Many thanks to Sally Findlay from Recognition Express, who has created a logo and some graphics for my blog for me. Sally listened to what I required, and listened again when I gave her feedback on the initial designs, and produced some lovely images that I’m more than happy to use. As well as graphic design, Recognition Express offers loads of branded promotional goodies – a good company to know about and be able to recommend!
My new logo
Thanks Sally!
I’m considering writing and publishing a short book on how I managed to lower my cholesterol levels through diet and exercise, spelling out exactly how I did it, and how it might be possible for other people to do it too. I am not planning on making any grandiose claims for being able to solve people’s problems, and I’m certainly advocating a happy and food-filled existence. I will make sure I add caveats for those who have very high levels and other issues, etc., etc. I’ll make sure I present properly researched medical facts as well as my own experience.
I’m planning to use my new Kindle publishing skills to publish it for Kindle and make it available via Amazon.
What I need to know is – would you buy this (for yourselves or someone you know). And if you’d buy it, how much would you be willing to pay?
Thanks for your help!
What do you think of when you think of an entrepreneur? Richard Branson grinning from a hot air balloon basket, secure with his millions? Those people who started off selling eggs when they were 3 and were always selling something, so now they’ve got an empire? After writing the introduction to my latest guest post, I was thinking about what an unlikely entrepreneur I am. I never showed a flair for business as a child. I kept my head down, did mainly admin jobs; was a good problem solver and solid worker, but not that exciting or, frankly entrepreneurial. Did anyone who knows me see Libro coming, and being the success it is now?
Now, I’m not setting myself up to be a business guru. But I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I feel I have some insights and experience which it might be useful to share. So: I think there are different ways of being an entrepreneur. Some people throw everything into it and take lots of risks (aha – the title is coming in now …). Others, like me, are more careful. And maybe we won’t get the multi-million rewards (and the failures, and the lack of time for family and friends, and the stress …) but we’re still brave.
I started my business. I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I didn’t take a risk with my finances and lifestyle: I ‘soft-launched’, which means that I started the business part-time while working, full-time at first, at my day job. Some people think doing this shows a lack of commitment – I don’t think I show a lack of commitment to Libro, but I do want to protect my own interests while proceeding with the business.
I went part-time at my day job. But I wasn’t taking too much of a risk, because I’d made sure in advance that I was making enough money with Libro to cover the loss of earnings – both times that I decreased my hours at the Library.
I’ve reached out to potential clients via Twitter and Facebook. But I did it more personally, subtly, answering tweets for help, reminding people of what I’m doing, rather than taking out expensive ads on all the social media. I’ve used social media and have gained clients through it, but at no cost apart from my time.
I certainly felt a bit nervous when I went to my first networking meeting. “Wear your normal business attire,” they said. What? My pajamas, or tracky bottoms and a hoody? But I suited up and went for it, and made some good contacts. Later on, I started going to the Social Media Cafe and now I’m helping out at the Social Media Surgeries. But I didn’t risk a lot of money on expensive memberships, or put everything into one form of networking; at the time of my first meeting, I was working full-time still and could not have coped if I’d suddenly developed lots of new customers. And I’m still evaluating the cost-benefit analysis of the bigger networking groups, and actively seeking new smaller, local ones to join.
So what I’m saying is, you don’t have to go out all guns blazing. If you’ve got an idea for a business but you’re not sure what to do next, think about it and start small. If you fail, you haven’t risked everything and lost it. If you succeed, you can grow slowly and carefully. It won’t work for everyone, but nothing does. This maybe offers an alternative to jumping in, if you’re not a natural risk-taker.
Good luck!
Now I’ve got more flexibility in my timetable, I suggested to my friend Laura, who also works from home (and cafes, and her office … ) that we add in some “co-working” time to our regular lunches. The definition of co-working has extended from its original “working with colleagues” idea to include working in parallel with other people, who are probably not your direct colleagues, in a space which is probably not either of your offices. That sounds a bit muddled – it’s basically those sets of people with laptops sitting around a big table in your local cafe.
So, we decided to try doing this at a local cafe, and then we decided to start writing an irregular series of reviews of local venues with free wifi in which it’s possible (or impossible) to work. We’re going to work our way around Kings Heath and then possibly venture further afield.
Our reviews will appear on both of our blogs and appear at the same time – I wonder if we’ll have the same opinion of all of them!
Loco Lounge, High Street, Kings Heath
This large, relaxed cafe bar hasn’t been open long but seems popular with the locals, with the outside section being full on these sunny Easter days. It was pretty empty when I arrived at around 10.30 am – but this was a good thing, as I was a bit nervous about taking the laptop out and about.
First things first – a decent pot of tea can be had for £3, and they have soya milk if not skimmed (I am on a special diet for health reasons – you’ll see a lot about milk from me!) although the server didn’t seem sure about how to access the free wifi that was advertised at the front of the cafe. But she asked a manager and we were told that, instead of being given a generic username and password, we needed to set up our own logins. Fair enough, although not something I’ve come across before. The wifi was through something called U2com and I think it’s probably used across a number of locations, perhaps all of the “lounge” cafes. Fair enough, again, but it was *really* complicated to log on and use it – first of all we had to wait ages for the relevant page to come up, and then you put in a username and password, which did actually give access to the wifi connection, had we but known it, but it then redirected me to another login page, which proceeded to tell me the username was already in use (by me!) and sent Laura off to a validation page which never quite worked. I got a validation email too, which I didn’t seem to need to use.
So that was annoying, and the connection was quite slow and did drop from time to time. The other slight annoyance was the lack of electricity sockets – the only ones we could see were occupied by the plugs for standard lamps, which weren’t on. My other experiences of using the laptop in cafes suggests that there are usually more points available. Luckily I was fully charged up and it wasn’t a problem this time, but it might have been.
Points in Loco Lounge’s favour: it was nice and quiet; the tables were big and well-spaced, so it felt safe to have the laptops out and open, with less risk of spillage and other accidents than some other places I’ve visited. The staff were discreet and subtle and we weren’t hassled to buy more drinks, although we did end up having another drink (me) and lunch (Laura). No comment on the food from me, as I didn’t have any, but the prices seemed a little high for snacks, although there were a good few options for my diet, which was refreshing. The lighting is comfortable, there are free newspapers available to browse, and I certainly felt secure enough to sit and work there for a morning or afternoon.
In summary: tweak the internet connection and login and this is a great and recommended place for co-working as well as other kinds of visit.
For Laura’s review, go here!
This month’s guest post is from Annabelle Beckwith of Yara Consulting and Coach Me Confident. I met Anna on our very first day at University (ahem) years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Anna was always the dynamic, arty one, full of ideas and enthusiasm, whereas I was more of a plodder. I don’t think either of us would have thought that, (ahem) years on, we’d both be running our very different businesses! Anna’s company Yara offers innovative and exciting training methods that really work – she’s been doing it longer than me, and working full-time from home, so many of us could benefit from her tips for making a home office work well and smoothly. Over to you, Anna …
Working From Home – 5 top tips
Several years ago, I worked from a rather expensive city centre office, in the mistaken belief that it would impress my clients. Sitting on the crowded commuter train one morning, it occurred to me that working from home would be a far more sensible option, cutting down massively on costs and travel and, well … just making an awful lot more sense.
Working from home, of course, has massive advantages – the flexibility and the comfort factor among them. It does, though need a different mindset. Here are my top 5 tips for anyone thinking of working from home:
1. Get organised!
If, like me, you’re not the world’s tidiest person, you will need to exert some self discipline to keep your work in order. This will range from organising your work space (so you don’t scatter things around the house and end up losing half of it), to ensuring that you have some sort of filing system, to making sure that you keep track of your finances.
It might seem like a bit of a faff to spend time at the beginning setting up a few systems, but believe me, it will be time well invested, and you’ll feel the benefit of it later on!
2. Set your goals
Two big areas for me at the start of my working-from-home career were goal setting and prioritising. The freedom of working from home can be such that it’s easy to end up running round like a headless chicken, doing lots of ‘stuff’ but not actually achieving anything.
Make sure you have clear goals about what you want to achieve, and devise a plan or schedule that will enable you to keep track of it all, and get the work done.
3. Learn to prioritise
Prioritisation is another key area for the home-worker: with no-one else telling you what to do, it’s important that you prioritise the right tasks. Avoid the temptation to do the things you like doing, or can get out of the way quickly and prioritise on the basis of how urgent and/or important something is (Steven Covey). Brian Tracy’s book ‘Eat That Frog’ is a good one on this subject.
4. Find your balance
When I first started working from home, people would say to me, “how do you deal with all the distractions?” as if the lure of daytime TV or endless cups of tea might overwhelm the necessity to actually do some work.
I’m sure that most home-workers will find that the reverse is true: it can actually be difficult to switch off. I often find myself writing blogs or e-mails later in the evening, when my kids are asking me to spend time with them.
Don’t lose sight of the reason for actually working from home in the first place (in my case, to be able to spend more time with my kids). Make sure you strike a healthy balance.
5. Join a network
One of the drawbacks of working from home – particularly if you’re working full time – is that you don’t have the advantage of being able to socialise with colleagues. Join some networks – online ones like LinkedIn are great, but find some that have local meetings and will enable you to make some new contacts and meet other people in the same boat.
Who knows – it may even lead to more business!
If you’ve enjoyed this guest post, you can find more like it, including a great recent series on goal-setting, on the Yara blog.
I usually post about words and editing-related things, but this time I wanted to share a great experience I had the other week. I was aware of the Birmingham Social Media Surgery but didn’t really know what it was and how it worked. Last Wednesday, I saw a few tweets asking for volunteers to help. But I didn’t really know what the parameters were and what constituted an “expert” who could help other people learn about using social media. So I waited until I was in town late that afternoon, and popped along to the Orange Studios on Cannon Street (Birmingham), which is where they are always held.
I met the organisers and explained I was there to help; they took my details and said they’d match me up with a visitor so I could start helping. They even lent me a laptop for the occasion (this was a Mac, which caused me some consternation and could have been embarrassing – “Yes, I know all about the internet; unfortunately I’m unable to use a computer!”) By this time, I’d gathered that the point of a Social Media Surgery is that people who know about social media and how to use it help people involved with community and charitable organisations to learn about blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
I was paired up with a chap who’d come in just after me. We sat down and I found out his background (he helped community organisations promote themselves and their events), established where he was so far, then chatted about how he could use social media more effectively. For example, I showed him how to link his LinkedIn account to Twitter, we chatted about the (lack of) etiquette for posting on Twitter, and I think possibly the most useful thing – the fact that, in this world of New Media and Social Media, if you see someone doing something you think is good, they usually don’t mind if you contact them and ask them how they did it! As I’ve worked for a New Deal For Communities project in the past, and have organised and promoted events, using social media, hopefully I had some background knowledge which would help.
I’ve enjoyed sharing my experiences and giving advice at Birmingham Social Media Cafe before now, but that’s more for other entrepreneurs. This is real grass-roots stuff, helping groups who may be digitally disadvantaged grasp the opportunities some of us take for granted or have been fortunate enough to have the time, education and resources to work out for ourselves. I came away feeling great about having been able to share some of my knowledge and help someone who can help people perhaps less fortunate, but definitely less digitally-literate, than myself. I didn’t set myself up as an “expert” but the team there were supportive and friendly.
I’d recommend any entrepreneurs and small business owners out there to “give something back” in this kind of way. It’s so rewarding, relationships can be forged which may well be beneficial to both parties, and I hope I’ll be back every month!
So, it’s time for a new “What I’ve been up to” post, since my readers seem to like those, and that covers the “March” bit of my title, but I also want to look forwards into the new financial year and say thank you to my clients for the past financial year. That’s the April bit.
First of all, what I did in March …
– Continued working on my Taiwanese client’s essays – the English is really improving in these; I’m proud of both of us for that
– Continued working for my US agency client on their client’s web pages and publications
– Finished writing the content for the two websites I’ve been working on for a while
– Continued working for my translator client, including a wide range of interesting topics
– Transcribed an interview for my ongoing journalist client and read a couple of articles she’s created out of interviews I’ve transcribed (which I find *fascinating*)
– Worked on my physiotherapist client’s blog posts, including tidying up the posts themselves, adding categories to those that didn’t have them and creating a set of tags for the posts and applying those to them too, copyedited her website and turned two e-books into one
– Did a transcription of a radio show about music for a previous PhD client who’s now working on a new project
– Copyedited several third year and Master’s dissertations on economics, one on art, and one on sports science
– Copyedited a chapter of a thesis on international law
Now, here’s the April bit. It’s the start of a new tax year, and also my new financial year. I’ve run my accounts for the year and am pleased with and proud of what I’ve achieved this year. And, while obviously I’m grateful to Matthew for his support (including technical support); and my friends for their understanding as I guiltily check the Blackberry while I’m out and about with them, or dash home to finish a project; and my copyediting and small business peers for their help and advice, I want to say a big thank you to my clients.
Dear Libro clients: Thank you for taking me on in the first place, either because you’ve seen my adverts or I’ve tweeted to you or however else you found me. Thank you for trusting the person who recommended me and approaching me. Thank you for responding to my questions quickly, for making decisions if I’ve needed you to make them, and for keeping me informed of your plans and when you’re going to send me things. Thank you for understanding that I do need to work around my day job (and eat and sleep occasionally!). Thank you for your kind comments, your references for my website or on LinkedIn or Facebook. Thank you for either coming back to me for more work, recommending me to your friends and colleagues, or both! I really enjoy the work I do, I love learning about all the different things you all write about, I love creating new text for you or helping you hone what you’ve created yourselves.
Here’s to a happy, busy and successful 2011-2012 for all of us!
Last month I posted a quick update on what I’d been up to, which seemed to be of interest both to those who know me and wonder what I do on those days when I’m not working at the day job and the evenings I have to rush back to my desk, and those who were keen to know what people in my profession actually do. So I thought I’d make it a semi-regular post, and I’ve done quite a lot of varied work this month…
In the past 4 weeks I have…
Copyedited two essays for a client undertaking a physiotherapy qualification, documents a client was submitting for professional development, 2 essays for my regular Taiwanese client.
Copyedited a newsletter and re-written one e-booklet on osteoporosis/copyedited one on the lower back for my regular physiotherapist client.
Written all of the copy for 2 websites, one for a motivational speaker, the other for a printing and graphic design company.
Re-copyedited a previous client’s PhD on the EU.
Copyedited a PhD thesis on psychology.
Substantively copyedited a science fiction novel.
Copyedited several articles, a longer piece and a company annual report for a new client who is a translator in Finland.
Copyedited and proofread one quarterly and one monthly publication for my regular American Club customer.
Copyedited and proofread a crime novel translated from the Italian.
Transcribed two interviews for my regular music journalist client.
Copyedited a dissertation on art for a Japanese client.
A nice mix of regular customers and new one-offs, and I did a bit of everything (proofreading, copyediting, copy writing and transcribing) which was fun.
Coming up:
Copyediting and proofreading a large American Club website.
Copyediting the next novel in a series.
A couple of PhDs where I’m waiting for the clients to finish working on the text.
More work tidying up translations from Finnish to English.
More work on American club monthly, quarterly and annual publications.
More physiotherapy newsletters and e-booklets.
More Italian crime novels.
For info on how I work with students and ensure they maintain authorship of their work, please see this post. And of course we all know the difference between copyediting and proofreading now, don’t we!
Time for another guest post, this time from Bernadette Jones from first4admin. Bernadette runs a Virtual Assistance company which offers administrative and secretarial support – and I work with her when she needs to offer my particular services to a client. She has also been a vital support to me in my first steps into the business of Networking, generously sharing tips and hints on how to proceed.
When I asked people if they would like to post a guest post on this blog, I didn’t specify what I wanted them to talk about, as long as it was related to words, business, etc., i.e. loosely related to the usual subjects of this blog. We’ve had Linda Gillard on creative writing, and we’ve got posts on training and writing marketing materials coming up. But for now – well, what are your favourite new buzzwords?
Buzzwords to the rescue!
Words are marvellous and buzzwords, in particular, are becoming more and more frequent. I stumbled across the word “greentailing” the other day, which defines either the selling of environmentally friendly products, or the use of eco-friendly methods in order to run a business. “Greentailer” is the noun derived from this word. Companies such as Walmart are pioneers of this form of retailing, and this form of business can only prove to become more popular as people are now more aware of environmental issues and are more likely to purchase from a company showing that it has the environment at the core of its business ethics.
Another buzz word which I have heard more and more of my friends use now is “glamping” which is used to define a luxury way of camping – brilliant! I have yet to hire a tepee or a yurt in order to camp, but I have already purchased Cool Camping England, published by Jonathan Knight, Paul Marsden and Andy Stothert. This is an excellent publication, giving information about very special places to camp in England. It is going to be one of my resolutions for 2011 to find a glamorous way of camping. Roll on the Summer!
“App” is also another buzzword which I particularly find appealing, and the American Dialect Society have elected the word “app”, which is a computer or smartphone application, as Word of the Year for 2010.
No doubt 2011 will serve to be another year where more and more buzzwords become more commonplace.
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