Annual Report
The solo business retreat is a concept in editing circles whereby the self-employed editor takes a few days to assess the business. Take stock of the past year, think about professional development, celebrate successes. Sometimes the person rents a cute little off-site room near good hiking and outdoor breathing.
Egadz, am I glad I didn’t do THAT! It’s raining here in north Georgia all week. Third day in a row of flash flood watch.
It is, though, the week that marks a year since I (officially) left public health and became a full-time freelance editor. It has been a fantastic professional year or two for me. I wrote up my own annual report.
By the numbers
2 years in business as E before I; 1 year full time
1 editing certificate earned from University of Chicago
11 clients since March 2020
7 books edited, including 2 textbooks
17 academic articles edited
6+ nonprofit reports edited
3 ongoing clients
675 billable hours worked this past year
2 style manuals, Chicago and APA
7 classes at University of Chicago, including 2 classes since finishing the editing certificate
0 travel
9 EFA webinars (plus a handful of ACES webinars)
2 virtual ACES conferences
1 life-changing pandemic going on since the month of my first paying client
Professional Development
I took classes in developmental editing and biostatistics reporting at University of Chicago this year, even though I’d already finished my certificate program. I had some foundation in biostats via grad school and my public health career, but the developmental editing course was surprise after surprise. I learned so much that I got sleepier the first two weeks of class. My brain was full! I can’t stress enough how helpful this was to me. In my editing work, I sometimes straddle the line between copyediting and developmental editing, but I go nowhere near what the real DEs do. (Restructure entire manuscripts!) The trouble is, once I learned to do it, it was fun. So now I’m considering whether to add it to what I offer. Hmmm.
Tools to make work work
I’ve found several tools that really work for me. MS Word customizations and macros, Harvest time and invoice tracking, subscription to CMoS online in addition to the heavily marked-up book, registered agent service ZenBusiness. I use Trello and Google Keep to organize notes and projects. Dropbox has been essential; I’ve been a user for a dozen years. I got a second monitor after watching a webinar by editor Adrienne Montgomerie. I wasn’t even using a mouse on my laptop! A good Logi mouse and external keyboard rounded out my new setup. (No sponsorship fees or kickbacks for this blog; I’m truly not prolific enough to bother.)
To meet colleagues
ACES: The Society for Editing
EFA: Editorial Freelancers Association
Twitter: Including Twitter chats for the two associations above and volunteering for the EFA Twitter team
That Word Chat, a twice-monthly virtual video-based conversation with someone in the greater word world
Skill I’ve been perfecting
Macros. I use both my own and other people’s. The only editor I have met in person is Atlanta neighbor Jennifer Yankopolus, a macro guru who specializes in adapting Paul Beverley’s macros for editors.
To underscore that last bit, I’ve been doing this work for two years and the number of colleagues I have met in real-live nonvirtual person is ONE. I would be lonely if I weren’t such an introvert.
I love working with macros. I’ll be teaching a beginners webinar for the EFA on creating your own macros in January 2022.
Digression with a plus side
My PC went kaput in the spring. I spent six months as an interloper to Mac land, and now I’m back to PC again. But I learned how Word differs substantially in the two environments, which affects both how clients see documents I’ve edited and how macros are installed, accessed, and used.
What hasn’t gone so well
I’m going to hedge a bit. I take responsibility for any projects that don’t go well. All but one have been just fine, and the one that wasn’t—well, it’s because I edited too much, rather than too little. I’ve learned from that experience.
I had one tool that I felt like I was wasting money on, even at $10/month. So I canceled it last week. I have another that’s worth the $12/month for me for just one of its features: Harvest populates the invoice number so I don’t have to go look up the last one. It also keeps them nice and neat and correlated with hours logged by project. I could have used this in my previous self-employment.
As far as scheduling goes, I’ve also learned that the number of editing hours in a day is smaller than expected. When I was still learning that, I took longer on a couple of edits than I had wanted to.
Switching back and forth between Chicago and APA styles for references: Wow. What a mind-boggler. A comma goes here—nope, it only goes there. If you have three authors yes, but if you have one author, no. Initials or names? Ampersands or “and”s? I’ve created a couple of cheat sheets for myself. I hope I can get that switch to engage more fluidly this next year.
And I’m terrible at creating and posting blog entries.
What’s next
The brainstorming part of the solo retreat, whether you leave the house or not, is getting to decide what to pursue next. The editing platform PerfectIt collaborated with the Chicago Manual of Style to release PerfectIt for CMoS this August. This might be the tipping point to get me to subscribe. I’ve heard good things about the Merriam-Webster subscription service and, like PerfectIt, it’s not a heavy annual investment. I suspect both are on this month’s list.
I also decided I have enough time in my schedule for another nonprofit editing client, preferably a national health nonprofit. That’s my wheelhouse anyway, and the editing I do for my current nonprofit client complements the time required for more intense academic journal editing and book editing.
Now, to think about other possibilities.