How to Stand Out From the Crowd
A challenge for newer editors is feeling like you’re competing against hundreds of people for the same few clients—you have to figure out how to stand out from the crowd. But believe me when I say you’re not.
A Little Ditty About How to Stand Out From the Crowd
Here’s a story. My daughter is learning Spanish, and she’s been using an app-based method for a while. A few weeks ago, we decided it was time for her to start learning with a tutor. A friend recommended finding one on a certain platform, so we visited the site and started looking.
And of course you know what we found. There are hundreds (probably thousands, but I stopped scrolling after a while) of people who teach Spanish. (This overwhelm is just as immobilizing for clients as it is for freelancers.) Naturally we started looking for filters and we applied some: someone who speaks European Spanish, for example, and who was available certain hours of the day, but this didn’t narrow the search down much.
I knew that my daughter needed someone who would be patient with a client who has an intellectual disability. But asking eight hundred strangers, “Hey, can you teach someone who is intellectually impaired?” gets very tiring (not to mention dispiriting) after a while.
Then, I found a filter for “works with neurodivergent clients.” I knew that would help. Someone who was used to working with neurodivergent clients was more likely to be able to work well with Jessica than someone who did not have that asset in their bio. I clicked on the filter.
The result was six people. Just six. It was much easier to ask a handful of people if they thought they could work well with Jessica. Then we picked one whose bio Jessica connected with and set up her first session. We don’t know how it will work out, but we made a choice and paid some money.
My point is this is how you stand out in a crowded field. For our search, “I speak Spanish fluently” is basic. I’m not amazed that any of these tutors speak Spanish fluently. I expect them to. They’re supposed to.
Similarly, “I’m a good editor” (or even “I’m a great editor”) is also basic. Of course, a client will expect you to be good at your job. This does not make you stand out at all. No one is hiring “I’m generally competent except on Tuesdays” except your internet service provider.
What makes you stand out is whatever makes you you. It makes someone connect with you and want you to work on their project.
Maybe this is subject-matter expertise, maybe it’s a certain approach to editing, maybe it’s the fact that you, too, have ADHD and understand how to work with an author who does. Maybe it’s just that you only drink Peet’s coffee and will never, under any circumstances, drink a cup from Starbucks.
The more you can share who you are, the more likely clients looking for that exact thing will find you. This is how you stand out from a crowd.
Tips for Editors & Writers
World-building without info-dumping
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Focus on a limited number of problems in story development
Typically in a manuscript evaluation or developmental edit, I focus on what I perceive to be the three-to-five most important concerns I’ve noticed in the ms. This is the approach I teach my editing students. Editing too many problems at once overburdens the author In any given ms, there may be ten or fifteen developmental problems…
Clients who want services you don’t offer
Newer freelancers sometimes come to me in a panic because a client has approached them to do work that’s outside their typical scope. Commonly this is something like the freelancer offers copyediting and developmental editing but the client wants coaching. What should they do? They don’t know how to coach, they don’t offer coaching services,…
