Posts Tagged ‘CPD’
The value of intangible copyediting and proofreading skills
The more you work as a copyeditor or proofreader, the more you come to understand that the job is about far more than spotting errors in spelling and grammar. For me as an editorial project manager, there are certain copyediting and proofreading skills that I’ve come to value in the freelancers I work with but that are hard to pin down.…
Read MoreAbsolutely everything in my FY21/22 freelance annual report
Last year I posted about my first experience of writing an annual report for my freelance business. I found the exercise invaluable for the clarity it gave me, so clearly I was going to repeat it this year. In doing so, I reflected on last year’s findings and added some more topics, and the result was even more helpful and inspiring than last year’s.…
Read MoreRuthless balance: are you protecting your freelance business?
The idea of protection might sound like something that only applies to ‘proper’ businesses. If your only employee is your dog and your physical assets principally consist of a temperamental PC and a slightly wonky desk and chair that you bought at IKEA in 2008, what do you have to protect?
Well, first of all, if you’re a freelancer with one or more clients, you are a proper business, whether you like it or not.…
Read MoreWhy freelancers should write annual reports
This year, for the first time, I wrote an annual report for my freelance business.
But wait, isn’t that a bit of a paradox – a freelancer writing an annual report? Surely annual reports are designed to be shared with government, shareholders and the media (entities unlikely to have much interest in the average freelance business)?…
Read MoreHow to be a trustworthy freelancer
What’s your most precious asset as a freelancer or small business owner?
I’ll give you some hints.
It’s not your qualifications or professional memberships. Up to a point, anybody with enough tenacity and funding can acquire those.
It’s also not your website or portfolio. Again, however informative they are and however long they took you to build, there will be many other freelancers out there with credentials that are just as impressive.…
Read MorePMP or PRINCE2: which is most valuable as an accreditation for an editorial project manager?
PMP (Project Management Professional) and PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) are two of the most popular and highly ranked project management certifications worldwide. But how are they perceived in the editorial and publishing world, and which would be most valuable to an editorial project manager seeking work?
I’m planning to complete one of these qualifications over the next year, but I wanted to be sure I was choosing the right one for my industry, where I am in my career and my general development goals.…
Read MoreSetting appropriate expectations as an editorial project manager
I recently received a thought-provoking comment from a fellow freelance editorial professional who has been working alongside me on a project I’ve been managing. The projects I manage are typically very large (hundreds of thousands or even millions of words), and there are inevitably hiccups that arise and have to be resolved. So I found it interesting when the other editor commented that I am more understanding than some other editorial project managers about these kinds of hiccups.…
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:
Using combo boxes in editorial style sheets
I am a huge advocate of comprehensive and well-organised editorial style sheets. When copy-editing and proofreading, they help me to clearly summarise the style decisions I’ve made and communicate them to my client. And, in my project management work, they are indispensable tools for corralling copy-editors on multi-editor projects and for keeping styles consistent throughout copy-editing, typesetting, proofreading, collating and indexing.…
Read MoreIs there such a thing as authorial voice?
‘Don’t intrude on the author’s voice’ is one of the first things every new proofreader or copy-editor is told. This is both a very helpful and an utterly useless piece of advice. It is helpful because it is absolutely true, but it is useless because it rarely seems to be defined just what on earth authorial voice is.…
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