Lyonizing Word: But Wait—There’s More!

by Jack Lyon

Replacing Basic Text

Searching with wildcards in Microsoft Word can accomplish miracles in editing, but some people find wildcards a little too arcane to deal with. If you’re one of those people, you might benefit from some of Word’s lesser-known but easier-to-use search options. But first, let’s do a basic find and replace. Open Word’s “Find and Replace” dialog by pressing CTRL + H (or click Home > Editing > Replace on Word’s ribbon interface). Then:

1. In the “Find what” box, enter a word you want to search for. (We’ll use the misspelled “millenium” as an example.)
2. In the “Replace with” box, enter a word you want to replace the incorrectly spelled “millenium” with. (We’ll use the correctly spelled “millennium” as an example.)
3. Click the “Replace All” button.

Find & Replace

That’s it. Every occurrence of “millenium” will be replaced with “millennium.” Simple and quick.

Refining Your Search

But wait—there’s more! Microsoft Word provides many ways to refine your search. See the “More” button at the bottom of the “Replace” dialog?

More Button

Click it. Here’s what you’ll see:

The “More” Options

Under “Search Options,” you can specify whether to search up, down, or through all your text:

Search Options

You can also match case and find whole words only:

Additional Options

There are actually lots of options, all worth exploring:

Match case

Obviously, this option finds only text that matches the case (capitalized or lowercased) of the text in the “Find what” box. If you enter “Hello” in the “Find what” box with “Match case” checked, Word finds “Hello” but not “hello.” If you enter “hello,” Word finds “hello” but not “Hello.”

Find whole words only

This option finds whole words only. For example, if you search for “sing,” Word finds “sing” but not “singing.” If this option is not checked, Word finds both “sing” and “singing,” as well as “using” and “kissing.”

Use wildcards

This option tells Word that you want to search using wildcards:

Use Wildcards

Wildcards are important, but in this article we’re trying to avoid these. For explanations and examples, see my past articles (e.g., Lyonizing Word: From Easy to Impossible — Three Variations on a Theme, Lyonizing Word: The Easy Way, Not So Easy, Lyonizing Word: The Easy Way, Not So Easy, and Lyonizing Word: We Can Do This the Easy Way, or . . . ; if you use EditTools, see The Business of Editing: Wildcarding for Dollars). Please note, however, that if this option is checked, you can no longer select “Match case” or “Find whole words only.” Even so, during a wildcard search, “Match case” is automatically enabled, even though it’s not shown as enabled (an oversight on Microsoft’s part). “Find whole words only,” on the other hand, is inactive.

Sounds like (English)

This option finds words that sound like the word in the “Find what” box. For example, if you search for “cot,” Word also finds “caught.” If you search for “horse,” Word also finds “hoarse.” This could be useful if you’re working on a document in which certain words have been confused or mistyped. Basically, this feature works on words that are homophones; it doesn’t seem to work on words that sound almost alike, such as “horse” and “whores.” On the other hand, while searching for “horse,” it also finds “horsey” but not “horses,” so who knows?

Find all word forms (English)

This option finds what Microsoft calls “all” forms of the word in the “Find what” box. For example, if you search for “sit,” Word also finds “sat” and “sitting.” The word “all” is a little misleading, however. The feature relies on an underlying database of word forms that is pretty good but has some omissions. For example, if you search for “eat,” Word finds “eat, “ate,” “eaten,” and “eating” but not “eater.” Similarly, if you search for “horse,” Word finds “horse,” “horses,” and “horsing” but not “horseless.” It’s a useful feature, mostly for finding verb forms; just don’t expect it to actually find all forms of a word.

Match prefix

This option matches words beginning with the search string. For example, if you put “pre” in the “Find what” box, Word finds “prepare,” “present,” and so on. This isn’t a “smart” feature; it searches for characters only, not word roots. For example, searching for “pre” also finds “prestidigitation” and “pressure,” even though “pre” isn’t really a prefix in those words.

Match suffix

This option matches words ending with the search string. For example, if you put “ing” in the “Find what” box, Word finds “singing,” “typing,” and so on. This isn’t a “smart” feature; it searches for characters only, not word roots. For example, searching for “ing” also finds “boing,” “spring,” and “thing,” even though “ing” isn’t really a suffix in those words.

Ignore punctuation characters

Ignores punctuation characters between words. For example, “trees plants and flowers” finds “trees, plants, and flowers” as well as “trees plants and flowers.” This might be useful for fixing problems with serial commas.

Ignore white-space characters

Ignores all white space (spaces, tabs, and so on) between words. For example, “webpage” finds “web page” as well as “webpage.” This is the inverse of “Find whole words only” and could be useful for fixing words that are sometimes spelled open and sometimes closed.

Other options

If you’re working in a language other than English, other options may be available, including Match Kashida, Match Diacritics, Match Alef Hamza, and Match Control. I know almost nothing about these options, so I can’t comment on them with any degree of expertise.

Format

One of the most important tools in Microsoft Word’s find and replace toolbox is the ability to search for formatting — all kinds of formatting. To do so, click the “Format” button:

Format Button

Here’s what you’ll get:

The “Format” Options

Each option (such as “Font”) opens the usual dialog for that feature:

Font Format Options

I won’t go into all of the options in these dialogs as they’re basically the same ones you’d get while formatting any text in Word. “Font” displays font options, “Styles” displays styles, and so on. You can select any of those options and use them as something to find or replace. For example, if your cursor is in the “Find what” box and you select “Italic” in the “Find Font” dialog, here’s what you’ll get:

Displaying the Font Option Choice

Now Word will find text in italics but not in roman. If you also enter a word, you’ll find that word in italic but not in roman. If you don’t enter a word, you’ll find anything formatted as italic.

But what about the “Replace with” box? What happens if you use formatting there?

If the “Replace with” box includes some text, whatever is found will be replaced by that text in the format you specified. If the “Replace with” box doesn’t include text, whatever is found will be replaced with itself in the format you specified. For example, if you search for the word “apples” to be replaced by “pears” in bold, that’s exactly what you’ll get — “pears” in bold. If you search for the word “apples” to be replaced by bold alone (with no text), you’ll get “apples” in bold.

If, on the other hand, you search for “apples” but don’t specify text or formatting in the “Replace with” box, “apples” will be replaced with nothing; in other words, it will be deleted.

Many variations are possible. Here’s a basic summary:

Find	Replace	Result
apples	pears	pears
apples	pears [bold]	pears [bold]
apples	[bold]	apples [bold]
apples	[nothing]	[apples deleted]
[bold]	[nothing]	[bold text deleted]
[bold]	pears	[bold text becomes “pears” in bold]
[bold]	pears [italic]	[bold text becomes “pears” in bold italic]
[bold]	[italic]	[bold text becomes bold italic]

Note that you can also specify not a certain kind of formatting, such as “not bold” or “not italic” in either find or replace. You can also use combinations of formatting (and “not” formatting). For example, you can search for bold but replace with italic and not bold, which will turn any bold text into italic (but not bold italic) text.

Built-In Codes

In addition to all of those options, Microsoft Word includes lots of built-in find-and-replace codes that are not wildcards (although lots of people call them that). You can use these built-in codes to search for things like paragraph breaks, tabs, section breaks, column breaks, dashes, footnotes, endnotes, graphics, and many other things that aren’t actual text, and codes are a whole lot easier to use than wildcards. In fact, codes should be your default tool; you should use wildcards only when built-in codes won’t do what you need (which is actually fairly often, unfortunately).

Some of Word’s built-in codes can be used only in the “Find what” box; others can be used only in the “Replace with” box. Some of the codes can be used in both boxes.

“Find What” Codes

To see the codes that can be used in the “Find what” box, put your cursor in the box. Now click the “Special” button at the bottom of the “Find and Replace” dialog.

The “Special” Button

You’ll get a list like this:

The “Special” Options

Identify the item you want to find and click it, for example, “Paragraph Mark.” You’ll get the following code in the “Find what” box (since that’s where your cursor was located):

^p

That tells Word to find a paragraph break — that is, the end of a paragraph.

Each item on the list will insert a different code. For example, here’s the code for an em dash:

^+

And here’s the code for an en dash:

^=

“Replace With” Codes

Now put your cursor in the “Replace with” box and click the “Special” button again. This time, you’ll get a different list:

The “Replace with” List

Again, clicking one of the list items will insert a code into the “Replace with” box. For example, if you click “Clipboard Contents” you’ll get this:

^c

That’s an extremely useful code, because ordinarily the “Replace with” box can hold no more than 255 characters. But using the ^c code, you can replace with anything that is currently copied to the Clipboard, which can hold many pages of text, graphics, or anything else.

After you’ve worked with built-in codes for a while, you’ll find it easy to just type them in by hand. In the meantime, you can use the “Special” lists to insert them.

You can also use combinations of codes. For example, you could search for tabs followed by paragraph breaks (^t^p) and replace them with paragraph breaks alone (^p).

Here’s a summary of Word’s built-in codes and where they can be used:

Character or object	Find what	Replace with
Annotation Mark (comment)	^a
Any character	^?
Any digit	^#
Any letter	^$
Caret character	^^	^^
Clipboard contents		^c
Column break	^n	^n
“Find what text” (whatever was found during your search)		^&
Em dash	^+	^+
En dash	^=	^=
Endnote mark	^e
Field	^d
Footnote mark	^f
Graphic	^g
Line break	^l	^l
Manual page break	^m	^m
Nonbreaking hyphen	^~	^~
Nonbreaking space	^s	^s
Optional hyphen	^-	^-
Paragraph mark	^p	^p
Section break	^b
Tab character	^t	^t
White space	^w

Even without wildcards, Microsoft Word’s find and replace features can do an awful lot — much more than you might think. You probably already knew how to use “Match case” and “Find whole words only,” but did you know about those other options? “Ignore punctuation characters” and “Ignore white-space characters,” for example, can be very useful in editing. Being able to find and replace formatting is essential, especially when using styles. And using Word’s built-in codes lets you search for all kinds of things (graphics, page breaks, dashes, and so on) that would otherwise require more advanced techniques (like wildcards and numeric codes). In other words, Microsoft Word’s basic find and replace features aren’t so basic — at least not in what they can do!

Wildcard Cookbook

This article is a slightly modified excerpt from my new book, Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word, now available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other fine bookstores:

“Wildcard Cookbook” by Jack Lyon

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.

 

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The Proofreader’s Corner: Using the Stamping Tool for PDF Proofreading Mark-up

by Louise Harnby

When I first started my proofreading business, most of my work was on paper. Back in 2006, I was working primarily for publishers. These clients often wanted me to proofread against copy rather than blind. That meant that I was receiving large packages through the mail containing not only the final page proofs but also the galley proofs. Postage costs were huge, though my clients bore the cost; but I still had to factor in the time I spent either waiting for couriers or hopping into my car and driving to the post office so that I could return the galleys and marked-up proofs.

These days, things are different. Many of my publishers have embraced digital mark-up. I’m still required to work on final page proofs, and the clients still like me to annotate using UK-industry-standard mark-up language, but I can do it all onscreen — using my PDF editor’s commenting and mark-up tools — and the stamping tool. This saves the publisher money by eliminating postage costs and removing the need to print hundreds of pages of hard copy. It also saves me time, and, for those of us in the business of editorial freelancing, time is money.

Many editorial professionals have already embraced digital mark-up (either on PDF or in Word). Little of what follows may be news to them. Even though this essay is aimed at the novice who is in the process of investigating digital workflows and the tools available to assist them, experienced professionals, and professionals seeking to expand into proofreading, are likely to find the information valuable.

Two caveats

First, I’m a UK-based proofreader. If you’re from elsewhere, you might not recognize some of the symbols shown in this essay. That’s not because the symbols are wrong, but because there are differences in mark-up language between countries. The British Standards Institution has issued the BS 5261C:2005 “Marks for Copy Preparation and Proof Correction,” (readers can buy a hard-copy list of these marks from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders) and that’s what my publisher clients expect to see. Your clients might have different expectations. In my October column of An American Editor, I’ll show you how to create your own digital proofreading stamps. This may be useful if you need proof-correction symbols that aren’t already available from the resources provided below, or if you need to a modified version of an existing symbol.

Second, stamping tools can be used in a number of different PDF editors. My own preference is PDF-XChange (from Tracker Software). Some of my colleagues prefer Tracker’s PDF Editor. Others, still, use Adobe Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. If you’re not sure what suits you best, take advantage of the various free trials on offer. For demonstration purposes, some of the screenshots in this essay are based on working in PDF-XChange. However, the underlying principles are the same.

What are proofreading stamps?

Proofreading stamps are simply digital versions of the symbols you would draw by hand on a paper proof. Below is a screenshot of some of the BS 5261C:2005 symbols that UK proofreaders use. (Double-clicking on images will enlarge them.)

Some of the symbols used by UK proofreaders

The screenshot above shows a partial view of the PDF-XChange stamps palette. I’ve chosen to number the symbols, rather than naming them, because this allows me to change the order easily (see “Onscreen proofreading tips: Reorganizing your stamps palette in PDF-XChange”).

Each symbol in a palette can be selected and then stamped onto a PDF using the relevant tool, usually accessed through the PDF editor’s comment-and-mark-up toolbar.

Below, the stamping tool in PDF-XChange is circled:

The stamping tool in PDF-XChange

Here’s what it looks like in Adobe Reader:

The stamping tool in Adobe Reader

And, finally, below is a screenshot from Adobe Acrobat 9:

The stamping tool in Acrobat 9

Which mark-up language should you use when stamping PDFs?

The answer is not actually as straightforward as one might hope! As far as I’m aware, my Irish and Australian colleagues find the BS 5261C:2005 symbols acceptable (feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken); in the UK, these BSI marks are absolutely considered standard. However, my Canadian colleague Adrienne Montgomerie, in her essay “The Secret Code of Proofreaders” (Copyediting, October 15, 2014), points out that for editorial professionals in parts of North America “[t]he challenge is always whether or not the designer will understand the marks. It’s hard to say that there are standard marks.” She goes on to illustrate the differences between the Canadian Translation Bureau’s Canadian Style guide marks and the marks preferred by the Chicago Manual of Style. The best advice I can give to novices is that they check with their national editorial society and their clients before embarking on this type of work.

Why use mark-up language on digital proofs?

Using stamps isn’t the only way to mark up a PDF, of course. Some of my colleagues’ clients prefer sole use of the commenting and mark-up tools embedded in their PDF editors. When I use the stamping tool, it’s because my client wants to see all the suggested corrections in the page-proof margin (just like with a hard-copy proofread) rather than in pop-ups (see the example later in this essay under “What does a stamped PDF proof look like?”). Ask your client what they prefer.

In “Are proof-correction marks redundant? Not even close!” (Proofreader’s Parlour, October 16, 2014) — an introductory guide to using proofreading mark-up symbols — I consider the issue of why these little hieroglyphics are useful. If you’re new to proofreading, you might like to read the essay in full. For the purposes of this essay, the key points can be summarized as follows:

• If your client wants all the annotation in the margins of the page proofs, there’s very little room in which to work. Specialized mark-up language, even when working digitally, is an efficient way to tell the typesetter/designer what to do.
• The ability to use professional mark-up language, when required to do so by a client, demonstrates professionalism. Some editorial societies’ codes of practice demand knowledge of standard mark-up language. See, e.g., The Australian standards for editing practice, 2nd ed. (2013); The Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) Code of practice; and The Editors’ Association of Canada’s Professional Editorial Standards: “E. Standards for Proofreading“
• Stamping a symbol on a PDF, or drawing a symbol on paper, is quicker than writing out an instruction. Being able to mark up in this way can therefore increase efficiency and productivity. If you’re working for fixed fees, it’s a timesaver and money-earner.
• If you don’t understand how to mark up using this specialist language, you’re marketable to fewer clients. It therefore makes good business sense to acquire the skills to mark up in this manner, both on paper and digitally.

Where can I find digital stamps?

If you want to use the BS 5261C:2005 proof-correction marks to annotate a PDF, you can find everything you need on my blog, The Proofreader’s Parlour, in the Stamps archive. In particular, “Roundup: PDF Proofreading Stamps (quick-access links)” provides the access links to a full set of downloadable PDF proofreading stamps and the installation instructions.

U.S. stamps files are available via the Copyediting-L site, under the Resources tab. Scroll down to “Diana Stirling’s (2008) editing marks for PDF documents (Zip documents)”.

Finally, search the Editing Tools section of Katharine O’Moore-Klopf’s Copyeditors’ Knowledge Base using the key words “PDF Editing Stamps.” This will bring up a number of useful resources that you might prefer to try.

Where can I learn onscreen mark-up?

If you’re already familiar with standard proof-correction marks, and have used them extensively on paper-based projects, you might well be able to teach yourself to mark up onscreen with stamps. That’s how I went about building my digital mark-up skillset. However, if you’re a novice or lack confidence, you might prefer more formal training that introduces you to using proof-correction language correctly and clearly (whether on paper or digitally).

In the UK, the SfEP and The Publishing Training Centre, to give just two examples, include onscreen mark-up as part of their distance-learning proofreading training. In June and July 2015, Adrienne Montgomerie ran webinar on “Editing on PDF” via the folks at the Editorial Bootcamp. You can still buy the five video-recorded sessions and the companion handouts and exercises here.

There is also some good, and free, online guidance on the Right Angels and Polo Bears blog under the Acrobat PDF archive. See also the Stamps and Working Onscreen archives on the Proofreader’s Parlour.

What does a stamped PDF proof look like?

A PDF that’s been marked up using proof-correction stamps looks just like its paper cousin – the only difference is that it’s in a file on your computer rather than in a pile on your desk. As you can see from the sample below, you can, of course, use the onboard tools. Here, I’ve added in a query for the author (using the Commenting function); if, however, my client had wanted all annotation to be viewable in the margins, I’d have created a separate query sheet to communicate my concern with the highlighted spelling issue.

Sample showing mark-up with stamps and comments

Summing up

Proof-correction marks are not a thing of the past — far from it. Whether you are working on paper or onscreen, being able to offer this method of annotating a proof is a valuable business asset. It gives both you and your clients choices. There will be times when a client will prefer you to work on paper, or directly in Word. And there will be times when you work with clients who don’t know the meaning of proof-correction symbols, and will ask you instead to use a PDF editor’s onboard commenting and markup tools. But if you are going to be working with clients who want a traditional margin-based proofreading service (where all your annotations are made on the typeset page) but in a digital format, the ability to mark up using proofreading stamps will serve you well.

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.

Two Books Every Author (& Editor & Publisher) Should Read!

I won’t keep you in suspense. The two books are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.

I was reading Diane Johnson’s review of Go Set a Watchman (“Daddy’s Girl,” The New York Review of Books, September 24, 2015, pp. 22–26) when I realized that Harper Lee’s two novels should be read by everyone who touches — no matter how peripherally — on the editing process. The two books provide a stark contrast of the value of editing. Johnson wrote:

According to its editors and Harper Lee herself, To Kill a Mockingbird had profited from extensive editing at R.B. Lippincott by the late Tay Hohoff, who said she and Lee worked for two years on the project. (p. 22)

The result was the production of a classic that continues, 50-plus years later, to sell 1 million copies each year.

Contrast that with Go Set a Watchman, which was published as written — without editorial input. Although Watchman has sold a phenomenal number of copies, those will be one-time sales and they came about because of the high expectations readers of Mockingbird had. The consensus seems to be that Watchman is a disaster and a blight on the reputation of Mockingbird; its primary value is to demonstrate what should not be done if one values one’s writing and reputation as an author.

Authors & Wannabe Authors

Watchman was the parent from which Mockingbird was spawned. Yet it is as different from Mockingbird as night is from day. What it demonstrates, however, is how a good editor can help an author.

Too many authors on too many lists promote self-editing or no editing or friend editing. The complaint is that a good editor costs too much and there is no reason to hire one when the author can do it herself. Too many authors also say that they would like to hire an editor but editors are too expensive; they cannot afford an editor.

If you believe you really have a good story to tell and that people will buy it, then shouldn’t you figure out a way to get that editorial help? Your book will not sell like Watchman has sold because you do not have the reputation that Harper Lee has been trading on for 50 years. And it is expected that sales of Watchman will fall precipitously now that the book has been seen. What Watchman does demonstrate, however, is that the editorial investment made in Mockingbird has paid off doubly: first, by creating a phenomenal bestseller that keeps on selling, and second, by creating a reputation that allowed the author to sell drivel, which is what Watchman amounts to. Watchman would not have sold except for Lee’s reputation built on Mockingbird.

It is hard to convince authors (and readers) of the value of good editing because editing is an invisible hand — but these two books, a before and after, should clearly demonstrate what a good editor brings to the table and why authors need editors.

The two books also offer one other insight that I think authors need: They graphically demonstrate the difference between — and value of — developmental editing and copyediting, as well as the value of each. Watchman was neither developmentally edited nor copyedited; Mockingbird was both. Could you self-edit both developmental editing and copyediting?

Skilled and professional authors know that it is almost impossible to edit one’s own work because we see only what we meant to say; we cannot be objective enough to see where our work might be unclear, clunky, disorganized, or simply grammatically lacking (suffering from misspellings, wrong or missing punctuation, close-but-not-quite-right word choices, missing or doubled words, poor transitions, and more).

It is true that a very few authors have the skills to self-edit, but those are the rare authors. Most, if not all, of the most successful authors did not self-edit. Either they or their publisher hired a professional editor. As an author, you may have spent years writing your book. You know every word, every nuance, but you do not know where you are going wrong, because your book is “perfect” — you have said so.

As did Harper Lee when she originally submitted Watchman. What a difference a skilled, professional editor made for Harper Lee — and could make for authors and wannabe authors today.

Editors

Editors should read these two books to see what a skilled editor can do. This is not to suggest that you are not a skilled editor, but to suggest that rarely are we given the opportunity to see a before and after of such radical dimension as in the case of Watchman and Mockingbird.

Even more importantly, however, these books give us the opportunity to create an explanation of the value of our services. They also give us the opportunity to graphically demonstrate the differences between developmental editing and copyediting, and what each does for a manuscript. How many of us would reread Watchman or call it a classic or even want it taught in our schools? I know I struggle to envision a movie based on Watchman or caring about the characters or the storyline.

But Mockingbird remains a highly praised novel, 50 years after its publication. It is still discussed in schools and in conversations about race relations. The movie is considered a classic that is still shown. The novel still sells a million copies each year with no advertising to speak of. And all of this is because the original version, Watchman, was developmentally edited and then copyedited by professional editors to become Mockingbird.

Editors should use these books as teaching experiences for clients. They illustrate the benefit of not creating an artificial schedule and of taking the time needed to properly develop the story and to do the editing the story requires.

Editors have looked for years for a way to clearly illustrate why they are worth what they are asking and why editing is a valuable service that is ignored or avoided at an author’s and a publisher’s peril. Watchman and Mockingbird graphically demonstrate the value of editing and editors.

Publishers (& Packagers)

Today, publishing is run largely from the accounting perspective, not the art perspective. Schedules are artificially imposed without regard for the true needs of a manuscript. Editors are asked to do more of the mechanical work and less of the judgmental work; in my earliest years as an editor, for example, the emphasis was on language editing, not on applying styling codes. We did macro-level styling at most, and left micro-level styling to designers and typesetters. But in today’s editing world, the emphasis has switched 180 degrees to emphasize micro-level styling and a deemphasize language editing.

Yet Watchman and Mockingbird can provide a useful lesson for publishers, too. Sure, HarperCollins reaped a quick influx of cash with the publication of Watchman, but if I were the publisher, I would rather have the year-after-year sales of Mockingbird than the one-time sales of Watchman. Watchman will have no lasting value in the marketplace except as an illustration of what publishers used to provide authors versus what they no longer provide authors.

Today, the mantra is “how low can I go”; that is, how little can I, the publisher, spend to take a book from manuscript to bookstore? And the first services publishers squeeze are those that are deemed “invisible” — editorial services. Instead of two years of developmental editing, as was done for Mockingbird, two weeks of copyediting may be provided today (even if the book requires two months of copyediting, let alone additional months of developmental editing).

Watchman and Mockingbird, however, demonstrate the value of the editorial process. Good editing changed a book with no potential into a classic that sells 1 million copies each year and has done so for more than 50 years, with no end in sight. Whatever the editing cost for Mockingbird, it was recouped decades ago, yet keeps on giving. Quality editing is the Timex of publishing — it is the service that keeps on giving.

Publishers and packagers should read these books and use them as guides and reasons why changes to the current editorial and production methods need to be revamped and more attention and money needs to be given to editing. Editing has to be seen today as it was in the early days of publishing. Isn’t it a shame that the books that we treat as classics and must-reads, decade after decade, were nearly all published several decades or longer ago — before accounting supplanted editorial as the decision makers?

Perhaps it is time to rethink the current model. Certainly, Watchman and Mockingbird make that point.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Selected related An American Editor essays:

• Editor, Editor, Everywhere an Editor
• Why Are You Hiring a Professional Editor?
• What is Editing Worth?
• The Editor: A Writer’s Fairy Godmother or Ogre?
• The WYSIWYG Conundrum: The Solid Cloud
• The 3 Stages of Copyediting: I — The Processing Stage
• The 3 Stages of Copyediting: II — The Copyediting Stage
• The 3 Stages of Copyediting: III — The Proofing Stage
• Editing for Clarity
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Know the Basics or Don’t Edit
• How Much Is That Editor in the Window?
• Business of Editing: Does an Editor Matter?
• The Commandments: Thou Shall Treat Editors as Partners

The Business of Editing: Keys to a Project Quote (II)

Part I (The Business of Editing: Keys to a Project Quote (I)) discussed the required Effective Hourly Rate (rEHR), the churn rate, and calculating a page. Part II discusses additional elements and how to put the quote together and present it.

The style manual

Few editors consider the style manual to be applied to the project when calculating a quote. The reason is that we tend to fall into niches and to use, and thus become facile with, a particular style manual. Many editors rarely, if ever, use any style manual but one. Consequently, few editors think about the impact of the style manual on the project.

Then there are editors like me who work with and use multiple style manuals. The projects may be similar but the clients have different style manual preferences. Even so, there may not be much difference between the style manuals or not enough difference such as which style manual is required has an impact on the project price.

But after my recent experience with The ACS Style Guide (see Style Guide Terrorism: A Formula for Failure), I realize that I do need to factor into the calculation the impact of the choice of style manual. This is especially true when the client-selected manual is so radically different from other style manuals and/or when it is accompanied by a house exceptions manual (even if not by a difficult style manual).

The choice of style manual impacts the churn and the schedule. I suspect that no other allowance for it needs to be made in the calculation.

The schedule

Another element, and a very important one, is the client’s schedule.

What usually happens is that a client contacts an editor and says something like this:

I have a 320-page manuscript on eating your vegetables that I need edited in 2 weeks. It requires a medium-level copyedit and the files will be ready to send you tomorrow. The fee is xyz. Can you take it on?

The editor responds almost instantly with “sure,” thinking that 160 pages a week is easily done. And it may be easily done — or not. (I know that many editors insist on seeing a “sample,” or even the whole manuscript, but unless you are going to read it all — word by word, beginning to end, which is an editing task being done at your expense — you can never really know for certain what problems you will face during actual editing.)

Whether it is easily done — or not — depends on many of the factors discussed earlier. Is the page count accurate? What does a “medium-level copyedit” entail? And so on. Once you have all of that information, you can then evaluate the schedule.

Over my 31 years, I have learned that my best editing is done within a 5-hour window. What I mean is that of a typical 8-hour workday, only 5 hours can be spent editing if I want to provide a high-quality edit. After 5 hours of concentrated editing, the mind tires and error creep begins.

This does not mean that I do not ever edit for longer than 5 hours in a day. Some projects are easier than others and editing can go on for longer; some are so difficult that editing for 5 hours is very difficult if not impossible.

What it means is that I have determined that an editing day is 5 editing hours and an editing week is Monday to Friday. Note that it is Monday to Friday and not 25 editing hours. This is important when calculating a project fee. It means that I work Monday to Friday and weekend or holiday work is not part of the workweek; weekend and/or holiday work, or more than 5 editing hours in a day, are premium services.

So, when I calculate the viability of a schedule, I calculate it based on an editing workweek or 5-editing-hour days, not on a 7-day workweek of unlimited hours.

The First “Rough” Calculation

Assuming that the proposed 320-page manuscript is really 320 pages, then to meet a 2-week schedule means a maximum of 9 editing days (not 10, because I cannot start a project within seconds of receipt from a client; I always figure next day), which means 45 editing hours, which translates into a required churn of approximately 8 pages an hour (actually 7.11, but I always round up to the next whole number; I don’t know how to edit 0.11 pages). I check that against my churn rate for a “medium-level copyedit” and, depending on the subject matter, may conclude that the schedule is doable.

But the calculation is based on a lot of assumptions, not least of which is that the page count is accurate.

Getting more information

At this point, I have not yet responded to the client. Now is when I make my first response, which is that I am interested but need to have the manuscript sent to me so I can do a page count. Even if the client doesn’t have the whole manuscript, I want what they do have. I also tell them it is not necessary to send me any figures except tables and all-text figures; I do not need the 30 photo images to do my count or evaluate the project.

The Second Calculation

Once I receive the manuscript, I do a page count using my preferred method. It is rare that my count and the client’s count match. It is not unusual to find that the client’s count is anywhere from 25% to 50% (and sometimes more) lower than my count.

With the page count in hand, the next thing I do is open a couple of chapters and look at the references. If the references are close to the preferred style, that is a good sign. I have found that where the references are pretty much in what is to be the end format, the author has paid attention to detail and the text generally is in decent shape. But if the references are a mess, are missing a lot of information, are not close to the desired end style, I know that I need to spot check the text of several chapters to get a flavor of the author’s writing style.

Next, after the page count and checking a few chapters, I determine how many pages a day and an hour will need to be churned to meet the client’s schedule. For example, if the page count in our hypothetical is really 500 instead of 320, instead of 8 pages an hour, I will need to edit 12. I now need to determine whether it is possible to churn that many pages during my editing workweek. If I can, then the schedule is fine; if I can’t, I need to be able to explain why I can’t and what is a more realistic schedule.

With the information in hand, it is time to put together the project quote.

The Quote

In my quote, I outline exactly what I have found: the level of edit required (and what that means), the number of pages I found, what is included and excluded from the service requested, and the difficulties, if any, presented by the requested style manual in light of the condition of the manuscript. I use all of this information to justify the price I am asking and any schedule changes. I also include a description of the services I will provide, as well as what I will not do, and I include an explanation of the editing workweek to forestall any expectations that I will work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to meet the client’s requirements.

One caveat

My price is never less than my rEHR. In fact, it is usually more than my rEHR because the rEHR really is my breakeven number, not a profit-making number. The rEHR is simply the line below which I will not go. I do not consider it my job to subsidize my clients; they do a fine job of protecting their interests without my help.

Why this quote-building process?

An editor needs to go through this quote-building process to be sure she can justify her requested fee when challenged by the client. I used to wait for the challenge before justifying my fee, but for many years I have included the justification in my quote as a means of educating the client about the project. Most clients have a fee in mind and any deviation from that fee is unacceptable to the client — unless you can explain its necessity. In addition, most clients assume that because we are freelance editors, we have no other life interests and that we can devote all our waking hours to their project.

The more professional your quote is made to appear, the fewer problems you will have with a client, the more likely you are to receive your wanted fee, the more likely you will receive the project on your terms, and the more likely you will be treated as an equal.

What do you do? Do you do things in addition to those listed here?

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Selected related An American Editor essays:

• Business of Editing: “I Can Get It Cheaper!”
• On the Basics: Dealing with the Perennial Question of Setting Rates for Our Work
• How Much Is That Editor in the Window?
• Thinking About Money: What Freelancers Need to Understand
• Business of Editing: Schedules and Client Expectations
• Great Expectations: A Recipe for Disappointment
• Editor, Editor, Everywhere an Editor
• What is Editing Worth?
• The Business of Editing: Fee Negotiations
• The Business of Editing: Why $10 Can’t Make It

The Business of Editing: Keys to a Project Quote (I)

One of the most difficult things for an editor to do is to calculate an appropriate quote for a project. Clients usually use a formula approach that doesn’t waver from project to project. Most editors who work for publishers simply accept what is offered.

Accepting what a client offers without doing your own calculation is bad business! And if you work directly with authors, you need to correctly calculate your quote.

I begin with a reminder: You are a business. You are an independent business of the same stature as the client. Too often editors view themselves as unequal to their clients; too often they forget the value and importance of simply saying “no.”

I always remember that my clients have come to me to ask for my services as an editor. They come because of my reputation for quality and/or because they have firsthand knowledge of the value of my editing. The result is that I view the relationship as one between equals — and I act as if we are equals in all aspects of the business relationship.

What that means is that I calculate the price for a project. I consider the client’s offer, but I make sure that the offer is one that represents profit to me. I also recognize that pricing editing is a guessing game. Until I have actually done the editing, it is not possible to truly know how difficult or time-consuming the project truly is.

Elements of the Calculation

The rEHR

There are lots of things that need to be considered when creating a quote. The absolute must-have information that an editor needs is her required Effective Hourly Rate — the rEHR. This has been discussed several times on An American Editor and is discussed in depth in The Business of Editing: What to Charge series of essays.

The rEHR is the bottom line. The rEHR is the foundation from which your quote will rise. If you are not meeting your rEHR, then you need to rethink your approach to your business.

The churn rate

The next bit of information you need to know is how fast you can accurately edit at different editing levels. For example, if a project calls for a “light” edit, can you expect to edit 5 manuscript pages an hour? Or 10? Or 20? Suppose the project calls for a “heavy” edit? How does that impact your churn rate?

Which brings us to several other items about which you need to have a firm grasp for multiple reasons, not least of which is that they affect the churn rate:

• The definition of the service you are being asked to perform
• The definition of the level of service you are being asked to perform
• How the variations in service and level of service definitions affect your churn rate
• Your effective number of net editing hours per day (“net” here means actual time spent editing, not the length of your “work” day)

For example, if a client asks you to copyedit a manuscript (the “service”) at a “medium to heavy level” (the “level of service”), what precisely does that mean? What tasks are included and what tasks are excluded? Do you understand what the client means by medium to heavy level copyediting? Does the client understand what you mean by copyediting? Is what the client expects copyediting or is it more akin to developmental editing or something between or even something else?

The churn rate is also affected by both the style to be applied and the type of manuscript involved. As we recently discussed, some styles are significantly more cumbersome than others (see, e.g., Style Guide Terrorism: A Formula for Failure).  In addition, the requested style may be one with which the editor has less (or greater) facility. If you have edited 100 books and applied the Chicago style and are now asked to apply a different style with which you have little to no familiarity, your churn rate will be slower as you need to spend time determining the requirements of the new style. Similarly, the churn rate will be slower if there is a comprehensive exceptions style manual provided by the client.

Of course, it also matters whether the project is fiction or nonfiction, has a handful of references or thousands of them. Here, again, the style to be applied matters. Depending on how diligently the author adhered to the desired style, the editor may have to look up and modify every reference. A complex style like that of the American Chemical Society can be, as I discovered to my personal chagrin, exceedingly time-consuming and tiresome to apply.

The page

Once your rEHR and your churn is determined, the next step is to establish your method for calculating a page. Some editors have varying formulas they apply depending on the type of project they are asked to edit. And many editors, without giving it much thought, simply accept that 250 words equals one page. Some clients use 300 words equal one page, some use 250 words, some use a typeset page. Some, I have discovered, simply open the file as provided by the author and accept whatever page count is shown (and are oblivious to the fact that the author set the text to 8 point type and single spacing).

Many, if not most, editors and clients count words; some count characters without spaces and some count characters with spaces.

It both matters and doesn’t matter how you calculate a page. It matters because if you use the wrong method, you cheat yourself; it matters because the method the client uses may make for a larger page and so a shorter project page count and, thus, a lower per-page rate. What really matters is that you have a method that you are satisfied with and that you enforce.

Also key is that you count the pages using your method. You should never accept a client’s page count. And if the client insists on using its page count as the compensation basis, you need to insist that the client share with you how a page is calculated.

This is critical in nonfiction because of figures. Over the years, I have had clients refuse to count figures yet expect me to edit them. It may be that the figures are text-free images, but if I have to open a file to look at a figure and to determine if it looks like a match to the figure legend, then I need to be paid for the work.

Figures are tricky. How do you know how many figures equal one page? I once had a client tell me that because the images were small, they calculated 24 images equaled one page; the client ignored the fact that each image was in its own file and required specialized software to view and adjust. Needless to say, that was unacceptable. But it prompted me to devise a method that accounts for figures in the page calculation to my satisfaction. Again, it doesn’t matter whether I am actually counting each figure; it matters that I am willing to accept the number I get as including the figures.

Part II discusses additional elements and the putting together of the quote.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essay:

• The Business of Editing: Keys to a Project Quote (II)

On the Basics: Recognizing Self-Imposed Limits to Your Editing Business

by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

I’m often surprised or amused, depending on the incident, by people who seem determined to limit their success as freelancers. Here are some of the ways that people limit their efforts (many of which also apply to writers, proofreaders, indexers, graphic artists, website developers, etc.) — and some ideas for overcoming those limits.

Limit: Refusing to use current technology

Years ago, I met a colleague who refused to use word processing or faxing, and was upset because clients didn’t want to receive her typewritten manuscripts by mail. There are fewer such Luddites around these days, but there are editors who use outdated versions of Word or programs that aren’t considered current leaders in the field, don’t bother to spellcheck their documents, and otherwise seem to be allergic to current technology that makes both their and their clients’ jobs easier. Someone who refuses to adapt to a changing world or understand that clients prefer to use the editors who make their lives easier is not going to prosper.

Limit: Keeping your focus local

You can probably find good projects and clients on a local level — and some of us like the opportunities to interact in person with local clients — but today’s work world is global. Thanks to technology, we can work with clients all around the country and all over the globe. Through the electronic world, you can do your research and work at all hours, send and receive information at any time, and be accessible to clients no matter where they are.

You’ll be more successful if you extend your reach beyond your geographic location — you’ll have more clients, and you just might find ones that pay more than your local contacts. Take advantage of that fact of contemporary life.

Limit: Not investing in your business

Whether you work in-house or freelance, editing is your business. That’s especially true, of course, of freelancers. Refusing to invest in that business is a great way to limit your income and success.

What does it take to invest in an editing business? Making sure that you, or your employer, have current versions of software, hardware, style manuals, dictionaries, and other tools that keep you on the cutting edge of what it takes to get the work done. It also means participating in professional associations and attending events where you can learn more about trends and new resources or techniques, as well as meet colleagues who might hire you for projects.

Limit: Not continuing to learn

Language changes. Tools evolve. New approaches arise. The business of editing is an ongoing process. Those who think they know everything there is to know about editing are doomed to limit their success.

Taking courses, purchasing new editions of style manuals or dictionaries, attending events, interacting with colleagues online and in person, reading leading publications, even enjoying hobbies all help editors keep learning and thus be more productive, professional, and successful.

Limit: Not networking

Many editorial professionals are shy, retiring, or introverted by nature and find it uncomfortable to network with colleagues or potential clients. Even those of us who are more extroverted may find it difficult to network because of where we live or because we do not know how to find outlets for meeting colleagues.

Make the effort to network, because getting to know colleagues is a great way to break out of limits on your editing business. Not only are you likely to learn more about trends, tools, techniques, and other aspects of language, editing, and business; you also are likely to meet people who might refer, recommend, or contract with you for new projects. People recommend those whom they know. Being visible in a professional association in person or online, in a Facebook or LinkedIn group, or at conferences (as either presenter or participant) can be a major factor in expanding your editing business by establishing yourself as a skilled colleague or expert in some aspect of the editing world and process.

Keep in mind that networking is a two-way process; it isn’t all about you. Before you ask for help or referrals to new clients, offer advice or answer questions — try to establish yourself as someone with knowledge to share and skills worth using.

Limit: Not understanding & knowing your effective hourly rate

Many of us simply take projects and get to work on them, accepting whatever clients offer in terms of rates or fees without tracking the time it takes to finish a given job or type of job. As a result, if a potential project comes in without an agreed-upon rate, we’re stymied — we don’t know what to charge.

Not knowing your effective hourly rate — how fast (or slowly) you work and what you need to earn to cover your expenses — puts you at a disadvantage when asked to quote a rate or fee for a new project. From now on, track how long it takes to edit whatever comes across your desk or inbox. Look at the income from each project. Use those numbers to figure out what you really earn, and compare them to your costs of living. Then you have a basis for establishing appropriate rates and fees for your work. This might even give you the courage to ask for higher rates and fees. (For a discussion of Effective Hourly Rate, see the Business of Editing: What to Charge series.)

Limit: Not promoting or publicizing yourself & your business

Promoting your editing business might be the hardest part of being in business. If you work in-house, this aspect of your job is less of a concern, although you still might want to help your employer promote the publication, company, or organization. If you work for yourself, marketing and promotion is essential. Those who sit back and wait for work to magically appear limit themselves to a nominal income.

Marketing or promotion is a constant, ongoing process. The classic example of a non–marketing crisis is when you’re so immersed in a current project that you forget to do any marketing for new work. When you wrap this one up, you have at least the traditional 30 days to wait before getting paid and nothing on hand to work on while you wait. To keep a regular income flowing in, you have to market yourself and your services regularly.

If you can’t handle doing your own marketing and promotions, find someone to help you out. Consider bartering editing services in return for designing a website for you, creating and distributing a newsletter, or helping you use social media to expand your visibility.

Being active in professional organizations and online contributes to your marketing efforts. If you at least do that much, you’ve expanded the limits on your business.

What have you done to limit your editing success? Even better, what have you done to overcome limitations on that success?

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.

Thinking Fiction: Mastering Subjectivity

by Carolyn Haley

An earlier essay on this blog, “The Ethics of Distaste,” focused on the professional aspects of editing distasteful material. The following essay supplements the ethics discussion by focusing on a manuscript editor’s emotional challenge that may occur behind the scenes. Although this essay’s context is fiction, some of its ideas and techniques apply, as well, to nonfiction editing.

The Personal Dilemma of Distaste

What makes a novel distasteful to you personally could be anything: incoherent writing, a repellent subject, plots or characters so ludicrous or undeveloped that the book is painful to read — all or none of the above. Even if you handle the business side of a distasteful novel with impeccable professionalism, there remains the head–heart strife that comes from getting stuck with something you should turn down but can’t afford to, or ethically back out of once committed. That stress, unmanaged, can undermine the quality of your editing, which, in turn, could lead to client payment problems for independent editors, employment repercussions for staff editors, or reputation damage for both. The stress might possibly damage your health, too, from fighting against yourself internally.

What to Do?

When burdened with a distasteful novel, you as editor must make mental and emotional adjustments to deal with it successfully. The first step is to rationalize what the book really is, and the second is to take time for some do-it-yourself training and therapy.

Rationalization

Novel writing is an art form: a literary art, like poetry, scripts, or short stories; a sister art to painting, sculpture, music, dance, and theater. People compelled to create art have different mindsets than those who evaluate their work. Creative compulsion is often inarticulate, driven by emotion. A novel’s purpose is to create an emotional experience for readers through story (as compared to nonfiction, whose purpose is to inform).

A fiction editor’s role is to help authors express their vision as coherently as possible to the audience most inclined to value it. Developmental editors have the best opportunity to untangle gnarly books and make them shine, but line editors and copy editors enter the process after content decisions have been made. They can only address mechanical elements and make a lot of queries. All editing tasks are much easier to embrace when you fathom the subjectivity of art, and remember that a fiction editor’s job is to help actualize art in the form of a novel.

Distasteful novels will keep many of us employed for years to come. Today we are seeing a growing number of authors who don’t write well and never will. Although almost everyone in the industrialized nations can read and write, they’re not all being trained in basic composition or required to study classic literature. Fewer and fewer take courses in creative writing or have workplace mentors disciplining their prose. Yet more and more have the tools and freedom to easily express themselves, adding to the distasteful-novel parade through editors’ hands.

Self-training/-therapy

If your tolerance for distasteful novels has worn thin, or your art appreciation has gone stale, then it’s time to reprogram your emotional response. That starts with physically altering your perspective.

For example, step outside literature and walk through an art museum, a gallery, or an arts-and-crafts fair. Look at every piece and assess how you feel about it, what you’re willing to spend money on. Surely you will pass by most of the offerings then stop when something catches your eye or heart. You’ll note that most pieces are produced with mediocre to extraordinary skill, and reveal an astonishing range of imagination.

You’ll see people cheerfully buying paintings you wouldn’t dream of hanging on your walls, while those you consider masterpieces are left behind. At the same time, you may be tempted by something to blow your budget on and enjoy in your own home for the rest of your life.

Try the same exercise in the other arts. Attend, in any combination, a play, a ballet, a Broadway show, a child’s musical recital, a rock concert, a symphony, a folk festival, an open mic session at a coffee house poetry night. Alternatively, close your eyes and select a DVD off the shelf from three or more categories and periods, then play them back to back. What’s your reaction to each?

Perhaps watch a TV show such as NBC’s The Voice, which is a singing competition that parallels a novelist’s apprenticeship from raw talent to star performer. The show displays what an artist goes through to become competent and accepted, and how helpless they are against other people’s tastes and opinions— or boosted along by them.

Then visit a bookstore. Allow yourself to be amazed by the total number of volumes on the shelves. Wander through each fiction section and peruse a few titles, observing how different each is from the next in subject and style, and how widely they range in quality. Watch what people bring to the cash register, and count how often their choices differ from yours.

Then go back to the distasteful novel on your desk.

New Eyes

The book hasn’t changed; it may still be off-putting gobbledygook. But you’ve been colorfully reminded that it wasn’t written for you, and your job is to help it along its path to reaching others. Now you can see it as a project begging for a stronger application of craft; a story struggling to get free; an object needing refinement. Now you can roll up your sleeves and tackle its language with all your skill. When the process is over, the result will be a better novel. Maybe it will even be great.

Maybe not, but what happens after you deliver the manuscript is outside your control. Although your soul may agonize over the book’s imperfections, your professional duty is to deliver what you were hired to do. As part of that, you’re obliged to establish mutual understanding of expectations with your client or employer so all parties, especially the author, are pleased with your contribution. Bottom line: Your job is to improve the book within employment parameters, not to guarantee its publication or success.

The onus for that falls on other parties. A book’s fate depends on how far an author is willing or able to go in upgrading their work, combined with where and how they choose to expose it. Success or failure depends on the following, singly or in combination:

• an acquiring editor’s taste in novels or directive to find what the house seeks for publication;
• an agent’s sense of what is likely to sell within the categories they serve, and who they try to place the work with;
• a contest judge’s pile of manuscripts, time available to review them, and mood of the day;
• the self-publishing venue a book is released through;
• any marketing and promotion done for the book, and reviews it receives;
• ultimately, readers’ moods, tastes, and where they shop.

These all fall beyond the scope of work for editors who handle manuscripts prior to submission. Ironically, a book’s success may come down to how well an editor managed the project: how enthusiastically she greeted the story, how seriously she took it, how supportive she was to the author, how lightly or heavily she touched the text, how conscious she was of reader viewpoint.

Options

If you can’t unplug your subjectivity, and your desire to influence what enters the marketplace still burns, then reorient your career. Acquisitions and managing editors have the power to accept or reject, as do literary agents. Developmental editors have much more hands-on opportunity to direct a manuscript’s course than do line and copy editors. Alternatively, you can volunteer to judge writing contests in your free time, or become a book reviewer so you can publicly proclaim your opinion.

Regardless, increase your exposure to all the arts so you can better appreciate their variety and impact on other people’s lives. Then support what you think deserves success by spending your own dollars on it. Earn your next dollars by welcoming each manuscript as a challenge to your own creativity; a puzzle, perhaps, to solve within tight rules. Approaching editing distasteful novels this way eases frustration and revives the joy and marvel of being paid to read stories.

Accepting and Moving On

By accepting the editorial bottom line — improving the work within employment parameters — we can free ourselves from the downside of distasteful novels. The upside comes from regarding our job as helping literary artists achieve their dreams and touch other lives through their creative work. Even novels we consider distasteful may go on to great sales and acclaim, win awards, snag lucrative movie deals. They may build the foundation for long and prolific writing careers. We can help that happen by cultivating a pro-author, art-loving attitude.

The key is to remember that all novelists have to start somewhere, and each is at a different point on a journey. Understanding that our personal taste must sometimes be put aside releases us to edit darn near any fiction manuscript and help authors advance toward their goals.

Carolyn Haley lives and breathes novels. Although specializing in fiction, she edits across the publishing spectrum — fiction and nonfiction, corporate and indie — and is the author of two novels and a nonfiction book. She has been editing professionally since 1977, and has had her own editorial services company, DocuMania, since 2005. She can be reached at dcma@vermontel.com or through her websites, DocuMania and New Ways to See the World. Carolyn also blogs at Adventures in Zone 3 and reviews at New York Journal of Books.

Today is Labor Day & We’re Celebrating

Today is the American (and Canadian) Labor Day Holiday, so An American Editor has the day off.

Want to know about the Labor Day holiday? This TED video gives a history:

Raena White provides a musical perspective:

Labor songs were the “meat” of folksingers like Pete Seeger. Here he sings, “Which Side Are You On?”

and “Union Maid.”

Labor Day is (was) a celebration of the rise of the American and Canadian worker from oppressive, free market working conditions. Alas, it seems that the tides are flowing out again.

Enjoy your Labor Day. An American Editor will be back on Wednesday, September 9.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

 

 

The Business of Editing: The Profitability Difficulty

In making any decision about my editing business, my number one consideration is profitability. I do not mean to denigrate other important matters, especially not ethical matters, but once past ethical considerations, profitability is the ultimate determiner as to whether I take on a project or retain a client.

Ensuring Profitability Is Difficult

What I have noticed is that increasingly, profitability is more difficult to ensure, not only on a project basis but over the course of multiple projects. I have always adhered to the Rule of Three (see The Business of Editing: The Rule of Three for more information about the rule). The rule has served me well for decades, but even that rule is coming under attack from the types of projects I am consistently being asked to take on in recent months.

As we have discussed many times on An American Editor, the underlying key to profitability is efficiency. It is that striving for ever-increasing efficiency that lies behind my EditTools macros. Yet even though they increase efficiency, the projects I have been seeing in recent months strain attempts to be efficient. It is nearly impossible, for example, to efficiently deal with references when they need to conform to a convoluted style like that of the American Chemical Society and the author has made little attempt to conform to that style.

The problem of efficiency and working style is what led me to abandon proofreading. When I first began my freelance career, I offered both editing and proofreading services. But because of how I work, I found it increasingly difficult to make a profit from proofreading. With the advent of PDF proofreading, my workstyle was such that I went from low profitability to loss.

(For those wondering how to determine profit and loss, the place to begin is my five-part series, Business of Editing: What to Charge. If you don’t know what you need to earn, you can’t possibly know whether you are making or losing money as a freelancer.)

Schedule and Profitability

Even more deadly to profitability than efficiency is schedule. Long-time editors probably remember the guideline that editors and publishers used to follow, but publishers and packagers seem to have abandoned, that set the editing pace. For example, an editor asked to copyedit a medical or science textbook that required a “heavy” or “high-level” edit was expected to edit two to four pages an hour; a “medium” edit’s pace was five to eight pages an hour; and a “light” edit’s pace was eight to ten pages an hour. An editing “week” ran 30 to 35 editing hours.

(An editing hour is the time actually spent editing, not the time you are open for business. I calculate an editing week as 25 editing hours because I have learned that after 5 editing hours, the quality of editing begins to deteriorate — slowly but steadily. Consequently, I try to limit my daily editing time to between 5 and 6 hours. In addition, an editing week is Monday to Friday exclusive of holidays.)

Thus, clients expected that with a medium-level edit, an editor could competently edit 150 to 280 manuscript pages a week, depending on the subject matter. The range for a high-level edit was 60 to 140 manuscript pages per week. But all of that has changed with the outsourcing of editing to companies (“packagers”) that are skilled at book layout and production but which themselves outsource the editing work to freelancers like me.

The Triad

What has occurred is that these packagers have a lot of competition and they need to separate themselves from the pack. So, when they seek work, they promise quick turnaround, excellent editing, and low price — the triad that editors often tell clients that they can pick one of, but not two of, and definitely not three of. When the packagers come to the editor, they refuse to accept that they cannot have all three. Unfortunately, too many editors simply acquiesce without a “fight” although whether the editing is excellent is definitely questionable.

All of this impacts on profitability. Although a key to profitability is turnover — the idea being that the faster a project can be completed, the more projects that can be undertaken, and the higher the gross revenue — the hoped for increase in number of projects doesn’t come to fruition in the absence of the quality editing.

What made me realize this was that I have not stopped telling my clients that they cannot have more than one leg of the triad. About two months ago, I was asked to edit a book that required “heavy” editing. The subject matter was quite technical and the extensive number of references were all in the wrong format. The problems were that the fee was low and the schedule unreasonable — the client expected 400+ manuscript pages to be edited per week when a reasonable and likely schedule was 125 to 150 pages.

The reason this would not be profitable work is that by rushing the project to meet the schedule, I could not provide the editing that the project needs. When the clients see the editing, they will complain and will insist on corrections being made — I know this from past experience — which will eat up ever more time. Consequently, additional hours will be spent on the project but without additional compensation.

Meeting the Triad

The danger is, of course, that not only will I lose money on the project, but the client will be wary of sending me additional work because by not providing a quality edit according to their schedule I caused delays, which cost them points with their client. It is a vicious cycle with the ultimate loser being me, the freelance editor.

Consequently, I have not given in to the demands that I accept these types of projects and the requirements of the triad. I prefer to turn down work, which I regularly do, than try to meet unreasonable requirements. When asked to undertake a project, I always do the page count myself and I always determine, myself, what the schedule should be. I advise the client of the page count, my proposed schedule, and what options they have.

The first option is my schedule at my “usual” fee; the second option is a shorter schedule with a higher fee; the third option is the shortest schedule I am willing to accept at a yet higher fee; the final option is for the client to find another editor. Note the relationship between schedule and fee: the longer the schedule, the lower the fee; the shorter the schedule, the higher the fee.

This fee–schedule relationship revolves around two very important bits of information that I possess: the first, is the page count. The method I use allows for figures without having to actually go through each figure and trying to determine how much of a page should be allotted to the figure. The major weakness in my method, and one that I have yet to ascertain how to overcome, is how much work the references will require. On that, I have just “bitten the bullet” and let the law of averages take over. (Now that I have had the experience of dealing with the ACS style, something I hadn’t done for many years, I will, in the future, apply a multiplier to ACS style projects.) Most importantly, I do the page count and tell the client what the count is; I do not ever accept or rely on the client’s page count.

The second bit of information I possess is this: I know how many pages an hour I can edit under various scenarios. Like the page count, I determine this number, not the client.

With this information in hand, I prepare my “report” to the client. Recall that I have not yet agreed to accept the project. What I am doing is justifying to the client my decision if it is “no, I cannot accept the project” or building the foundation for the terms on which I will accept the project. This tells the client I have carefully considered the offer and that I have business reasons for turning down the project or setting acceptance conditions.

My experience has been that very often the client either ups the price or extends the schedule. If I say “no” to a project, it is not unusual for the client to try to work something out with me. I think that these situations resolve in my favor more often than not because the client knows the quality of the editing I provide and wants to avoid discussions with their clients over quality.

The Lesson

The lesson is that an editor needs to know their price point and their editing rate and resist the idea that it is better to lose money (i.e., earn less than their Required Effective Hourly Rate as discussed in Business of Editing: What to Charge) and have the work than to say “no” to such work offers. Saying “no” to unprofitable work helps you establish ground rules with your client. After all, why be in business if you are not going to make a profit?

What do you think?

Richard Adin, An American Editor