Month: January 2024

Care of your LinkedIn profile

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If you are a freelance editor, or if you are a business owner of any kind, I am certain you have a profile on the social media platform known as LinkedIn. Even if you despise Facebook, X, or other social media sites, you know you need a LinkedIn profile because that is where potential clients will go to find out if you and your business are legitimate—and hopefully decide to work with you. Your profile needs to not only be there, but be impeccable.

In this post, I will discuss how to maintain your profile so that it will attract people and let them know that you really know your trade.

First, your picture should be up to date. It should look professional—no selfies from the night in Ocean City when you and your friends were drinking. A professional headshot is best, and many portrait studios will take one for a price. You do not want to leave the photo field on LinkedIn blank. Most people will dismiss a profile that has no picture.

Other items that should be regularly kept up to date are “About,” “Experience,” “Education,” and “Featured.” You should visit your LinkedIn profile about once a month and pay special attention to these sections. Update them as necessary. If you uploaded your resume in the “Featured” section, for example, and it is no longer up to date, then run, don’t walk, to Word, update your resume, and replace it.

A note about the “Experience” section: If you filled it in simply by posting your chronological resume, that will not impress anybody. For each role, it is best to write a short paragraph showing not only what you did, but what you accomplished by doing it. For example, in the entry for one of my volunteer positions at a church, I wrote, “My main role here was that of editing various works which the church produces, such as Bible study booklets, weekly programs, and informational materials. Thanks to my work, the church’s documents were crisp and professional in appearance.”

Don’t forget to collect as many recommendations as possible and list any honor societies you were in and any awards you have.

I wish you the best in your client- and work-seeking endeavors.

“You can tell who the lazy ones are.”

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Many of us freelance editors exercise our right to mental health by taking major holidays off. “Major” holidays, according to society, include Christmas, New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day (the latter three being US holidays).

However, what about the holidays on which the US federal government is closed, but many people work? The holidays like Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, and Veterans Day? It rather begs the question: Should a freelancer work on those days?

Before I answer this question, I feel the need to post the opinion of a scientist who once visited my alma mater and talked about the people who worked in his lab (which was part of a federal agency): “You can tell who the lazy ones are. They’re the ones who don’t show up on federal holidays like Presidents Day and Veterans Day.”

I don’t necessarily agree.

When it comes to freelancers, I believe that if there is a deadline of any kind, the answer is yes—a freelancer should work on these kinds of holidays, treating them like work days. I am, of course, speaking from my personal experience as a woman with no children. If a freelancer has children who have a day off school on such a holiday, they may need to rearrange their schedule so that they can care for and spend time with their children. After all, family comes first.

Another thing that I believe comes before work is a freelancer’s beliefs. If they wish to celebrate Juneteenth or Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Veterans Day in a meaningful way, they should be able to rearrange their schedule so that they can. (And by “meaningful way,” I do not mean drinking to excess the night before and/or sleeping late in the morning.)

What is your point of view about this?

Getting a hand up

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Have you ever obtained an advanced degree?

Specifically, a PhD or an MA/MS (although I know there are other kinds of advanced degrees)?

If you are a freelance editor trying to get more work, you have a possible avenue in your graduate school alma mater.

And if you wrote a thesis or dissertation, you are obviously an expert in your field.

Therefore, as long as you are an impeccable editor, you are qualified to edit research manuscripts (prior to publication) in the field that you studied.

It took me two years after hanging out my shingle as a freelance editor to realize this. At that time, the idea came to me that I was able to edit research papers in biochemistry, since I have an MS in that subject. So where was the most logical place to turn? My graduate school alma mater.

I began by contacting a number of professors I knew from my department, whom I knew would remember me. One of them responded and put me in touch with a faculty member who was in charge of an editor pool that the university was assembling. The faculty member interviewed me via Zoom, and an editing relationship was born.

To date, I have edited research manuscripts for faculty from the university on topics from biochemistry to medicine to neurobiology. I have been honored and privileged to work on these papers and to get to know different authors in the school. I have been given several accolades from them and from the faculty liaisons (there are now two) who decided to take me on as a freelancer.

Prior to my contacting my alma mater, I was randomly contacting biochemistry departments at different universities and selling myself as a thesis/dissertation editor. I did get to edit one very interesting biochemistry master’s thesis as a result, but that is the only success story for this endeavor. Most of my efforts were met with silence, and silence is the new “no.”

It feels good to hear “yes,” doesn’t it?

If you are an editor with an advanced degree, in what subject is your degree?

When you are needed in more ways than one

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Sometimes I am needed by people other than my clients.

I have loved ones who live an hour away from my residence and sometimes need me. Their health is questionable, and one of them is in a senior care facility. As their closest family member, I need to be consistently aware of their well-being and safety.

Everyone who works and is in the same situation knows that it is often difficult to juggle working and looking after their loved one(s). I consider myself blessed in this case because I am self-employed. The authors are my respected clients, but I am “the boss.” I have known unfortunate people who worked a staff job (i.e., non-freelance) and were fired for taking too much time off to care for an ailing loved one. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.

This is not to say that caring for someone while freelancing is necessarily easy, however. If an emergency arises, I must be prepared to quickly rearrange my schedule so that I can respond in a timely manner and still meet my deadline. If I suddenly need to travel to my loved one(s) today, then the work planned for today can be rescheduled for tomorrow, and tomorrow’s scheduled work can be done another day. If I must work on the weekend, I will. There’s a Ravens game Sunday afternoon? Too bad, so sad.

This is one of the many reasons why it is important to plan ahead of time what you will do each day and divide the tasks realistically. After all, if you have no idea what you will do on Tuesday, what exactly will you reschedule to Wednesday (or another day) if you suddenly need to go and take care of your loved one on Tuesday?

This is also why it is important to leave yourself some “wiggle room” when planning out a project that has a specific deadline. Pretend that the deadline is the day before the actual one, and you have a time cushion in case there is an emergency.

If you are caring for a loved one while working, God bless you. What advice do you have for others in your situation?