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What does a copyeditor do?

25 May

I’ve noticed that people have been finding this website and blog by searching for “what does an editor do”?  So I thought a quick example or two might be in order!

What a copyeditor actually does is make sure the text the author has written doesn’t have spelling, grammar, punctuation and factual errors.  When I’m copyediting a piece, I work in several different ways (according to how my client wants me to work with them):

– a Word document and “track changes” – I turn Track Changes on in Word and it shows up exactly what I do, whether it’s deleting something, moving it, or adding a word here and there.  I also use the “comments” facility to highlight a word or phrase and then ask a question or offer some alternatives.   When the client receives the document from me, they choose “show final markup” in Track Changes (or similar, depending on what word processor they’re using) and then go through accepting or rejecting my changes with the click of a button.  I always work like this with students, so they have to decide whether to accept each change, retaining ownership and authorship over the piece of work.  But some other clients like me to do this too.

– a Word document with the changes already made. This is sometimes called a “clean copy”.  I make the changes I think are needed, and the client trusts that I’m right and doesn’t need me to tell them what I’ve done.  I work like this with some clients from the start; some move over to this format after we’ve worked together for a while.  If a client isn’t a student, I offer them one of each of these two, then they can see what I’ve done but don’t have to go through accepting each change.

– an annotated PDF.  I work this way with clients whose work is already in PDF format, or when I’m copyediting web pages.  I print a copy of each web page to PDF or open the PDF document, and use a dedicated application that allows me to highlight parts of the text and add call-out boxes with comments in.  Clients who use this method include anyone who has a set of web pages, and, for example, magazine publishers, who send me the pages as they will look in the final magazine (check back soon for information on when this constitutes “proofreading”).

So, for an example, I’ve made up a piece of text that’s riddled with errors, and then I present my corrected copy underneath.  So I don’t inadvertently plagiarise someone, I’ve used my own text from another blog post.

———

From the author:

Now I’ve got more flexibility in my time-table, 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 coworking has extended from its original ‘working with colleauges’ idea to include working in paralell with other people, who are probably not your direct colleagues, in a space which is probably not both of your offices. That sounds a bit muddled – it’s basicly those set of people with laptop’s sitting around a big tables in your local cafe.

So, we decided to try doing this ata local cafe, and now we decided to start writing a irregular series of reviews of local venues with free wifi in which it’s possible (or possible) to work. We’re going to work our way around Queens Heath and then possibly venture farther a field.

My corrected version:

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.

———-

There are some variants: a substantive copyedit, for example, will include all of the above work, plus I’ll be looking for inconsistencies in the text as a whole: for example, a character in a biography’s name changing, or the layout of a house being inconsistent in a novel – a bit like being a continuity person for a film.

In the next few weeks, I’ll talk about what a proofreader, copy writer and transcriber does (maybe even a copy typist, too!)

 
25 Comments

Posted by on May 25, 2011 in Business, Copyediting, Jobs, Punctuation, Skillset, What Do I Do?

 

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On (not) taking risks

18 May

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!

 
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Posted by on May 18, 2011 in Business, New skills

 

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(Co)Working our way around town Part 1

11 May

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!

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2011 in Business, Organisation, Reviews

 

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5 top tips for working from home

27 Apr

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.

 
5 Comments

Posted by on April 27, 2011 in Blogging, Business, Guest posts, Organisation

 

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March and April

06 Apr

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!

 
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Posted by on April 6, 2011 in Business, Celebration, Jobs, Organisation, What Do I Do?, Writing

 

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On a different type of language

30 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Gary Jones. I met Gary through my hobby of BookCrossing and have done some copyediting work for him to complement his web development skills. I really like this beautiful meditation on a very different kind of language from that usually discussed on here.

Here’s what Gary sent me when I asked for a biography – I can’t put it better myself, so I won’t!

Gary Jones is a freelance web developer from Basingstoke with a keen interest in anything to do with the web. He specialises in WordPress sites using the Genesis theme framework. You can follow Gary on Twitter.

————————————————————————————–

I write code for a living. It could be in one of many languages, but all require careful checking as one misplaced or missing character could cause a fatal error and kill a website completely. Debugging code can be fun, or it can take hours to find where one single comma or semi colon is missing. There are many types of error within code, but pretty much all of them can come down to one thing – human error.

Code can have a beauty of its own. Whereas an author might weave a lavish scene with in-depth explanations of intricate details, the most impressive code is often the smallest fragment that does most of the work; one line of code that culminates from the conditional logic, foreach and while loops, switch statements and concatenations that kick-starts the application into life.

Encapsulations, polymorphism and synchronicity await those who dare to delve a little deeper. Code patterns, gradual degradation, progressive enhancements, refactorisations, even the terms related to code are elegant, and that’s just what good code should be – elegant, accurate and concise.

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2011 in Guest posts, Language use, Writing

 

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Why bother? The value of proofreading

23 Mar

A while ago, I asked people what they’d like to see me writing about. One that came up there, and has come up since, and before, and whenever I mention I’m a proofreader/copyeditor, is … “why bother?” Why can’t people just express themselves however they want, with whatever spelling, grammar and punctuation they fancy?

I have to state my own view here; that’s all I can do. And furnish some examples, many drawn from a discussion I had with peers in the copyediting business, on a forum to which I belong. I fall in between the prescriptive and descriptive camps when it comes to spellings, grammar, etc. and their (inevitable) changes. I glory in new words and word-formations (I’ve been slightly obsessed with the -gate suffix for more years than I care to recall) and I find it fascinating to see how language changes with time. I don’t think it should be fixed, nailed down and not allowed to change. But I still care deeply about clarity and precision of expression. And, in my opinion, if you don’t know the rules and how to apply them, if you don’t *care* about the rules and how to apply them, then the clarity of what you’re expressing can easily be lost, and your meaning may not come across as you intend it to.

Please note, I am not criticising those who don’t know the rules, or have difficulty applying them. How could I, when my own clients include people whose English is not their first (or second, or third) language, dyslexic people, people who’ve not been taught at school or college how the rules work. I like a laugh at a dodgy shop sign as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t point out those things publicly in this blog, or ever want to make people feel I’m mocking them. But if you are not sure what to put or how to write it, there are reference materials all over the place, and people like me and my colleagues, who can help out.

So, some examples (thanks again to the Copyediting-List folks for providing some of them)

— A purple people-eater is purple and eats people, but a purple-people eater eats only the purple ones.

— Here’s a fascinating link showing the importance of word order:

— Here’s an example of how important language is in the legal field. And it’s not just in the legal field – while many students are not marked down for grammar and punctuation these days, a friend who lectures in speech and language therapy does, as a mistake in someone’s notes can cause many problems down the line.

— On a similar note, haven’t we all got colleagues or other people we communicate with who may not have great written language skills? Doesn’t it devalue their opinions a little in your mind, when everyone’s laughing at the latest email or sign?

— This is a long one, but it shows the importance of punctuation!

Dear Jim:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Anne

Dear Jim:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Anne

— Capitalisation matters too, in this great example from Andy Mabbett:

One area of capitalisation that divides even experts in the field is around species names. There are many types of black-headed gulls, and lots of little gulls, but only one species called Black-headed Gull (and it has a brown head!) and one species of Little Gull. Consider:

“Is that black-headed gull a black-headed gull?”

“No, that’s a little gull. The little gull on the railing is a black-headed gull.”

vs.

“Is that black-headed gull a Black-headed Gull?”

“No, that’s a Little Gull. The little gull on the railing is a Black-headed Gull.”

— A classic: Let’s eat Grandma!/Let’s eat, grandma!

— Lynne Truss did well out of this one: Eats, shoots, and leaves/Eats shoots and leaves.

— This one comes in various forms and with various names… I would like to thank my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa.

Publishers and other purveyors of words have style guides, academic departments ask their students to reference books read in a certain way, and proofreaders and copyeditors (and copy writers) use reference materials such as the ones I’ve discussed before, to make sure that what they produce is clear and consistent. We do this, I think, on behalf of the reader, so they’re not distracted by mistakes, howlers and inconsistencies. My aim in my work is to help the writer express themselves clearly and accurately, so their readers can read their texts simply and easily, using their brainpower and concentration to absorb the concepts of the text at hand, or just enjoy a work of fiction without having to puzzle over the word the author meant to use.

So – why bother? Do you think I should? Do you think we should? And have I answered the question?

 
10 Comments

Posted by on March 23, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Punctuation, Reference materials, Why bother, Writing

 

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On the semicolon

16 Mar

A while ago, I wrote a post about blogging more for 2011, asking people what they’d like me to write about; I had several replies. The responses had different themes: business issues; what I got up to during my working week; and specific things like the use of the semicolon and capitals.

I love the semicolon; I think it’s a thing of elegance and beauty. I use it a lot in my copyediting work, often swapping in a semicolon for a comma; I never know which changes my clients accept, but I hope those are some of them!

And now I’m going to stop trying to use it in every sentence. Like a bright colour in a room or a choice swear word in a conversation, it’s perhaps best used sparingly if you’re to get the full effect.

So: a definition. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the semicolon thus: “n. a punctuation mark (;) indicating a more pronounced pause than that of a comma.” It also reminds me that it’s written semicolon, and not semi-colon, causing me to (a) check this in my other sources and (b) amend what I’ve typed already here.

And when do we use it? Here, I turn to New Hart’s Rules, which is recommended by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and so is a style bible for me. Basically, you use a semicolon to divide two or more main clauses which complement or parallel each other and could stand as sentences in their own right. Basically, this makes the text flow better, as instead of being divided up into choppy, short sentences, you can create one, or a series of, balanced and elegant statements. Remember though, folks – if the second clause explains the first, a colon is more appropriate.

You can also use it in a list, in two ways: either where the items in the list have commas within each item, and a semicolon between each item will clarify matters (“They pointed out, in support of their plea, that they had interviewed all of the candidates, successful and unsuccessful; that they had contacted those people, by telephone if possible, who had not been successful; and that they had written to all the others”) or where there is a list separated from the rest of the sentence with a colon, as in my initial paragraph, above.

Interestingly for my international work and readers, there is no difference here between British English and American English.

Here ends my short lesson on the semicolon. Go on, try using one today!

 
6 Comments

Posted by on March 16, 2011 in Language use, Punctuation, Writing

 

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Copyediting and proofreading

23 Feb

As promised a couple of posts ago, I will now attempt to distinguish between copyediting and proofreading.

I have used New Hart’s rules: the handbook of style for writers and editors, which is one of the reference tools recommended by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, in setting down these distinctions: any errors, however, are my own.

Copyediting means making sure the copy conforms, first, externally, to accepted forms of word use, spelling, grammar, etc., and any style guide the client might use, and second, internally to itself. The second point is very important and involves checking the author has spelled names the same throughout, referred to people in the same way, arranged rooms described in a house in the same way each time they’re mentioned, etc. That’s a bit like being a continuity person for a film or TV programme, and when there’s a lot of that, it’s called a substantive edit. For example, in a novel I’m copyediting at the moment, I’ve had to pop backwards in the text and insert suggestions for something being mentioned at one point, so it can be referred to later on.

So, copyediting is actually what people usually think of when they think “Liz is running a proofreading business.”

But proofreading is something altogether different. This involves checking a text is ready to be published. Making sure the text starts on the right page, that paragraphs don’t have a trailing word on the next page, that diagrams or tables aren’t split, that the right chapter heading appears at the top of each page. Really, this is making sure the proofs, the final copy before publication, can be published as they are.

Sometimes I do both. I’m working on a non-fiction book at the moment, where I’ve already gone through a copyedit and made sure all the sentences work OK and all the capitalization is consistent. I’m awaiting a copy of the PDF, which I’ll check over for picture captions being correct and the text appearing nicely on the page.

Of course, there’s always an opportunity for people to mix up copyediting and copy-writing. Hopefully, this piece is spelled and punctuated correctly; I haven’t written it half with copyediting and half with copy-editing and I’ve included a citation for the book I’ve referred to. So I’ve copyedited it. The actual writing of the piece in the first place? That’s copy-writing.

Reference
New Hart’s rules: the handbook of style for writers and editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

 
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Posted by on February 23, 2011 in Errors, Reference materials, Skillset, What Do I Do?

 

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On asking for what you (really) want

15 Feb

So, how is choosing a pony like choosing a freelancer?

I went horse-riding on Saturday (for the first time in years) and had asked for a “slow” pony. What I should have asked for, I realised, as my pony bucked a little and tried to bite her reflection in the arena mirror, all the while needing to be forced out of a v e r y slow walk, was a “slow and placid” pony. Never mind – I had fun and I could cope with the pony, and learned a lesson about asking for what I wanted as well as expecting what I’d asked for.

And then, I’ve just finished reading a book (look out for the review on my book blog) in which the heroine *twice* gets what she wanted, only to find out it’s not what she really wanted at all. Cue heartbreak and all sorts of lessons learned.

All this got me thinking about how, especially when we’re hiring people to do work for us, we need to think about what we (really) want before we specify the terms and conditions. If you’re using a proof-reader/copy-editor (yes, I know – I’ll explain the difference soon!), it’s useful to realise up front that you need to cut some word count, for example. This is something we can do, but it’s far easier for us (and cheaper for you in terms of time and money) to do it as we go along, rather than having to go back through the document, snipping away. If you’re concerned about a particular aspect of the project, tell us – ask away; if we’re any good, we’ll accept your questions, answer them and reassure you. I would much rather you, the client, were happy with the outcome and relaxed throughout the process, even if that means I do a shorter, smaller project for you or you don’t use me at all!

So, whether you’re choosing a pony, a life partner or a freelancer, think carefully about what you’re asking for, before you ask for it.

 
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Posted by on February 15, 2011 in Business, Ethics, Jobs, Organisation

 

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