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ABOUT ME
Hazel Bird is privileged to project manage, copy-edit and proofread sometimes dizzying quantities of interesting words for clients ranging from global academic and trade publishers to government policy units to publishers of creative non-fiction. Her focus is on developing dynamic collaborations with her clients in order to help make their goals a reality. Her biggest project to date was a twelve-volume international encyclopedia with over a thousand contributors. She lives in the stunning countryside of the Wye Valley in Herefordshire, UK, and spends her free time trying to corral her ancestors into some sort of order and attempting to offset a severe doughnut preoccupation with heavy lifting.
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ABOUT THE BLOG
The Wordstitch Blog brings together my experience working in publishing on both sides of the client–freelancer relationship (often simultaneously). It aims to foster great working relationships, from a belief that the best text products (of whatever kind) emerge out of genuine collaboration and excellent communication.
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CATEGORIES
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RECENT POSTS
- Difficult feedback: should you send it and, if so, how?
- When editorial project managers expect too much
- How to use bubble charts to get a snapshot of your clients’ value to your business
- How to close an editorial project effectively
- Proofreading pitfalls: Nine tips to improve your proofreading strategy
- A day in a life of a freelance copy-editor and editorial project manager
- Plagiarism: How to spot it and what to do about it
- Monetising feedback and embracing fragility
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META
Category Archives: Pick ‘n’ Mix
Editorial Pick ’n’ Mix is an eclectic weekly roundup of five tips or news items relevant to publishing, copy-editing and proofreading. The premise is that only a few minutes of semi-targeted reading every day of the (working) week will inevitably expand your editorial brain with new perspectives, ideas, resources and skills. Take a look at my recent post on professionalism – the inspiration for Editorial Pick ’n’ Mix – for more tips on how to boost that all-important asset.
Monday: New editions of Oxford’s trio of style essentials released
New Hart’s Rules, the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors and the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, published by Oxford University Press, are now out in their second editions (confusingly, these are now the second of the ‘new’ editions). OUP are trumpeting that the new-new editions have been ‘updated for the twenty-first century’ in collaboration with professional copy-editors and proofreaders.… read the rest >>
FREE SWEETIES!
OK, now that I’ve got your attention.
This is a new blog series born from my recent list of what makes a professional editor or proofreader. In that post, I urged editorial professionals to read something every day. Blog posts, Twitter, forums – it doesn’t matter; mix it up to maximise your opportunities for learning new perspectives, ideas and skills.
So, this series will be an always-arbitrary, strictly eclectic, necessarily selective and sometimes capricious mélange of my reading, showing that it really takes very little time to expand your editorial brain every day of the (working) week.
Monday: For stability and growth as a freelance, set your rates based on a three-day week
Money: The three-day rule | The Freelancery
Digging back through my Feedly, I found this post from July from The Freelancery. The theory runs roughly like this: (1) set your hourly (or per-1000-word) rates as if you’re only going to be working three days a week; (2) enjoy financial stability and have space for professional growth; (3) become awesome, work five days a week and get paid bucketloads (but also be secure if your work drops off for a while).… read the rest >>
