The Concierge (Blog)

Editors who are just starting out or who are moving in new directions usually have an idea in mind of the work they want to do. Often this starts out as a very broad concept: they want to help novelists write better stories. Then they realize this is too broad – where do you find…

While I love being a freelancer, there are certain tasks that I don’t enjoy doing. For example, marketing. Or updating my website. I know I need to do them, but sometimes my motivation is lacking. It’s easy to keep kicking that can down the road: “I’ll do it later.” One way I get around this…

When I was living in Málaga, after more than a year of working hard to learn Spanish, I still didn’t understand a lot of what I overheard around me. This used to discourage me. I felt like I should be a lot further along, given the effort. Then one day I asked myself, “Is my…

If you’re interested in becoming an editor, you may wonder what kind of work editors can do other than editing the words on a page. Or you may worry that being an editor would constrain you to only a certain kind of work: developing book manuscripts or copyediting journal articles. But once you have grown…

LinkedIn is the only social media I’m on these days because I enjoy the professional connections I make there and there’s far less drama than on other social media platforms. But because LI is about getting work (among other things), it’s very common to see freelancers posting that they’re looking for projects. And that’s fine;…

In a romance, the overt plot (what the story is basically about: finding the gold, winning the election, saving the family farm) and the romance plot (the two main characters falling in love) must work together to send the story on a specific trajectory. The overt plot and the romance plot must intersect in ways…

I’ve worked with a number of book publisher and book packager clients over the years and I’ve found a few basic rules help ensure that I complete each project satisfactorily. You may find them helpful, too. #1. Understand your role. If an author has asked whether the plot entertains you and you tell them they…

Every now and then a topic comes up that gets a fair amount of discussion in freelance editor groups. One of these is the question of authors thanking their editors in the acknowledgments section of their book. And there are a lot of editors out there trying to convince indie authors that they have to…

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to point out that I’m the kind of person who has an optimistic view of the nature of risk, which is why I’m not a financial advisor and you wouldn’t want me to be. But I also think we are too certain that some actions are “safe”…