Business of Editing: Does Market Perception Matter?

In recent discussions about pricing of services it was suggested that perception of worth was an important factor in the battle to obtain higher fees. It was suggested that by setting pricing too low, potential clients would balk at hiring the freelancer because of the perception that the freelancer cannot be very good, which perception is based solely on the low price. The advice then being that it is better to turn down low-priced work than to give the market opportunity to misperceive the worth of your services and your skill level. (See “The Real Problem with Low Freelance Rates” by Jake Poinier for the original argument.)

At first blush, the argument appears to have value, but after thinking about it for a while, I think the argument of market perception is a very minor matter.

We need to begin at the very beginning: How does a freelancer know what is too low a price to charge? No discussion regarding pricing can have any merit if this riddle is not solved first. We have had this discussion before, and the resolution begins with knowing your required effective hourly rate (rEHR). (For that discussion, see the multipart series “Business of Editing: What to Charge.”) In the absence of knowing your rEHR, it is not possible to know whether the price you are contemplating charging a client is too low.

The second prong of the answer lies in knowing what price is the general price for the services required in your market. Each market has its own pricing scheme. Editing reports that are going to be submitted to a government agency is likely to be more expensive for the client than the editing of the novel that will be self-published. And working for a packager will carry a different market price than working directly with researchers seeking to polish an article for journal publication.

The third prong is delineation of the services. Too often we use a general term, such as copyediting, and assume that everyone understands the term to mean exactly the same thing. Of course, the reality is much different and you cannot compare my copyediting with your copyediting unless we have come to a mutual agreement as to what copyediting entails. We have to compare apples with apples, and even then, we need to compare cooking apples with cooking apples rather than cooking apples with eating apples.

A fourth prong is also fundamental to the answer: Under what conditions are you working? By this I mean are you in a position to turn down low-paying work and hold out, perhaps for months, until something comes along that meets the definition of “not too low paying”? In other words, are you the sole source of income in your household? If not, does the other person in the household earn enough that you can sit idly by waiting?

This fourth prong is the most often overlooked prong when discussions about pricing occur. It is easy if you have a lot of money in the bank or a spouse who has a secure job and earns enough to pay all the bills; it is not so easy if your income is the primary (or lone) income in the household. Yet when the argument about market perception is made, it is rarely disclosed why the argument’s author believes he can take the high road.

These prongs (and others not mentioned) are key to understanding why it is easy to make the market perception argument but not so easy to abide by it. Yet there is an even more fundamental flaw with the market perception argument, which relates to how many of your clients actually view the market that way. That is almost an unanswerable. In the absence of actually getting a prospective client to tell you why you are not getting a particular project and telling you honestly, measuring market perception’s effect on your business is nigh impossible.

My experience among my market is that I lose work because my prices are too high. In 31 years of editing, I have never had a prospective client tell me my prices were too low; only that they are too high. And when you peruse the various forums, you rarely see someone say that they didn’t hire an editor because the editor’s price was too low; invariably, the reason is that the price is too high. (When I do read a comment questioning pricing that is too low, with a little investigating I discover that commenter is a colleague, not a buyer of services.)

Is this to say that there aren’t clients who do not react negatively to low pricing? No, because I have no doubt there are such people. But the key is that they are not in my market and that is the market with which I need to be concerned.

There is another fundamental flaw with the market perception argument. The argument rails against low pricing but never identifies what is correct pricing or the maximal pricing. It is always couched in low pricing terms (which also is never really identified — is $25 an hour too low? How about $35? Or $50? Or $100? Or is $50 too high and $35 both correct and maximal?), which leads us back to where we began: How can pricing be judged if we do not know our rEHR?

And equally important: How can our pricing be judged if our EHR remains unknown?

I have made this argument numerous times yet still colleagues talk in terms of too low pricing. The key is not the pricing but what you can turn that price point into. If your rEHR is $20 and your EHR is $40 and your price point is $2 per manuscript page, is your price point too low? I think not.

One other point about the market perception argument. It is always couched in terms of how clients view you but is really based on how colleagues view you and the desires of colleagues. I think we would all agree that high-quality editing is a very valuable service. I know that we could come to an agreement as what is a fair rate that every editor should minimally charge. I also know that we can all agree that some colleagues charge too little for their editorial work. But when we make these agreements they are made base on our desire to be better compensated for the work we perform.

What we want is for everyone else to adhere to a standard we impose so that we can be part of a rising compensation tide. That is, the market perception argument is not based on what is good for you, but on what is good for me. And that is the ultimate flaw of the argument: the lack of agreement as to what is good for me.

Regardless of how you come down on the validity and worth of the market perception pricing argument, in the absence of knowing your rEHR and your EHR and understanding your market, it is not possible to determine where your pricing fits in the market perception scheme.

Does the market’s perception of your pricing affect your market’s view of your skills? Do you agree or disagree with the market perception argument. Do you know your rEHR and EHR?

Richard Adin, An American Editor

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The Business of Editing: Making Search & Replace Efficient & Profitable

Readers of An American Editor know by now my mantra: It has to be profitable! Profit is subject to myriad meanings; for me it means financial profit, whereas for other editors it has no financial meaning — rather, it must be soul satisfying; other editors have other meanings. The key is not how profit is defined but that profit represents what we, individually, seek when we take on an editorial project.

When profit is defined in financial terms, it sets the parameters for how an editor approaches a project. With financial profit as the motivator, the editor seeks to do the very best job he can do but in the least amount of time. It was with that in mind that EditTools was created; it was with that in mind that Editor’s Toolkit Plus and PerfectIt and myriad other time-saving macros were created.

Microsoft Word’s Find Feature

One of the “headaches” of the type of editing work I generally do (medical textbooks) is the use of acronyms and abbreviations (hereafter combined into “acronyms”). For most of my clients, the general rule is that an acronym must be used not less than four times in a document (i.e., once when it is defined plus three additional instances); if it is used fewer times, then it should always be spelled out. However, if it is used enough times that it is kept, then it should be defined only at first use and not again.

Applying that rule could be relatively easy in Word 2010, for example, because the Find feature, which opens the Navigation pane, can give you a count, as shown in the image below. (For a better view of an image in this essay, click on the image to enlarge it.)

Word 2010 Navigation Pane: Find

In this example, I searched for the abbreviation for hemoglobin: Hb (#1). Word tells me that there are 11 “matches” (#2) and I can see the 11 matches in the pane (#3). If I click on one of the entries in the pane (yellow highlighted box), Word will take me to that item and highlight it (#4). This is fine for telling me how many times Hb appears in the document, but Word limits the value of this function in several ways.

One limit occurs if you want to look up something that also can be found in myriad other constructs. For example, the acronym Th is used to represent T helper-type cell and if I search for Th, I get a response like that highlighted in this image:

Too many results to preview

In other words, Find is not going to be helpful. Another problem with Word’s Find function is that it includes the whole document, you cannot tell it to search and report back only up to a particular point. Why is that a problem? In the example document I am using for this essay, there are 65 references, many of which include Hb, and none of which do I want in my count. I want in my count only the primary text. According to Word, the example document is 33 pages, but the main text fills only 21 of those pages. The result is that the count word gave me (11 instances of Hb; see #2 in the image “Word 2010 Navigation pane: Find” above) is not accurate for determining whether Hb should be retained as an acronym.

Word’s Find also has another failing, which for me is a big failing: In a long document with lots of acronyms, Word’s Find gives me no way to easily determine whether an acronym has been previously defined. So if I encounter an acronym on page 5, where it is first defined, and then again on page 12, where it is defined again, absent good memory or conducting another Find search, I am unlikely to recall/know that the acronym has already been defined. There are things I could do — for example, I could go to each instance of Hb via the Navigation pane and highlight each and scan the nearby text to delete redefinitions — but that takes time, especially if there are a lot of instances, and thus eats into profit. That would be especially true with those chapters I have to edit where the text portion alone runs more than 100 pages (and sometimes 200 or more pages).

An Alternative Method:
Enhanced Search, Count, & Replace

For me the best way to deal with the question of acronyms is with EditTools’ ESCR (Enhanced Search Count, & Replace) macro. The macro is found on EditTools’ Highlight menu (red arrow in image below).

ESCR on the Highlight Menu in EditTools

Because what I want to do is find out how many times hemoglobin (Hb) appears in the main text, I temporarily added (Hb) to the document (as shown in the image below) so that I could do a search for the terms separately and together; usually I do not have to add the acronym or definition at the first instance because the author has done so, but sometimes the first instance of the acronym is undefined or the definition and the acronym are separated by intervening words, in which case I add the definition/acronym before using ESCR so that they form a single selectable search term. In this case, if I hadn’t done so, the search phrase would have been hemoglobin A (HbA), which was too narrow; such a search would have excluded, for example, HbSS and HbC, when what I want searched for is Hb regardless of how it is used. Before running ESCR, you need to select what you want it to look for. It can look for either a phrase or a single word. But remember that, like all macros, this is a dumb macro, so it can end up trying to look for things you do not want. But even that can be easily tackled with ESCR. Here I have selected the phrase hemoglobin (Hb) as the search phrase:

Selecting the Search Phrase

(Tip: I make it a point to select the phrase and copy it to memory. With this particular phrase there will not be a problem, but a phrase that includes terms separated by a comma are a problem, so by copying the “to find” phrase to memory, I can add it easily to the macro in correct form.)

With the phrase selected (and copied), I click ESCR. The macro produces a list of what it will search for, #1 in the below image. If you look at the list, you will see that the macro automatically separated the terms and created variations for singular and plural. Again, it is a dumb macro so it will do silly things, such as item 5, HBS. You can either let it go, or you can uncheck (#2) the item(s) you don’t want included in the search. I have found that for the most part it is as easy to leave it as to decheck it.

What the ESCR macro will search for

But sometimes the list is so long, especially if the search phrase has commas or parenthetical material, for example, BCNU (1,3-bis-(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea), that I add the terms I want and deselect all and select only those things I am interested in. The image below illustrates the problem that a search phrase like BCNU (1,3-bis-(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea) presents (in this instance, the macro came up with 36 variations to search for, of which two, possibly, three, are usable). [NOTE: This particular problem will no longer be a problem with the next release of EditTools.] In these instances, I generally ignore what the macro has come up with for the search and go to the Add terms dialog (see the image “Adding additional search terms” below) and paste the selected phrase into the first field and then break it up as I want, using the additional fields as described in the material following this image:

The problems commas, dashes, parens create

If the list is long and there are only a few items I want searched for, I click Deselect All (#3) and then check only the few terms I want used for the search. If the macro doesn’t list a variation that I want included, I click Add terms (#4) to bring up a dialog box in which I can add those missing variations:

Adding additional search terms

I have decided that I want the whole search phrase searched for (I wouldn’t normally do this; I am doing just for demonstration here), so I pasted the selected phrase into the first empty field (#1 in image below). If I wanted to add a symbol, for example a Greek beta, I could click the * (#2) to bring up Word’s Symbol dialog; for an N or M dash, I could click the N- or M- button (#2). Once all the terms I want the macro to find are added here, I click OK (#3), which will take me back to the primary Find screen where I can see that the macro has added my search term as item 11 (arrow). If I am done, I can click OK (#4) to run the macro.

Find screen after adding a phrase

When the macro runs, it goes through the entire list of items to see what it can find. [IMPORTANT: The macro searches from the character immediately following the selection you made to wherever the end bookmark (remhigh) is located. The end bookmark is usually inserted automatically based on other choices you have made in EditTools, but it can also be added manually by you. If it needs to be added by you, when you run the macro, a message will popup telling you that the remhigh bookmark is missing and needs to be added. Although you can place the bookmark anywhere in your document, it is recommended that you place it at the end of the primary text and before any references, tables, or figure legends/figures.] The macro searches down from the point of the selection to the end of the main text of the document.

The idea is that because the macro only searches forward (down) (see the text at #1 in the image below), not all or backward (up), you use it at your first encounter with the acronym or phrase. Running the macro generates a report like the following:

ESCR’s report

In our example, it only found two variations: Hb and HbA (#2). Based on this report, it is safe to conclude, for example, that hemoglobin is not used in the text after this point. Also, it is clear that Hb, regardless of how it is used, appears only four additional times in the text. You now have two options. First, if you do not want Hb to be used as a substitute for hemoglobin, you can enter hemoglobin in the empty field (#3). (Similarly, if the book style is for Hgb to be used instead of Hb, you can instruct ESCR to change each instance of Hb to Hgb.) This will instruct the macro to replace Hb with hemoglobin. Second, if using Hb and/or HbA is OK, you can check the highlight box (#4) so that the macro will highlight these terms throughout the manuscript. The highlight will indicate to you that (a) you have already done a search for the term and found that it appears enough times in the manuscript to be retained, (b) that the term has been previously defined so if you should see it spelled out again, you know to replace the spelled out version, and (c) that the term is correct (even if Word insists it is misspelled). The image below shows that I have decide to change the one instance of Hb to hemoglobin (#6) and that I want HbA highlighted (#7).

Instructing the ESCR macro

Clicking OK (#5 in ESCR’s report above) causes the macro to run and make the changes. As the following image shows, ESCR made the changes as instructed — and does so with tracking on (even if you have turned tracking off). HbA is now highlighted (#1 and #2) and Hb has been changed to hemoglobin (#3).

After running the ESCR macro

The ESCR macro is very useful in these circumstances. The two images below are from a document I edited recently. They are the first and last screen of the results of a search for Hb in a nearly 200-page chapter. The macro found 83 variations and you can see that some changes would be required. The advantage is that I can address all of these at one time, enabling me to make them uniform in presentation, and any changes are with tracking on so I can undo any erroneous changes. Word’s Find feature cannot do this as quickly and easily as ESCR (in fact, Word’s Find gave the “too many” message in this instance).

First screen of the Find results

Last screen of the Find results

Working smarter is the a key to editing profitably. Making use of the right tool at the right time is one hallmark of a professional editor. Importantly, doing those things that help improve accuracy and consistency makes clients happy clients. EditTools is an important tool in the professional editor’s armory.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essays are:

• The Business of Editing: Correcting “Errors”
• The Business of Editing: Journals, References, & Dollars
• The Business of Editing: Coding for Profit
• The Business of Editing: Managing Comments with Comment Editor
• The Business of Editing: Clicking for Profit with Click List
• The Business of Editing: Keeping Reference Callouts in Number Order
• The Business of Editing: Using & Managing Bookmarks

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Looking for a Deal?

You can buy EditTools in a package with PerfectIt and Editor’s Toolkit at a special savings of $78 off the price if bought individually. To purchase the package at the special deal price, click Editor’s Toolkit Ultimate.

On the Basics: Coping with Emergencies

Coping with Emergencies

by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

A combination of losing Internet access twice in not quite two weeks, hearing from a colleague with a health crisis, reflecting on a health crisis for my husband a couple of months ago, and seeing extreme winter weather create all kinds of headaches for people recently made me start thinking about how editors and writers in general, and freelancers in particular, handle — or should handle — emergencies.

Of course, we can only plan for emergencies but just so far, since emergencies by definition are unpredictable. The problem could be almost anything: a technology meltdown, one’s own or a spouse’s/child’s/parent’s illness (whether short- or long-term), equipment failure, whatever. But there are ways we can do business from day to day that provide at least some, if not the most, protection against the unknown and unexpected as possible.

Having reliable e-mail and Internet access these days couldn’t be more essential to having an editorial business, no matter what services you offer. Losing that connection for even a few hours could mean losing out on hearing from a new client, losing a current client by missing a deadline, or not having access to tools you need to work on a project — fact-checking resources, online style sheets or manuals, cloud-based versions of software, etc.

I get my Internet access through a landline with the local phone company. A couple of weeks ago, I suddenly had no phone service — there was a busy signal instead of a dial tone when I picked up the phone — and thus no Internet or e-mail access. Voicemail worked, but I couldn’t use the line for outgoing calls or to connect to the electronic world. I could make calls (starting with an irate one to the phone company) with my cellphone, but it’s a somewhat “dumb” phone that doesn’t have Internet connectivity.

While I was lucky not to be on deadline for anything that day, I do have several clients who send me work to edit or proofread on demand and expect to at least hear back from me with a “Got it, will do shortly” message, if not to get the actual finished work back that same day. Not being to communicate electronically was beyond frustrating.

The first time this happened was on a Friday afternoon and the line was fixed by Monday morning, so the impact on my work life was minimal, although the aggravation and frustration were still maximal. The line went out again on Thursday, and the phone company wouldn’t commit to getting a repair person out until the following Monday. The repair department doesn’t work after 5 p.m. on weekdays or at all over the weekend. That meant not just a disconnected weekend, but almost three work days without Internet access. Despite going somewhat ballistic with the phone company, there was nothing I could do but stew about it. For various reasons, I couldn’t spend the day somewhere with Internet access. I could still get writing, editing, and proofreading work done; I just couldn’t get online.

The line got fixed sooner than promised, but it was still a sobering experience.

When my husband had surgery last fall that involved twice as much hospital time as we had been told to expect (I stayed with him the whole time, making dashes home in the mornings to change clothes and pick up the mail), I was reminded of several years ago, when I had postsurgery complications that resulted in several months of recuperation. Luckily, I was already freelancing full-time and used to working at home, but that was before cellphones and laptops made it a lot easier to get work done. This time, I could communicate with clients from the hospital via my laptop and cellphone. If I’m struck down again myself some day, I’ve figured out how to use the laptop from a horizontal position and probably would have a smartphone or tablet that would be even easier to use if I couldn’t sit up and use my desktop computer.

We can’t avoid emergencies, but we can position ourselves to handle them. Here are a few suggestions:

• If you use a landline for e-mail and Internet access but haven’t gotten a smartphone, consider investing in a smartphone. You can still keep the landline. If I understand them correctly, smartphones can provide connectivity without using your landline. I’ll be looking into options for one that won’t cost as much as a regular line that I’d use all the time, because that isn’t what I need; I just want — and probably will need — backup Internet access. Another option might be a wireless phone service.
• Record your deadlines as a day or week earlier than they really are, so you’re working ahead of schedule. That will save the heart-stopping panic of “Oh-my-God, I’m heading to the hospital and the project is due tomorrow and I have no way of finishing it in time to send it to the client!” or “Oh-my-God, the project is due today and I have no power/no e-mail access and can’t get to a cybercafé!”
• Update your résumé, website, and any other standing promotional items (brochures and fliers, for instance) regularly, so they’re current whenever someone asks for a bid or you get inspired to send out a query. That way, you won’t lose out on an opportunity for new business that comes in when you’re swamped with current work — it will take that much less time to respond with current information, and you’ll be more likely to make that response than if you have to stop what you’re working on to make the necessary updates.
• Don’t wait until you need something work-essential that very minute; my version of Murphy’s Law is that things only break down, run out, or otherwise don’t work when we need them the most urgently and have the least time, money, and resources to cope. Whenever you have a few extra bucks, order new business cards, promotional items, subscriptions, etc.; buy extra ink cartridges for your printer(s), new equipment, supplies, print versions of dictionaries and style manuals; pay for a class, membership, conference, or computer/software upgrade; even pay a couple of bills early — phone, utilities, credit cards. If you have a desktop computer, get a laptop as a backup. If you work on a laptop, get another one as your backup machine. If you don’t have a “popout” external hard drive as part of your backup system, get one. If you don’t want a physical hard drive, or even if you get one, be sure to use Carbonite or some other reliable online, offsite backup service.
• If you’re at all tech-savvy or want to be, consider taking a course in basic computer repair so you can do such repairs yourself. Be sure you have local copies of all files and software programs; it doesn’t do much good if what you need is cloud-based and you can’t access the cloud. If you plan to use a backup computer, be sure to do daily synchronizations. Think about regular cloning of your hard drives.
• Build up a network of colleagues you can trust to take over projects so you don’t lose clients because you can’t work for a few days, weeks, or months. Know enough about their skills, work ethics, reliability, and honesty to be confident that they can do the work as well as you do, and won’t steal your clients.
• Have a nearby friend, neighbor, or colleague who would let you use a computer or wifi network if yours goes down.
• Develop a stash of “evergreen” backup articles — ones that aren’t time-sensitive or can be quickly and easily updated, for those times when you (as a writer) have writer’s block or a new assignment pops up while you’re in the midst of working on another one, or (as a managing editor) an assigned story doesn’t come in on deadline. Writers might even be able to sell those backup articles in and of themselves.

How have you responded to emergencies? What are you doing to be ready if one strikes?

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is an award-winning freelance writer, editor, proofreader, desktop publisher, and speaker whose motto is “I can write about anything!”® She is also the owner of Communication Central, author of the Freelance Basics blog for the Society for Technical Communication, and a regular contributor to An American Editor.

Something to Think About

As long-time readers of AAE know, I like to draw attention to articles and videos that are worth reading/watching and even provoke thinking. Today’s video is about gun buying and educating the gun buyer. I do not want to get into a Second Amendment right argument; I am providing the link because I think the video is worth watching, especially as it is a different approach to the issue of educating the consumer.

Remember that you do not have to watch the video (or read the article linked to below); clicking the link is purely voluntary. For those interested, here is the video, which has gone viral:

Guns With History

I found the reaction of the New York affiliate of the National Rifle Association (NRA), The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA), interesting: it demanded a criminal investigation of the video and the gun safety group States United to Prevent Gun Violence. For more information, see the Media Watch article: “NRA Affiliate Is So Scared Of This Gun Safety Video That It Wants A Criminal Investigation.”

Richard Adin, An American Editor

So, You Want to Be an Editor — Why?

A few times a year I am asked, “How can I become an editor?” or something along those lines. It is usually a college student who thinks being an editor has a certain amount of mystery and prestige or a person who has lost her job and is looking to make a career shift for whom the idea of working as a freelancer has some mystical appeal who is doing the asking.

I struggle to give an answer that isn’t flippant. I have learned — 31 years later — that being an editor is neither glamorous nor mysterious nor prestigious nor just about anything, except that I love what I do and can’t imagine going into another career. But the key here is “31 years later.” The answer that I need to give has to relate to now, not then.

It is true that I am successful, that I have developed a certain level of reputation for highly skilled, high quality work. But I began my career in the dark ages of editing, when the market was country-centric not global, when consolidation among publishers was still a gleam in corporate accounting’s eye, when pay was actually enough to give you a middle class life, when clients cared about quality and were not hesitant to return a manuscript riddled with questions for the editor.

Today everything is different. Why would you want to become an editor today?

Nothing about freelance editing is easy today. When I started, I was able to get work from a half dozen publishers within an hour and turn down work from another half dozen. Not today. When I started, packagers (i.e., providers of complete services) didn’t really exist. They were starting their birth but they didn’t dominate book publishing like today. In those days, the king of the hill was the typesetter, and the typesetter rarely hired freelance editors. A typesetter might recommend an editor to a publisher, but that would be the extent of it. Today, publishers contract with packagers and basically wash their hands of the production process except to praise or complain.

When I started as a freelance editor, I was contacted by a wonderful woman who was production supervisor for a long-ago-bought-out publisher about doing some medical copyediting. I told her I had zero experience; I was a lawyer by training and experience and my experience in editing was primarily in legal books. She told me not to worry; she would teach me what I needed to know about editing medical books. So I started and never looked back.

That is highly unlikely to happen today. Today, you need to be experienced in the area; no one has time to teach you because in-house staff is overwhelmed as it is. And pray you do not make too many errors today, regardless of the reason. Too many errors (quantity unknown) means you are never called again. In my early days, it was understood that in medical publishing, for example, an experienced editor could give a high-quality edit to three to five pages an hour; today, that is not only not understood, but the demand is for closer to 20 pages an hour and the editing had better be darn close to perfect — and you are to do it for a price that is less than what editors were being paid in 1995.

In those olden days, the in-house editors I worked with understood the concept of “fast, good, cheap”: They understood they could have two of the three but not all three and they chose the two they wanted. What was important was that they didn’t blame the editor for any failings that occurred as a result of the choice they made. Not so today. Today, when errors occur as a result of the demands being made and when those errors are compounded by the bypassing of proofreading, it is the editor who is blamed. Too much is at stake for the client to accept any responsibility.

Also in those olden days, I knew my work was going to be evaluated by someone who actually had command of both the subject matter and the language. If I made a change and was questioned about it, there was no trying to obfuscate my reasoning: I had to be able to defend my decisions because the person asking the question had herself done this type of work for years before becoming a hirer of freelancers. If I am lucky, I will have that same experience today, but the more usual experience is that the person hiring me has had no experience as an editor; they understand the production process thoroughly, but not editing or the subject matter or language (and often their command of the language is poor as it is not their primary language). Consequently, it is difficult to defend a decision because they understand that in some other book some other editor did something else and therefore I must be wrong.

Perhaps even more frustrating is when the client, today, has decided that something must be done a particular way and wants me to confirm that what they want is correct, even though I have told them it is not. The shifting game (i.e., the shifting of responsibility for an editorial decision) is common today. It commonly happens after the fact; that is, I have submitted the edited manuscript and unbeknownst to me, the in-house person makes changes that result in errors, and when the author or ultimate client complains, blames my editing. I’ve had that happen several times in the past couple of years; fortunately, the ultimate client contacted me and I was able to provide a copy of my submitted edited manuscript. But should I have to do this? No.

Of course pay is another stumbling block, especially for new editors. I try to tell editors that you cannot be profitable or earn a decent living by working for a wage that is less than your required effective hourly rate. But it is like talking to a brick wall because they see postings all over the Internet of editors charging very low sums or of editors saying it is better to have poverty work than no work or of “suggested” rate guidelines from pseudo organizations. The rate guidelines are the most difficult obstacle to overcome because some “editorial” organization has published them; consequently, new and wannabe editors think they are the gospel without inquiring as to the data behind them.

But the problem with pay ultimately comes down to the “I can get it cheaper” syndrome, making it a race to the bottom. New editors run that race and lead the pack when they do (although there are any number of “experienced” editors who run that marathon, too).

Finally, there is the matter of prestige (little to none, today) and respect (sometimes even less than none these days). The glamor days of editing are gone. Today, client demands leave little time for an editor to help a promising author achieve stardom. Our job is much more mundane; there is little to no time to nurture an author.

So, you want to be an editor. My question is: Why? If you understand the problems and can articulate the why, then this may be the profession for you. Editing can be a wonderful profession if you enter it with eyes wide open and for the right reasons. Today’s global marketplace has changed the world of freelance editing.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

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Other essays of that may be of interest:

• Business of Editing: What to Charge (Part I)
  
• Business of Editing: “I Can Get It Cheaper!”
• How Much Is That Editor in the Window?
• What is Editing Worth?
• The Struggle to Make a Living
• The Proofreader’s Corner: Proofreading for Publishers Outside Your Country of Origin—Is There a Market?

The Order of Things

by Jack Lyon

Rich Adin and I are having a fight. I sent him a lovely article about why the parts of a book are placed in a particular order, and he sent me back the following note: “The principle you explain doesn’t really matter and doesn’t really influence the order of content; rather, that order is based on reader expectation built over centuries by publishers and printers.” The nerve of that guy!

So what principle did I explain? That the order of a book’s content is based on the fact that we start reading at the beginning and keep reading until we get to the end. In English, we read from top to bottom and left to right; we start reading at the top left of a page and we stop reading at the bottom left. And this, I argue, is what has caused books to be put together in the order we typically see. It’s the principle underlying the convention.

Consider the front matter of a book, specifically the foreword and the preface. The foreword is usually written by someone other than the author; the preface is written by the author. So it makes sense that the foreword should come before the preface, as it provides commentary on the book as a whole, including the preface. And if we start reading the author’s words at the beginning of a book but then run into a section by someone else, we’re likely to wonder what’s going on. Would you put the contents page before the title page? No, you wouldn’t, and this is more than a matter of convention; it’s based on the principle that we start reading at the beginning.

Now consider the back matter of a book, which should be in the following order:

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

• Would it make sense to put the appendix after the notes? No, because some of the notes might refer to the appendix.
• Would it make sense to put the notes after the bibliography? No, because the notes don’t refer to the bibliography; the bibliography is not part of the main text.
• Would it make sense to put the bibliography after the index? No, because readers are used to turning to the last part of a book in order to access the index. That makes sense for ease of use, but surely the fact that the index doesn’t immediately follow chapter 1 is more than a matter of convention.

Years ago, a publisher I worked for decided to put together an edition of the Bible. The editor in charge of the index took an informal survey around the office, asking, “Should a reference to chapter and verse precede or follow a descriptive quotation?” Here’s an example of each:

Reference preceding quotation:

Matthew: 6:30, clothe you, O ye of little faith; 8:10, thy faith hath made thee whole; 9:29, According to your faith be it unto you; 15:28, great is thy faith: be it unto thee; 17:20, faith as a grain of mustard seed; 21:21, if ye have faith, and doubt not; [and so on, for more than a page].

Reference following quotation:

Matthew: clothe you, O ye of little faith, 6:30; thy faith hath made thee whole, 8:10; According to your faith be it unto you, 9:2; great is thy faith: be it unto thee, 15:28; faith as a grain of mustard seed, 17:20; if ye have faith, and doubt not, 21:21; [and so on, for more than a page].

My vote? The reference should follow the quotation. Unfortunately, I was outvoted, and the index ended up with the reference preceding the quotation, ultimately making the index almost unusable. Here’s why: Let’s say you’re looking for the verse that talks about having faith as a grain of mustard seed. You scan down through the entries until you see it:

faith as a grain of mustard seed;

Now, where does your brain expect to find the reference? Immediately after the entry. Why? Because the English language reads from top to bottom, left to right. But the index puts the reference before the entry:

17:20, faith as a grain of mustard seed;

You are now forced to read backward to find the reference of 17:20. But you’re not through yet. What book is that in? You now have to scan backward (to the previous page, in this case) until you come to the bold heading of “Matthew.” Now what was that reference again? Scan forward to “grain of mustard seed” and then backward again to “17:20.” This isn’t a matter of convention; it’s a matter of reading order.

Now let’s say you’re editing or designing a table of contents. You’re suddenly struck with the thought that it would look really cool to put the page numbers on the left of the chapter titles, like this:

1   In the Beginning
23  The Tale Continues
38  More of the Same

Resist the temptation. Readers trying to find a particular chapter will look first for its title (“The Tale Continues”) and then for its page number (23).

Keeping things in their proper order also applies to line editing. Take the following sentence: “I enjoy reading both Entrepreneur and Wired, but I prefer the former over the latter.” Many readers are capable of doing the mental gymnastics to remember which example is the former and which is the latter, but many other readers are not and will have to backtrack to figure it out. Even those who can do the mental gymnastics will have to do them, which will slow reading down and may lead to confusion. So keep things simple! Keep things in order! “I enjoy reading both Entrepreneur and Wired, but I prefer Entrepreneur.”

Keeping things in their proper order isn’t an editorial cure-all, and it’s certainly nothing to be compulsive about. For example, while reading the previous sentence, you had to remember that “it’s” refers back to “Keeping things in their proper order.” There’s nothing wrong with that; this kind of interplay between pronouns and their referents happens all the time. But sometimes, when you’re faced with a difficult editorial problem, putting things in their proper order can help solve that problem. For me, it’s something that has worked well over the years to keep readers from wandering all over the road. Maybe you’ll find it useful as well.

In the end, I leave the resolution of the argument to you, Gentle Reader: Is the way books are put together merely a matter of convention? Or is the convention a result of the underlying principle of reading order? What do you think?

Jack Lyon (editor@editorium.com) owns and operates the Editorium, which provides macros and information to help editors and publishers do mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. He is the author of Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals and of Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.

Thinking Fiction: The Style Sheets — Part III: Locations

The Style Sheets — Part III: Locations

by Amy J. Schneider

In any novel or short story, the characters move around the world they inhabit: within buildings and throughout neighborhoods, cities, and even sometimes spiritual realms. Let’s talk about how to keep that motion logical. Many of the general concepts discussed last month in “The Style Sheets — Part II: Characters” apply here as well, so you may wish to review that article as we go along.

Here We Go Again: Details, Details, Details!

Last month I talked about the proclivity of copyeditors to keep alphabetical lists of characters, and how doing so isn’t really all that helpful for maintaining continuity. And so it is with geographical details. Rather than simply listing all places alphabetically, it’s much more useful to group places by their relation to each other: a house with all its descriptive interior and exterior details, shops that are near each other, streets and how they are connected, and so on.

One exception I do make to the no-alphabetizing rule is that after the edit is done, I often have a list of minor features such as streets, rivers, or businesses that do not have any extra information associated with them. These I will alphabetize by category—all the streets, all the rivers, and so on—just for ease of finding them.

Keeping It Real — Or Not

Many novels are set in real locations, and for the most part you’ll need to make sure that the details given reflect reality. Have you ever read a novel set in a location with which you are well familiar and scoffed when a street ran in the wrong direction, or a building was miles away from its real location? (One of my favorite examples from the world of television was from the 1970s sitcom Happy Days; in one episode some characters walked from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in about an hour. Anyone who’s driven from the area where I grew up to Milwaukee knows that it is indeed about an hour from Fond du Lac to Milwaukee — in a car.) When specifics are given, check them out. Get out your atlas or pull up an online map.

However, bear in mind also that authors often introduce deliberate fictionalization, much in the same way that phone numbers in movies and on television are often of the “555” variety. So when you find such errors, bring them to the author’s attention, but query whether the error is deliberate.

For completely fictional locations, such as fictional towns or fantasy worlds, you may find it helpful to draw maps to help you (and the characters) keep your bearings.

Details to Track

With locations, as with characters, track anything that could be contradicted later. If a character’s bedroom window faces west, we don’t want her awakened in the morning by the blinding sun. Don’t let a solid wooden door turn into steel. And so on. Let’s look at what sorts of things you might want to put on your style sheet:

• Cardinal directions and distances (the mountains are west of town; the comedy club is a few miles from Benny’s apartment; the fictional town of Midvale is a 3-hour drive from St. Louis; the laundromat is at the southwest corner of the intersection)
  • This point also relates to the timeline, discussed in next month’s article: if the characters take a day to travel from point A to point B, but a week to return, it’s time to query. Either there’s a problem with the number of days that have passed during that return trip, or there should be a good reason for the delay.
  • Also watch for the relationships between locations; if a hotel is just outside the city limits, how can the bar across the street be 5 miles out? This is where grouping by location can help you catch inconsistencies.
• Names of regions, cities/towns, streets, geographical features, businesses, buildings; any proper nouns (including real names that might be spelled different ways: Walmart, 7-Eleven)
• Descriptions of interiors
  • Décor, colors of walls/furniture/drapery, furniture type and placement; locations of rooms, windows, and doors; other details (the house has only one bathroom; Betty’s house has a business landline)
  • Right/left: rooms off hallways, doors, wings of mansions; turns taken while walking/driving to get from point A to point B (if specifics are given) (the main staircase turns to the right; Robert’s office is on the left side of the hallway off the living room)
  • Where the sun rises and sets (remember our early riser!)
  • Number of floors in buildings, locations of rooms (watch out for British usage here; in British usage, the ground floor is at street level and the first floor is the next one up, whereas in American usage we start with the first floor)
  • Remember that if an apartment is on the fourth (American!) floor, you will climb only three flights of stairs to get to it.
• Descriptions of exteriors: landscaping, architecture (the cemetery is not fenced; Lydia’s house has a flagstone path from the small front porch to the sidewalk; neat flowerboxes at every window)
• Business hours and regular events (the gas station is open every day; if the book club always meets at Beans & Books on Tuesdays, then what are they doing there on a Saturday?)

Again, as for character details, you can simply copy descriptions from the manuscript to your style sheet to save time, and edit as desired to save space. Note the chapter number where the description first occurs.

I Found a Contradiction; Now What?

Again, refer back to “The Style Sheets — Part 2: Characters” for guidance on resolving discrepancies. If there is a minor difference, it’s probably safe to change and query. But if the problem involves a factor that’s critical to the plot, bring it to the author’s attention and suggest solutions if you can.

Remember that when you are wearing your copyeditor hat, you are like the continuity director for a movie. If the locations are meant to represent real locations, it’s your job to make sure they are accurate. If they are fictional (or fictionalized), make sure they stay true to themselves within that fictional world. Next month, I’ll talk about keeping an accurate timeline to ensure that the story does not breach the space-time continuum (unless it’s supposed to!).

Amy J. Schneider (amy@featherschneider.com), owner of Featherschneider Editorial Services, has been a freelance copyeditor and proofreader of fiction and nonfiction books since 1995. She has shared her insights on copyediting fiction as a speaker at the Communication Central conferences, in writing for the Copyediting newsletter, and in an audioconference for Copyediting.com. Amy can be reached at LinkedIn, via Twitter, and on Facebook.

Related An American Editor essays:

• Thinking Fiction: The Style Sheets — Part I: General Style
• Thinking Fiction: The Style Sheets—Part II: Characters
• Thinking Fiction: The Style Sheets — Part IV: Timeline

The Proofreader’s Corner: How Lucrative Are Your Editorial Clients Really? Keeping an Eye on Creeping Costs (Part II)

How Lucrative Are Your Editorial Clients Really?
Keeping an Eye on Creeping Costs (Part II)

by Louise Harnby

In this two-part essay, I consider the care we need to take when making assumptions about how lucrative certain client types are, particularly with regard to the time each of us spends on elements of the process that are unbillable. These unbillable elements can occur during the booking phase of a project, during the actual project work, and after completion of the work.

Part I considered the problems of defining how well clients pay and how fee expectations can vary even within, as well as between, client types. Then I looked at the booking phase of proofreading work, and considered how the situation can vary between a regular publisher client and a new nonpublisher client.

Part II considers how additional costs can creep into the actual editorial stage of a booked-in proofreading project, and into the postcompletion phase — again comparing regular publisher clients and new nonpublisher clients.

It’s worth reiterating the point made in Part I: Not all of the scenarios considered here will always occur with each client type on each job. Rather, I aim to show that (a) extra costs are less likely to creep in with the regular publisher client, and (b) this needs to be accounted for when considering which types of client are “well-paying.”

Creeping Costs During the Editorial Stage

Here’s a fictitious, but likely scenario. Let’s put to one side any costs incurred to firm up the job at booking stage.

Regular publisher client, PC, offers me the opportunity to proofread a 61,000-word fiction book for £17 per hour. The client estimates that the job will take 15 hours. Total fee: £255.

Also in my inbox is a request from a self-publishing author, SP, with whom I’ve not worked before. It’s also a 61,000-word fiction book. I assess the sample of the manuscript that’s been provided (it’s in good shape and has been professionally edited). I estimate the job will take 15 hours, and quote a fee of £345, which is accepted.

The job for SP looks much more lucrative on paper than the job for PC. I accept both jobs because even though the job from PC will bring in a lower fee, it’s still within my own particular required hourly rate.

I do the PC job first. I’ve worked for this publisher for years. We have a mutually understood set of expectations about what is required. The manuscript has been thoroughly copy-edited and professionally typeset. As usual, I receive a clear brief and a basic style sheet. It’s a straightforward job that takes me 15 hours (the in-house project manager is experienced enough that he can estimate with accuracy how long a job should take). I complete the work and return the proofs along with my invoice. End of job.

Next I tackle the SP book. It is in good shape and I should be able to complete the proofread in the time I estimated. However, I’ve underestimated the amount of hand-holding required. This client is a lovely person, but she’s a first-time author and she’s nervous. She sends me 13 emails during the course of the project, each of which takes time to read, consider, and respond to.

I keep track of the time I spend on these. On average, each one takes 15 minutes to deal with – that’s an extra 3.25 hours of my time that I’d not budgeted for when I quoted for her. It’s also an additional 3.25 hours of my time that I have to find space in my day for. I have to find the time out of office hours in order to respond – time that I’d rather spend doing other things.

The quoted fee was £345, based on 15 hours of work. This has turned into 18.25 hours of work. My hourly rate has gone from an expected £23 (cf. £17 from the publisher) to £18.90. It’s still within my required hourly rate, but my assessment that SP is more lucrative than PC is disappearing under my nose.

Of course, I should have quoted her a higher fee that took account of the fact that she was an unknown entity to me and that the job might take longer.

Again, it’s essential to consider the bigger picture when assessing the degree to which a particular client or client group “pays well.” With some clients, it’s harder to predict how a project will progress. And with nonpublisher clients, especially those with whom there’s no preexisting relationship, it’s essential to build hand-holding time into the assessment of how long a job will take, and then quoting accordingly, so that you’re less likely to get caught out.

Creeping Costs After Completion of the Project

I’ve been proofreading for publishers since 2005 and in that time the postproject correspondence has tended to go something like this:

Me: Thanks for the opportunity to proofread X for you — I really enjoyed it. Please find attached my invoice and my Notes & Queries sheet. Delivery of the proofs is scheduled for Y. If there’s anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

PM: Cheers, Louise. Glad you enjoyed it! Are you free to proofread…?

That’s the general gist of our postproject discussion — it’s friendly but concise. We’re already talking about forthcoming work. This recent job is closed. My PM’s schedule is as tight as mine and we’re both keen to move on. This isn’t always the case when we proofread directly for nonpublisher clients. The following snippets of postproject emails from clients are fictitious but I’ve encountered the like many a time. Do they strike a chord with you?

• I’ve just been looking over the files one more time and I’m thinking about changing X… What do you think? Would that work?

• Sorry to bother you. I changed the following sentences a bit. Could you just quickly look over them? There are only 25 — no rush. Just when you have a minute. Thanks so much!

• Do you have any marketing advice you can give me for when the book’s published? I know you’re a proofreader but wondered if you had any ideas about how I can go about this. It’s a whole new world to me!

• What did you think of the book? Please give me your honest opinion — even if it’s negative. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say!

• Would you mind giving me your opinion of the cover? You did such a great job with the text and I’d really appreciate knowing what you think!

• I’d really like to approach some agents, now that the book’s in good shape. Do you have any recommendations or advice about how to go about this?

It’s not unusual for these postproject discussions to take place. What is less usual is that editorial professionals manage them appropriately. Too often, they become unbillable costs that detract from the project fee. There’s nothing wrong with a client asking these things and it’s not that the editorial business owner shouldn’t have these conversations. They do incur a cost, though.

If you regularly build postproject handholding time into your original quotation, all well and good. But if you don’t and you are prone to offering free, additional support to your clients, take a step back and ask yourself how much this is impacting on the value of each project, and your required and desired rates. If you spend an additional two hours emailing back and forth about these extras, that time needs to be set off against the invoiced fee; those hours need to be tracked so that you can work out exactly what the final value of the project is to you.

A better solution is to communicate to the client, immediately and politely, that you’d be happy to discuss X or Y, and what the cost will be for the additional work. I appreciate that for some editorial folk this is very difficult because they’ve built up a strong relationship with the client during the editorial process, and the tone of communication may well have become informal, even friendly. However, we have to remember that we’re running a business and that our professional expertise has a fee attached to it. There’s no shame in putting a price on the additional work we’re being asked to carry out.

Controlling Creeping Costs

Here are some thoughts on how to keep control of creeping costs in editorial work:

• Where possible, build a safety net into your quotations for clients. This will help to ensure that hand-holding and other types of support are billed for.
• At the start of negotiations, make it clear what levels of support, both during and after the work is complete, are available as part of the agreed price, and what will incur additional costs.
• If you think that you are the type of person who is likely to go beyond your own brief and allow additional costs to creep into your project work, and you’re happy for that to be the case, then that’s your choice and it’s fine. But do be honest with yourself in your accounting process. Only by tracking the time we actually spend on a project can we accurately assess which client types are the “best” payers according to our own required and desired rates.
• Create some value-added content that you can refer clients to when they have questions that are beyond the scope of the job. I created my free Guidelines for New Authors in order to direct less-experienced authors to resource centres and knowledge bases that would (a) help them on their journey and (b) reduce the amount of time I spend on unbillable and nonproofreading queries.

By being aware of ALL of the time we spend on a project with our clients, we can develop insights into the financial health of our business. This enables us to make decisions about who we want to work with and what their actual value is to us.

A Quick Summary:
5 Things to Remember When Assessing Client Groups

• The fees we can earn will vary — between clients, and between client groups more broadly.
• What one person considers “poor” pay will be acceptable to another, and vice versa. This is because each individual editorial business owner’s financial requirements are personal.
• It is not true that, in general, publishers don’t pay well. Rather, some publishers offer fees that exceed my required and desired fees; some offers exceed only my required fees; and some offers meet neither.
• Nor is it true that, in general, nonpublisher clients are more lucrative. They might be or they might not be. It will depend on the particular client, the project being undertaken, how well the estimation of the project’s demands stacks up against the reality, and how much control one keeps over the additional costs that could creep into the work.
• Keep a close eye on all the time that goes into a project. By doing this, you can make realistic assessments of what works for you, rather than what works for your friends and colleagues.

Louise Harnby is a professional proofreader and the curator of The Proofreader’s Parlour. Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Proofreader, follow her on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or find her on LinkedIn. She is the author of Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers and Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.

Worth Reading: The Value of Copyediting

Readers of An American Editor know that I believe editing enhances the value of an author’s work. I also believe that you pay more for professional, quality editing and that not everyone who claims to be an editor is (should be) an editor. I also firmly believe that there are professional editors and nonprofessional editors, and that it is professional editors who add value to an author’s writing.

Too often the response from a client or a potential client is that “readers do not care” about editing and especially do not care about whether any editing is professionally done. A study by Wayne State University Associate Professor Fred Vultee seems to draw a different conclusion. The study was previewed by Natalie Jomini Stroud in her March 3, 2015 article at the American Press Institute blog:

Study Shows the Value of Copy Editing.

Although not the original study article (“Audience Perceptions of Editing Quality” published January 6, 2015 in Digital Journalism), which is behind a paywall, Stroud’s article provides a clear summation of Vultee’s study. Of special interest is the chart comparing copyediting to no copyediting.

Other blogs that discuss Vultee’s study include Journalist’s Resource (“The value of editing in the digital age: Readers’ perceptions of article quality and professionalism“) and Craig Silverman at Poynter.org (“Study: Readers value extra editing, women especially“). For a PDF of Professor Vultee’s presentation on the subject to ACES in 2012, see “Readers Perceptions of Quality“.

Perhaps some of these findings will be helpful in convincing clients of the value of our services. Regardless, there is some interesting reading above and some food for deep thinking. Enjoy!

Richard Adin, An American Editor

 

The Business of Editing: Correcting “Errors”

In my previous two essays, “The Business of Editing: Wildcarding for Dollars” and “The Business of Editing: Journals, References, & Dollars“, I discussed two ways to improve efficiency and increase profitability by using macros. Today’s essay digresses and discusses correcting earlier-made errors.

I need to put errors between quote marks — “errors” — because I am using the term to encompass not only true errors but changes in editorial decisions, decisions that are not necessarily erroneous but that after reflection may not have been the best decision.

Once again, however, I am also talking about a tool available in EditTools: the Multifile Find in the Find & Replace Master macro. The F&R Master macro has two parts, as shown below: the Sequential F&R Active Doc and Multifile Find (to see an image in greater detail, click on the image to enlarge it):

Sequential F&R Manager

 

Multifile Find Manager

Today’s discussion is focused on the Multifile Find macro, but the Sequential is worth a few words.

The Sequential F&R works on the active document. It is intended for those times when you know that you want to run a series of finds and replaces. If you are working on a book and it is evident that the author does certain things consistently that need changing, you can use this macro to put together several items that are to be changed sequentially and you can save the criteria so that you can reuse them again in the next document. I often find that, for example, authors use an underlined angle bracket rather than the symbol ≤ or ≥. I created a F&R for these items that I can run before editing a document to replace the underlined versions with the correct symbols.

For editorial “errors” I have made, however, it is the Multifile Find macro that is important.

As I have said many times, I tend to work on large documents. The documents tend to be multiauthored and each chapter is its own file. Sometimes I am able to work on chapters sequentially, but more often they come to me in haphazard order. Consequently, I have to make editorial decisions as I edit a chapter that may well affect earlier chapters that have yet to arrive. And it may be that if I had had the ability to edit the earlier-in-sequence chapter first, I would have made a different editorial decision.

For a recent example, consider “mixed lineage kinase.” My original decision was to leave it unhyphenated, but as I edited additional chapters my thoughts changed and I decided it really should be “mixed-lineage kinase.” But as is usual with these kinds of things, I had already edited another half dozen chapters when I changed my decision. In addition, by that time, I also had edited close to 40 chapters and I couldn’t remember in which chapters “mixed lineage” appeared.

The Ethical Questions First

The first questions to be dealt with are the ethical questions: First, is “mixed lineage kinase” so wrong that it can’t simply be left and future instances of “mixed-lineage” changed to the unhyphenated form? Second, if it needs to be changed to the hyphenated form, do I need to go back and change the incorrect versions or can I just notify the client and hope the proofreader will fix the problem? Third, if the future versions are to be hyphenated, can I just leave the unhyphenated versions and hope no one notices?

We each run our business differently, but number one on my list of good business practices is good ethics. In this case, the third option, to me, is wholly unacceptable. It is not even something I would contemplate except for purposes of this essay. A professional, ethical editor does not fail to accept responsibility for decisions she makes; he does not attempt to hide them. The decisions are faced squarely and honestly and dealt with, even if it means a future loss of business from the client.

The first and second options are less clear. In the first instance, I need to make an editorial decision and abide by it. Whether to hyphenate or not isn’t really an ethical question except to the extent that it forces me to decide whether to overtly or covertly make a change. The world will not crumble over the hyphenation issue. Hyphenation does make the phrase clearer (especially in context), so ultimately, I think the editorial decision has to fall on the side of hyphenation being “essential”; I cannot skirt my obligation to do the best editing job I can by omitting future hyphenation, which means I need to go back and fix my “errors.”

The crux of the ethical question is really the second option. This depends on circumstances. If, for example, I know that the earlier edited material has already been set in pages, it makes no sense to resend corrected files. A note to the client is needed. If they have yet to be set, then new files are the order of business plus advising the client. The key is the advising of the client and identifying where the errors occur. I think that is the ethical obligation: for the editor to identify to the client exactly where the errors are to be found so that they can easily be corrected and to provide new files at the client’s request.

Multifile Find and “Errors”

This is where Multifile Find (MFF) comes into play. MFF will search all the files in a folder for phrases and words. You can have it search for and find up to 10 items at a time and you can have it do one of two things: either it can find the wanted phrase and generate a report telling you where it is found and how many times it is found or it can find the phrase, pause to let you correct the phrase, and then find the next instance. I generally generate the report first. An example of a report for “mixed lineage” is shown here:

Mixed Lineage Report

The report tells you name of the document in which the phrase is found, the page it is found on, and how many times it occurs on that page. With this report, you can manually open the named files, go to the appropriate page, and decide whether a particular occurrence needs to be corrected. If I am not sure whether the client can use corrected files, I send the client a copy of this report along with my mea culpa.

If I think the client might be able to use corrected files, I correct them and send the files, the report, and my mea culpa.

Multifile Find Update Files Option

If I know the client can use the corrected files because, for example, pages have not yet been set, I send the corrected files and an explanation of why I am sending revised files. But in this instance I use the MFF update option rather than generate report option:

Multifile Find Replace Option

The update option requires a few different steps than the generate report option. The biggest difference is that you need to save the find criteria for the update option; you do not need to do so for the generate report option.

I enter the find term in the first field (#1 in image above). I also need to check the Inc? (for Include?) box (#2). Only those terms listed that also are checked will be searched for. If I do not want the current active file also searched (assuming it is in the selected search directory), I check the box at #3, which is also where I select the search directory. Because I want to update the files, not generate a report, I check Update files (#4). I then Save my find criteria (#5).

The way the macro works, is that it will first search the files for the first listed find term. When that is done, it will proceed to the next listed term. As you can see, you can list up to 10 terms to sequentially find.

Finally,, I click Run (#6) and the macro will begin searching files in the selected directory until it comes to the first instance of the find term. When it finds a match it displays the following message:

Find Message

In the file, it highlights the found term as shown here:

Highlighted Find Text

I can either insert my hyphen or click OK in the Find Message dialog to find the next instance. If I insert the hyphen in our example, I then need to click OK in the Find Message dialog to go to the next instance. When there are no more instances to be found in the particular file, a message asking if you want to save the changed file:

Save Changes?

The macro then proceeds to the next file in which it finds the term and the process continues until the term is no longer found or you cancel the process.

Saving Time and Making Profit

Again, I think it is clear how the right macro can save an editor time and make editing more profitable. In my experience, it is the rare editor who doesn’t have a change of mind the further along she is in editing a project. I think it is a sign of a professional editor. But editing is a business and as a business it needs to make a profit. One way to do so is to minimize the time and effort needed to correct “errors” and to do so in a professional and ethical manner.

Over the years, I have found that using Multifile Find has not only enhanced my profitability, but it has enhanced my reputation as professional editor because my clients know that I am not only willing to recognize that I have made a mistake, but I am willing to correct it. One reason I am willing to correct a mistake is that it doesn’t take me hours to do so; I can do it efficiently with EditTools’ Multifile Find.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essays are:

• The Business of Editing: Coding for Profit
• The Business of Editing: Journals, References, & Dollars
• The Business of Editing: Making Search & Replace Efficient & Profitable
• The Business of Editing: Correcting “Errors”
• The Business of Editing: Managing Comments with Comment Editor
• The Business of Editing: Clicking for Profit with Click List
• The Business of Editing: Keeping Reference Callouts in Number Order
• The Business of Editing: Using & Managing Bookmarks

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