A website is what you make of it

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If you are a freelance editor (or freelancer of any kind), chances are you have a website for your business. If you don’t have one, you really should—at least in my opinion. But this week’s blog post is not about why you should have a website. It’s about the essential things to have on it.

There is always, of course, the Home page. This needs to pique the interest of potential clients. There should be visual elements, such as pictures, to break up the paragraphs. (Having a photo of yourself is optional.) Just make sure you have permission to use the pictures! The Home page should also explain why your services are necessary to the client. For example: “Why should you have your writing copyedited?”

The Services page is also one of the most important. It explains exactly what you do. Be specific here; do you copyedit, line edit, or do developmental editing or ghostwriting? Some freelancers list their fees on the service page, while others choose not to.

The About page is where you list your credentials and show the client why you are good at what you do. You can also slip in a sentence about, for example, your hobbies (“When not reading or writing, I enjoy traveling.”) This paints you more as human rather than an editing machine.

The Testimonials page shows all the praise clients have given you. My advice is to ask for a short testimonial from every client who is happy with the work you have done for them. Do this right after the job is done, so that the client remembers you and your work clearly.

A blog is optional for a website, but having one and updating it regularly shows that you are diligent. You must be disciplined about blogging and do it once a week (or however often you have decided) and not just whenever you feel like it.

If you are a freelancer, what have you found is essential to put on your website?

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?

Goals for 2024

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Well, 2023 was quite a year for Fiedler Editorial.

My editing workflow increased, particularly in the late summer, which was definitely an excellent thing. I also learned about Word styles and templates from Hilary Cadman, an MS Word expert and teacher in Australia. I began editing PDFs in Adobe Acrobat. (I’m getting better at it and have been doing it for the last four months—and I love it!) And, of course, I attended EFACON 2023 in Alexandria, Virginia in August, where I met a whole lot of awesome people, several of whom with which I am still in touch, and learned a whole lot more about editing and running a business.

Now that another year is about to begin, it is time to set goals again.

What are my goals for 2024?

  1. I want to increase my workflow even further, to the point where there are few, if any, “dry spells.” The last four and a half months of 2023 have been like this, and I want to keep the momentum going.
  • I want to learn more about editing PDFs using Acrobat and have more opportunities to do this kind of editing.
  • I want to set up a business savings account. Experts at EFACON 2023 advised us attendees to do this in a panel session. Ten percent of every payment will go into it, and I will be able to save for editing-related things of which I want to be a part, such as the 2026 ACES Conference in Atlanta. (Unfortunately, the 2024 and 2025 ACES Conferences are in cities which are too far for my budget—San Diego and Salt Lake City, respectively.)
  • One very personal goal that I cannot share on this blog but which means the world to me.

What are your goals for the new year?

Holiday greetings

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Happy holidays, dear readers. Since I celebrate Christmas, I am taking this weekend off from blogging in order to reflect on the spiritual significance of the holiday and spend time with loved ones.

I wish that you enjoy good health and happiness during this time and in the new year.

Friends in client places

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When some freelance editors launch a new business, their first clients are their friends because they need work and their friends know this. This was the case with me five years ago when I first hung out my shingle as an editor. My first client was the spouse of one of my friends, and the project went very well—in fact, this person has had me edit other things for them since.

Following this, the friend whose spouse employed my editing services began using me for editing a short time later. Years have passed, and I have done a lot of work as a contractor for the company for whom my friend works. It has been highly enjoyable and has paid me well, as has the scientific work I have done for clients whom I do not know personally.

Some editors would not dare have friends (or family) as clients. I have read discussion list posts in one of my professional editing organizations in which a poster literally says, “No friends!” when speaking of their client base. Although I respectfully disagree in principle, I can understand why an editor would have this policy.

Would you want to have one of your good friends as your boss? Although a freelancer’s boss is not the client (a freelancer is their own boss), they want to make the client happy, and will do whatever it takes to do so. If the friend/client is unsatisfied with the final product, this undoubtedly puts a strain on the friendship. If the friendship is strong, the subpar result can be forgotten, at least eventually. But if the friendship is not strong enough…you get the idea. Personally, I am choosy about which of my friends I would take on as clients. I must ask myself, “How would this person act if they were a traditional boss?” The friend I mentioned earlier in this post has been a wonderful “boss,” so to speak, but other friends I have, while being great people, I would not want as clients.

If you are a freelance editor, do you have any of your friends as clients?

The great American novel

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Would you believe that about eight years ago, I wrote a novel? I felt my creative juices flowing like a whitewater river and let them go.

I will not give details in this post on what the novel is about, because I do not want to have someone steal my ideas. I will say that the story is dramatic, set in the summer of 2003, and told from the point of view of a 25-year-old woman.

In the novel’s current state, it is not very good.

It is good in terms of grammar, sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, and the like. After all, I am an editor and reread the novel more than once to check those things. But in terms of the setup, the story’s progression, and the resolution of the main character’s conflict…I’m sorry to say that the writing is subpar.

This is all very embarrassing, because while I was writing the novel, I told several of my friends that I was writing one. (Big mistake!) Now, years later, they are asking me how it is coming. And I never really know what to say anymore.

I refuse to let this novel die.

When I have more funds, I plan to hire a book coach or developmental editor to help me flesh out the story. Following that, I want to hire an editor or copyeditor to catch mistakes that I might have missed. Then I need to enlist the services of a formatter and a cover designer.

After all of that has been accomplished, I plan to self-publish.

The process, as you can guess, takes a lot of money, so I must keep saving. But this novel will see the light of day before I pass away.

Have you ever written a novel and if so, did you publish it?

What’s new on the bulletin board

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A good while back, I wrote about some of the things I keep on my office bulletin board, which is located directly above the desk where I work. Since then, I have added some new items.

At the top center of the board, I have one of my business cards. I had the cards made for EFACON 2023, which I attended last August, and I thought it highly appropriate to have one on my bulletin board. Having it there makes me feel very official.

I also have a certificate of graduation from Cadman Training Services, from whom I took an online class in Word styles and templates for PC this past summer. The certificate makes me feel accomplished. Underneath it are two more documents that make me feel good about myself: certificates of completion for Intermediate Copyediting and Advanced Copyediting. Both classes are taught by Lourdes Venard and offered through the EFA.

I also have my Garfield mask hanging from one of the tacks on the board. It serves as a reminder that I made it through the COVID pandemic alive (I deeply apologize if you have a loved one who did not—please accept my sympathy). Also hanging from a tack on the board is my ID badge from EFACON 2023. My first badge from my first professional editing conference is definitely significant.

One thing on my board that is very important to me is a small flyer giving information about the EFA Academic Editing Chapter. Since this is the kind of editing I do, it made perfect sense to me to join. The flyer contains the chapter’s webpage and email address. It serves as a reminder for me to stay in touch with the chapter, several of whose members I had the privilege of meeting at EFACON 2023.

But the most precious new addition to my bulletin board was given to me the day after my 50th birthday, which was less than a month ago. It is a Garfield card that was homemade by one of my friends. She used PowerPoint to include several pictures of Garfield, including one of him holding balloons and wishing me “a year full of great health, love, peace, and happiness!” (Can you tell I love that fat orange tabby?)

What is on your work bulletin board? What is its significance to you?