Welcome to my April round up of what I’ve been getting up to. Do you find these round-up posts interesting? Would this series be better on my Libro Full-Time Blog? Do leave a comment, click on the share buttons or share my notifications on various social media locations!

Being self-employed full time

I was pretty busy for most of April and had to abandon a few attempts to get to networking events, but I did manage to make it to the Elizabeth Taylor Day in Reading and the BookCrossing meetup in town. I’m also much better at not worrying if it’s a quiet week. If it is quiet, I make sure I get some rest, catch up with my reading or work on my research project, rather than fretting.

Editing, writing, transcribing and proofreading

I’ve been busy with a variety of projects throughout April.

I started off the month finishing a batch of transcriptions for the international organisation I work for regularly. I also helped to recruit a few more transcribers for them, as I’m ideally placed to tell people EXACTLY what it’s like and make sure their expectations are set (“so, you’re going to be typing like a maniac for 8 hours a day, listening to non-native speakers of English talking about international affairs and taking their presentations down in a way that turns them into native English …”)

I did more work with my Master’s students including some pretty intense work to get their essays finished off for the beginning of the summer term, as well as proofreading other essays and dissertations for the student proofreading company I work for. In fact, looking back, it’s been a lot about the students this month!

I didn’t do a lot of writing for clients this month, but I did manage to finish writing my e-book (How I Conquered High Cholesterol) which is now in beta-testing and will shortly be available via Amazon.

I did a fair bit of US to UK English localisation for a couple of my clients, including working on a technical manual for some medical equipment, which was unusual and interesting! I do like the intellectual challenge of working out what “we” would say in a given situation, although I have to go off and refocus my mind when swapping between the two languages!

I’ve helped one regular client start to shape some blog posts into book form by editing them for consistency and taking out all the redundant bits, and I’ll be doing more editing for her in the coming month or so.

I’ve worked with the usual translators, too, of course – most of my clients are ongoing regulars now, which I like a lot!

Blogging and tax

I would be amazed if anyone didn’t know that I’d done my tax return in April (but here’s why, including the full horror of Going On To Payment On Account). Anyway, I know where I stand and what I’ve got to pay in tax this year, that’s all set aside and I’ve given myself the balance, so all set for a slightly less constrained year.

I’ve continued adding to my series of articles about using Word and my series of interviews with fellow small businesses , and I decided to put together a resource guide to the information to be found on my blog for businesses, students and Word users.

I published another five-sentence monthly newsletter – do sign up here for a quick read!

In more sociable news, I helped at the city centre Social Media Surgery session, and attended Social Media Cafe as usual (I wouldn’t miss that for the world). Finally, over on the Libro full-time blog I’ve added a few new resolutions to my list for Home Workers!

Coming up – transcription madness

I’m booked in for more transcription from late May into June, so I’ll turn into a hermit then (but I can’t wait to find out what happens to all the ongoing projects the organisation is working on!). Until then, I’m currently working on a rather technical geology text as well as the usual ongoing student, translator and editing bits and bobs.

Libro offers copyediting, copy writing, proofreading, transcription, typing and localisation services to other small businesses, individuals and corporations. Click on the links to find out more!