned by 19 authors to copyedit 19 books. Alicia’s working day Alicia starts at 9 a.m. and finishes at 4.30 p.m. She takes an hour for lunch and 15-minute breaks every 90 minutes to give her eyes a break. She also spends an average of 75 minutes per day writing blog articles and sharing her content online so that her website is visible in the search engines. This means she has a total of 4 hours and 45 minutes available per day for copyediting. During the breaks she does stuff like checking her emails and social media accounts, grabbing cups of tea and something to eat, and taking a little fresh air. How she acquired those self-publisher clients Fourteen came directly from Google, three from the SfEP’s Directory of Editorial Services, and two from Reedsy. How the work offers come in Alicia does the author-acquisition work. She makes herself visible online so that her clients can find her. They then get in touch directly. A process of evaluation, sampling and quoting begins. Alicia offers a price for the project and waits to see whether the author will accept or decline. Most of the enquiries that Alicia receives don’t turn into paid work – perhaps the author doesn’t like the price, the time frame doesn’t work, or Alicia doesn’t feel she’s the right fit for the job. For that reason, Alicia needs to attract enough people for whom the price, the time frame and the fit will work. 
Alicia has a change of heart!
Alicia’s heart is in copyediting and she figures that if she had a bunch of publisher clients doing all the author-acquisition work she wouldn’t have to devote 75 minutes per day to making herself visible. She earns a minimum of £35 per hour. Given that she spends 6 hours and 15 minutes each week marketing, that time costs her £218.75. That works out at nearly a grand a month! She and Joe are good mates so she gets in touch with him and tells him that she’s thinking about working for publishers. They chat about fees – Joe says he earns an average of £23 per hour, which is two thirds of what she’s getting from her indie authors. Given that Joe proofreads for academic presses, Alicia does a little more digging. She talks to a few fiction specialists. The fees for trade publishers seem to be lower still, such that she could end up averaging around £18 an hour, half of what she’s earning now.
What could Alicia do? If Alicia loathes marketing and can meet her weekly needs with £540, she could take the hit and switch to working with publishers, who will do all her author-acquisition work for her and let her concentrate on doing what she loves best. Yes, she’ll earn less but she’ll be happier. If Alicia loathes marketing but needs to earn at least £750 a week to meet her needs, the switch won’t work. She can’t not do the marketing because the reason why she’s able to attract the clients who are prepared to pay her £35/hr fee is because she’s visible, and being visible means doing marketing. If Alicia’s determined to switch solely to publishers, she’ll have to make up a shortfall of £210. That means reducing her monthly spend or increasing the hours she spends on copyediting. She’ll need to decide whether either option would add a level of stress into her life that exceeds her hatred of marketing. If it does, she’d be better off maintaining the status quo! Joe has a change of heart too! After chatting with Alicia, Joe feels a little strung out. Thirty-five quid an hour? He’d love to earn that. Joe’s not averse to putting in the marketing work, not if he can earn the money that Alicia’s on, but it’s not going to happen overnight – Alicia told him that it took a few years for her marketing strategy to kick in so that’s she’s never without work. At the moment, Joe doesn’t have to do anything to find his authors; the publishers do all the grind for him. Sure, he had to get those publisher clients, and he put in a lot of effort – he contacted 70+ presses initially, most of whom weren’t taking on new indie proofreaders. Nevertheless, having now secured a strong publisher base, he sits back and lets the work come to him. There’s a cost to this, of course – someone else is finding the authors and so they get to control the price. His only control over the rate is his right to accept or decline the work. What could Joe do? If Joe can introduce efficiencies into the proofreading process he’ll be able to improve his hourly rate. If he’s already as efficient as he can be, he’ll need get his marketing hat on now and start building his visibility. Over time, he’ll be able to slide out his lower-paying publishers, confident that he’ll attract enough good-fit clients to provide him with the same income stability that the publishers currently afford him. If he needs to maintain his current earnings, he’ll have to do the additional marketing work outside of his normal office hours. In the longer term, as the visibility strategy kicks in, he’ll be able to mimic Alicia’s model and build this marketing activity into his business day. Joe needs to decide whether the impact on his work/life balance is something he’s prepared for. He needs to set the pressure of the additional work against the anxiety born from the publisher fees, and decide whether the change is the right move for him. 
Different markets, different benefits, different burdens
On the surface, it might seem like the Alicias of this world have a better deal than the Joes. But there’s more to running a business than just numbers. We have to take into account not just what we need to earn but also what we have to do for what we earn. If you’re happy to be an editor and a marketer, you’ll be able to reap the benefits from wearing those two hats purposefully. If your heart lies in editing only, you have some choices:
I worked exclusively for publishers for a good few years and at the time it suited my life very well. I had a toddler to look after and preschool trumped business promotion. Now I have a teenager and marketing trumps Minecraft! Plus, I happen to love marketing my editorial business so it's not a stress point for me. But that might not be the same for you. Furthermore, the editorial market isn’t binary. Joe and Alicia might look nothing like you. You might sit somewhere in between. You might earn more than them or less than them, and have a ton of demands in your life that J&A will never experience. There’s no one size fits all. Just don’t forget that if you’re not finding your own clients, but your schedule is full, someone else is doing the job for you. There’s a cost to that, and it’s fair that there should be. Further reading
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's how to convert a Word document into EPUB or MOBI file format. This option certainly won't be for everyone, but if it suits you, you can master it in seconds ... and for free.
Many authors create their books directly in Microsoft Word because of its excellent suite of onboard styling tools and its compatibility with a range of plug-ins and add-ins (including macros). Pro editors love it for the same reasons.
Once the writing, drafting, editing, and final revisions are complete, it’s time to publish. Is a Word file good enough for epublication? How about a DIY conversion to EPUB or MOBI? It depends on several factors:
Editorial assessment and freebies Perhaps you want to send a review copy to a reader who has a Kindle. Or maybe you want to offer free ebooks for family members and friends. The devices your readers own will determine the required file format. Having your own EPUBs and MOBIs will give you flexibility beyond Word and PDF. And if you're sending your book file for editorial assessment, your developmental editor might prefer to upload your book to their e-reader. They'll makes notes in the file in preparation for their final report or critique. Doing the conversion yourself gives you the freedom to distribute your book without having to jump through the distributors’ hoops. Your budget How about if you’re making your book available for sale? Should you hire a pro formatter for your ebook interior? Yes, definitely, if you have the budget for it, because a pro formatter will do a pro job. The same applies to commissioning various rounds of professional editing. But let’s be honest – not every indie author has deep pockets, and some of you will have to make choices about where to invest your budget. It might be that a DIY conversion will suffice, and in that case Calibre could be your friend. What is Calibre? Calibre is free open-source ebook-management software. With it you can convert a Word file to an EPUB or a MOBI. Go to https://calibre-ebook.com to download and install the software. There are versions for Windows and Mac. Your sales and distribution platform Smashwords If you want to publish via Smashwords, Word is the preferred format. Here's founder Mark Coker:
"We recommend the Microsoft Word path as the best option for most fiction and narrative non-fiction authors because it’s the easiest method to produce high-quality ebooks that are readable on any e-reading device. It will also generate your ebook in multiple ebook formats at the Smashwords store, making your book readable on any e-reading device. By using Microsoft Word, it’s also easy to modify your book at any time."
Make sure you follow the Smashwords guidelines on preparing your Word file, otherwise your published book will be a mess! Furthermore, you’ll risk not qualifying for inclusion in Smashwords’ premium catalogue, which gets your book in front of some big online retailers including:
If your interior is complex, Smashwords will accept EPUB files but they should be professionally designed. There’s further guidance in the Smashwords Style Guide. Kindle Direct Publishing/Amazon If you’re self-publishing via KDP, Amazon will create a MOBI for you from your word file. The same principles apply: as long as you follow the formatting instructions to the tee, and your book interior is straightforward, Word will suffice. Here’s where to access KDP’s Simplified eBook Formatting Guide. If your interior is more sophisticated, I’d advise you to hire a pro. Neither a Word file nor the DIY Calibre conversion offered in this article will do the job to a high enough standard. Direct sales If you’re selling direct from your own author platform, you can offer a PDF. But that’s not what every customer wants. PDFs look fabulous on tablets but awful on e-readers. If your customer wants something different, and you want to maximize sales opportunities, you’ll need another option. Calibre could be the solution. The complexity of your interior design If you have a primarily text-based Word file that will tolerate a simple heading structure for titles, part titles and chapters – as is often the case for fiction and narrative non-fiction – this quick-conversion method could work well for you. If your interior design is more complex, I strongly recommend you commission a professional formatter (some editors also have formatting skills) to do the job on your behalf. In my test, which involved a non-fiction Word file with multiple heading levels, a contents list, boxes, images and other design features, the conversion results for EPUB and MOBI were far from perfect, though I did find solutions when I was prepared to compromise. Here’s how I messed up ... so you don’t have to.
If you still think your Word document fits the bill, here's how to create your EPUB or MOBI file. How to do the quick conversion Open your Word document and save it as an rtf (Rich Text Format) using the Save As function (select Rich Text Format from the drop-down menu). Close the file and head over to Calibre. Click on the Add books icon and select your rtf. 
The file will upload to Calibre. Make sure your book file is highlighted, then click on the Convert books icon.
Now you can select and edit the metadata:
Click OK. In the bottom-right-hand corner you’ll see the Jobs icon whirring.
When the conversion is complete, click on the new file format to check that all is well.
This will open the E-book viewer, and it’s one of Calibre’s top features because you can see at a glance what your reader will be looking at.
If you’re happy with your interior, save your converted file to your computer. It’s ready for upload and distribution.
Summing up
If you have a straightforward interior that’s text-based, this quickie Calibre conversion is absolutely worth experimenting with. And it’s free, so even if things don’t go to plan you won’t have lost any money – you’ll just have learned the basics of a new tool that you might be able to take advantage of another time. Poor formatting will earn you nothing but frustrated customers and bad reviews, so:
If your interior is complex, don't even think about using the method outlined here. Work with a pro. Professional eformatting isn’t a service I offer but I’m more than happy to put you in touch with colleagues who can help. Drop me a line via my contact page or comment here on the blog.
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.
So should you include a podcast transcript? And if you do, should you edit it? Here’s my take.
Writers don’t just listen to podcasts; they create them as part of their author-platform mix. Not all podcasters include transcripts (though I think they’re a good idea) and not all transcripts are created equally.
Some are rough and raw, some are smoothed, and some are edited to within an inch of their life so that they read more like blog posts. What is a podcast transcript and why should you have one? A podcast transcript is a written version of your audio file. Many people glance at a transcript before they listen to a podcast because they want to know what the key discussion points are. Skim reading allows us to digest large chunks of written content quickly. We get to pick and choose what to ignore and what to focus on. Skimming isn’t about deep comprehension but about getting a feel for what’s on offer. People are busy. Podcasts are great because the audience can consume the content while doing other things. That’s great if the listening takes place on the school run or the dog walk. However, that won’t be the choice for all your book-buying audience. Some will want to engage with your podcast, and only your podcast. Those listeners need to know whether you’re worth their time. We can’t skim a podcast (or a vlog) but we can skim a transcript. The transcript is therefore more than a written record. It’s also the key that unlocks the audio engagement door. Given that it’s a representation of what’s said in the podcast, should you edit it? A better question is, what are the consequences if you don’t? Here are four. 1. Eyes before ears – visible content counts If your listener is already fan, a sloppy transcript is unlikely to put them off because they probably won’t even read it – they’re there for you and your audio. But if they’re new, and deciding whether to commit to listening, the written word might well determine whether they leap on board or jump ship. If the first thing someone comes across on the podcast landing page looks and reads like a dog’s dinner, what does that say about the likely quality of the audio content? In reality, the audio content might well be outstanding, but the podcaster isn’t judged on that until the audience has decided to hit Play. It’s the visible content on the page that counts. 
2. But it’s all about the audio, isn’t it?
Imagine you’re doing a presentation to a roomful of your author peers. You build your presentation around the problems you’re trying to solve for your audience, create a great slide deck, and rehearse like billy-o so that you’re on top form. On the day of the speaking engagement you turn up ahead of time so that you can check that all your equipment and supporting materials are fit for purpose. Before you go on stage you do some breathing exercises to relax your throat – you want your voice to be clear and engaging for your listeners. You look the part. You sound the part. And you’re a writer in a roomful of writers. That’s all that matters, right? After all, it’s a face-to-face speaking engagement. The problem is, you haven’t brushed your teeth for three weeks and your breath honks. If you were one of those presenters that likes to be front and centre, the first row would be in trouble. But you’re a walker. You like to engage with your audience – a little bit of up close and personal. It’s not the first row that's in trouble. The whole room is at the mercy of your Wookie mouth. Shame, because no one’s interested in your stunning insights, your top tips for how to overcome writer’s block, fact check, or edit the first draft, never mind that what you tell them could make their lives a hundred times easier. All anyone’s thinking is Stay back. A sloppy podcast transcript is like bad breath. It focuses your potential audience’s attention on the wrong thing and risks putting them off before the audio fun’s even begun. 
3. Standing out
Podcasts are increasingly popular tools used by business owners, marketers, writers and hobbyists to communicate with their clients, fans and friends. And a lot of podcast transcriptions are sloppy. All the effort, and the budget, goes into creating great audio. In ‘How to build a web presence that outsmarts, outperforms and outlasts the search engines’ (Summit on Content Marketing 2017), Stoney deGeyter talks at some length about being excellent in everything we do so that we’re not battling with search-engine algorithms and rankings. He advises focusing on extraordinary engagement that makes our audience/customer journey as easy as possible. Good advice indeed. So why not stand out and create a top-notch podcast transcription?
That way you give people nothing to complain about and everything to rave about. Word of mouth is more likely to kick in. And with it, audience growth, engagement, advocacy and book sales. Certainly, some people won’t care if your transcript is a mess. It’s not them you have to worry about though. It’s about those who do care, those who judge you negatively because they think you don’t give a damn. Which leads us to the biggie. 4. Wordy people need to do wordy well You’re a writer. Given that your podcast is part of your author platform, the last thing you want to do is give anyone the impression that your writing is poor, even if you’re using audio as an engagement tool. If a famous chef was promoting her new recipe book in my local Waterstones and the canapes made me want to hurl, certainly I’m not going to buy her book. But, much worse, I’m not going to book a table at her restaurant. The biggest problem for the author with a sloppy transcript is not that no one will listen to the podcast but that no one will buy her books. 
How much should you edit?
It’s your choice but bear in mind that the goal is to encourage the listener to engage with the audio and buy your books. The podcasting author has to strike a comfortable balance between rigorous word-for-word accuracy and readability. Here are some guidelines:
Ideas for you to steal Even if you don’t include a transcript, consider the following:
If you decide to hire someone to create and edit your transcript for you, take a look at this article from my copywriter pal Gudrun Lauret: Why Not to Use Cheap Transcription Services. And here's a cautionary note that Tim Lewis posted on my Facebook page: 'Honestly, transcripts are a right PIA but you are right: they are well worth doing. Something for amateur podcasters to be careful with is that many automated transcription services such as Trint (and the free services) really struggle with anything that isn’t a standard US or UK accent, and if they don’t get to pretty high accuracy you will spend longer fixing it than the length of the interview. I use rev.com which is human-based (but more expensive). Even that’s not perfect though.' Here are some examples of what others are doing: Tim Lewis, Begin Self-Publishing Podcast Tim’s transcripts are gently smoothed to aid readability, indicate who’s speaking, and include a brief content summary. He increases visual engagement by introducing eye-catching quotes from the show. Here’s an example from the episode I did with him on fiction editing. 
Julie Anne Eason, The Successful Author Podcast
Julie Anne doesn’t include transcripts but she does provide detailed overviews of each episode’s content, additional related resources, eye-catching quotes from the show, and a bullet list of key themes. 
Wesley Chu, Piper J. Drake, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, Writing Excuses
The hosts have an index of smoothed transcripts available in a separate menu. They offer a summary of the show, a pick-of-the-week related resource and a writing prompt (mini homework!), and subject tags so listeners can access related content (a really neat and useful addition that’s common on blogs and works very well in this setting too). 
I'll be digging deeper into author podcasting in a forthcoming blog. I hope you'll join me for that!
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.
Want to increase your productivity? My guest Simon Raybould has an innovative approach to organizing your work day that might just cut you some slack and help you get more done. Over to Simon ...
We’ve all done it … worked our little socks off only to feel like we’re banging our heads against a brick wall.
I know a few editors and proofreaders, and there’s always more for them to do – either doing the job itself or marketing the job so that there is a job to be done. I assume you’re like them, so I won’t try to convince you that you’re working too hard, and that, by definition, ‘good enough’ is exactly that. Despite the logic of that statement it falls on deaf ears too often to be worth it. I’m going to pick my fights! So instead of looking at how long we should work on something in total, I’m talking about how long we should work on it in any one go. Rational Man Economists (and some others) use a concept called Rational Man. Let’s call him Fred. Fred knows everything he needs to know to make an optimal choice for every decision, and – being rational – makes it. In other words, Fred gets perfect choices each time there’s a choice to be made. If you’re Fred, there’s a perfectly straight and positive relationship between how much effort you put into something and how much output you get out:
It couldn’t be simpler, could it? But it’s not real. You know that. Imagine sitting down at your desk and being productive from the first second. Unlikely. How life really is If you’re anything like me, when you sit down to work, the first few minutes of your time don’t create any output. Instead you:
Okay, so you might not be as bad as that, but you take my point. I’ve labeled this in the graph as the time between A and B. 
But once you get going, warm up, well then you really hit your stride. Each minute produces not only output but more output than the previous one. In the graph, this is the time between B and C.
Eventually, of course, you start to get tired. You’re still getting things done but each minute achieves a little less than its predecessor, until you’re barely getting anything more done for each moment. In the graph, this is the time between C and D. Here’s the rub though… most of us are conditioned to just work, work, work, work, work, and we carry on doing so until:
Let’s be blunt – most of us work on towards E. The last time I talked about this in a workshop I was greeted by a chorus of ‘E? More like the whole damned alphabet!’ We do this out of habit because we’ve never stopped to think about it. However, I’m hoping it’s pretty obvious from that graph that common sense suggests locating the point at which we should stop if we want to be most productive. When it’s pointed out to them like this, most people point to somewhere around D and say that’s where to stop. (Mathematically it’s C, but D is close enough.) The point is, it’s got to be before E, obviously. But it’s only obvious when you step back from the grindstone and look at it like this. How long is your A–D? Ah, now… that’s the question. It’s different for different people, and for different tasks for the same person. For example, I start to lose the will to live after about 15 minutes of proofreading. After about 20 I lose the will for anyone within reach to live, too. You have been warned. By comparison, I have a member of my team (hello, Clare!) who can smell a misplaced comma in the dark, before I turn on the computer on, and at a range of over 200 miles. For proofreading, her A–D is about 90 minutes. Conversely, when it comes to research I can work solidly for up to two and a half hours or so. (I spent 24 years as a university researcher.) 
How should we use this?
Here’s a simple tool that will help you be as mind-bendingly productive as possible. Jot down all the major things in your job – ignore stuff you only ever do once in a blue moon. And be quite crude about it if you need to. Then make your best guess of your A–D for that time. I asked Louise, our host, to put together some numbers. These are crude estimates but they give you an idea.
Remember, these are Louise’s first guesses for how long she can undertake each task until she becomes tired and unproductive, not how long she should work on any given document/book or whatever. When you know how long you’re at maximum productivity for, block those things into your diary in time chunks that match, less about 20 minutes or so (use some common sense here for things with only a short A–D!). Lots of people find it handy to set up an alert on their phone for the t−20 moment; when it goes off, you should ask yourself a brutally hard question – formally, consciously and with intent: Am I in the C bit of the graph or past it? If things are good, you’re golden. If not, adjust the time in your diary and the alert on your phone. Use the new information in the future. Back to Louise. This is what her typical working day looks like at the moment. Note that she’s only got six hours in a day, so straight away you can see that something’s got to give! 
That way she’s be working at her maximum productivity for much more of the time.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if by upping how much work she can cover in a six-hour day, she doesn’t need to steal time from her husband in the evening? (Your mileage may vary of course! You might want to have the excuse!) The downside What’s the snag? Well, the main drawback of this is that your diary will look like an explosion in a rainbow factory and you’ll have to put some effort in to make it work. Nothing worth doing works without a bit of initial mental sweat. Implementing this change might require a complete shift in your mindset. And for that you’re gonna need a whole lot of chutzpah. But trust me – it’s worth it. You spend units of ‘courage’ and get back units of time. Personal note (or bragging, if you prefer) Still not convinced? By making sure I chopped my day up to what worked best for me, a couple of years ago, in only a three-month period I achieved the following:
You may have detected a degree of smugness there. Sorry! Your turn! What do you think? How long are your A–C periods? And your C–E periods? The ratio between those two could give you a reasonable idea of how much time you’re wasting. Let us know!
Want to know more?
Simon's a presentations expert as well as a productivity guru. And he's running a session at the SfEP annual conference in Lancaster in 2018 so you can meet him there. If you want to get in touch beforehand, here's what you need:
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.
Proofreading for publishers is something every professionally trained new entrant to the field should consider. Many of my experienced colleagues work exclusively for publishers. I used to and don't regret it for a minute.
And it can be profitable, despite what you might have heard. 
Just a few of the benefits of publisher work include:
Some proofreaders are finding that publisher work is not as profitable as it once was. Perhaps the fees haven't increased in real terms, or the proofreader is being expected to check more words per paid page. Being efficient has become key to sustaining these valuable client relationships. The PDF below includes some tips and tricks on how to make proofreading for publishers (and packagers) profitable by spicing up your digital efficiency. The advice is based on my experience of working for academic publishers for over a decade. Click on the image to download your free copy. I hope you find it useful. 
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.
Anna is training to be a proofreader and plans to set up her own business in the near future. She’s ready to upgrade her kit but wants to make sure her investment is fit for purpose.
Says Anna:
At the moment I am working on an old-ish MacBook Pro but know I need to upgrade very soon. The dilemma is whether to buy an improved laptop or move to a desktop. My preference is for Apple products as I know my way around them better. I’m tempted to get a better laptop. I like the freedom of being able to move around and I often travel. But I know that a desktop would give me a significantly bigger screen. What are your thoughts on screen size for proofreading? How important is it to have a large screen, or is it easier to use two screens side by side at times? And if you use a laptop how small a screen would you consider too small?
Hi, Anna!
Great question. In short, I think you should go for what suits your lifestyle best. But let's look at some options. The greedy option This is my choice! In my shed, I have a desktop with two large screens. In my house I have a backup 14” notebook. 
Some of my editing colleagues have three or four large screens rigged up to their desktops. That’s great if your machine can handle it (some can’t) and if you have the space (some don’t).
If I’m honest, until recently I considered it unthinkable to work five hours a day on my HP Pavilion notebook. My desktop and double screenage setup was a necessity! I suspect there's evidence of that thinking somewhere here on the blog! But that’s hogwash. In November, a family member became poorly and I had to relocate from my office (at the bottom of my garden) to the dining table in my house. 
We’re now past the middle of January and I’m still there, though I’ll be heading back to the shed in a week.
But you know what? It’s been fine ... more than fine. Yes, I've had to toggle a lot more but that’s such a first-world problem! And I do have a second screen! My pal and fellow editor Kat Trail told me about an app called Duet that allows me to hook up my Windows notebook to an an iPad ... MS to iOS. Who'd have thought? And she showed off her new lap-desk. Like a sheep, I bought the whole caboodle! It works like a dream. Thanks, Kat! 
The light option
You say you like to travel. Meet Kate Haigh, another editor friend of mine. She’s location independent. She works with a laptop and nothing else. It gives her the flexibility and mobility she needs to travel the world. She’s in Guatemala City as I write! Once upon a time, she had multiple large monitors, but she adapted. Given your itchy feet, you might like to read her posts about location-independent editing and proofreading (see the Taking Your Proofreading Service on the Road series via For Editors and Proofreaders section on the Kateproof blog). There are lots of tips and tools on offer for editors who want to lighten the load. One of Kate’s favourite pieces of equipment is the lightweight, foldable Roost laptop stand If you decide to commit to a new laptop but want an additional largish monitor, hook up your existing MacBook Pro or splash out on an additional monitor especially for home use. What’s too small? I’d recommend a screen that's at least big enough to house the full width of one page at a viewing scale that’s readable, with some room in the margins to spare. That way you can call up a navigation pane in the sidebar without having to scroll across the page. Additional navigation panes could include the Find pane in Word or the Bookmarks pane in a PDF reader. I can achieve this comfortably with my 14” notebook screen. Beyond the screen: RAM and processor I think that screen size is less important than RAM and a decent processor. The more programs we’re running, the bigger the demands on our kit. When we’re professionally editing and proofreading, we’ll likely have multiple files open simultaneously. We’ll be running Word and/or PDF readers. We’ll be using additional software (macros, for example) to complement our beady eyes. And there are online tools and resources (e.g. email, dictionary and style manual) that we’ll need to access. Regardless of whether seeing all that stuff requires a quick keyboard toggle or is viewable on multiple screens, it’s greedy. Focus on performance first and screen size second. Smaller screens can be adapted to. Poor processor performance and memory can’t – they're just a frustration and will slow you down. Back to my notebook: the screen is only 14" but it has an Intel Core i5 7th gen processor (not the highest spec but good enough), 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, all of which means the machine can fire on all cylinders while I'm putting it through its paces. In a nutshell You don’t need one large screen to do a pro job. You certainly don’t need three. You might well find them rather marvellous if you have room and are not looking to go anywhere anytime soon. But if they’re going to clutter up your living space and remain unused much of the time because you’re on the road, they’re a waste of your money. Invest in the equipment you feel comfortable with and that works hard for you, and you’ll not go far wrong. Good luck with your training!
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. Sample edits, and why they're useful for authors Many independent authors want to see a sample of an editor or proofreader's work prior to signing a contract for editorial services. 
I completely understand why: broadly, it gives the author the opportunity to compare the work of several different professionals and to assess the editing or proofreading against the price being quoted.
The editor needs to be sensitive to the author’s style, the characters’ voices and the mood of the scene such that the soul of the writing remains intact. Samples help the author to compare editors’ technical competence and their emotional responsiveness to the text. In this case, the question is not so much 'Who’s the best?' but 'Who’s the best fit?' What’s in it for the editor or proofreader? Samples are beneficial for the editorial pro, too. Here are some of my reasons for doing sample edits: Tangled terminology Definitions of the different levels of editing vary widely from client to client and editor to editor. What X calls proofreading, Y would call copyediting. What Y calls copyediting might be called line editing by Z. And where definitions differ, so do expectations. Working on a sample enables me to assess what’s required – regardless of the word(s) being used to describe that service. Time: How long does it take? Doing a sample edit shows me how long it takes to work through, say, a thousand words. That means I can estimate how many hours the project will take to complete and whether/when there’s an appropriate slot in my schedule. A 100K-word novel that needs copyediting for spelling, punctuation and grammar errors and inconsistencies, and only a little tweaking for clarity may take 35 hours (one to two weeks in my schedule); a novel of the same length that requires a deeper line edit may take 100 hours (four to six working weeks in my schedule). Appropriate pricing Once I know roughly how long the project will take to complete, I can price it accordingly. Am I a good fit? I usually find that the process of immersing myself in the author’s words comes easily. In the case of a deeper line-editing sample, the work will certainly be time-consuming but I can feel my way through – mimicking the author so that my edits (or suggested recasts) improve and complement the original writing rather than rubbing up against it. This isn’t always the case, though. Sometimes I’m just not a good fit – it’s not obvious how I can put the ooh! into the writing. It’s not that the amendments I’m making are technically incorrect but rather that I’m not able to find that emotional responsiveness that the client needs. When that happens, it’s time to thank the author for the opportunity to do the sample and provide a quotation, but recommend they work with someone else. Why I charge a fee for samples I usually charge a set fee of £50 for a sample of 1,000 words. Some of my colleagues offer free sample edits, so why do I charge? My professional time has a cost to it Every minute that I spend doing free editorial work is a minute I could be spending on paid-for work for clients or maintaining my business’s visibility (which is what leads clients to me in the first place). Scheduling problems Because I’m visible, I have little spare time in my schedule to fit in additional work, and certainly not free work. It’s not as off-putting as you might think I was curious as to whether potential clients would object to my charging for samples. In fact, since I introduced the policy last year, most enquirers have reacted to my fee positively – ‘Of course, not a problem’ is the standard response. This allows me to treat sampling like any other job I’m commissioned for. Filtering There have been cases, though they’re rare, where a client has asked 20 or 30 editors from my professional editorial society for a sample edit, and the chapters offered are all different. It appears that the enquirer is looking for a backdoor to a free complete book edit, farming out bits and pieces here and there. Charging for samples enables me to filter out the cheats. The benefits of the gratis option Charging for sample edits may not be the best course of action for all editorial freelancers. While I’ve encountered little objection to date, there are some perfectly legitimate clients who expect a small sample to be edited for free on the understanding that an hour or two of gratis work is acceptable given the reasonable odds of securing the full project. Here are some reasons why you might decide that free sample edits are the best option: New entrant/low visibility If you’re a new entrant to the field and are still building your discoverability, you might well decide that you want to take every opportunity possible to secure paying work. And if that means doing a few small freebies here and there, that’s a price you’re willing to pay. In this case, you’d be justified in regarding free samples as part of your marketing strategy. I think this is a valid argument. In my start-up phase, I didn’t charge for samples for this very reason. Scheduling If you’re still building your business, you may have space in your schedule that more experienced and visible colleagues don’t have. In that case, the opportunity cost of doing a free sample will not be as high. Continued professional development (CPD) You could view the opportunity to do free samples as a way of developing your experience. You can apply what you’ve learned in training to live test cases. By tracking whether these sample edits convert into commissions, you’ll be able to glean whether what you’re doing is appealing (or not) to potential clients. If you’re a new entrant to the field, sampling can be an invaluable teaching tool that gently introduces you to texts that need very different levels of attention. The safe space When I started up my business, the one thing that worried me was the element of surprise. What if the proofread I’d been commissioned for turned out to be a complete nightmare? What if in only reading the text, rather than actually working on it, I’d vastly underestimated the speed at which I could work and therefore undercharged? Doing samples is a great way for the new starter to get a good sense of what they’re taking on, but in a safe space with no obligations. And because no money’s changed hands, there’s no chance of complaint because of misunderstandings over what’s on offer (from either the editor or the client). It's not worth charging Our international editing community is diverse, and we do a lot of different things for many different client types. Sometimes charging is more effort than it's worth. Here's Erin Brenner: 'I do free samples of up to 1,000 words. This allows me to show my value and ease any concerns about the edit. However, I work for corporate clients with ongoing work and multiple stakeholders. Charging for a sample edit would also mean getting the accounting department involved, which is more effort than its worth for both sides.' Make your own choice I charge for sample edits (most of the time); others offer freebies. Some of my colleagues don’t offer sample edits at all, free or paid-for. There’s no right or wrong choice. How you decide to handle the issue should be based on what’s right for you, not on what others are doing. Consider your availability, your stage of editorial business ownership, whether free sampling could be a marketing or CPD tool, and how comfortable you are with the possibility that some legitimate clients could be discouraged by charges. Think about doing a test over the course of a year – commit four months each to offering free samples, paid-for samples and no samples, and track your conversions. The results may surprise you! Here's something to help you decide whether free, fee or test is the best approach to handling sample edits. Hope you find it useful! And if you want a flavour of what other editors are doing, take a look at the lively discussions on LinkedIn and Facebook that emerged when I posted links to this article. 
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
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. |
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Dare Rogers'Louise uses her expertise to hone a story until it's razor sharp, while still allowing the author’s voice to remain dominant.'Jeff Carson'I wholeheartedly recommend her services ... Just don’t hire her when I need her.'J B Turner'Sincere thanks for a beautiful and elegant piece of work. First class.' |
