How to make your freelance editor happy on a limited budget

Iva Cheung wrote recently about the care and feeding of freelancers and ways freelancers can contribute to your marketing campaign. She talks about some ways to show appreciation for your freelance editor, like sending them a complimentary copy of the book or inviting them to the book launch party, that help make them feel involved and excited about your projects.

This reminds me of some thoughts I had recently about things you can do for your freelance editor that don’t involve paying them more money. Obviously, nothing takes the place of fair compensation, but when you’ve reached the limit of your budget, what else can you do to keep your freelancer happy?

Promotion

Freelancers are always on the lookout for clients, and they’ll appreciate your helping them build their reputation and promote their business.

• Add a credit in a book’s acknowledgements or magazine’s masthead.
• Feature your freelancer on your contributors’ page.
• Put a link to your freelancer’s website on your website, or invite her to write a guest post on your blog.
• Write a testimonial or a recommendation for LinkedIn.
• Offer free or discounted advertising space in your publication.

Swag

Do you have any company swag you can give away?

• A complimentary copy of the book or magazine is always appreciated.
• Consider offering a discount on buying more copies of the book.
• Do you receive review copies of books or other items that you can pass along?
• For magazine publishers especially: do you have any T-shirts or other brand-name swag? Your freelancer might wear it with pride and talk up the product.

Editing courses for Vancouver editors

Editing courses

Vancouver has a lot of great courses available for editors, ranging from credit programs that start with the basics to professional development seminars that fill in the gaps.

Editors’ Association of Canada, B.C. Branch

The EAC offers about seven or eight one-day professional development seminars throughout the spring and fall. See the EAC-BC Professional Development Seminars listings.

Simon Fraser University’s Writing and Publishing Program

SFU offers a certificate in editing, but courses are also open to non-certificate students. Courses are offered outside of regular work hours. See their editing certificate courses here.

Douglas College Print Futures Program

Another local option is Douglas College’s Print Futures Program, which offers courses in writing and editing.

Professional Editors Association of Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island’s PEAVI also puts on seminars.

Independent study and distance education

Meeting Professional Editorial Standards

The Editors’ Association of Canada’s Meeting Professional Editorial Standards is a set of editing exercises presented with solutions and discussion.

Ryerson University’s Editing Certificate

If none of the local options work for you, many of Ryerson University’s editing certificate courses are offered as online courses. See these reviews of Ryerson’s editing courses for more information.

Outside Vancouver

And finally, here’s a list of publishing programs around the world maintained by SFU.

Strange Flesh comes out today: Special offer on the e-book

A little while ago I talked about how much I liked Strange Flesh by Michael Olson. It has now been released, and the e-book version is on sale for $1.99 (down from $12.99) until April 17th. Get it for Kindle, Nook, or iBook.

Picture research

Do you publish documents with pictures? Ever wonder whether you’re giving credit correctly? What the different types of licences allow? Where to find good pictures, and what photo resolution you need?

Come to Picture Research with Mary Rose MacLachlan and Derek Capitaine of MRM Associates to learn more about this important part of publishing. For more information, see EAC-BC’s upcoming seminars page and the Picture Research registration page.

Place and time: April 21, 2012, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (half day) at SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver

Early registration ends March 30.

Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

One thing the internet reveals is that the world contains multitudes of people just like you . . . Some people are looking to share their thoughts, others are looking to share . . . other things.

As heartbreak leads to loneliness, which leads in turn to net porn and no-strings dating sites, the wear and tear on James Pryce’s body and soul are beginning to build up. When the Randall twins, rich acquaintances from college, hire him to go undercover to find their brother, it seems like an opportunity to step off the path his life has taken recently. Instead, it leads to an online world defined by the escalating demands of the Fever, orchestrated by an artist who likes nothing better than to see his virtual creations bleed into real life.

I loved it. The ongoing themes of compulsion and addiction, secrecy and shame make for a satisfying underpinning to a well-plotted story of digital trickery and a feuding family. The technical detail rings true (although I’d never heard of using foot pedals for your modifier keys). Best of all, the writing is very good indeed, and the narrator’s dry delivery makes certain grotesqueries funnier than perhaps they should be.

So is it Neal Stephenson plus titillation? Not really. There’s geek service, but our hero is a social engineer, not a brain. And social though he is, don’t expect to find too much erotica here. It reminded me more of Chuck Palahniuk, with maybe the slightest whiff of Less than Zero. Call it a thriller with geek appeal. Transgressive geek appeal.

Publication date April 3, 2012
Strange Flesh excerpt

Reviewed from a free copy sent by the publisher.

Survey of salaries for copy editors and writers

Copyediting.com’s latest tip of the week is a writeup on recent surveys of copy editor salaries and freelance rates.

They post information from Robert Half International’s Salary Guides (see the Creative Group Salary Guide), and the updated Editorial Freelancers Association’s Editorial Rates page.

Writing income for novelists

I just ran across this post by Jim C. Hines on his writing income throughout his career. Some things I notice:

• This is the first year (at least in about four years) that his U.S. income was more than his foreign sales and royalties.
• He still has a day job.
• Short fiction isn’t a big source of income for him.
• In 2010, e-book income made up about 3–5% of the royalties (see comments on 2010 post).

And while we’re on the subject, see Unasked-for Advice to New Writers About Money from John Scalzi, who made $164,000 in 2007.

Editors’ Association workshop on plain language

The Editors’ Association of Canada, BC Branch, will be putting on a workshop on plain language taught by Peter Moskos. Peter has extensive experience working as an editor and teaching. I’ve seen some examples of his plain language rewrites, including samples from a report to parliament and other government reports, and the improvement in readability is striking.

Place and time:
February 18, 2012 from 10–4 at SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver

Early registration ends January 27.

Better than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives by Arthur Plotnik

“Oh, that word amazing — enforced by dropping one’s mandible on the second syllable and stretching out the MAYYY sound until a listener seems convinced. ‘I just ate the most aMAYYYzing cupcake.’”

The purpose of this book is to help people praise things more effectively, so it seems ironic that when I try to describe it, I’m struck with acute performance anxiety. It’s like being faced with the final exam, right now.

In Better than Great the always-entertaining Arthur Plotnik (see also Spunk & Bite and The Elements of Editing) turns his attention to the problem of what to say when you’ve said “great” — or “perfect,” or “amazing” — too many times already. Faced with the challenge, I tend to wimp out, myself — to go the understatement route. “It was pretty good,” I mutter. Lame!

Plotnik lays out the main categories of superlatives, separating the great from the sublime, the large from the intense, exploring the contradictions of baditude, and offers the reader a list of words to try out for each. Thus we have tyrannosaurian cockroaches and Niagaras of tears, and people who are so stellar they could carry water in a sieve. Your signature dish is pie-hole heaven, it’s so scarfable. That woman? A stoater; I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up gorgeous. And who wouldn’t want to try a racy but quaffable red?

The appendices offer a few bonuses: a handy list for eponymous acclaim from Austenian to Zorroesque, with instructions for forming your own (is it Plotnikian or Plotnikesque?) and finally, to get you going, there’s the starter set of habit-breakers. It’s grea — wait, raveworthy!

So read this book and learn to blow the un-ignorable vuvuzela of praise.


Full disclosure: Most of the books I talk about in this blog I bought or borrowed. However, my copy of Better than Great is an advance reading copy kindly sent to me by Viva Editions.

Author & Editor: A Working Guide

by Rick Archbold, Doug Gibson, Dennis Lee, John Pearce, and Jan Walter

“There are books, even great ones, that make their way into print without ever being touched by an editor’s pencil, just as there are babies born without midwife or doctor. But they are not the norm and the dangers involved — in both cases — are considerable.”

This booklet outlines what an author needs to know about the publishing process. It covers the basics of manuscript acquisition, the decision to publish, contracts, how a publisher decides on the format and selling price of a book, the publishing schedule, and finally, it provides insight into and advice on managing the working relationship of the author and editor. It presents all of this information into a short (only 35 pages) and very readable package.

Where to get it

Publisher: The Book and Periodical Development Council, Toronto, Canada
Date: 1983
ISBN: 0130539260
AbeBooks
Vancouver Library