Editing Scholarly Works

Copyediting newsletter is offering you the chance to learn from the best about editing scholarly publications.

As newsrooms downsize and corporate publishing units consolidate, the scholarly sector of the publishing industry is looking newly attractive to editors. Copyeditors who have the education, training, and skills to succeed in scholarly publishing report high levels of job satisfaction. But is scholarly copyediting right for you? How different is it from what you are used to? How do you break in? If you're already in, how can you improve your skills and expand your client roster?

Find out on Thursday, July 23, when Copyediting will host "How to Copyedit Scholarly Publications," a 90-minute interactive audio conference led by the Amy Einsohn, author of The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, second edition, the book that has helped many copyeditors get started. She has worked as a freelance writer and copyeditor for more than 25 years and has taught courses in copyediting, developmental editing, and grammar. She earned a B.A. and an M.A. in comparative literature from the University of Michigan and a C.Phil. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Go here for more details and to register for the conference.


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Disappointment

O Cruel Asian Spammers!
Your e-mails in lovely kanji, hiragana, and Hangul
Briefly fool me into thinking
That you might be
A new ESL editing client.


(Public-domain illustration of handwritten kanji from Wikipedia)



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Breaking News

July 10 will be the first annual Freelancers, Put on Your Pants Day.

What? You thought that we all wore business suits every day?


Updated at 12:27 p.m., 7/10/09: Before anybody goes all serious on me and thinks that I think freelancers are really just laid-off job holders or underemployed professionals who accidentally fell into freelancing—as some people on e-mail lists apparently believe that I think by virtue of my having posted the above link—I will explain:

Hey ... I'm a freelancer myself. No, I don't like it when people equate freelance with unemployed or underemployed. I consciously made the decision to freelance full time 14 years ago and am most often overbooked. I'm not moping around for lack of work.

But I had to laugh when I saw the post at the above link. I have lately been guilty of working while wearing a deep-purple nightshirt and fake leopard-skin slippers.

I sit down, still wearing my nightshirt, to eat breakfast but then get caught up in reading and answering the morning's e-mail and essential blog posts and tweets. I progress to doing project estimates or invoices, having finished my breakfast, but notice I'm still wearing my nightshirt. I intend to go get dressed for the day. I get back into the estimates, answer more e-mail messages, and begin doing "just a little" editing. Two hours later, I look down and notice that I'm still in my nightshirt. Work is just so engrossing that lately, taking time out to get dressed first thing in the morning seems like a time-waster. ;-)

By the way, it's now after midnight and I'm dressed in a T-shirt and shorts ... yet I'm still rebelliously wearing those fake leopard-skin slippers from yesterday morning.


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Marketing Tips for Freelancers

These are the marketing tips for freelancers that I posted to Twitter throughout May and June 2009. Please keep in mind that each one, including labels that don't appear here, had to be 140 characters and spaces or fewer. When I wrote them, I had freelance copyeditors in mind, but I believe that most of them will work for freelancers of any kind. Use them and prosper:

1. Network. Join & participate in professional associations and e-mail lists.



2. Post resume everywhere you can, such as the EFA'S directory: http://tinyurl.com/lo256q.



3. Hand out business cards absolutely everywhere. You never know who'll need your services.



4. Be helpful to colleagues. It's fun & can also get you referrals from grateful associates.



5. Maintain a professional-looking Web site. It's your calling card on the Internet.



6. Keep in contact w/ clients. The one whom clients remember is the one who gets the gigs.



7. Advertise judiciously. I'm med editor & have ad on CSE site; http://tinyurl.com/ncmt38.



8. Send small thank-you gifts to clients so they have something tactile to remember you by.



9. Put your name & contact info on everything: mss., style sheets, invoices, e-mails ...



10. Always be on lookout for new clients: mentioned on e-mail lists, in news, online ...



11. During both feast & famine, schedule time each week to contact potential clients.



12. Approach clients—current & potential—from perspective of their needs, not yours.



13. Buy "Freelancing 101: Launching Your Editorial Business": http://tinyurl.com/ov2pag.



14. Buy "Getting Started as a Freelance Copyeditor": http://tinyurl.com/lfkhte.



15. Use the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base: http://www.kokedit.com/library.shtml, 1st 7 links.



16. CDs on editing: here & here. Buy them here.



17. Don't look like an employee: Résumés for Freelancers; http://tinyurl.com/pvngn6.



18. What to Charge: Pricing Strategies for Freelancers and Consultants. http://url.ie/1ozz.



19. Search online to learn who publishes materials you want to edit. E-mail those pubs.



20. Find potential clients by looking thru ref work Literary Market Place at library.



21. Improve marketability by honing your skills—learn from books: http://url.ie/1p4s.



22. Improve marketability by honing your skills—take classes: http://url.ie/1p4u.



23. Actively give & take on editing e-mail lists to build contacts: http://url.ie/1p8w.



24. Monitor publishing job listings; where there are jobs, there are freelance gigs.



25. Publishing job listings to watch: http://url.ie/1pac, http://url.ie/1pad, http://url.ie/1paf.



26. More publishing job listings to watch: http://url.ie/1pag, http://url.ie/1pah.



27. Use Twitter Job Finder to find freelance gigs: http://twitterjobfinder.com/.
    
    
28. Set up a profile at LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/, & share your expertise.



29. Contact former employers about the possibility of freelancing for them.



30. See feature story on co. that’s doing well? Contact them re need for editors.



31. Don't limit the hunt for clients to your geographic area. The Internet is your friend.



32. Snail-mail small periodic newsletter to clients so they have tangible reminder of you.



33. Snail-mail "Happy New Year" cards to your clients, thanking them for their business.



34. Don't wait till your current gig is done to look for more work; contact clients now.



35. Keep up with clients as they move from job to job, & they'll take you with them.



36. Do pro bono editing for a charity? Request a credit line in the published work.



37. Sign with temp agencies that handle editors. Gigs may lead to good contacts.



38. Join networking groups and tell them what you do. Be an active member.



39. Treat all clients with the utmost respect and expect the same in return.



40. Make sure authors know you're on their side. Query respectfully & give compliments.



41. Booked up & have to turn down a gig? Thank the client for the offer & check back soon.



42. Referring a client to trusted colleague when you're booked up helps client and you.



43. It's exciting to land new clients, but don't let old clients feel taken for granted.



44. Ask what you can do for clients. Never: "Got work for me?" Focus on clients' needs.



45. Notify clients about your upcoming vacation. Some will offer projects for afterward.



46. Never complain about your clients on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, or e-mail lists.



47. Seek work from an attitude of abundance. Desperation rarely attracts project offers.



48. When clients praise your work, get written permission to quote them on your web site.



49. You’re an independent contractor. Don't just accept "This is what we pay." Negotiate!



50. Clear, frank communication during projects heads off problems and pleases clients.



51. If you make a mistake, be professional: own up, apologize, fix it, move on.



52. Get project parameters before accepting a project, so you can set an accurate fee.



53. Put this in all your contracts: If project scope increases midway, your fee goes up.



54. Specify payment terms in all of your contracts, for your protection and clients'.



55. A client contract can consist of your e-mails to and from client regarding a project.



56. If you want offered gig but you're booked, ask client if there's schedule wiggle room.



57. Don't keep accepting projects from a client who hasn't paid your invoices on time.



58. Clients fold and contacts leave. Ensure your income by cultivating multiple clients.



59. Protect your income. Vet new clients—research their payment history with freelancers.



60. It may be comfy w/ just 1 client, but IRS may call you an employee. Get more clients.



61. Never assume; get client's approval on overall style points early in project.



62. Secret to keeping clients? Always do your best work. Don't get lazy.



63. Get off feast-or-famine roller coaster: spend time each week marketing your services.



64. Thank colleagues for referrals w/ thank-you notes, small gifts, reciprocal referrals.



65. "Businesslike" doesn't equal "humorless stiff." Be professional but be yourself.



66. Avoid dry spells by having more than one project at a time, each in different stage.



67. Remember—the author is the subject-matter expert; you're the editorial expert.

Can you think of additional tips? Let me know.


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Definition

Summertime: when working parents must remember it's not really their children's life goal to slowly drive them mad.


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You Say "Copy Editor"; I Say "Copyeditor"

Here's your chance to weigh in on whether the term should be copy editor (two words), copy-editor, or copyeditor.



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Want Marketing Tips for Freelancers?

Hey, copyeditors and medical editors: want to see my marketing tips for freelancers here, as they appeared on Twitter in May and June? I'll repeat them in a single new post here if enough of you are interested. Let me know by commenting on this post.


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Can You Translate English to Gujarati?

Calling all of my readers from India! Do you or any of your family or friends speak both English and Gujarati?

I would like to know how to say "best wishes"—as the sign-off in an e-mail—to one of my clients who lives in Ahmedabad. I do that sort of thing as a very small way of letting my ESL (English as a second language) clients, from whatever nation, know that I appreciate their coming to me for editorial assistance. (I am a freelance medical copyeditor.) I know that they have already done a huge amount of work in writing their research papers in English; the least that I can do for them is to reach a little way toward them in their language.

I found an online forum about Gujarati in which one member posted that "Mari shubkman tamari sath che" translates as "My best wishes are with you." Is that correct, or should I say something else in my e-mail to my client?


Updated at 12:25 a.m., July 1, 2009: Thanks to a friend of a friend, I now have the Gujarati for "best wishes" (shubhechao), "How are you?" (Tamay kem cho?), and "Thank you" (Aabhar). What did we all do before the Internet?



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Lantus Insulin May Be Linked to Cancer

Just heard about this on Twitter, and it worries me, because I take Lantus (generic name: glargine) insulin as one of the medications for my newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes:

"Studies Show Diabetes Drug Might Have Cancer Link," says the headline of a story in the Wall Street Journal; the drug in question is Lantus. I couldn't read the full story because it's behind a subscription firewall; if you have a subscription, you should be able to read it. I found a version from the news service Reuters:

Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA) said on Friday that new data on the safety of its blockbuster diabetes drug Lantus had not reached any definitive conclusions on a possible link to cancer.

The French drugmaker has been rocked in the past two days by a safety scare over Lantus, following rumours that a damaging analysis of the product's safety was shortly to be published in a major medical journal. Its stock fell 8 percent on Friday.

Sanofi said it had just been made aware of data associated with a retrospective follow-up of four patient registries but said no firm conclusions could be drawn on any possible causal link to the occurrence of malignancies.

It added that the authors of the study had also pointed this out.

"We consider that the results of these patient registries are not conclusive," Jean-Pierre Lehner, the company's chief medical officer, said in a statement. ...

And here's a story from Science Daily with more info on the science:

The risk of cancer possibly increases if patients with diabetes use the long-acting insulin analogue glargine instead of human insulin. The Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), in collaboration with the "Wissenschaftliches Institut der AOK" (WIdO), the research institute of the German Local Health Care Fund, analysed the data of almost 130,000 patients with diabetes in Germany who had been treated with either human insulin or the insulin analogues lispro (trade name: Humalog), aspart (Novorapid) or glargine (Lantus) between January 2001 and June 2005.

The analysis has now been published together with further studies in the scientific journal Diabetologia.

The disturbing result is that malignancies were found more frequently in patients treated with glargine than in those prescribed a comparable dose of human insulin. "Our analysis does not provide absolute proof that glargine promotes cancer," says Peter T. Sawicki, IQWiG's Director and co-author of the study. "Our study does, however, arouse an urgent suspicion which should have consequences for the treatment of patients." ...

Ironically, when I viewed the page, there was a Lantus banner ad at the top.

Here are PDFs of the uncorrected author page proofs of soon-to-be-in-print studies that initially raised alarms, made freely available by the medical journal Diabetologia because lots of people are concerned about Lantus now:

• First study


• Second study


• Third study


• Fourth study

Two of the studies found a possible risk; the other two had inconclusive results.

If you take Lantus, please have a chat with your physician—as I plan to do with mine as soon as I can get an appointment—about the advisability of switching to another kind of injectable insulin. Do not stop taking Lantus without consulting your physician. Yes, I know, lots of substances are carcinogenic, but if you can avoid injecting a potential carcinogen into your body, that's probably a good thing.

By the way, because Sarnoff-Aventis is the maker of Lantus, its stocks' values are dropping because of the news.


Updated at 12:03 a.m., June 28, 2009: The Reuters story has been updated.


Updated at 11:13 p.m., June 28, 2009: Here is a very balanced discussion of the issues from a diabetes expert who has type 2 diabetes herself.


Updated at 8:45 a.m., June 29, 2009: Here is a Q&A from Reuters.


Updated at 5:11 p.m., June 29, 2009: And now, Sanofi weighs in, trying to make the Lantus studies out to be much ado about nothing.


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