KOK Edit: Your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM)
KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) Katharine O'Moore Klopf
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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year's Resolution for Editorial Workers: Build a Better Network

If you're an editorial worker, one New Year's resolution that you might make is to build a better professional network. These tools and tips will help you:

  • Check out the links on the Networking page of the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base. For all organizations included there, I've provided links to their website and to their Facebook page, LinkedIn group, and Twitter account where available. The organizations are from all around the world, not just the United States of America, and they are targeted at various editorial specialties. If you know of additional organizations that should be listed there, please send the appropriate links to me at editor@kokedit.com.
  • The Editors' Association of Canada has on its website a chart of Canadian associations that compares them on the basis of
    • Services offered
    • Amount of membership dues
    • Membership requirements
    • Organization publications and communications
    • Organization marketing and job-search tools
    • Legal and administrative activities
    • Discounts offered to members
    • Opportunities for professional development and education
  • If you do have a paid subscription to Copyediting newsletter, read my column The Business of Copyediting in the April–May 2014 issue ("Why Join and Be Active in Professional Associations?" on page 1) for a rundown of how to make the most of your association memberships.
I'm not wealthy, so how do I afford all of those membership dues? I signed up for each organization at a different time of year, so that the dues for all of them are not payable all at the same time. You can use the same trick to stay within your budget.

Here's wishing all editorial workers an intellectually stimulating and financially rewarding 2015!




Friday, December 19, 2014

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

This guest post was written by my colleague Carolyn Haley, a talented editor and author. She last wrote a post here in 2011. Today she provides helpful insights for editors who suspect a particular project needs more editorial work than the author or other client requested.


Most independent editors, somewhere over the course of their careers, find themselves stuck with a project that needs way more work than they were hired to do. Much angst and frustration usually result, and sometimes damaged client relations.

How to fix this is a two-part equation. The first part is actually the second part: how to avoid a rerun in the future. That boils down to learning what kind of editorial work you are best suited for and how to acquire it, along with learning how to see undesirable projects coming and heading them off at the pass. Such foresight takes experience, starting with savvy communication with your prospects, and performing sample edits before you accept a job.

The real first part is getting through a project already on your desk that has expanded—or exploded—and still ending up with a happy client. The internal conflict often arises from editorial integrity—in other words, the personal need, compounded by the professional drive, to “fix” a poorly written work that seems doomed to publishing failure.

What’s Good Enough?
It’s not always possible to recast the contract. In those cases, your choice comes down to adapting to the changed circumstances or bailing out.

Bailing out is rarely desirable, leaving coping the better plan. To do so, you must spend some time thinking about broader issues. For example, what does “fix” or “make it right” mean? And what guarantee is there that any two editorial professionals are going to have the same understanding of what “right” is?

Most editors are uncomfortable working with subpar writing, at least when we do not have control and/or the remuneration to compensate for the labor and stress. As editors we are charged with helping authors make their work the best it can be, but who gives us the authority to deem that it’s good enough—or isn’t?

Is it more important to protect authors from making fools of themselves, or to accept that other parties are the ultimate arbiters of what’s “good enough” and just provide the service requested?

Keeping Perspective
I had to resolve this in my conscience and business strategy early on. I make my living editing mainly slush-pile-quality material. Occasionally something excellent comes along, but for the most part I get work that needs developmental editing—if not a full rewrite—for which I’m hired only for copyediting. (Sometimes I can talk clients up a notch but that’s the exception, not the rule.)

Learning how to deal with this has been a painful challenge. It helps to remember that I write dreadful stuff, too, and know how hard it is to do even that, much less learn what’s needed to improve the work and make it sellable or comprehensible to other people.

Within that frame of reference, I am able to keep in mind that just because I think somebody’s work needs significant rewriting, not everyone else does. If the entire professional cadre of editors went to the library together and each chose one book we think is superb and another we think is awful, we would likely end up with a stack a mile high in each category with few or no overlaps.

Point is, it’s not our job to judge our clients’ work. It’s our job to help them make their work shine, and educate them as best we can without overdoing our investment of time and effort, disproportionate to our pay.

A Win–Win Option
So, when you get stuck with a crummy project, here’s one way to deal with it.

Don’t waste your breath telling authors they need to rewrite; give them an idea how to go about it. This comes from showing via your edits, and telling via your comments, along with providing helpful resources. (For book-length work, I start with recommending Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, then work down a list.)

Focus on the mechanics—clarity, consistency, choreography, comprehension—and present your comments and queries from a reader’s point of view. The work’s quality will be judged by readers and any acquiring editors or contest judges; not your problem if it’s doomed to rejection. All you can do is improve its chances in a harsh world.

When the job is finished, thank the author for the chance to work with him or her and wish them success. If the author is happy and wants to thank you lavishly in the acknowledgments, and you don’t want to be associated with the work, politely decline. You need only say that your policy is to remain neutral and invisible, as an editor’s job is to support an author’s work, not share credit for it.

Then ask for referrals.

Unless you’re operating at the topmost tier of the publishing world, it’s likely you’ll go around again with the same issues sooner or later. Only by keeping your workflow vigorous do you have a chance of attracting the best authors and enjoying the best jobs. So instead of griping about the quality of your clients’ work, dive in and become their partner to elevate it to the next level.

____________________

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

Where to find Carolyn: businessLinkedIn profilebooksblogbook reviews







My Teacher in Freelancing

My son Neil, who taught me how to balance self-employment and parenting

This is my son Neil, 20 years old today, who spent years teaching me how to be self-employed with a baby/toddler/child/young adult around. And he taught me so well that I was confident enough to have one more baby after him while I kept my business running.

publishing




Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Why and How to Build Good Author Relationships

As a group, we editors haven't always done a good job of making the case for the necessity of editors. One way we can do that is through building good author–editor relationships. In a guest post on the blog of the American Society of Business Publication Editors, I explain why and how to do so.






Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Managing Editor for the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

I am absolutely delighted to say that I am the brand-new managing editor for the Journal of Urgent Care Medicine (JUCM), the official publication of the Urgent Care Association of America and the Urgent Care College of Physicians.

I worked with Lee Resnick, MD, FAAFP, during 2013 and 2014 to produce the books Textbook of Urgent Care Medicine and Textbook of Urgent Care Management, and we developed an excellent working relationship. Because of that experience, I am excited now to start collaborating with Dr. Resnick (JUCM's editor-in-chief), Peter Murphy of the Braveheart Group (JUCM's publisher), the journal's editorial board, and its authors to help make the journal the best it can be.

I will still be operating as a self-employed editorial consultant doing business as KOK Edit.






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