The Value of Joining Multiple Professional Associations and Subscribing to Multiple Professional E-mail Lists

If you're an editorial professional, it's a mistake to limit your memberships to only one or two profession-related groups and to severely limit how many profession-related e-mail lists you subscribe to. And to get any benefits from joining and subscribing, you must actively participate.

Placing too many limits on your memberships, subscriptions, and participation level doesn't help you get exposed to the bigger professional picture. In addition, you won't get exposed to as many professionals who might need your business services or who can refer you to others who do. I started out years ago as a generalist copyeditor. At this point in my career, I focus mostly on medical editing, but I'm not about to give up contact with and exposure to generalist editors and generalists in other editorial professions, because I can learn from them all and can get referrals from them all. I pay membership dues to

• The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA)

• The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)

• The Council of Science Editors (CSE)

• The Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS)

I subscribe to the following e-mail lists:

• The members-only list of the EFA

• Two AMWA members-only lists

• The members-only list of BELS

• Copyediting-L ([aka CE-L] and its all-topics-allowed spinoff, Copyediting-off-list-L [aka CEL-O], for camaraderie)

• Freelance, aka Publishing Industry Freelancers

• Publish-L

I appear in the online professional directories maintained by the following groups and e-mail lists:

• The EFA

• AMWA

• The CSE

• BELS

• CE-L

I do volunteer work for the following groups:

• The EFA

• AMWA

• CE-L

• BELS

Why do I do all of that, in addition to being visible on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter? To learn, to grow professionally, to help others ... but most of all, to avoid the dreaded freelancer feast-or-famine work cycle.

I don't have any more time available in the day than anyone else does: I have a husband, three children, one grandchild, another grandchild on the way, in-laws (one of whom has Alzheimer disease) who live in my home, a dog, friends, and non-work-related interests. I need to sleep, take time away from work, have a life. But I'm out there networking as much as I can, to keep my name and business image in front of as many eyes as possible. I haven't had to hunt for new clients in quite a long time (but I do so when I want to) because I'm always in lots of virtual places where people who hand out work can find me, learn about my skills and experience, and get a glimpse of my business personality and ethics.

I didn't join any profession-related associations with the expectation that benefits from being a member would just start flowing my way. Doing that would be as foolish as trying to get years of good mileage and trouble-free transportation from my car without ever putting gas in the tank, changing its oil, checking the wear and tear on the tires, or doing other maintenance tasks. I joined those associations because I know that you get something out of an organization only when you put something into it. Just paying membership dues or just subscribing to an e-mail list does not give you much of value. But getting involved in organizations and e-mail lists gives back a world of benefits, including the chance to make new business contacts, to impress potential clients and subcontracting-minded colleagues with the skills you display in communicating and doing volunteer work, and to build a reputation as a seasoned pro.

Want more choices for networking? Follow the links here for profession-related associations, e-mail discussion lists, and professional groups on LinkedIn and on Twitter. If you're a member of any editorial-related associations or e-mail lists not shown there, please tell everyone about them in the comments, and be sure to include links.

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Why I Went From Employee to Self-Employed Editor

Everyone who ends up an editorial freelancer comes to self-employment from a unique path. Lots of us on the Copyediting-L e-mail list told our own tales yesterday, which inspired me to share mine here.

I had been working for book publishers as a production editor or the equivalent since 1984. Though I loved what I was doing, I hated the office politics. And by 1994, I had spent 7 years commuting by car, train, and subway for a total of 3 hours each weekday, having to drop my daughter off with a babysitter before school at 6:30 a.m. and then to retrieve her at 7:30 p.m. after the train ride home from work. It hit me that I just could not stand the thought of doing that to my second child, who was then on the way.

So without the cushion of savings that everyone tells would-be freelancers to have available when starting up their business, I began freelancing full time 2 weeks (yes, you read that right) after the birth of my first son in December 1994. With no savings cushion, my husband and I couldn't afford for me not to start working that soon.

At first, my clients were all former employers. When individual contacts at those several companies later moved on to jobs with other publishers, they "took me with them," and I then had freelance projects both from former employers and from the companies those contacts moved on to. Over the years, I got comfortable contacting new-to-me publishers for projects, and then after I was well enough established, new-to-me publishers contacted me to offer projects. I also developed a reputation for being skilled at ESL (English as a second language) medical editing. (My final former employer was a medical publisher, and I honed that skill while working for that company.) I didn't actively seek out such authors; publishers and satisfied ESL authors referred more such authors to me. Now, loads of them track me down.

Just over 16 years after that son was born, I'm doing quite well as a full-time freelance editor, and I'd never go back to employment willingly. I went on to have one more child after that one, in September 2001, and just as happened with his older brother, I was working on freelance projects full time just a couple of weeks after he was born.

If you subscribe to Copyediting-L, watch for (or search the archives for) the subject line BIZ: Freelancing... what made you "go" there? to read other freelancers' stories. And if you're so inclined, please tell your story here, in the comments. We can all learn from one another, and it's enjoyable, reassuring, and inspiring to hear others' stories.

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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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