Joanne Sprott

by Joanne Sprott on October 2, 2018

Proofreading: Beyond Spelling

I’ve been working on a textbook update where the client wants “copy editing” over top of the new author’s changes to the text (!!!). A bit messy to look at a marked-up copy, but I’m getting through. Doing just copy editing on a PDF of the textbook rather than a Word manuscript does point up the substantive differences between copy editing and proofreading, though. I have to refrain from spending time on what are normally proofreading tasks.

Proofreading, which is normally done on a clean PDF copy right before printing, looks at a lot more than just spelling and grammar. We do read to see typos and such, but this is the only time we get to check the consistency of the compositor/book designer’s work as well. It’s about the whole book as presented to the reader, not just the text.

Here are some elements of a text that the proofreader is called upon to check (and which may or may not be finalized in the manuscript) to ensure consistency across an entire document:

Compositor mistakes like missing running heads, terms suddenly appearing in a different font or size
Heading level errors where the revision author uses Heading 3 where the template for the content calls for Heading 2
Heading rows in tables misaligned in different chapters
Footnote numbers not handled consistently from one chapter to the next
Case study template violated where one chapter only has one column, but the others have two with a standard set of questions in the left column
References handled inconsistently for capitalization, order of names, and punctuation; easy for authors to forget and just paste in a new reference using a different style
Consistent verbiage for information on intro and access date for website URLs in references
Forgetting to give the spelled out version of a term with the acronym on first mention
Formatting for source references at the bottoms of figures and tables (in my project’s case, the formatting was different in these two cases)
Capitalization rules for units of measure
Verifying accuracy of URLs in references (usually an extra job in my experience and one that adds cost to the job)

As you can see, there are a lot of things to check. I usually go through the text several times to look at individual issues (bigger ones to smaller ones), and if something can be checked by searching on a specific term or set of terms, I will take care of those prior to actually reading through the text. I have a good eye, but trying to see all of these things at once is almost impossible in one go.

I actually enjoy this work tremendously, especially as a break from developmental editing or book indexing. It doesn’t involve subject analysis, so my brain gets to just focus on mechanical aspects of a text. Not that proofreading is easier, necessarily, just that it uses a slightly different part of my brain.

by Joanne Sprott on September 24, 2018

Freelancing, Yes or No?: Part 2

And now for Part II of my response to Michael Poh’s “20 Reasons to Say ‘No’ to Freelancing.” As I wrote in Part I, I found that Michael’s perspective was not always reflective of my own twenty-five years as a freelance book indexer, copy editor and proofreader.

In this part, I’ll respond to Michael’s section on “self-traits,” as he calls them. The stuff about us as people that may not be conducive to freelancing, rather than stuff in our environment.

As Michael accurately wrote: “Simply put, if you don’t have what it takes, freelancing will wear you out fast.” Quite so. Freelance work is not for everyone.

9. Distractibility and lack of an organizing principle

I do have problems with this one, I think partly because I’m an extrovert rather than an introvert, so I get uncomfortable in front of the computer by myself. So email and social networking are major distractions. Also laundry and washing dishes. I think folks these days concentrate on online distractions when the old-fashioned ones can be just as compelling. I do agree that multitasking is not actually a virtue for humans (great article from NPR on how our brains really work here). In order to make money freelancing, you will need to create the discipline to focus. In addition, there’s no one else to file things away or take phone calls or do the bookkeeping, so you’ll need to be organized enough to carry it off yourself, or better yet, be able to charge enough for your awesome talent and dedication to delegate these tasks. I am still struggling with doing most of it myself. 🙂

10. Prioritizing

Michael is correct here, also. If you need a supervisor to help you decide what’s more important to work on and get to it, then working alone will be a struggle for you. I use the Things program (alas for Windows users, only for the Mac) to help me prioritize and keep track of projects. But there are comparable programs for Windows, too. I know you’re thinking, oh, I can keep track of everything in my head. Nope. Even if you just make a list in a notebook or calendar, you will need to figure out what to focus on first (see item 9 above), or you’ll miss deadlines and lose clients.

11 and 12. Branding self-worth

Yes, these go hand-in-hand, although Michael separated them. Part of your time will be taken up by presenting yourself to your target market. You are the advertising department, unless you can afford to delegate this task. First, your self-worth has to be high enough that you’re willing to expose your talents to the world without hitting people over the head in your fear of not getting enough work. It’s a delicate balance. Self-worth has to come first. If you don’t believe you are worthy to do the work for someone, it will be a real struggle to create everything from a proper logo to a website, to composing social media posts. Really. Your attitude will be visible, so it better be a good one. And you will have to update your presence and portfolio regularly. It’s not so much about “yelling in their face” about who you are, but just being friendly and consistent. Create value and be visible.

13. Working hard, smart, and passionately

49853533 – hands of sculptor and hammer detail while carving wood

Michael’s right on with this one. A generation or two ago, working hard was almost enough in our American society. In the last forty years, it’s become more important to work smart, to innovate (useful for freelancers), to have the latest in-demand intellectual skill set. But for the rest of the twenty-first century in what I call the new cottage industry economy, it will be most important to work passionately. This has always been an advantage, but now and in the future, even more so. If you want to maintaining that good value I mentioned in the last item, staying interested in your work will be key to your abundance. I’m definitely finding that this is true as I finally get a bit tired of book indexing and copy editing, and am branching out into other aspects of book production, including developmental editing and book design.

14. Surfing the money wave

Michael is also quite right here: If you have deep financial security issues, freelancing will be a challenge. Although job security overall has lessened considerably since I was born (in the 1950s), independent business people’s only job “security” is the fact that they have more than one client. An employee, by definition, only has one. That’s the freelance advantage, but the income is definitely not regular, and your bills still are. So the discipline to set aside a “pad” for those ups and downs will be important to your peace of mind.

15. Freelancing as the easy route

Well, no. Of course not. There’s very little that’s easy, and although there is such a thing as “passive income,” you still have to do work to keep subscriptions going or advertisers paying. It’s an energy exchange, always. The trick to making it “easy” is to do work that you love. You still have to put in effort, but it’s much more pleasurable. 🙂

16. Comfort zone

Comfort zones can be good or not depending on your purpose. If a comfort zone is created out of fear of trying something new that might be better, then, it’s really not that comfortable. There is fear underneath the chair in that cubicle. And oftentimes our comfort zones are blasted away by circumstance anyway. So you might as well take Michael’s advice and be proactive; seek out those new opportunities and stay ahead of the wave.

17. Having it all your own way, myth of

Michael is right that although you may market your own special way of doing things and get some clients because of it, most of the time, you will want to be flexible for the client’s needs (within reason). Freelancing will require tact as well as the setting of boundaries. But that’s also true of employer/employee relationships.

18. Waiting for inspiration

True, this is a luxury for those who don’t need to make a living. This item is also related to number 17; as a freelancer, you will still have “bosses” in a way—your clients. They will have a more limited influence on what you do, but they will expect you to meet deadlines and create based on their expectations and your outline of what you can do.

19. Patience, within limits

Again, this one speaks to your relationship with clients (which is required for that energy exchange so you can eat). You may very well be asked to revise and correct to meet the client’s requirements, but also keep in mind that as the freelance expert in whatever the field is, you can also put limits on the scope of the job up front to make sure you are not exploited. You don’t have to be infinitely patient.

20. Perseverance and passion

Riding the freelancing business wave does require going out there and catching more than one wave a week. First, find what you love to do that can be transformed into a product or service of value to others as well as yourself, then it will be much easier to persevere within your passion. Above all, look around you at what others are creating. Best practices (and cautionary tales) are everywhere for you to learn from. You may think that what you love to do has no value to others, but you are likely wrong about that. Most creations have some potential following if they are pursued with a dedication to quality. Go, let your tribe know you’re here creating just what they are looking for.

by Joanne Sprott on September 18, 2018

Freelancing, Yes or No?: Part 1

I found Michael Poh’s “20 Reasons to Say ‘No’ to Freelancing” to be interesting, but not always reflective of my own twenty-five+ years as a freelance book indexer, copy editor, and proofreader.

It ain’t easy. That’s not the point; work, even work we are passionate about, isn’t necessarily easy. But freelancing has its rewards, and I think some of Michael’s points against the freelancing life are really more about taking control over certain aspects of all of our lives. So, let’s go through the list and I’ll add my perspective. Since I’m a little more verbose than Michael, I’ll do this blog in two parts, addressing his work environment section in this one, and then his personal traits section in the next blog.

1. Benefits vs. flying without a safety net

It’s quite true that there’s no big corporate daddy to provide benefits, and at last count, I think there are some companies that actually still provide decent benefits, so if that kind of security is really important (especially if you have health issues), freelancing may cause more anxiety than its worth. I could sure use a paid vacation since I’m major breadwinner now rather than supplemental, but that’s partly my own responsibility for choosing an underpaid business area (publishing). Benefits should really be factored into the rates we charge; not always the case, but that’s not necessarily an argument for being an employee.

2. The flexibility expectation of freelancing

I see Michael’s point here in that freelancing doesn’t necessarily mean you can do whatever you want when you want (although some folks who provide supplementary income in a family unit may have quite a bit of flexibility). Your deadlines and clients are often your “bosses” in the freelance world. That said, you still have a bit more project-to-project flexibility than most employees. Quitting a project or not taking a project given to you at work may not be an option (not without quitting the one job you have), but I can decide not to work for a client anymore if I don’t like the way I’m treated (and I have). I do take care of my responsibility for the specific project I’ve contracted for, but I can definitely choose not to work for that client again and just continue with my other ones, and recruit a new one without disrupting my life or changing careers. And within the span of contract and deadline, I do have the freedom of not being actively supervised, and I can do my work from 4 p.m. to midnight if I want to.

3. and 4. Personal/work life separation (or not!)

This is a combo of Michael’s #3 and #4. Yes, I can refuse to take calls from clients after 5 p.m. Really, I can. I do tend to be too responsive to clients, but it’s just my extroverted personality and desire to please (which I need to curb), and is not necessarily part of the fabric of freelancing. And job-fear makes a lot of employees too responsive to bosses in their off hours, so I don’t see that big of a difference, particularly in our mobile-device-ruled world. It’s up to all of us to set the boundaries and not make every client or job-boss’s emergency my own. Forward to voice mail and don’t check your email every five minutes. That’ll do it. And no one will die.

My biggest challenge is keeping home stuff at bay so I can get work done. One way to solve this problem is to have an office outside the home, or at least take breaks from being around the laundry and vacuuming duties by spending time at the local coffee-house. I knew Starbucks was good for something besides coffee!

5. Setting aside time for vacation

Michael covered the paid-vs.-unpaid part of this up at the Benefits section, but here he wrote about finding the time for a break. I have to admit that I haven’t had much in the way of vacation in the last fifteen years, but it’s mainly because of the unpaid nature of vacation, not because I couldn’t make time for it. Workaholism is the worker’s responsibility. Again, it’s about setting boundaries. Demanding bosses will browbeat employees into not taking their earned time off, too, so it’s really about not being afraid to set those boundaries with other people. Bosses or clients, neither are supposed to be your totalitarian dictators. If that’s the case, then you’re likely in the wrong job or the wrong business, or you are a workaholic and are afraid to stop. Or you’re being exploited and you should be paid a lot better so you have the power to set boundaries.

6. Deskbounded-ness

Well, yes, many freelance service providers (editors, website designers, business consultants, programmers) will sit (or stand or walk a treadmill) in front of a screen, but how is this different from similar on-site employee jobs? The only way to get away from the screen is to do some kind of artisan work, or be a wilderness guide, or a landscaper, or a shop owner, some other job or business that involves being outdoors/in a shop. That’s really about what work you feel like you are suited for, not whether you are doing it on a freelance basis or as an on-site employee. We all have to find some balance of activities to keep body and mind healthy. See No. 5.

7. Social drought of working as sole proprietor

Michael makes a good point here. By definition, if you are working the kinds of tasks normally associated with “freelancing,” you’ll be a sole proprietor doing most/all of the work yourself in a home office. There won’t be any office chatter at the cooler (or donuts in the morning, or meetings, either!) or prospects for friendly after-work sessions at the local watering hole, etc. I have found solo freelancing to be a bit of a challenge because I’m an extrovert. It does pay to have an interest outside of work (church, social club, music, etc.) to go to on your time off (which you should be arranging anyway—see 3, 4, and 5). I also have a lot of online interaction (only downside is it means more screen time) that’s personal and not about work.

8. Expecting others to understand the unpredictability

I do also agree with Michael on this one: If you need regular paychecks and don’t want to do all your own bookkeeping and whatnot, it will be hard to make a living freelancing. I’d love to hire out some of that stuff, but I haven’t been able to do it except for tax preparation. Other folks do sometimes think that because I’ve got all this “flexibility,” I’m not really working hard and can be interrupted for errands, etc. This situation goes back to the setting of boundaries in all aspects of your life, though. Might be time to adopt the local coffeehouse and “go to work” so folks at home or in your neighborhood can think of you as not being available.

Actually, this has been an excellent exercise for me in looking at how to use my time better as a freelancer. Most of it seems to be about setting boundaries with others (work- and play-related) and creating your own structure to work for you.

Let me know in the comments how freelancing works, or doesn’t/didn’t for you, and why you still work that way or have gone back to an employee position with an organization. I’d love to know!

by Joanne Sprott on September 4, 2018

Proofreading and Credibility

So, I was invited to an inspirational online class by a high-energy life coach with what sounds like a great way with presentation. Looks like she speaks to hundreds at a time and really fires them up to reach their potential.

But I never got far enough to see what her presentation was like because I was stopped cold by the written copy promoting the event. Run-on sentences (I think she meant to put a period and space in, and capitalize the next word, but…), lack of detail about where and when for the event, just a feeling of her talking real quickly to everyone on short notice to join up with her, with no thought to making the promotion professional; reminded me of a really long tweet. It was very obvious that no one had looked at her material again to make sure it looked professional and had all the pertinent information for that level of access.

As a result of reading through this, I was disinclined to go further to participate or even check out prices (if any), because the initial promotion copy looked so sloppy. Several other people had already asked questions about the logistics of the event because the information was unclear.

I know I’m a proofreader, and you might say that I’m too picky, that other folks wouldn’t notice or care as long as the final presentation gives them what they are looking for. But I disagree. I think the coach here is losing new client opportunities because she isn’t taking the time to get her promotional copy right before putting it out.

Now, if this were a start-up coaching operation where the individual didn’t have the capital to invest in professional editing or proofreading, I might feel a bit of sympathy (although there would still be the problem of building credibility when your form of expression has blatant errors in it), but in this case the coach claimed that she was very successful already, so I’m pretty sure she had the resources to have her copy looked at.

I think folks often get focused on their strengths and fail to compensate for the things they aren’t so good at. Coaches in particular tend to have great people skills, awesome influence in counseling and oral presentation situations. Some of them are also good writers and pay attention to all the details of their business. But if you’re one of those “inspirationists,” as I call them, who want to focus on the content of the message, on the in-person relationships at workshops and retreats, then it’s a really important investment to build a support team who will conduct quality control on your other forms of expression, like event or course invitations, blog posts, website design, etc. If you don’t invest in the quality of your visibility (from promotional copy to your head shot photo), then a lot of people who need your services won’t get past the front door; they’ll be wondering as they stop for all the errors whether those errors are just cosmetic or a reflection of the underlying quality of the service being offered.

You don’t want them to stop and wonder; there are too many other places to go and services to check out. Please take an honest look at your online visibility creations (blogs, websites, promotional pages, etc.), and make that investment to free yourself from worrying about periods and spaces. Allow us to help you. Doesn’t have to be me, of course, but do invest in the pros who can make your true value visible. You deserve it.