On the Basics: Tips for starting the new year off right

© Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Owner

An American Editor

Hard to believe — but a relief for many of us — that 2022 is over! I have a few random thoughts for a strong start to 2023, some of which are updates of similar past posts.

The new year means an opportunity to revise or improve some of our work habits to make our lives easier and more efficient. Here are some things to do in the first few days of 2023 that should make your work and personal life better.

• Update or change passwords for all accounts — banking, blogs, social media, associations, subscriptions; anything and everything, but especially anything related to finances and personal security.

• Remind clients to update the year in their document templates, website copyright statements and any other elements that might now be out of date — and do that for your own materials, website, etc.

• Review the style guide(s) that you use and check for any updates, revisions, additions and other changes that might affect this year’s work for current and new clients. If you don’t already subscribe to the online versions of the ones you use, do it now.

• Establish or refresh a connection with a family member, friend or colleague to back up passwords and access to phone, e-mail, social media, banking and other important accounts — your own and theirs — just in case. Think of it like giving a key to a neighbor or building super so you can be found/reached in an emergency.

Business resolutions

The new year offers the opportunity to learn new things and do things in new ways. Here are a few suggestions.

• Instead of relying on the luck of clients finding you, make an effort to seek new clients on a regular basis, through cold queries, responding to membership association opportunities, social media resources, updating (or creating) your website, etc. This is especially important for colleagues with only one major “anchor” client.

• Find a way to be visible in at least one professional membership organization or social media group to enhance your credibility and expand your networking activity. Even I do that, and I’ve been crowned the Queen of Networking! If you already belong to an association, look for a new one to join as well.

• Learn a new skill, something new about the topic area of a client or an entirely new topic to write about, edit, proofread, index, photograph, illustrate or otherwise work on to expand your career or business.

• Draft a few potential posts to use for your own blog, if you have one, or as a guest on colleagues’ blogs. Having drafts in hand makes it easier to get ahead of deadlines and actually publish new articles.

• Look for new projects or services to offer to existing clients.

• If you have regular editing or proofreading clients who haven’t gotten the memo yet about only needing one space between sentences, or have other writing habits that appear in every document and are easy for them to change, consider doing a “Welcome to the new year” note suggesting that they incorporate such things in their drafts before sending anything to you. Emphasize that doing so will cut down at least a bit on the time you need to handle their requests, as well as free you up to concentrate on more substantive aspects of their projects. Whether this will work depends, of course, on the nature of your relationship with those clients and won’t work for all of them, but could be a relief as you work with those who would be amenable to such suggestions.

• Save toward retirement!

• U.S. colleagues might not have to file taxes until April 15, but getting going early on this nerve-racking task is always a good idea. Among the many resources for end-of-year tax planning are the Freelancers Union blog and ones from experts such as my own invaluable tax person, Janice Roberg (https://robergtaxsolutions.com/st-louis-tax-expert-jan-roberg/). Two useful tips: There’s a relatively new simplified process for deducting a home office, and if you delay invoicing from December until January, it’s easier to manage those late-year payments that reach you in January with a December date and/or for December work.

• Start or return to non-editorial creative projects to give yourself the occasional “brain break” and a way to refuel — write poetry or short fiction, make something crafty or artistic, even just spend time at a museum or art gallery (or library/bookstore).

Perks of the new year

• I’m clearing out some of my bookshelves again. I’m donating half of every January 2023 sale of my short story, “Sometimes You Save the Cat …,” to the Humane Society of Missouri. Contact me at Ruth@writerruth.com for information about getting your copy (the print version is $10, including postage/shipping, and the PDF is $5).

I’m also offering my “Get Paid to Write! Getting Started as a Freelance Writer” booklet at $5 off the usual $20 price through January. Again, contact me by e-mail for details.

What are your new year’s plans and aspirations?

On the Basics: Preparing for the new year

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Owner

An American Editor

It’s the first day of the new year (thank goodness!), and that means it’s time to put together a plan for the new year if you haven’t already done so. With New Year’s Day falling on a Friday, we have a whole weekend to use for launching the new year on a positive note. Here are a few suggestions for projects to consider.

• Review, refresh and expand your website (or create one!). Look for ways to make the text more active and interesting; add information about recent achievements, such as new clients/projects, awards, etc.; replace long-used images with new ones; add new pages if appropriate, etc. Consider asking a colleague to assess the site to make sure it’s helping your visibility through accurate language and effective search engine optimization (SEO) and keywords; it might be worth paying a professional for an SEO assessment.

• Review and update your résumé. You might not always need it, but it’s worth having a current version on hand in case you do. You don’t want to throw something together in a rush to respond to a request; that’s a guarantee of making embarrassing mistakes. Again, this is where swapping services with a colleague might be a good idea. For the aspiring and current freelancers among us, it also might be worth consulting the new (2020) edition of the Editorial Freelancers Association booklet, “Resumés for Freelancers: Make Your Resumé an Effective Marketing Tool … and More!” (Disclaimer: I’m the co-author — but I don’t profit from sales.)

• Set goals for the new year. These can be basic: Earn more money, find new clients, join new organizations or take on new roles in ones you already belong to, create new promotional/marketing material, expand visibility in social media, be more organized, stay ahead of filing and record-keeping, etc. (Once you’ve thought about them, these goals can be the basis of a formal business plan; especially useful for those thinking about launching a freelance business.)

• Review what you’ve gained from and contributed to professional memberships. There might be organizations that are a better fit for where you are in your current job or freelance business, and ones you belong to that haven’t been as useful as you had hoped. Be patient, because some memberships take awhile to generate income, but make sure that your investment in professional associations is paying off. Ask colleagues which associations have been the most-useful and -profitable for them, and why or how.

• Think about ways to be more visible. Consider writing a book or booklet, especially if you do speaking engagements (even online ones; having a publication to sell or promote at such events can be very profitable); look for ways to become a presenter or trainer (again, even in virtual environments); find new places to contribute comments and guest posts; update your LinkedIn profile; start your own blog; use visual media such as podcasting and videos; partner with a colleague to swap referrals or work on bigger (or new types of) projects together than either of you can handle alone; be more active in associations of colleagues — and potential clients. The more you show up, the stronger your professional image and credibility, and the easier it will be for prospective employers or clients to find, and hire, you.

• If you’re freelancing, increase your rates! Let current clients know that will happen in January and stick to it. If a valued client objects, you can always “grandfather in” existing ones at their current rates — as long as you feel they’re worth it.

Whatever you choose to do in this important new year, here’s to success and fulfillment for all of us. Feel free to share your plans, goals and questions for the year. 

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), which helps independent authors produce and publisher their books. She can be reached at Ruth@writerruth.com or Ruth.Thaler-Carter@AnAmericanEditor.com.

A new year brings new ventures

By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Here we are in early February and I’m just now wishing all of you a successful new year in 2019. I’d blame my new cat, but it really isn’t her fault, adorably distracting though she has been. I could blame the gratifying flow of new work I’ve been handling, but that isn’t a very good excuse. I’ll just say mea culpa, happy new year and I’ll be better at posting for you from this point onward.

Our big news is that An American Editor founder Rich Adin has done me the honor of handing off ownership of the blog to me. (This new level of responsibility should give me the necessary push to post more often and more regularly!) It has taken a few weeks to get all the business aspects and new contact details organized, but it looks like everything is all set. Rich will continue to contribute articles on occasion, so we won’t lose access to his experience and insights, which continue to be valuable to colleagues at all levels of editorial work.

This is also a good moment to let all of you know that Communication Central’s 2019 “Be a Better Freelancer”^® conference, “Gateway to Success,” will be co-sponsored by the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE), and will be held from October 11–13 in the “Gateway City,” St. Louis, MO. This will be the 14^th annual conference for Communication Central, now based in St. Louis, and the first such event for NAIWE, now under the skilled leadership of April Michelle Davis. The central location and NAIWE partnership should mean that more colleagues can attend to benefit from networking together and learning from each other. I’ve been wanting to try a Midwest USA location for a while, and am looking forward to welcoming colleagues to my new hometown.

AAE subscribers will again have access to a special discount on conference registration (details to come shortly). We are putting the program and speakers together and may open registration even before the program is fully in place.

Again, may this new year be one of success, prosperity and personal fulfillment to all of our subscribers. Let us know if you have any specific questions or concerns about your editing life, and we’ll do our best to help you deal with them.

A New Year — and a New Era for An American Editor

By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Happy new year to all subscribers and contributors to An American Editor! As most of you know, blog founder Rich Adin has done me the great honor of handing off “editorship” of An American Editor. I’m both thrilled and intimidated by this responsibility — Rich created big shoes to fill, so to speak. The response to our announcements of this change from colleagues has been downright heart-warming, and I appreciate all of your generous comments in various forums. I hope to live up to his — and all of your — confidence in me.

While Rich and I have been editing professionally for almost the same amount of time, we work on very different kinds of projects, so my take on this profession will be unlike his. He routinely works on huge projects, usually in the medical field; even one of my biggest projects would probably make only a chapter in one of Rich’s usual manuscripts. He also functions as a company, with people who work for him, while I’m happily a sole proprietor, occasionally working with colleagues but mostly on my own. However, we share similar opinions about many aspects of editing today. We both care about quality and excellence, and are concerned about consolidation in publishing, outsourcing, and professionalism in the field. We notice many of the same things about how editors approach their work, how independent editors manage their businesses, and what clients expect or demand from editors at all levels.

Rich is also far more technologically and technically ept than I will ever be, but I’ll do my best to enhance my skills in that area on behalf of our subscribers.

Because I’m new to blogging on my own, I probably will not post quite as often as Rich has been doing, so please do not be concerned or disappointed if it takes awhile for me to work up to a three-posts/week schedule.

I’m glad to report that several of our columnists still plan to be involved with An American Editor and continue to share their perspectives on editing: Jack Lyon, of macro fame; Carolyn Haley, fiction editor (and author; a double threat!); and AElfwine Mischler, indexer (who also covers working in Arabic). We are open to new columns, either occasional or regular ones, from new contributors. If you would like to contribute essays to An American Editor, contact me with your ideas at Ruth.Thaler-Carter@anamericaneditor.com.

No one (including me) gets paid, so all posts you see here or would consider writing are labors of love — love of our profession, of quality, and — if this doesn’t seem too touchy-feely — of colleagues.

If there are topics you would like to see addressed here, please feel free to let me know at Ruth.Thaler-Carter@anamericaneditor.com.

Again, my thanks to all of you for your support of An American Editor to date, and from this point onward. Here’s wishing a productive and profitable new year for all.

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, which hosts an annual conference for colleagues, and the new editor-in-chief of An American Editor.