What's in a Contract?

Contracts—some freelance editorial pros swear by them, and others would rather use the proverbial handshake. And because freelancers are individuals, the contracts created by those who use them can take many different forms.

All of my editing projects are with individual authors, medical-specialty societies that produce journals, and book publishers. No multiyear projects with fees in the 6- or 7-digit range. Freelancers who work on the latter type of projects will want what one of my colleagues has described as "a multipart, multipage, multilawyer agreement signed in triplicate, notarized under the full moon." But those who work on much smaller projects may handle contracts in a way similar to how I do them.

I have a formal signed-in-triplicate contract only with very large publishing houses whose lawyers require them and with individual book authors whom I'm working with for the first time.

With my ESL (English as a second language) authors who make arrangements for me to do an English-language edit of their medical-journal articles, our e-mails back and forth constitute a contract. I lay everything out in my first response to an author's inquiry. I've been doing this for so long that I have standardized text ready to place in an e-mail; I tweak it here and there for each particular author. Then when he or she sends me all manuscript materials so that I can provide a fee estimate, I write the author back requesting that he or she agree to my fee and editing schedule by return e-mail. Ta-da—contract! I don't repeat that initial boilerplate for returning authors, though, unless it's been a couple of years since I last worked with them. I just write a short e-mail specifying fees and due dates because I figure that we have an understanding that is based on our initial contract; in this situation too, I ask the author to e-mail me back to agree to my fees and schedule.

With repeat-client publishers and book authors, I don't create a new signed-in-triplicate contract for each new project. I do summarize in an e-mail what the project parameters are, including number of rounds of revisions, project delivery date(s), the down payment I require, my fee, due dates for the down payment and fee, acceptable forms of payment (i.e., wire transfers, direct deposit, corporate checks, bank cashier's checks—no personal checks), what happens if either I or the client decides to end the working relationship before the end of the project, and so on.

Having a contract in place, in whatever form you use, doesn't erode trust. I believe that it fosters trust, because both parties know how the collaboration process will proceed. They both can stop worrying about outcome and start focusing on process.

Do you use contracts? If so, what forms do they take?

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The Name Game

How do you address potential clients when they contact you by e-mail?

E-mail is such an immediate medium—well, okay, less immediate than instant messaging or Twitter—that it can be easy to assume that your correspondents won't mind being addressed by their given name. I'm not a formal person, so I like being addressed by my given name, but not everyone from every culture will feel the same way. And an important part of good client care is putting the client at ease.

Regardless of what nation my potential clients reside in, I address them however they present themselves in our initial contact, until they ask me to use a more familiar form of their name. Of course, if a potential client signs her first e-mail to me with her given name, like this

With all good wishes,
Marguerite

Marguerite Girard, MD, PhD, PsyD, JD, MPH
Chief Intelligent Person in Europe
Extremely Prestigious Academic Institution

then I'll address her as Marguerite in my reply, rather than as Dr. Girard or as Chief Intelligent Person Girard. And I'll sign my reply like this

Best wishes,
Katharine

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, ELS
KOK Edit: Your favorite copyeditor since 1984^sm
editor@kokedit.com
http://www.kokedit.com
http://twitter.com/KOKEdit

to signal that I too can be addressed by my given name.

But because most of my international ESL (English as a second language) authors sign their initial e-mails to me like this

With all good wishes,
Marguerite Girard, MD, PhD, JD, MPS, PsyD
Chief Intelligent Person in the Western Hemisphere
Extremely Prestigious Academic Institution

I address them formally in my reply. Why? I like to meet my clients where they are, rather than where I might want to put them. Showing respect for your clients' personal comfort goes a long way toward establishing goodwill, something that's vital when it comes time to get those clients to accept your editing of their manuscripts.

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Editing Hacks, or How to Edit

Editorial professionals usually put together web sites that focus on getting clients to use their services—to buy editing—so it's a pleasure when one of my kind does something different.

My colleague Shane Arthur has put together Editing Hacks, a site that focuses on how to edit. I think that's pretty cool. He shows viewers the processes that an editor goes through on the job. Read the text tutorials and watch the video tutorials there and you'll learn exactly what we editors do to help make our clients' copy be its best self.

Another facet of Shane's site that I enjoy is its editor interviews. In the four that he's posted so far, he talks with each editor about how she got into editing, why she loves doing it, and skills and traits an editor needs, and what editing tools each editor likes. I'm pleased to have been his first interviewee.

Thanks, Shane, for lifting the curtain on the mysteries of editing.

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When an Author Goes Ballistic

I am pleased to present this blog's first-ever guest post. It was written by my colleague Carolyn Haley, a talented editor and author. She has some excellent advice for those rare occasions when we editors encounter authors who not only don't want to be edited but also are unprofessional in how they express their dislike of editing.


What do you do when an author goes ballistic over your edits and returns the manuscript loaded with vicious insults and rejecting all changes?

If that author is your private client, then you can respond as you see fit.

If you're employed by the author's publisher, then there's probably a code of conduct mapped out for you, or a manager who can advise you on the proper response.

If you're a freelancer hired by the publisher for this particular project, however, things aren't so simple. You've been made to look bad by people who could damage your reputation. Your weeks of careful and respectful work have been trashed, and your integrity, skill, and professionalism have been impugned. Like most folks, you'll want to storm away from the job or throttle the author!

Instead, you must freeze in place and let the anger wash through. Vent to your friends, family, colleagues—any place safe—so that you get it out of your system before reacting.

Next, be grateful that you're not the project coordinator, who has to deal directly with raging authors while handling irate contractors and stressed-out coworkers, under the eye of an employer who holds your livelihood in its hands. Yes, the situation could be worse!

To chart your way out of it, just remember that your obligation is to the hiring party—the publisher—as one business to another. The publisher's business is to produce the author's book; the editor's business is to apply a toolkit of skills that will polish the book to the publisher's standards.

Except in rare cases, the author has nothing to do with this relationship. The author, in fact, is out of the picture during the editing phase, until the manuscript is returned to him or her. At that point, the author's job is to accept or reject the changes, leaving you out of the picture until cleanup (if that's part of your job agreement). Either way, the author is not your responsibility.

So counterattacking would be foolish and would gain nothing beyond a short sense of relief. That relief might well be paid for down the road by losing the publisher client because you went around the coordinator to make a personal stab at the author, by inflaming the author into retaliation that escalates the affair into lunacy, or simply by harming your own energy because you've sustained a negativity loop that should have been cut and cauterized by moving on.

The coordinator is the only person you need interact with. Of course, you're probably mad at the coordinator too for passing along the author's venom without intervention. Such excuses as "Sorry, the author is a [bleep], but your work was OK, we still like you" don't cut it. The coordinator should share your offense and explain his or her position, saying something like "Yikes, this author is over the top! We think your edits are fine, but because of [ABC political or financial reason], we need you to stet as many changes as possible and only question the XYZ items so we don't all get fired or blow the publication schedule."

That's all it takes to defuse the outrage and reaffirm that you're a team. Some generous coordinators will go a step further, vetting the changes, striking out derogatory language, having a private word with the author, and sending you the manuscript with clear instructions. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often.

In the absence of such support, you must initiate a boundary-defining chat with the coordinator. This chat has a two-part theme. On the professional side, convey that your priority is to serve the publisher's interests, which you believe are being compromised by the author's choices and downgrading the quality of the work to the point that it may cause embarrassment. Ask the coordinator for explicit directions on how to handle the author's responses because you find them so confusing and contradictory that you can't exercise your normal judgment. (Key concept here: Ask for help versus complaining.)

On the personal side, state that although the barrage of insults is unacceptable, you will happily be a good sport, because you love working with the organization, and who knew such a tirade was coming? We're all in this together, etc. But if anything like it happens again, you will return the manuscript and bill them for work completed to that minute. For this job, request that your name be mentioned nowhere in the final product. Then focus on getting instructions from the coordinator. Don't consider bailing out unless the coordinator turns hostile too.

Underneath it all, this is merely an exaggerated version of a common editing dilemma: being required to use house style that contradicts the Chicago Manual of Style or the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or other authority on what constitutes good writing and clear language. In those cases, regardless of what you think and feel, the publisher’s preference rules. The same applies here.

So if the coordinator says, "Stet everything," then swallow your bile and stet it. If the coordinator directs otherwise, do that instead—even if asked to waste your time justifying every change to the author. Your goal is no longer to do the best job possible but to get this job off your desk ASAP and be paid for every bit of it, without closing the door to future work.

An author tantrum is a good opportunity to prove to the publisher that you are reliable and honest and professional and flexible, all of which might bump you up a rung on their contractor list and earn you more projects. It's an opportunity to honor old words of wisdom and make lemonade out of a lemon!

____________________

Carolyn Haley operates DocuMania, a freelance editing and writing service based in rural Vermont. She works with a diverse mix of commercial, environmental, and academic clients on their books and articles for publication, as well as teaches novice authors and editors.

Where to find Carolyn: business ▪ LinkedIn profile ▪ books ▪ blog ▪ book reviews

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How to Keep Your Introversion from Getting in Your Way Professionally

The only way to bring in enough money when you're self-employed is to constantly market your services. If you're an introvert, you may find your introversion getting in the way of putting yourself out there.

You may not believe me when I say that I'm an introvert, especially because you can find me all over the Internet—here on my blog, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, and on profession-related e-mail lists. But I am indeed introverted, and I've found several ways to work with my introversion rather than against it to keep it from hampering my success as a self-employed editor:

• Rather than using the phone, I correspond with colleagues and clients by e-mail (or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn) whenever possible. This allows me time to think through what I want to communicate and usually decreases the likelihood that I'll communicate in a foolish manner. When I'm on the phone with someone, I worry about whether I sound goofy, whether I'm remembering to say all of the things that I wanted to communicate, and whether I'm boring the other person. Baseless fears, maybe, but there they are.

• I do work that doesn't require lots of face time. Rather than being someone who covers science meetings (like many of my medical-writer colleagues) and who therefore has to go around interviewing people in person, I'm someone who edits documents that come out of science meetings. Believe it or not, I started my career as a newspaper journalist. Despite being an excellent writer who garnered many front-page stories, I lasted only 2 years. It was emotionally exhausting!

• I use social-media platforms to appear as the extrovert that I am not.

• I team up with extroverts when I need to appear in public, such as at meetings of professional associations (or at parties at the homes of friends). I let them be the conversation-starters and thus take the pressure off myself to perform.

• I don't schedule public appearances on the fly. I schedule them well in advance so that I have time to get ready mentally. It's not that we introverts hate being around people; it's just that spending extended time with others tends to tire us mentally and emotionally, so we need time to prepare ahead of time and then time to recuperate afterward.

• I've stopped mentally bashing myself for being an introvert. I used to think that society devalued introversion in favor of extroversion. Extroverts may get a lot of attention from others, but that's because they command it, not because their way of being is better than introverts' way of being. Both extroverts and introverts are valuable parts of the human mix.

If you're an introvert, what things do you do to help yourself?

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Sources of Tea, the Editing Fuel

All good editing, in my opinion, is fueled by tea. (Don't believe me? Read this.) And to me, all good tea is brewed from whole tea leaves and is enjoyed without any sugar or honey. Of course, you may disagree with those points, but you'll have to agree that this is a good starter list of tea vendors. If you have favorites that aren't listed there, please provide links in the comments here, and I'll consider adding them to my list.

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How Much Does Editing Cost?

I occasionally get inquiries from authors new to editing—or new to paying for it themselves—who want to know how much it would cost to edit their book or medical-journal article. They assume that the cost is the same for all books or for all journal articles.

But that's like asking a mechanic how much it will cost to repair your car without letting the mechanic look at the car and figure out how much work the repair will entail and what replacement parts must be ordered. That's why I don't post rates on my business web site and don't quote fees without having a chance to assess the full manuscript. Here's how I explain it on my web site:

Why does KOK Edit not post a fee schedule here? Every manuscript, just like every client, is different. The level of editing needed, and thus the amount of time spent editing, varies with each project. Some clients prefer to pay page rates or project fees instead of hourly rates. Therefore, fees are negotiated for each project, depending on level of editing, project parameters, and project time frame. (However, you can get an idea of the range of fees charged for editing in the publishing industry by following many of the links on this page. Also, see this blog post for a discussion of several methods for structuring editing fees.) In all fee negotiations, 1 manuscript page is defined as 250 words; physical pagination is irrelevant.

KOK Edit's Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, ELS, cannot determine the cost of editing for a project without having the opportunity to assess the manuscript regarding subject matter, quality of writing, complexity, length, and the level of editing needed versus the level of editing desired by the client. She will also need to know how many rounds of editing are desired, what the project deadlines are, and what the manuscript’s target audience is.

For large projects, KOK Edit may require periodic partial fee payments to be made during the editing process. Many times, a down payment of one third to one half of large project fees is required. Rush projects are accepted when possible, but they incur higher fees than nonrush jobs do.

All fee quotes are valid for 30 days; KOK Edit reserves the right to revise a quote if you take more than 30 days to decide to go ahead with the project. If the size, scope, or nature of the project changes after a quote has been accepted, a revised fee may be negotiated.

If you're an editorial professional, how do you handle this issue with potential clients?

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Thank-Yous Are Good Business

My husband, a cabinetmaker, just finished a small project to help a colleague out; he did it as a subcontractor to the colleague. A few days later, he received a check in the mail in payment for his work, and it was tucked inside a thank-you card. How cool is it to get both money and thanks at the end of a project?

I don't subcontract out work to colleagues; instead I refer clients to them when my workload is too heavy to allow me to take on more work. So I can't use the thank-you-card idea in exactly the same way, but I'm going to find a way to work it into my business practice somehow, because I know how much those two little words, thank you, can mean to people.

I already do the following:

• Thank both potential and existing clients by e-mail when they ask me to bid on a project

• Send new clients thank-you e-mails after a project is complete

• Send new clients a KOK Edit tea/coffee mug after we've worked on our first project together, so that they'll have something tactile to remember me by

• Send all of my clients "Happy New Year" greeting cards with several of my business cards enclosed

• Send my international clients e-mails wishing them a happy holiday—or whatever other sentiment is appropriate—on holidays that are important in their respective cultures and thanking them for their continued trust in my skills

• Send thank-you cards—and sometimes small thank-you gifts—to colleagues who refer me to clients for whom I go on to do several projects

• Send thank-you e-mails—and sometimes small thank-you gifts—to colleagues who go out of their way to help me

What other techniques do you use to thank clients and colleagues?

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Prejudice Against Editorial Professionals from India

I'm angry.

I'm more than tired of hearing U.S. editorial professionals put down editorial pros from other nations—I'm appalled. Currently, most of this broad-brush denigration is directed at editorial pros who live in India.

I understand feeling financially desperate because your best publishing clients have begun offshoring work to nations with poor economies, taking financial advantage of workers there to cut business expenses. But those workers are not at fault for taking on paying work. You want to get angry? Get angry at U.S. publishers and book packagers who engage in economic exploitation in other nations. And get angry at the publishers who are cheaping out here in the United States by refusing to pay decent rates.

But don't put down the skills of all editorial pros in India. Just as happens with any nation, including the United States, poor work, mediocre work, and excellent work come out of India. I have several editor colleagues in India who do excellent work, and I am editing the autobiography of an American author who emigrated from India years ago. These individuals' English is flawless. Also, numerous editors in India are board-certified as editors in the life sciences, as I am. Among approximately 900 certified life-science editors worldwide, 49 (more than 5%) are associated with the India-based editing company Editage and its related business unit, Cactus.

Those of you who put down Indian editors and proofreaders are simply exhibiting prejudice. That's ugly. Just stop it.

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Choosing An Editor: What to Look for, What to Expect

Over on Deliberate Ink, the blog of my colleague Shakirah Dawud, I've written a guest post on the subject of how to chose an editor and how to work with one.

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Find Your Editorial Niche

I am pleased to tell you that an interview that I did as part of a series on finding your niche as an editorial professional is now up as a post on The Accidental Freelancer, the blog of my mentee Cassie Armstrong. If you enjoy that post, you'll want to read the first one in the series too, in which Cassie interviewed freelance editor Laura Poole. And watch Cassie's blog for the third part of the series, in which she interviews editor Allison Parker. I admire Laura and Allison a great deal, and I think we can all learn a lot from them. If you're new to freelancing, you can learn a lot from Cassie herself too.

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How Come You're Not Getting the Rates You Want as an Editorial Pro?

At some point in your career as a self-employed editorial professional, you're going to compare your fees with those of your colleagues. And some of you are going to wonder why you earn so much less than they do. It just might be your clientele.

Unfortunately, the arena that may most interest some freelance editors but that consistently pays low rates and even angles for lower rates is academic publishing. University presses historically have had little funding and thus very small budgets, which means they pay very low rates to freelancers. If academic book and journal manuscripts are your focus, then, you're going to earn very little. As the saying goes, you can't get blood from a turnip.

There is no shame in pulling in low fees if you do it for love of the material you edit. But if money is a problem, you'll have to decide which is more important to you: working on materials that you love—but earning very little because that's what that kind of work pays—or being able to command higher fees, even if the topics that you edit aren't perhaps your first love. If you decide that you want to go where the money is, you can do either of two things:

• Look for arenas that pay more and that don't require you to earn additional degrees or certifications, such as business-to-business materials, web-site copy, public-relations materials, books and articles published outside academia.

• Do some research to find a potentially interesting and higher-paying niche that requires more training ... and then invest time and money in getting that training, additional degree(s), or certification.

It's like the situation my husband, a cabinetmaker, faces: He'd love to not have to travel much and work on cabinetry only for nearby folks, but if he did, he'd go out of business for lack of funds. Most of the local folks are members of the middle class and can't and won't pay much at all for his services. So he travels a bit more to go out to Long Island's Hamptons, home to many extremely wealthy people who want all sorts of unheard-of things done with cabinetry and will pay whatever they have to to get those things. He's chosen his market, and it's not the penny-pinching middle class.

Have you put thought into finding a higher-paying clientele?

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Sending Holiday Greeting Cards to Clients Gets Results

Most years, I send out "Happy New Year" greeting cards by snail mail to every single one of my clients, even those I haven't edited a project for in several months. At the end of 2010, this amounted to 57 cards, enough to give my writing hand cramps. And I tucked 3 of my business cards into each envelope. In each card, I wished the recipient a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011; thanked him or her for working with me in the past; and expressed the hope that we would have a chance to work together in 2011.

This marketing practice—one of many I engage in—always pays off.

Already this month, several clients I haven't heard from in a while, mostly international researcher-authors who need ESL (English as a second language) editing of their medical-journal manuscripts, have e-mailed me after getting a greeting card and asked me to edit a manuscript for them. One physician-researcher from China, whose surgical techniques and research appear to be impeccable, though her English definitely is not, e-mailed me yesterday:

Hi, Katharine.

Yesterday, I received your best wishes—a happy new year card. I am excited very much! I have received two gifts from you, a cup* and the card. The three [business] cards of you have been sended to my friends. I inform them to e-mail you if they have papers to edit. If I have paper to edit I will e-mail you too. You are my best partner. I am successful with your help in the past time.^† I also appreciate you very much.

Of course I e-mailed her right back:

What a delightful message! Thank you so much for giving my business cards to your friends. You have given me a great gift by recommending my editing to them.

I couldn't have wished for a better response to mailing out the cards than from that one author. From her alone, I got my business cards passed along in person to three other researcher-authors and I got three enthusiastic recommendations. Imagine how many potential clients could end up with my contact information if all 57 greeting-card recipients did the same: 171! Even if only some of them do so, that's wonderful.

_________________
*Another of my marketing practices is to send a KOK Edit coffee/tea mug to a new client.

^†After I conducted an ESL edit of the author's last research article, the journal she submitted it to accepted it for publication. That was the first time any of her research articles had been published in a U.S. medical journal, which was a prestigious accomplishment for her.


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Resources for Writing and Editing Grant Proposals

I was recently privileged to edit sections of a physician-researcher's proposal for a grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund an experiment whose findings would benefit very ill children. Because this was my first foray into the world of grant proposals, I needed help from colleagues to get up to speed. I asked for links to information resources, and wow, were they helpful! I'm sharing these resources with you here so that maybe you'll be able to spend less time hunting for resources and more time working on grant proposals.

Books

• The Foundation Center's Guide to Proposal Writing, 5th edition (Jane C. Geever, 2007)

• Four Steps to Funding (Morgan Giddings)

• Grant Seeking in an Electronic Age (Victoria Mikelonis, Signe T. Betsinger, and Constance E. Kampf, 2004)

• Grant Writing: Strategies for Developing Winning Government Proposals, 3rd edition (Patrick W. Miller, 2002)

• Guide to Effective Grant Writing: How to Write a Successful NIH Grant (Otto O. Yang, 2005)

• Research Proposals: A Guide to Success, 3rd edition (Thomas E. Ogden and Israel A. Goldberg, 2002)

• Writing Successful Science Proposals, 2nd edition (Andrew J. Friedland and Carol L. Folt, 2009)

• Writing the NIH Grant Proposal: A Step-by-Step Guide (William Gerin, 2006)

Courses and Online Resources

• "All About Grants" Tutorials, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

• American Grant Writers' Association (see information about in-person grant-writing workshop and information about online courses)

• "Annotated Forms," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• Annotated Grant Proposal, AuthorAID (PDF)

• Center for Scientific Review

• Course schedule from Grant Writing USA

• Foundation Center

• Foundation Center, online training courses

• "Glossary & Acronym List," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Grant Proposal Writing Tips," Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PDF)

• "Grant Writing," Office of Clinical Research Training and Medical Education, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center

• "Grant Writing Tips Sheets," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• Grantsmanship Center (offers training programs on grant writing)

• "Guidelines for Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPOREs)" (PDF)

• "How to Write a Research Project Grant Application," National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health

• Morgan On Science

• "NIH Forms & Applications," Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Non-Competing Continuation Progress Report: PHS 2590: Downloadable Instructions and Form Files," National Institutes of Health

• Non-profit Guides: Grant-Writing Tools for Non-Profit Organizations

• Office of Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health

• "Proposal Writing Checklist," eLearners.com

• "Recruiting Human Subjects: Sample Guidelines for Practice," Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (PDF)

• "Sample R01 Applications and Summary Statements," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (samples of successful grant applications)

• "Training & Communications Resources," Enhancing Peer Review at NIH, National Institutes of Health

• The Translational Research Program, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

• U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual

• "Vanderbilt University Medical Center Office of Research: Tools for Grant Writing"

• "What Grantmakers Want Applicants to Know," GuideStar

Most of the resources listed here were recommended to me by members of the private Editing-Writing e-mail list of the American Medical Writers Association, the private e-mail list of the Editorial Freelancers Association, and the public Copyediting-L e-mail list. A few of them are courtesy of this blog post from medical writer and editor Stacey C. Tobin.

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A Mentee's Tale

I'm so proud of self-employed proofreader and copyeditor Cassie Armstrong, one of my mentees! She's such a go-getter. Read her story here, at the blog of my colleague Shakirah Dawud. You can find Cassie on Twitter as @cassiemon.

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How to Charge: By the Project, by the Hour, or by the Word or Page?

One of the many business decisions that self-employed copyeditors have to make is how to charge, and that may be more important than what they charge.

As a copyeditor, you can charge by the hour, by the word or page, or by the project, and there are good reasons for each of these methods. The density of the material you're editing, whether it is indeed ready for copyediting and should have first undergone more developmental editing, the speed at which you edit, limitations on the client's budget, and the type of material you edit can affect how much you effectively earn on each project, especially when you charge a project fee or per-word or per-page fee. Consider what four experienced copyeditors have to say about the various fee structures.

Editor Audrey Dorsch often quotes project fees to her clients:

Hourly rates tend to scare people who don't really understand that they are contracting with a business, not hiring an employee. If they see an hourly rate, they compare it to hourly rates they know of in various areas and may or may not like it. With a project fee, they evaluate whether the project is worth that much to them. They don't think about what the editor is making per hour (nor should they—it's none of their business).

Project fees, then, don't change: You quote a project fee before beginning work on the project, and that's the fee that you will bill the client for when you've finished the project. But editor Elaine Kehoe sometimes prefers to quote hourly rates, where the total amount that she will bill is not known until she is finished with the project:

[Audrey has] a valid point, but I remain unconvinced that a project fee is always better than an hourly rate. As a case in point, I'm now working on a huge textbook, for which I'm charging my usual hourly rate. But problems have been rampant with the project since the beginning, some of them developmental in nature. In short, the book should really not yet have been sent for copyediting, and I'm ending up cleaning up a lot of things that should've already been set, such as adding a new section to all chapters and making certain global changes. Development and marketing went over the sample chapter I edited and returned it to me to have the newly approved changes made. I've spent a lot of time on the phone with and e-mailing the production editor. The schedule is being revised. If I had done this at a project rate, I'd be losing money. With my hourly rate, I'm assured of getting paid for all the work I do.

In answer to Elaine's point about potentially losing money with a project rate, editor Amy J. Schneider says:

That's when you call the client and say that the project is now beyond the scope of what you originally agreed to, and you negotiate a new fee.

Editor Laurie Rendon, who edits journal articles, book chapters, and other academic materials, always charges by the 250-word page:

I charge a page rate, and I find it all comes out in the wash. I almost always make close to the same dollar amount per hour (except for small jobs, which always take longer per page). I charge a page rate because in my experience most things I edit end up taking the same amount of time per unit. If it isn't a problem with English, then it's a problem with repetition or omission, or a computer glitch, or something else.

I hope that these editors' wise words have given you the tools to decide how you'll charge your clients.

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Adversary or Client? Competitor or Colleague?

I've noticed a troubling divide among self-employed editorial professionals in how they approach finding work with new clients and responding to requests to share knowledge with other editorial pros.

Those on the sad side of this divide won't reach out actively, through e-mails, phone calls, or tweets, to potential new clients, fearing that clients encountered this way are likely to be unsavory fly-by-nights who are trying to get work done for little to no pay. Instead, they complain on profession-related e-mail lists that they don't have enough work and ask where there are web sites that will dole out projects to them. I suppose that they also find the prospect of marketing their services and hunting down clients a bit overwhelming, so they want someone or something to feed them projects. I wonder how they can afford to remain self-employed.

Those on the sad side are also parsimonious with their colleagues. They won't give advice, in person or on e-mail lists, much less on LinkedIn, when asked for it, fearing that their colleagues are merely competitors and will use their advice to steal their clients. They're astounded that anyone would freely share advice, believing that the only way to be a productive editorial pro is to not "waste" time communicating with other pros.

I'm not saying to ignore your common sense and instincts when dealing with potential clients and with colleagues. And I'm not advocating giving away all of your trade secrets. I'm talking about having a little trust.

It comes down to worldview. Do we view humans as most often decent? Or do we view them as creatures to be wary of because they're more likely than not to do us harm? I hold the former view, and I'm most often rewarded for it. I've found that whenever I begin any interaction from a stance of wariness, without having any signals to base that wariness on, I have a poor experience. This holds true for me with both potential clients and newly met colleagues, however I've first come into contact with them.

Which side of the divide are you on, and why?

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Why You're Not Getting New Clients Through Social Media

I know that some of you, seeing the title of this post, are rolling your eyes and thinking something like this: Good grief! There she goes again, yammering on about social media. But this post is for exactly you, to give you an idea or two about why I yammer on.

If you've only dipped a big toe into the pool of social media and are wondering why new clients haven't responded by showering you with project offers, this post from the blog Writing Thoughts explains why. What it says does not apply to writers alone; it's on target for editors and other editorial pros too.

If you think Twitter is only for self-centered people telling the world about what they ate for lunch or bought at the shopping mall, this blog post by effervescent Marian Schembari explains why it's for much more than that.

Lesson: Social-media platforms are just like profession-related associations and e-mail discussion lists—you have to build relationships. If you expect clients and projects to fall into your lap without your having built relationships, you'll be disappointed . . . and poor.

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How to Start Off Right with Authors

For an author, being edited can feel intrusive. But you, as the editor, can take some preventive actions early on to build a trust-filled author–editor relationship. For 27 years now, I've worked both through publishers and directly with authors, and these practices have always worked for me. I list them here in no particular order:

• Find something—anything legitimate—to praise in the manuscript. This could be a particularly wonderful sentence, a vivid depiction of a scene, or a piece of humor that the author handled well. This lets the author know that the editor is on his or her side.


• Make sure that all queries are worded respectfully. Don't grovel or explain things to death, but don't write the equivalent of "Good grief! How can you not have seen that ridiculous dangling modifier?!"


• Don't use editing jargon that the author may not be familiar with. Explain any terms, such as callout or extract or folio, that you'd normally use among other editors without explanation.


• Include a cover note to the author when you return the edited manuscript to the publisher, explaining any overall issues. (If you are working directly with the author, then of course this cover note goes directly to the author.) Also describe the level of editing you did at the publisher's request; describe style manual use briefly.


• Request that when it's time for the author to review edits, the publisher send the author a copy of the style sheet that you created, so that the author can have documentation of why you made the style choices you did. (Again, if you're working directly with the author, this document goes to the author. Take some time to explain the purpose of style sheets and how they work.)


• Repeat the mantra "It's not my book. It's not my book. It's not my book." It's the author's book, so you have to get into the author's head so that your edits reflect not your voice but the author's. Do not trample the author's voice.


• Follow the Copyeditor’s Golden Rule: Edit others as you would want to be edited.


• Double-check unique spellings and unfamiliar terms, such as invented words used in fantasy fiction or terms of art in scholarly manuscripts, with the author or publisher.


• Be clear in your queries. Word them in such a way to get your questions answered. In other words, don't query by writing, "author: Unclear. Please fix."


• At the beginning of the manuscript—but after you've finished editing—insert a query that's really a note thanking the author for the privilege of reading his or her work. This is not fawning; it is showing respect.


• If you communicate directly with the author, do not respond in kind to any temper tantrums. Let the author have his or her say, and then respond calmly, truthfully, and respectfully.

Have you found additional practices that enhance your relationships with authors? Please share them in the comments. You can learn more about working with authors here.

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Updating the Details

Because it's the start of a new year, it's a good idea for self-employed editorial professionals to update their online details.

Make a list of all of the places online where you have a profession-related profile. For each one, check that your contact information, including these items, is current:

• Your snail-mail address


• Your phone and fax numbers


• Your e-mail address


• Your web site address


• Any résumés that you have uploaded

It's easy to forget this chore, so I have an annual calendar entry that reminds me to update all such information about myself online, plus copyright dates for web sites that I own. That calendar entry lists all the places online where I must do updates: the member directory of the Editorial Freelancers Association, the directory of freelancers maintained by the e-mail list Copyediting-L, my ad on the web site of the Council of Science Editors, the freelancer directory of the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, the freelancer directory of the American Medical Writers Association, this blog, my business web site, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on.

Here is a helpful article on how to update your profile on several social-media platforms. Not described there is how to back up your LinkedIn profile: just click the PDF icon on the upper right side of your profile.

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Tax Deductions That U.S. Freelancers Should Be Taking

Right now, I'm busy with final preparations for a presentation on how freelancers can benefit from their online presence that I'll be making this weekend. Meanwhile, take a look at this piece from Grant Dobbins on income tax deductions that self-employed editorial freelancers should be taking. Check with your accountant for even more ideas on tax deductions.


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Medical Publishing and Full Disclosure of Editing Assistance

In medical publishing, one of the hot issues now is transparency, or full disclosure, regarding any possible conflicts of interest. It's my stance that as part of transparency, researchers should always disclose to peer-reviewed medical journals that they have contracted with self-employed medical editors to polish their manuscripts before submissions.

Journals are requiring authors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest, such as whether they received funds, equipment, or other assistance to conduct the research that they are reporting or whether they act as spokespersons for or have a financial stake in the manufacturers of any equipment or medication used in their research. This is because the results of a study on the effects of a particular drug, for example, could be viewed as biased (or, worst-case scenario, perhaps even manipulated) if the drug's manufacturer funded the study or assisted the authors in writing the study report. But if such assistance isn't disclosed, readers won't know that the study results might have been manipulated by researchers who are grateful to the manufacturer for the assistance.

Accordingly, many organizations related to science publishing recommend and many medical journals now require full disclosure regarding assistance of any kind that authors receive, include writing and editing assistance. For example, see this part of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, especially this statement:

Authors should identify individuals who provide writing or other assistance and disclose the funding source for this assistance.

I and many other medical editors interpret "other assistance" to mean editing assistance. Therefore, when I edit journal manuscripts for authors—and I work with a lot of authors all over the world who need my assistance because they're non-native speakers of English—I let them know that I require that they include this statement in the acknowledgments section of their manuscript:

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf, ELS, of East Setauket, New York, provided professional English-language editing of this article.

Then the author's target journal can decide whether, according to its disclosure policies, that statement will appear in the published version of the article. And the journal can then also ask the authors how they paid for my services—out of their own pockets, from funds provided by their medical institution, from federal grants, etc. I won't work with any authors who won't agree to my requirement.

As one former editor of a prominent British medical journal wrote a few months ago on an e-mail list for journal editors, not acknowledging editorial assistance "misleads readers into thinking that the authors are skilled writers."

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Conference Presentation: Profiting from Your Online Presence

If you're a self-employed editorial professional, you've found that résumés and business cards aren't enough anymore to keep your work schedule full. Want to know what tools work today and how to use them? Come talk with me, on Saturday, October 2, 2010, on day 2 of the fifth annual Communication Central Build Your Business conference, where I'll lead the session "Profiting from Your Online Presence." I'll teach you how to build your reputation and find clients by using social media, web sites, e-mail discussion lists, and more.

You can get more details here and register here.

My main topics will be

• How to use Twitter to build relationships


• How to use Facebook to establish community


• How to use LinkedIn to showcase your talents


• How to use e-mail discussion lists to build relationships and get referrals


• How to make sure that your web site showcases your skills and professional personality

I've been in publishing for 26 years, the first 11 as a production editor for various publishers, and since then as a full-time freelance copyeditor. I am a medical editor with a specialty in editing manuscripts written by non-native speakers of English. My editing has helped researchers in 20-plus nations get their articles published in more than two dozen peer-reviewed journals. I am also the creator and curator of the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base. On Twitter, I am @KOKEdit.

Please join me and my colleagues at Communication Central's Build Your Business conference this year. The theme is Finding Your Niche/Expanding Your Horizons, and you'll find plenty to help your business grow.


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How to Avoid Getting Stiffed by Clients

I was recently asked, on an e-mail list for editors, what my techniques are for avoiding getting stiffed by clients and what to do when a client tries to get out of paying me. I'm happy to share my advice here:


How to Avoid Getting Stiffed and Avoid Cash-Flow Problems

• Check out new-to-you clients in as many venues as you can think of: profession-related e-mail lists, the client's web site, the Better Business Bureau (or an organization in your nation with a similar function), searches on the Internet. ... I've even asked a corporation unfamiliar to me (a printing press) to provide names and phone numbers for three businesses that I could contact to verify that the corporation made timely payments to its vendors. Don't be deterred by a potential client's disbelief that you want to check them out.


• Get everything about the proposed project in writing before starting work. Include details such as how much you'll be paid, when you'll be paid, how you'll be paid, and how often you'll be paid during the project.


• As part of the project agreement, require a down payment on your fee of anywhere from 33% to 100%. The size of your down payment will depend on your negotiating skills and the client's flexibility. Also, make sure that this down payment clears your bank account before you begin work.


• Before you begin work, make sure that you have full contact details for the client: personal name, corporate name (if applicable), mailing address, at least one e-mail address, phone number, fax number, web-site address, Twitter handle, Facebook page address, etc. If I were to be working with a university student, I would want full contact info for the student's thesis supervisor, plus a letter on the supervisor's departmental letterhead stating that my working with the student is allowed under university rules. If I'm going to be working with a professor or staff member of a comparable institution, I ferret out contact details for that person's boss.


• Don't work for only one or two clients. Always keep marketing your services, even when you think you have "enough" clients, so that you can keep clients coming in (old clients sometimes fold or disappear) and cash flowing. Take on both large and small projects to help balance cash flow.

How to Deal with a Slow Payer
This is good advice from my colleague Dick Margulis for dealing with slow-paying clients.


Payment-Collection Techniques of Last Resort
Use these techniques to get your money when you don't care if you lose the client:

• Claim copyright interest in work you have done but have not been paid for, as explained on an editors' e-mail list by Rich Adin:

I write something along the following lines:

I understand that sometimes there are snags with getting the first invoice paid to a new vendor but that, unfortunately, creates a problem as regards your ability to use my work. The problem is that I have a copyright interest in my work until I am paid for my work. I would hate to put a kink in your production process, but as a publisher, I am sure you can understand that it is impossible for me to simply waive my copyright interest.

In the meantime, here is the completed second batch of manuscript. Let me remind you that I retain a copyright interest in my work until paid. I look forward to receiving payment for the first batch shortly so I can waive my copyright interest, and I look forward to timely payment for the second batch so that my copyright interest is negated.

Sending something like that often gets quick payment.

• Hold work over the client's head until you get paid, as I explained in a post to a freelancers' e-mail list:

There was some major stiffing going on years ago when medical publisher A, a former employer of mine, was acquired by medical publisher B, which has since been acquired by medical publisher C.

I was the freelance production editor for a journal published by publisher A. Publisher B asked me to continue on, and I did. But payments got later and later, until things were at the 90-plus-days-late point for multiple invoices. I had periodically discussed the matter with absolutely everyone possible at publisher B. No joy; I was told that like every other freelancer of publisher A's who was brought along to publisher B, my being paid would have to await vetting of my contract by publisher B's lawyers.

Finally, I decided I'd had enough and was willing—nay, deliriously happy—to lose publisher B as a client. I contacted the editor-in-chief of the journal, an MD who was not [an employee of publisher B], and told him what was going on. I told him that I'd enjoyed working with him and his journal for several years but now could no longer afford to do so, especially because the new publisher would not speed up payment. He offered to pay me out of his own pocket. I thanked him but turned him down; I had contacted him not to get money out of him but because I owed him the courtesy of not just dropping out of sight without an explanation. I then contacted the journal's managing editor and let her know that because I'd had absolutely no success with her or her supervisors, I'd informed the editor-in-chief about the situation. She gasped and choked and sounded as if she were going to die on the spot. She told me how unprofessional my actions were; I responded calmly that publisher B was unprofessional in not paying its contractors. She allowed as how she could see what could be done to expedite payment. I said that I was ceasing work on the journal—and would not return any of its materials—until all of the money I was owed arrived in the form of a cashable check.

I had my money within 3 business days, via FedEx. I then packed up all 400 pounds of in-process materials and archived materials and shipped it to publisher B—on publisher B's FedEx account. It was a joy to watch the FedEx driver log in and load every single one of those boxes ... and to think about how large publisher B's FedEx bill would be for that one giant shipment.

Helpful Books, Articles, and Audio-Conference CDs
Here are links to books, articles, and audio CDs on getting paid promptly.


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Your Personal Twitter Guru

If you've followed my blog for at least the last 12 months, you know that I'm a huge fan of using social media—Twitter in particular—as a marketing tool. And yes, I mean marketing your business, all of you editorial freelancers out there. Using Twitter is fun, but every little detail of how you do so effects the impression you make on Twitterdom.

Scary? It doesn't have to be. Want someone to help you figure out how to do it well but don't have much money for a huge campaign? I know just the person who can help: Marian Schembari. She's smart, young, energetic, knowledgeable about social media, full of ideas, outspoken, direct, and funny.

She's offering Twitter critiques that provide personalized and actionable tasks that will make you immediately more effective once you complete them. Here's how it works:

• E-mail her with your Twitter handle (translation for newbies: Twitter name) and a brief summary of what you want to accomplish with your online presence.



• Within 2 days, she'll get back to you with a half-hour video critique of your profile, along with a written report with the strategy outlined in the video.



• You'll also receive a follow-up evaluation of your progress whenever you want, usually 2 weeks after implementation.

The cost? Only $100. Even for someone new to freelancing without a large budget, that's affordable. Just do it!


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Audio Conference on Handling Difficult Authors

On Thursday, August 12, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern time, I'll spill my secrets in an audio conference, sponsored by Copyediting newsletter, on how copyeditors can work with authors who actively resist being edited, don't see the problems that the editor does, or are downright hostile. What are your options, as a copyeditor, when an author digs in his or her heels, and what can you do to avoid an impasse in the first place? You can get more details and register by going here.

The main topics will be

• How to set authors at ease at the start of editing



• How to write effective author queries



• How to set boundaries with authors who hover



• How to navigate relationships with prickly authors



• How to communicate effectively with ESL authors



• How to turn authors into repeat clients



• How to deal with authors when a breakup is inevitable

I have been in publishing for 26 years, the first 11 as a production editor for various publishers, and since then as a full-time freelance copyeditor. I am a medical editor with a specialty in editing manuscripts written by non-native speakers of English. My editing has helped researchers in 20-plus nations get published. I am also the creator and curator of the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base. On Twitter, I am @KOKEdit.

If you can't change your schedule to participate in the audio conference, you can go here to order a CD of the conference. If you can't afford the cost of the conference yourself, you and one or more colleagues can register under one name and make arrangements among yourselves to share the cost. International callers are welcome; consider using VoIP to decrease the cost of your time on the phone. And remember, if you're already self-employed as a freelance editor in the United States, the cost of the audio conference (and the audio CD, if you purchase it) is a business expense that you can write off on your income tax forms.

Get ready to pick up your phone and learn from the comfort of your employer's office, your home office, or your home. If you've wanted to improve your relationships with authors, this is the conference for you.


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Twitter Tip: Résumés and Business Cards

I'm reading a great new book, The Twitter Job Search Guide, by Susan Britton Whitcomb, Chandlee Bryan, and Deb Dib (published by JIST) so that I can eventually review it. (It's taking me a long while, not because the book is boring or a tough read but because I have so little spare time.) Meanwhile, I found a good tip in it that editorial freelancers might want to take advantage of:

List your Twitter handle (account name) on your business cards, résumé, and LinkedIn profile.

I'd add that you should also list it on your business web site and wherever else your business profile appears online, such as directories of those in your profession or members of a professional association.

I'm on Twitter all the time, mostly for business purposes, but it hadn't occurred to me to include my Twitter handle (@KOKEdit) on my business cards or résumé, even though I list it on my LinkedIn profile and on my web site. Including your Twitter handle on all of your project-seeking materials, including e-mail signatures, is a great idea because potential clients can then follow you on Twitter and get a sense of who you are, what your outlook on work and your profession is, and how you think.

Take a look at how I've incorporated my Twitter handle into my résumé (near the top of it).

Maybe including your Twitter handle on everything you can think of seems like a minor detail, but these days, it's important to take advantage of every possible tool to help potential clients to find you.


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