One thing new editors often ask me is how to find their niche(s), and my short answer is to let your niche find you. How to Let Your Niche Find You I don’t want to be all zen and say your niches will find you, but that’s kind of true, or at least it has…
Let’s talk about when to raise rates for book editors. How do you know when it’s the right time? I have a few tips for this. Is it Time to Raise Your Rates? It’s common for freelancers to get stuck on a low-paying treadmill. They take a few poorly paying gigs to get some experience…
Newer editors are often unsure of how to stand out from other editors. So they’ll do things that are the equivalent of wearing a fedora or a monocle. “Notice me!” these efforts say. But I have a tip to share for how to stand out as an editor! My #1 Tip to Stand Out as…
In order to attract the right kind of clients for you, you have to understand what indie authors look for in editors. Some authors want you to do all the work. (These are often nonfiction authors, but some novelists do this, too.) If you’ve identified a plot problem, they want you to rewrite the story…
Getting paid to do the work is how we stay in business. It’s very important to be prepared to handle potential client problems with payment. Payment in Full When working with indie authors, I expect full payment in advance, so I don’t have problems with people who don’t make a final payment, but not everyone…
Why should we be informed of some of the common client red flags for freelance editors? Since we want to weed out potentially troublesome clients before they make our lives miserable, or at least I do, it’s a good idea to have some weed-killing processes in place. For example, requiring a nonrefundable deposit means that…
An important decision is that of choosing a niche for freelance editors. Often newer freelancers will come to me saying they’re not sure how to get clients. They’re willing to do just about anything for just about any price to get things rolling, so where can they find someone who needs an editor? The answer…
Once you’ve gotten some experience and are ready to find clients, you need to think about identifying your potential clients. Who is your audience of potential clients? It can’t be everyone who needs an editor because there is no way to find “everyone.” But there is a way to find, say, romance novelists. You can…
I’m often asked, “For beginning editors, do you recommend doing some edits for free to get a start?” To answer, I want to distinguish between a beginning editor who has no idea what they’re doing and needs to learn and a beginning editor who knows what they’re doing but doesn’t have a lot in the…
Setting expectations from the start helps keep the project you’re doing from becoming never-ending. If you agree to do one round of editing, that does not also include three hundred hours of personal coaching while the author is trying to finish the revision. So, you have to define the project parameters clearly. If one round…