On the Basics — How writers and editors can find each other and work well together

© Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Owner

An American Editor

© An American Editor. Content may not be recirculated, republished or otherwise used without both the prior permission of the publisher and full credit to the author of a given post and the An American Editor blog, including a live link to the post being referenced. Thank you for respecting our rights to and ownership of our work.

One of the hardest things for an author to do after — or while — writing their book is finding and working with an editor. Questions about that aspect of the publishing process often show up in social media. Here’s my take on it.

First steps — the writing process

First and foremost, and even before thinking about working with an editor, every aspiring author needs a community. Many common questions about the writing craft and process can be answered by other writers, both in person and virtually through social media. Look for a local writers’ center or association that might host groups for writers to learn from and support each (professionally, not financially!). If your hometown doesn’t appear to have such a resource, check with area bookstores and libraries, which often host groups for writers. (There are lots of such groups online, but many of us prefer to meet and interact in person.)

If all else fails, start your own group! Your favorite bookstore, library branch or coffee shop might be willing to provide meeting space, often without a fee (although coffee shops rightfully prefer that people using their space buy something, even if it’s just a cup of coffee per person).

Your group can be made up only of other writers, whether aspiring or established. It can also be a way to meet agents, publishers, promoters and publicists, editors and proofreaders, illustrators and designers, and other partners in your efforts.

Just a warning to writers: Like everywhere else in life, the writing world has its trolls. Don’t believe everything everyone says, especially the negatives. Try to be objective and informed about advice from someone who might have a grievance with publishers, other writers, organizations and members of the writing world such as editors.

If you’ve never written and published anything before, consider taking a basic composition class at a local college, university, writer’s center or library. Even a high school continuing education program could be the source of a useful refresher class on composition, grammar and usage, and other elements of good writing. Do your best to build your skills in creating characters, writing dialogue, organizing and maintaining story lines, being consistent in descriptions and other important details, using correct language, and making your work the best you can. That will serve you well in the next steps to publication.

Then get to writing!

And as soon as you even start thinking about writing something you hope to see get published, also start putting money aside for other vital steps in the process: editing, proofreading (whether you plan to self-publish and be published traditionally; cover design, layout and production, promotion and publicity (if you plan to self-publish). Good editing, as well as any other service you might want to use, requires the services of a trained, experienced, professionally editor — and not everyone who claims to fill that role actually can do so. Choosing someone who charges the least, especially through online platforms that connects aspiring authors with self-proclaimed editors, is also not the best way to serve your precious project.

Next steps — assessment

No matter how much experience anyone has in writing for publication, everyone needs an editor and proofreader. It also doesn’t hurt to have a manuscript evaluation or assessment, for a sense of what does and doesn’t work in your material that you could fix before handing it off to an editor.

You can use your writers’ group connections for what’s called beta reading: having people representing prospective readers read some or all of your manuscript and let you know what they think does and doesn’t result in a readable, interesting, worth publishing project. Beta readers usually don’t charge.

And keep in mind that English teachers are not editors. English teachers are immensely important; it’s just that they look for and fix different things from what editors seek and fix. The two are not the same, and one shouldn’t be relied on to provide what the other is needed for.

We need English teachers to provide a strong foundation in grammar, punctuation, spelling (yes, even with spellcheckers!), organization, usage and more so people can write clearly and logically. We need editors to fix what authors get wrong in those areas and more.

Finding editors

Like everything else these days, you can find editors — or people who call themselves editors — online, and often for very little money. But cheap is rarely good.

Look into the resources of organizations like the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, ACES: The Society for Editing, Editorial Freelancers Association, and similar organizations in countries other than the USA. Most have ways for writers to list their projects, usually for free (the listing, that is; not the editing work!), and membership directories that provide solid information about someone’s training, experience, skills, testimonials and other important details.

There are also organizations for editors in specific fields — romance, travel, medicine, technology, science, animals (cats/dogs/horses/birds), and almost any other topic.

There are groups in LinkedIn and Facebook for editors and writers to find each other, and many editors have accounts or profiles in those platforms.

Most established editors have websites where you can learn more about their backgrounds, experience, approaches and other important details.

If you know of anyone who has published their writing, ask them for referrals or recommendations. Some authors mention their editors in their published books; look at the acknowledgments in books in your genre for names you might try to contact.

Those local writers’ groups and organizations also can provide leads to editors for you.

Finding authors

Editors can be proactive in finding writers to work for and with. Consider joining writers’ groups, both online and in person, through writers’ centers and organizations, publishing associations, and similar outlets. Offer advice and answer writers’ questions to build a reputation for knowledge and helpfulness. Make your genre or topic expertise known. Encourage your clients to refer and recommend you — such testimonials are the absolute best way to find new clients.

The why and the how

Why hire an editor? Because it’s almost impossible to be objective about our own writing and see various types of problems or errors, especially in something we’ve worked on for a long time and self-edited as much as possible.

Yes, we can use computer resources such as spellchecker to improve spelling and catch egregious errors — but those can be wrong or miss problems. Depending on what a manuscript needs, editors can help with everything from structure/organization and plot or timelines to characterization, dialogue, historical or geographical accuracy, coherence, consistency in many areas (names, places, eras, numbers, dates, appearances, etc.), and much more. Every writer needs that objective editor’s eye on their work to make it the best it can be.

Don’t be put off if an editor asks you to sign a contract or letter of agreement. That protects both of you by establishing who will do what, when and for how much. (An excellent resource is The Paper It’s Written On … by Dick Margulis and Karin Cather.)

An editor might include language in their contract or agreement that says the edited version of your book belongs to them until they are paid in full. That doesn’t mean you lose ownership of your work; just that you do not own and may not use or publish the edited version until you fulfill your side of the bargain.

And please don’t worry about an editor stealing your work. If you do a good job of checking references and assessing the training, skills and experience before hiring an editor, that won’t be a factor. Genuine professional editors do not steal authors’ work (and, in all honesty, most isn’t financially worth stealing, no matter how well-written, original or evocative it might be). You own your manuscript as soon as you create it.

Next steps — working with your editor

Most editors are kind and thoughtful even when they have to relay discouraging news about a writer’s “baby.” Some might come across as more brusque than they realize, but they aren’t trying to hurt a writer’s feelings. Try not to take offense or feel personally attacked if an editor points out areas to improve or correct. Your editor isn’t attacking you or your work; they are are trying to lead you to ways to make your story or book better and stronger — more interesting, clear, relevant and accurate.

It’s OK to ask prospective editors to provide a sample of how they would approach your manuscript. Just be sure to send the exact same section or sample to everyone you’re considering, whether it’s two editors or two dozen. And don’t be surprised if some editors prefer not to provide a free sample of their work. Plenty of skilled, professional, worth-hiring editors will do a reasonable sample for you. Those who don’t probably have been burned in the past.

Some editors are more comfortable with interaction throughout a project while others prefer to just do the work and send it back to you, with the understanding that you can ask questions about changes that you don’t follow or want to make. Just be prepared to pay for the time it takes for an editor to respond to frequent questions about the project.

If you’re worried about paying for a professional-level edit, see if you can arrange payment in increments — a deposit when the editing begins and interim payments as the work continues. That makes it easier to pay for the editing work than having to come up with a large sum all at once at the end of the project. Some editors will request final payment before handing over the finished work, which is understandable.

The relationship between writer and editor can and ideally will be constructive, supportive and productive. Keep these tips in mind and your project should be all of that.

What else would our writer subscribers like to know about working with an editor? What would our editor colleagues like to add about making the relationship its best and most successful?

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) is an award-winning provider of editorial and publishing services for publications, independent authors, publishers, associations, nonprofits and companies worldwide, and the editor-in-chief and owner of An American Editor. She created the annual Communication Central Be a Better Freelancer^® conference for colleagues (www.communication-central.com), now co-hosted with the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (www.naiwe.com) and sponsored by An American Editor. She also owns A Flair for Writing (www.aflairforwriting.com), which helps independent authors produce and publish their books. She can be reached at Ruth@writerruth.com or Ruth.Thaler-Carter@AnAmericanEditor.com.

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Guest article: Perspectives from an editor who is blind

© Billy Horsburgh

© An American Editor. Content may not be recirculated, republished or otherwise used without both the prior permission of the publisher and full credit to the author of a given post and the An American Editor blog, including a live link to the post being referenced. Thank you for respecting our rights to and ownership of our work.

Who would have thought a blind person can edit. With the correct tools, knowledge, skills and experience — lot of things are possible.

I haven’t been blind from birth. I used to have perfect vision. Well, near-perfect, anyway. I wore glasses since I was five years old, and it wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I lost my eyesight due to glaucoma. But I did not lose my vision.

I was never a reader, or indeed a writer, until I lost my sight, although my favorite school subject was English and I was often distracted and wrote little stories during lessons when I was supposed to be doing something else. It was only when adaptive technology began to emerge during the late 1990s that I was able to consider reading and writing properly. I liked to write, but I didn’t like to read. However, in later life, I learned that you can’t write if you don’t read. And this is true.

Twenty-three years have passed since I lost my sight. I write regularly now. This would not have been possible without audiobooks and my screenreading software called supernova. Screenreading software has allowed me to write several books, graduate with two degrees and launch my own editing business.

The clients I edit for are more than satisfied with the quality, care and professionalism of my work. Due to my blindness, I must establish a close relationship with anyone I take on board by explaining about my situation. The Royal National Institute of Blind people (RNIB) suggests that it takes a blind person six times longer to carry out a basic task. This is no different when editing. I make sure my client knows this before accepting any editorial work. My clients understand that my turnaround may be a little longer than others but the professionalism will be the same. The price, however, will always be lower.

Because I can’t see the words on the page, I have to rely on my listening skills. Many people think that because you lose your sight, your hearing is heightened. This is not true! You just learn to use it better, and that I do. And I probably have to concentrate more when writing and editing. Once I’ve finished a piece, I read through my work by pushing a button on my keyboard, which allows me to continuously read what I have been working on. This makes me listen closely so I can pick up any additional errors.

I only launched my editing business in mid-July of 2022 and I’m gradually building a portfolio of clients. I haven’t developed a large client base as yet, but the ones I have secured do return to me.

I often find, when I do a readthrough of someone’s work, that I think, “This is well written. How am I supposed to edit this?” However, when I re-visit with fresh eyes, as they say, I pick up on many areas that do need to be re-worked or revised.

Some of my clients don’t see what I see when suggesting edits. For example, when I recently edited for someone, I said, “This paragraph would be better moved here. And this sentence doesn’t flow. It may be better placed here, or not [used] at all.” When editing for another client, I noticed a very different picture: Her stories are about her but when I began to edit, I suggested she restructure her story so it focused on her from the outset, because otherwise, the audience wouldn’t know about her disabilities until many chapters later.

The author may overlook these simple changes.

These are just a couple of examples of how I edit for clients and they are happy with the way I work. They don’t mind if I take that little bit longer due to the nature of my disability. As long as they are getting the service they are looking for, both parties are satisfied.

Because I can’t see facial expressions, I pick up on [tone and meaning] when I edit for other people. I believe my writing and editing skills have improved over the years as I have had to learn to adapt to different methods. I can notice ambiguities and errors in continuity; if there are too many repetitions or too many adverbs; as well as basic spelling, grammar or errors of weak intensifiers.

A blind person can edit. And I am not the only blind editor. I know of another who has regular clients she edits for, and the outcome is the same for her. We have similar university degrees and are both creative writers, but I have a master’s degree in creative writing. Thanks to my two degrees, I have gained the appropriate and correct tools, knowledge, skills and experience to become the professional editor all my clients are happy with.

On the Basics: New resources for freelancers

By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Owner

An American Editor

I’m breaking precedent with a Sunday post to share some professional good news: The updated edition of my “Freelancing 101” booklet for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), featuring new input from EFA Publications chairperson Robin Martin, and the updated new edition of the EFA’s “Resumés for Freelancers” booklet, which I’ve co-authored with original author Sheila Buff, are among the new publications available at the EFA’s new bookstore:
https://shop.aer.io/editorial_freelancers_association_bookstore

Robin deserves a huge round of applause for herding cats (um, authors) and – even more challenging – organizing the new bookstore.

I hope our subscribers find these publications useful. They were a lot of fun to produce and should be – if I say so myself – excellent resources for various aspects of a freelance editorial (not just editing) business.

On the Basics: The power of saying no as a reputation-builder

By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Owner, An American Editor

As editorial professionals, whether in-house or freelance, how do we build our reputations for not only what we do, but how we do it and who we are?

It may seem self-evident that doing good work is the first and most-important element of establishing a reputation of someone worth hiring, recommending, referring or subcontracting with. There’s more to it, though.

How we do business contributes mightily to an editorial professional’s reputation as well. And a huge factor in that process is knowing when, and how, to say no.

Saying no

It might seem odd to think of saying no as a way of establishing or solidifying your professional reputation, but it can work. Saying no to projects or clients means you know what’s right — or wrong — for your editorial business.

It’s hard to say no to a client or project, especially when you’re just starting out or funds are low and you’re worried about how you’ll pay the mortgage or rent, but doing so can be essential to the health of both your editorial business and your reputation. Saying no means you’re standing up for what you need from your business and what you expect from the people you work with or for. It means you have standards for, and limits on, how you do your work, and are willing to enforce them. Having the chutzpah to say no when appropriate gives you power.

Those standards or limits, and how saying no relates to them, can include:

Hours when you’re available — and saying no to requests (or demands) that you work outside those hours.

Type of projects you will accept and work on — and saying no to projects that aren’t right for you.

Rates you will work for — and saying no to rates that are too low.

Deadlines you will accept — and saying no to ridiculous ones that would make you crazy.

Treatment you expect from clients — and saying no to rudeness, unreasonableness, demandingness (is that a word?) and any other behavior that disrespects you as a professional.

Getting the message across

You can use your website to present your policies on these kinds of topics, as well as creating a template for responding to messages so you’re prepared to deal with challenges when they occur instead of feeling as if you’re a deer in the headlights of an unreasonable, confusing or inappropriate request. Here are a few suggestions for relaying your “just say no” message without actually saying no (at least, not upfront).

Posting work hours

The best way to head off client calls or messages at hours when you prefer not to be available is to put your “office hours” at your website (you do have your own website, of course). Many colleagues use their websites to let potential and current clients know that they aren’t available on weekends or outside specific hours.

Some people will still push that envelope, but posting your office hours means you have a way to push back. It’s also possible to set up a form of autoresponse that says something like “Thank you for your inquiry. I will respond at 9 a.m. of the next business day to discuss your project.”

You also can still do work outside those posted hours if and when you want — or need — to do so. That can mean saying no to the client but yes to whatever you have to do for a project or deadline to work in your favor.

Choosing your projects

Many colleagues prefer not to work on projects with content that is erotic, violent, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic or involves some other aspect that might be difficult to read. That’s our right. Some of us also have specific preferences for the genres we want to work on: fiction vs. nonfiction, young adult vs. adult or middle grade, fantasy, sci-fi, memoir, etc. You can make those go/no-go decisions as your business policy, post them at your website and incorporate them into your e-mail template for responding to potential clients. Like posting your office hours, that can say no for you.

Again, some people just don’t read such material and might contact you anyhow with the offer of work you don’t want, for whatever reason. You don’t even have to quote a reason, but it’s immensely helpful to be able to couch your no in terms of “Thank you for your inquiry, but as you can see from my website, I don’t work on projects such as this.”

Standing up for your rates

Most of us start out charging at the lower end of rates or accepting salaries at the low end of the bar for a variety of reasons, from lack of experience to lack of confidence. If you haven’t had any formal training or experience in your corner of the editorial world, are just launching a freelance business, want to try working in a new genre or topic area, or have no way of confirming that you’re good at what you do (or want to do), it makes sense to charge less rather than more. That goes for salary levels when you’re job-hunting in the traditional work world, as well as for freelancing.

Keep in mind that if you under-charge, you run the risk of spending so much time on low-paying projects to generate enough income to pay your bills that you won’t have the time or energy to find better-paying work.

Just be sure to, first of all, research rates through professional organizations and resources (such as Writer’s Market information, the Editorial Freelancers Association chart of common rates, conversations with colleagues, etc.) for a sense of what you might be able to charge based on your training, experience and skills.

Second, look for ways to defend what you want or need to charge. Your rates or salary should reflect that combination of training, experience and skill level with the added factor of what you need to cover your expenses and have something left for fun. An American Editor founder Rich Adin calls this your effective hourly rate: the income you have to generate to live your life on a level that is not just sufficient but rewarding; a rate based on you, not on someone else, whether a colleague or a client.

If you’re low on training, get some. Look to professional associations, college certificate programs and business resources to do two things: improve your knowledge and skills, and bolster your credibility. If you’re low on experience, look for ways to do more editorial work, even if it’s on a volunteer basis or at a starting-out rate. If your skills seem below par, look for volunteer opportunities, whether with a professional association or a charity you believe in, to do the kind of work you’re interested in and build up those skills. You might even look for a mentor who could help you strengthen your overall knowledge and specific areas of weakness.

The more you can show that you’re skilled and qualified, the easier it will be to say no to prospective clients that only pay peanuts.

Practice makes perfect

Because the necessity to say no is going to crop up for all of us, be prepared. Write out a script for how to turn down work that isn’t right for you, rates that don’t respect you, deadlines that are impossible for you to meet, etc. It can be brief. It doesn’t have to go into any detail or offer any excuses for your no. You might also want to create a backup script for the insistent client who doesn’t want to hear your no.

If you think about and plan for these moments beforehand, it will be much easier to stand up for what you want your business and your reputation to represent.

The bottom line

So how do all these aspects of saying no contribute to establishing your reputation?

Steeling yourself to say no when appropriate creates the impression of someone who is confident enough to have standards and stand up for them. Someone who is strong enough to resist pressure to behave in ways that would undermine their success and their ability to continually improve the quality of their editorial business. Someone who is more than reliable and skilled.

If you develop your ability to say no, you will establish your reputation as someone who is not only an editorial professional worth hiring, but one who can’t be scammed, scolded, underpaid or pushed around. That’s a reputation worth having.

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) is an award-winning provider of editorial and publishing services for publications, independent authors, publishers, associations, nonprofits and companies worldwide, and the editor-in-chief and — as of 2019 — owner of An American Editor. She also created and co-hosts the annual Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer”^® conference for colleagues (www.communication-central.com), with the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (www.naiwe.com), sponsored by An American Editor. She can be reached at Ruth@writerruth.com or Ruth.Thaler-Carter@AnAmericanEditor.com.

Navigating that Request for Proofreading When the Work Really Needs Editing

By Richard Bradburn, Guest Writer

As professional editors, we’ve all had them — the inquiry that arrives in your inbox: “I’ve written my first novel and my wife/partner/best friend/dog told me it’s really good. I can’t wait to publish it but I read somewhere that you should always get books proofread first. Can you give me a quote?”

I’ll assume that we agree you need to see the manuscript to give a definitive quote. You let the prospective client know and receive it by return e-mail. You open the manuscript. It begins with a prologue — a 20-page dream sequence set in cursive. Skipping most of that, you start the book proper. There are five chapters of exposition and world-building before the main character is introduced. Skim-reading further, you see evidence of point-of-view fails, pacing issues, generally poor sentence structure and grammar, and atrocious punctuation.

What to do?

The potential client has asked for a proofread, but in your professional opinion, the book is nowhere near ready for proofreading. It needs some serious copyediting and, your editorial hunch is telling you, probably some major structural surgery.

It may be that if you primarily work, even freelance, for publishing companies, you haven’t faced this dilemma. I’d imagine that someone further up the production chain has assessed what help the author needs and sent the book to you for the appropriate editing. However, it’s a common situation for those of us at the sharp end of the fiction universe who are dealing largely with authors who have no prior experience of the publishing industry or the editing process, and little or no realistic concept of how high the bar should be set if you are producing work for sale.

What follows with the client is a rather delicate dance of managing expectation and massaging ego for the author, and securing the right commission for yourself. I’ve developed a … I hesitate to say method, because that smacks of science … a strategy, if you like, for dealing with the issue.

You could just go ahead and proofread the manuscript (for a monstrous fee). It’s what the client has asked for. There are two issues with this.

One is reputational. If you proofread a shockingly poorly written book, there’s always the chance that it will come back to bite you. Asking the author to kindly not mention that you had anything to do with their masterpiece is all very well, and they may not put you in the front matter, but you have no control over what they say about you in the wider world. The book is going to do very badly, the author isn’t going to understand why (“I spent a lot of money on editing!”) and is probably, given their unenlightened attitude to publishing generally, going to look for someone else to blame. That could well be you. The author might have no great expectations, is happy with a few sales, and brags on social media about what a super editor they had. Other potential clients, perhaps with more idea about what a good book should look like, will look it up and … that’s the end of that potential client relationship.

The second problem is that it’s darned hard to proofread a terribly written book. Ask me how I know. It’s extremely slow, very frustrating and, at the end of it, demoralizing because you know that the end product is still going to be awful, no matter how diligently you work away. It’s also very hard to prevent mission creep from turning the proofread into a copyedit, for which you’re not being paid.

What are your options? You can come straight out with it: “This book isn’t ready for proofreading, because of x, y, and z issues. I suggest developmental (“structural”/“line” — whatever your terminology) editing to start, followed by copyediting …” It’s a tough call, but I’d suggest this is a poor way to start this delicate conversation. You’re giving the author lots of negatives. You’re telling them you’re not going to do what they ask. You’re telling them that their book needs substantial revision/rewriting when they thought they were a few weeks away from publishing. You’re telling them that fixing their book is going to be a lot more expensive than they thought, and require much more work on their part. You’re telling them, fundamentally, that they can’t write for <insert suitable expletive>, and that their relationship with you is going to be an intense and ongoing and expensive one, which they may not have been expecting.

You could just say, in as kindly a way as possible, that the book isn’t ready for editing, and the author should attend some writing classes, or join a local (or virtual) critique group and come back when they’ve gotten better at their craft. There are ways to phrase this so the author isn’t too crushed, but how helpful is that advice, really? Unless the author is local to you, you have no way of knowing what local classes the author has access to, whether the author can afford them, and whether those resources are any good.

As a freelancer, another issue is that you’re essentially rejecting this client. The manuscript might be such a horror show turning it down is an agreeable outcome for you, but let’s say that times are tight and you don’t want to flatly turn away any lead. How do you keep them engaged in your process, but start to realign their expectations?

My first step is always the same: Whenever you ask for the manuscript, always ask for a synopsis as well. A synopsis will tell you far more about the client and the book than actually reading their manuscript (that’s why agents and publishers insist on them in submission packages). With very little investment of your time, you can establish whether the client knows anything about novel structure, whether the characters have any discernible arc, and how distinct and cohesive the plot is. Even the very existence of a well-written synopsis tells you a lot about the client and their ambition, because synopses are hard to write. An author who has written one has read up about submission packages, has gone at least a little way down the path of analyzing their work as a reader would, and has put some thought into their character, plot lines, and overall structure.

This client is eminently worth pursuing, because an ambition to learn their craft is the one thing it’s particularly hard to instill remotely. If they have no synopsis and can’t be bothered to write one, my instinct would be to let that client go for the reputational and operational risks mentioned above. Money talks, but it would have to be shouting for me to take on that project. If they have no synopsis now but send one in later, and it’s a dreadful rambling mess, then at least you know where you stand: They are capable of taking instruction, they’re willing to learn, and they might prove to be a valued long-term client.

Armed with this information, you can begin the process of educating that author about how much work is going to be involved in molding their book into publishable material. If you have blog/website resources of your own, you can refer that author to articles you’ve written about plot structure or character arcs. If blogging isn’t your thing, there may be other resources written by editor peers that you can refer your client to (the “Talking Fiction” essays here at An American Editor, about editing fiction, would be a good starting point).

The big difference is that now this author is your client. You’ve established quietly and authoritatively your expert credentials, given them guidance, started them down a long road toward publication. You can send this client off anywhere on the web, but they will keep coming back to you because you are now, without really much effort on your part, their writing coach.

Why bother? Because ultimately you have no idea how far, under your tutelage and encouragement, this author might blossom into a productive, well-trained, and lucrative client.

I have one resource I’d like to offer: my book, Self-editing for Self-publishers. It’s a pretty comprehensive guide to all the major stumbling blocks that novice (and some even not so novice) authors have problems with: plot structure, character issues, point of view problems, etc. It also provides thorough explanations of common punctuation and grammar mistakes. I had never thought of marketing it to editor peers (I doubt there’s anything in it that a good fiction editor wouldn’t know already), but one of them who helped at the beta reading stage pointed out that it’s an ideal tool for exactly this situation. What if you really don’t want to engage in those long-winded e-mail coaching conversations that you may not have the appetite for and that have an uncertain financial payback? Tell your author, “Go buy this book. Work through it. When you’ve finished it, come back to me and we’ll have another look.” It’s the “silver bullet” that could save you an enormous amount of time and effort, and bring you a commission that you really want, rather than are struggling to avoid.

Richard Bradburn runs editorial.ie, a full-service literary consultancy. He’s a Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders in the UK; member of the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers in Ireland; partner member of ALLi; and approved supplier to Publaunch. He writes occasionally for the Irish Times and journals like The Arts and Letters Daily, and regularly talks about writing and editing at conferences in the UK and Europe.

Measuring and Managing for Greater Productivity and Profit

By Jack Lyon

The famous management consultant W. Edwards Deming is often quoted as saying “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Here’s what he actually said: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — a costly myth.” (The New Economics, 35.)

An example of something that can’t always be measured (but can be managed) is the quality of copyediting on a particular manuscript. Two different editors might not always see the same problems or fix them in the same way. So how do you manage your effectiveness as an editor? Is it based on your consistency in styling citations? Does it depend on your knowledge of a manuscript’s subject matter? Could it have to do with the comprehensiveness of your reference library? Copyediting depends on a number of factors that can only be described as subjective.

But unless you’re editing only as a hobby, there is one thing you should definitely be measuring and managing: your income — to be specific, your effective hourly rate. American Editor Rich Adin has written about this at some length (see, for example, “Thinking About Money: What Freelancers Need to Understand” and “Business of Editing: What to Charge”), and you should definitely read and heed his advice about this. You’re probably someone who works mostly with words, so don’t be put off by the math in these articles! It’s really important to understand what Rich is saying.

I know editors who make just enough money to stay above the poverty line; I also know editors who consistently make an income of six figures (yes, really). Would you like to know what makes the difference?

Those in the first group charge by the hour.

Those in the second group charge by the project (or the page, or the word, or even the character).

If you charge $50 an hour for your editing services, the most you can ever make is $50 an hour. But if you charge $5 a page, your hourly income depends on how many pages you can edit during that hour. If you can edit 10 pages, you’ll still make $50 an hour. But if you can edit 20 pages, you’ll make $100 an hour. To do that, you’ll have to be more productive (while still maintaining your usual quality), which means you’ll need the Microsoft Word add-ins I provide at the Editorium, particularly Editor’s ToolKit Plus.

Daniel Heuman’s PerfectIt will add even more to your productivity by automatically ensuring the consistency of your work.

Rich Adin’s EditTools provides a wealth of features created especially for the working editor. I particularly like Never Spell Word and Toggle Word.

To manage your effective hourly rate, though, there’s one thing you really need to measure: how many hours you spend on every project you edit. Now, if only someone would invent some software specifically for editors to track those hours. Well, that’s exactly what Rich Adin has done in his latest version of EditTools.

Rich calls this new feature Time Tracker, and you’ll find it on the left side of the EditTools ribbon:

Time Tracker on EditTools Ribbon

Time Tracker alone is well worth the price of admission, even if you never use any of the other features in EditTools (although you will). I won’t go into all the specifics about how to use Time Tracker, because Rich has already done so in an impressive series of articles at An American Editor called “It’s All About the Benjamins” (the complete 55-page Time Tracker Help file in PDF format is also available for download). And by “Benjamins,” Rich means money — which you should have more of, if you follow his advice and use this new tool.

By keeping careful track of the amount of time you spend and the amount of money you make on each project, you’ll soon be able take advantage of the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle, made popular by our old friend W. Edwards Deming. The Deming Institute defines this cycle as “a systematic process for gaining valuable learning and knowledge for the continual improvement of a product, process, or service.” Making money, for example.

If you keep track of your effective hourly rate (EHR), you’ll be able to answer questions like these:

• What kinds of jobs bring in the most money?
• Which clients actually pay the best overall?
• When during the day am I at my most productive?

Then, using the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle, you can do things like this:

• Focus on the kinds of jobs that bring in the most money, and turn down those that don’t.
• Solicit more work from clients that pay the best, and drop those that don’t.
• Work when you’re at your most productive, and do something else when you’re not.

As you continue to use this cycle of improvement, you should see dramatic improvements over time in your overall income. Others have done it, and you can, too. It’s simply a matter of measuring and managing, using the right tools to improve your productivity and efficiency, and collecting and analyzing the data.

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, Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word, and of Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.

It’s All About the Benjamins! EditTools’ Time Tracker (Part V)

By Richard Adin, Founder, An American Editor

In It’s All About the Benjamins! EditTools’ Time Tracker (Part I), I discussed the importance of collecting data; in Part II, I discussed Time Trackers’ Project Summary; in Part III, I discussed some of the key elements of the Create/Update Project dialog, and in Part IV, a project was created and data to evaluate how the new project was going were created. This final discussion (Part V) focuses on some of the other important features of Time Tracker.

Updating Information

Sometimes things change and we need to change the project information we originally entered. Time Tracker has two different types of information updating.

The first is updating the basic project information itself. To change the original project information, select the project name — not a subpart’s name — and click Update Project (#2), as in the image below.

Updating a project

Clicking Update Project opens the Create/Update Project form for the selected project (see below). Once that form is open, you can modify any of the data. For example, if the client contact information changes, you can replace the outdated information with the new information.

The Update Project form

If instead of updating the general project information, you want to modify already-recorded data (the project details), select the project line if the project has no subparts, or the subpart that you want to modify if the project has subparts, and click Update Details (#A below). Note: The selected project or subpart must have some already-recorded data or Update Details will not be accessible. For example, in the image below, contrast the subpart 01 Bumble Batch 1, which is selected, with the no-subpart project Visions in Freudian Therapy (green highlight). If Visions in Freudian Therapy was selected, Update Details would not be accessible because the project has no already-recorded data to modify.

Selecting the data to be modified

Clicking Update Details (#A above) opens the Update Record (below) where the data modifications are entered.

The Update Record form

The Update Record form shows all of the data entries that are part of the selected subpart (#B) (or project, if there are no subparts). The first entry line (“0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 pages”) was created when the subpart/project was created. That line should be left alone because modifying it will distort your data. The next two lines shown (#B) are the data from the two work sessions that were part of Batch 1 (see Part IV of this series). Because the second work session is selected for modification, the component parts of its data are shown in the modification area (#C).

You can either modify some or all of the data, or leave the information as is. To leave it as is, click Close. Otherwise, modify the data that need modification (see below) and click Update (#D) to make the modifications. In this example, two modifications are being made: the subpart name (“(Preliminary)” is added) and the page count (increased from 17 to 18, which changes the total page count for the batch from 22 to 23, and for the project from 53 to 54).

Modifying work session 2 data

Once Update (#D in above image) is clicked, the modifications are recorded and visible on the Project Summary (green highlight in image below).

• Important: Compare the highlighted numbers for the Effective Hourly Rate (EHR) and Average Pages per Hour (APH) for the project, batch, Year-to-Date (YTD), and Lifetime shown here with the same numbers, before the modification, shown in the previous image of the Project Summary. It is worth noting the effect a one-page change, from 17 to 18 completed pages, has, especially on the EHR.

The modified data displayed on the Project Summary

Other Options: Removing/Reinstating Projects from/to the Project Summary

As time goes by, the number of projects will increase, which, if not removed from the Project Summary, will make it difficult to access current projects. Consequently, Time Tracker lets you remove completed projects from the Project Summary and save them. But removal from the Project Summary doesn’t mean the project dataset is lost.

Completed projects that have been removed from the Project Summary can be accessed using the History button (see image above).

To remove a completed project from the Project Summary, select the project, not a project subpart, to make the Remove From List button accessible. Then click Remove From List.

• Caution: If a subpart is marked completed but there are still open subparts for the project, selecting the completed subpart and clicking Remove From List removes the entire project, not just the completed subpart. If that happens, go to the History and reinstate the project.

A removed project can be reinstated in the Project Summary via the History button. In addition, a completed project, once reinstated in the Project Summary, can be reopened via the Reopen button.

For more-detailed information about removing and reinstating projects, as well as reopening projects, see the Time Tracker Help file.

Other Options: Archives

Part IV of this essay series discussed Time Tracker’s autosave feature. However, there is another part of the autosave feature that was not discussed in Part IV: autosaving of the Time Tracker data.

Time Tracker’s Archive is a temporary backup of project data in the event that something happens while you are working on the project. (It is called “temporary” because only 10 datasets are saved; when the 11th save occurs, the oldest dataset is automatically deleted, leaving 10 available saved datasets. When a project is completed, the saved “temporary” datasets — up to 10 — remain available.

One other item to note: Unlike Word’s temporary files, these datasets do not use the .tmp extension. For more detailed information about Archive files, see the Time Tracker Help file. Should data become corrupted or lost from an unexpected event like a document crash, the Archive file can give you the data from the time of your last (up to 10) timing stop. Every time you stop Time Tracker, it creates an Archive file. The problem is that the archive is created only when you stop timing. Consequently, if you last stopped timing two hours ago and Word crashes, in addition to having lost some of your work, you will have lost the time calculation that occurred between the last stop and the crash.

The Archives, however, prevent a total loss of data and can tell you when the last stop occurred, so you can calculate how much time passed between the last stop and the crash event. To protect against total data loss, you can access up to the last 10 data saves; when the 11th save occurs, the oldest save is deleted.

For more-detailed information about the archiving feature, see the Time Tracker Help file.

A Final Word

Time Tracker is probably the most-valuable macro an editor can have and use. Truthfully, I wish I had it when I started my editing career 35 years ago. The data that Time Tracker tracks are the data I have tracked over those years, because for me, there was nothing more important than being sure I was making a profit.

I had a family to support, retirement to plan for, health insurance to buy, a mortgage to pay, children heading to college, insurances and taxes to pay, and the list goes on. It made no sense to work at something that couldn’t support me and my family, no matter how much I enjoyed my work and no matter how good I was at it. Family brings on more paramount concerns and obligations, making knowledge about how my business was doing essential.

Having been in other businesses before becoming an editor, I was aware that it is easy to be fooled into living paycheck to paycheck, just getting by, and not really earning a living wage. As the years passed and the editorial business changed (when I began, it was the publisher who directly hired you, not a low-priced, third-party, offshore company), the compensation battle became more difficult. As people lost jobs or couldn’t find work, more people offered editorial services (“I love to read and easily found spelling errors in XYZ book, so perhaps I should be an editor!”), so competition increased. All of this and more made keeping and interpreting data ever more important.

Properly used, Time Tracker will help you track how you are doing so you know whether you can continue as you are or need to find ways to become more productive and efficient so you can increase your Effective Hourly Rate (EHR). Time Tracker will help you prepare better bids based on past similar projects and determine whether current clients are desirable clients.

In addition, Time Tracker data, combined with knowing your required EHR (rEHR), will help you determine what to charge. For example, if your rEHR is $30 but your average EHR (i.e., over multiple projects — the YTD and Lifetime calculations) is $25, you know that you need to either increase your rate or find a way to be more efficient and productive so that the YTD and Lifetime EHRs exceed $30.

Finally, Time Tracker data can help you ascertain which method of setting a fee works best for you over multiple projects (see my AAE essay, “The Rule of Three”), as well as which types of projects (e.g., fiction or nonfiction, fantasy or romance, biography or medical, short or long documents) and services (e.g., copyediting, proofreading, developmental editing, indexing) generate the most work, income, and profit.

The complete and detailed Time Tracker Help file is available for download from wordsnSync.

Richard (Rich) Adin is the founder of the An American Editor blog, author of The Business of Editing, owner of wordsnSync, and creator/owner of EditTools.

PerfectIt Now Offers Long-awaited Mac Version — 10 Questions Editors are Asking about PerfectIt Cloud

Daniel Heuman

This one actually goes to 11!

1. What is the fuss about?

Up until now, PerfectIt has only been available for PC users. With PerfectIt Cloud, Mac and iPad users can finally run it. That matters because PerfectIt speeds up mundane and distracting copyediting work so you can focus on substantive editing. It finds consistency errors and other difficult-to-locate errors that even the most eagle-eyed editor can sometimes miss. When time is limited (and it is always limited if editing is your business), PerfectIt gives you the assurance that you’re delivering the best text you possibly can.

2. Why would I spend money on PerfectIt when I can find every mistake that it can on my own?

Because PerfectIt will save you time and back up your skills. It’s true that every single mistake that PerfectIt finds can be found manually. You can make sure that every use of hyphenation, capitalization and italics is consistent. You can make sure every abbreviation is defined and that the definition appears on first use. You can check every list to make sure it is punctuated and capitalized consistently. You can make sure every table, box and figure is labeled in the right order. You can check that every heading is capitalized according to the same rules as every other heading at that level, or you can get software to find those mistakes faster so you can do the work that no software can do: improve the words used and the meaning communicated. That software is PerfectIt.

3. How much time does PerfectIt really save?

The time saving depends on how you edit. Editors who read through a text multiple times will find that they don’t need to read through as many times. That time saving is massive. Other editors find that they spend the same amount of time as they used to, but they deliver a better document.

4. Does PerfectIt work with fiction or nonfiction projects?

PerfectIt can be used on works of both fiction and nonfiction. It’s used on reports, proposals, articles, books, novels, briefs, memos, agreements, and more.

5. Does PerfectIt work with British, Canadian, Australian, or American English?

PerfectIt is international. It works with all of the above. It is primarily a consistency checker, so it won’t duplicate the functions of a spelling checker. Instead, it will spot inconsistencies in language — it won’t suggest that either “organize”’ or “organize” is wrong, but if they appear in the same document, it will suggest that’s probably a mistake.

PerfectIt also comes with built-in styles for UK, US, Canadian, and Australian spelling, so you can switch it to enforce preferences.

6. What do I need to run PerfectIt?

PerfectIt is intuitive and easy to use. It doesn’t require any training. You can see how it works in our demo video. To run PerfectIt Cloud, you just need a Mac, PC, or iPad with Office 2016 and an Internet connection.

7. When should I run PerfectIt?

The majority of editors run PerfectIt as a final check because it acts as a second set of eyes, finding anything that slipped by on a full read-through. Running it at the end of a project also acts as a check against the editor to make sure that no consistency mistakes are introduced during the edit (an easy but terrible mistake to make).

Some editors prefer to run PerfectIt at the beginning of an assignment. That clears up a lot of timewasting edits at the outset. It also helps the editor get a quick feel for the document, what kind of state it’s in, and what issues to look out for.

Everyone works their own way, and some editors find it’s even best to run PerfectIt both at the start and the end of a manuscript.

8. How much is it?

PerfectIt Cloud costs $70 per year. However, members of professional editing societies around the world can purchase at the discounted rate of $49 per year. Independent editors are the foundation of this business. Their feedback and support has driven the product and we hope the permanently discounted rate makes clear how important that is to us.

That price includes all upgrades and support, and it lets you run PerfectIt on multiple devices, so you can run it on both your main computer and iPad with one license.

9. I have the PC version — should I upgrade?

If your main computer is a PC and you already have PerfectIt, then we are not encouraging you to upgrade. In fact, even though PerfectIt Cloud looks a lot nicer and is easier to use, it doesn’t yet have some of the features that the PC version has. For example, it has built-in styles (such as American Legal Style), but it does not have options for customizing styles. It also doesn’t have the ability to check footnotes. We’re working to improve all of those aspects, but we are dependent on Microsoft for some changes. As a result, it will take time to give PerfectIt Cloud all of the features that the PC version has. Our first priority is PerfectIt 4 (due at the end of this year), which will bring a variety of new features to both versions.

That said, if your main computer is a Mac and you only have a Windows machine to run PerfectIt, then it is probably worth upgrading. The differences are relatively small compared to the pain of maintaining a separate computer.

10. I have to upgrade Office to use PerfectIt. Should I get the subscription or single purchase?

Get the subscription. Definitely get the subscription! Not only is it cheaper, but Office 2019 will arrive this fall. If you have the subscription, that upgrade is included.

11. It’s a first release, so is the software still buggy?

We’ve been beta testing PerfectIt Cloud for more than six months with editors from around the world, so it is tested and solid, and the number of bugs is minimal. The probability is that you won’t find any bugs at all. However, no amount of beta testing can fully prepare software for the real world, and there are a few things we still want to improve, so if you purchase before July 10, 2018, your entire first month is free while we put finishing touches on the product and eliminate the remaining bugs. To take advantage of the special offer, click this link.

Daniel Heuman is the creator of PerfectIt and the CEO and founder of Intelligent Editing. His software is used by thousands of editors around the world. Members of professional editing societies can get a 30% discount on PerfectIt here.

The Business of Editing: The Line in the Sand

Richard Adin, An American Editor

As I have gotten older, I have found that things in life have reversed, by which I mean that things that once irritated me no longer irritate me and things that didn’t irritate me now do irritate me. Yet there are a couple of things that irritated me when I began my editing career that continue to irritate me today, although today’s irritation level is more strident.

One example of a continuing irritation we have already discussed on An American Editor — the question that both inexperienced and experienced editors never seem to get tired of asking, even though they have been told hundreds, if not thousands, of times that there is no such thing: What is the going rate? (For that discussion, see A Continuing Frustration — The “Going Rate”.) Today’s irritant is the fast-schedule-but-low-pay project offer, which also has been previously discussed on AAE in, for example, Business of Editing: Schedules and Client Expectations, Business of Editing: Workdays & Schedules, and The Business of Editing: The Standard Editing Workday & Workweek.

What brings this back to the forefront is that this month I have already declined four offered projects that combined amounted to 11,000 manuscript pages (which, of course, raises another issue, what constitutes a manuscript page, a topic previously visited on AAE; see, e.g., The Business of Editing: A Page Is a Page — Or Is It? and The Business of Editing: How Many Pages an Hour Do You Edit?). I declined the projects because I am already under contract to edit two books by the end of April that combined run a bit more than 19,000 manuscript pages.

I would have declined the four offered projects even if I were twiddling my thumbs and staring at an empty work basket because the pay rates were abysmal and the schedules Orwellian.

Consider just one of the projects. The client’s estimate was that the number of manuscript pages was 2,500. Based on past experience with this client, I know that the true number of pages (by “true,” I mean as calculated using my formula, not their formula) would raise that number by at least 25% and more likely closer to 35%. The size is fine; in fact, it is my preferred project size — bigger is better — since I do not like to tackle small projects (less than 1,000 manuscript pages), even though I occasionally will (most of the projects I take on run 1,500+ manuscript pages and many run 7,500 to 15,000 manuscript pages).

The client’s schedule was Orwellian: two weeks to complete copyediting. The schedule was matched by the abysmal rate offered: $2.60 per manuscript page. And, according to the client, the manuscript required heavy editing, which in the client’s parlance meant none of the authors’ primary language was English. (The subject matter was medical.)

Unlike some editors who have imaginary lines that they draw and claim they will not (but always do) cross, my lines are like those of the Great Wall — in stone, permanent, immovable, and I will not cross them. I told the client that I was declining the project because the schedule was Orwellian and the pay abysmal. For me to take on the project, the shortest possible schedule would be based on editing 400 manuscript pages per week with the count done using my formula and a rate of $15 per page. The more reasonable the schedule, the lower my per-page rate would become until we hit my absolute minimum, which was still higher than their offered rate.

My two uncrossable lines are these:

1. The schedule must be doable in the real world, not a fantasy world.
2. The compensation rate must correlate with both the schedule and the expected editing difficulties (i.e., does the client rate this as a light, medium, or heavy edit and what do those terms mean in the client’s parlance).

I know how fast I can edit because for 34 years, I have mostly edited manuscripts from the same subject area and I have kept careful records. In addition, I have created tools, like my EditTools macros, and use tools created by others, like Jack Lyon’s Editor’s Toolkit Plus, that are specially designed to make my work more accurate, efficient, and speedy.

I know how much I need to charge for my editing work because I have calculated my required effective hourly rate (also discussed in prior AAE essays in detail; see the series Business of Editing: What to Charge) and I know how much I want to charge for my work so  I make a profit, not just break even. And I know how much of a premium I require to be willing to work longer hours than my standard workday and workweek (see The Business of Editing: The Standard Editing Workday & Workweek for a discussion of work time).

The point is that if I cross those lines I have drawn, I hurt myself. Why would I ever want to hurt myself? In the olden days, before I knew better and before anyone with experience set me on the correct path, I thought if I accepted a project that was on a tight schedule with low pay, it would get me an in at the company, get me more work, and give me a chance to show how good an editor I am, with the result being that the company would offer me better-paying projects to keep me as part of their editorial stable. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the only fool in that scenario was me.

Sure, I got more work offers, but never at a better rate nor on a better schedule. As one project manager told me, I had already demonstrated I could handle the schedule and was willing to work for the offered rate, so that is all I would ever get.

I drew my lines and I never cross them.

I know that some of you are shaking your head and saying that you can’t afford to do that. I did the same until I realized I was always behind and never moving ahead — I was enriching my “clients” at my expense. Once I took my stand, I found that I was getting better projects and better pay — not starting the next day, but starting in the not very distant future.

Successful editors are successful businesspersons, too. Successful businesspersons do not do things that benefit others at their expense. They draw lines that they do not ever cross. I have drawn mine; are you ready to draw yours?

The Business of Editing: Explaining the Price of Editing

Richard Adin, An American Editor

The hardest thing to do is to explain to a client why she should be willing to pay the price you are asking for the work she wants done. It is even harder to explain to a publisher/packager client why their offer is too low and why they should pay you more.

Ultimately, the reason for the difficulty is that we have no concrete way to demonstrate the value of quality editing. Based on conversations I’ve had with colleagues, I’m not convinced that most colleagues truly understand the value of their work.

Sure we all know that editing can improve a manuscript, and some clients not only know that but believe it. Too many colleagues and far too many clients (which includes potential clients), however, are of the mindset that only price matters because anybody who can spot the typo is a “great” editor.

There is at least a partial solution to the explanation problem, and it is something that every author and editor, regardless of where in the world they are from, is likely familiar with — Star Wars: A New Hope, the original Star Wars movie. The video that follows tells how this iconic story was headed for disaster but was saved by great editing, which resulted in a multibillion dollar empire:

(A special thanks to Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader for bringing this video to my attention.)

The video should be watched from beginning to end by editors and authors alike because it shows the value of high-quality editing. More importantly, it illustrates why making price more important than editing quality is putting the cart before the horse.

Carefully consider what the editor did to bring logical flow and interest to a story that was understood by the author but was garbled in the transformation from author’s imagination to movie. Exactly what occurred in the editing of Star Wars: A New Hope is what occurs when a well-qualified editor applies his skills to a manuscript.

Imagine if George Lucas had limited his editor search criteria to least-expensive editor, rather than setting his criteria to find the editor best-suited for the task and price demoted to a secondary consideration. The Star Wars franchise likely would never have been and Star Wars would have remained a fantasy in his imagination rather than a fantasy shared by millions across the globe.

Complicating the problem for editors is that every person who has identified a typo on a printed page thinks she is a skilled editor, thereby creating an endless supply of “editors” from which a client can choose. Compounding the oversupply problem is that few editors have any understanding of how to value their work and set a price. Too many editors charge too low a price for high-quality editing, largely because they either have no clue as to what they truly need to charge or what they should charge so that clients view editing as a desirable, needed, skilled service. The consequence is that the editing profession as a whole suffers from oversupply and underpayment.

Editors need to rethink how they approach their profession. They need to show clients that there is a measurable difference between an editor of low skills and and an editor of high skills and that high-skilled editors both deserve and require fees commensurate with their skill level. In addition, highly skilled editors need to refuse work from clients who refuse to recognize that they are highly skilled and thus worthy of higher pay. It strikes me as wholly unacceptable for a client to insist on paying an editor with decades of experience editing hundreds of manuscripts in the subject area the client seeks the same amount as the editor with a year or two of experience with little to no subject matter expertise or experience. It also strikes me as wrong for the experienced editor to grumble about the low pay yet accept the job.

I recognize that few editors are willing to turn away low-paying work, preferring some work to no work. In that case, however, the editor needs to adjust the level of editing quality to match the level of pay. An editor being paid a Yugo fee should not give Rolls Royce quality editing in return.

I encourage colleagues to prepare a “pitch” for the value of high-quality editing, including an explanation as to why smart clients will pay for that level of editing. The “pitch” could (perhaps should) include a video, similar to the Star Wars one above, that illustrates how high-quality editing can be the difference between disaster and hit, and include an explanation of not only how you can provide that high-quality editing but why you are worth the higher price you are asking. Creating a marketing pitch can be a key step on the path to better pay, better job offers, and better clients.

Do you have a pitch to share? Or a video that you use to explain the value of editing?