Professional development
Capitalising on feedback and embracing fragility
Not long ago, I met up with three old university friends who are all employed by (or have been employed by) large public-sector organisations. Their work environments (the support and demands of a corporate structure; the necessity of wearing shoes with rigid soles) couldn’t be more different from mine (the freedom to improve or damage my business unchecked by rules set by others; an office six metres from my bed).…
Read More#sfep16: reflections on the 2016 Society for Editors and Proofreaders conference
I spent the weekend just gone in Birmingham at the 2016 Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) conference – my fourth. There were over 30 hours of excellent CPD and networking opportunities, and I’ve emerged re-invigorated and with plenty of new ideas for my business and personal development, if a little brain-weary:
The seven deadly sins of freelance editors
You’re a good editor. You can juggle serial commas and breathe fire at dangling modifiers. Your ninja coding skills can subdue even the most tortuous of manuscripts.
But, however good your editorial skills, they may not be able to save you from losing a client to certain common etiquette pitfalls. I’ve collected seven of these below.…
Read MoreWhat makes a professional copy-editor or proofreader?
‘Professionalism’ is one of those rare things: a buzzword with longevity and real value for both the professional and the client who benefits from that professionalism.
But what exactly does it mean to be a professional copy-editor or proofreader? As a project manager, I have worked with the very best to the very worst on the scale of professionalism.…
Read MoreCo-mentoring: free CPD for editorial professionals
Two truths of editing are universally acknowledged: (1) editors are good at objectively reacting to work produced by other people and (2) no two editors will edit the same piece of text in the same way. Remember this – I’ll come back to it.
For many of us, being mentored – in other words, having our work scrutinised line by line, edit by edit, marginal squiggle by marginal squiggle – is something we haven’t experienced for some time.…
Read MoreEight thoughts on what makes a great project manager (or, how to make your freelancer love you)
In my previous post I gave some tips for freelance editors, proofreaders and indexers on how to keep getting rehired by clients. A contact subsequently suggested a mirror article on how those clients could improve in their dealings with freelancers.
Given that client relations are a perennial bugbear of freelancers, this seemed an interesting topic to tackle.…
Read MoreHow to make your publishing client love you
Here’s the situation: you’ve got yourself onto a publisher’s list and, after a few months, you receive an email offering interesting work at a great rate of pay. You accept the job and complete it on deadline and to the best of your abilities, and the project manager (PM) seems happy (or, at least, you don’t receive any negative feedback, which is often the best feedback a busy PM has time for).…
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