Here are my top tips for an effective manuscript assessment without having to read the entire manuscript to provide a quote. Use these questions to help you assess a manuscript in order to provide an editing quote—without having to read the entire manuscript first. In general, a developmental editor may be able to edit five-to-ten…
What are the secrets to finding clients as a newer editor? Here is my top tip and a few thoughts. Ways to Find Clients as a Newer Editor Established freelancers often describe a formula they think newer freelancers should follow to get more clients: “Apply to every freelance gig you see! That’s all you need…
What’s the secret to making time for potential clients, especially if you’re time and energy are already maxed out? Businesses do many things to reduce friction for customers, such as building automations, writing FAQs, offering a wide variety of payment options, and so on. The idea is that if I want to buy a widget…
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…
The Business of Storytelling Book Release Newly released book The Business of Storytelling will help editors and writers expand their resources to bring in other streams of income. If you’ve been in love with stories for a while, you’ve probably thought about making them the center of your working life. But if you’re also a…
“I’m not teaching the whiners anymore.” A friend of mine who also runs an online education company said this to me a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about the direction we wanted to take our respective businesses. Personally, I don’t get the kind of students you’d call whiners—that is, people who complain…
I’m on LinkedIn quite a bit because it’s a good place to talk about Club Ed. Sometimes on LI people share stories about why they want to quit their jobs. While I am well accustomed to bad boss behavior, this recent one made my jaw drop: “I’m at a funeral and my boss is texting…
Occasionally I hear from editors who’ve gotten stiffed by a new client (and sometimes by a returning client!) and want to know how to avoid it. Because my publisher clients are all reliable, the main thing I do to prevent problems is to expect full payment in advance from indie authors. Not everyone can do…