This month I’m celebrating eight years in the business of English editing. I’ve spent more time working as a nonfiction editor and proofreader than as a geologist, the profession for which I trained till PhD level. It’s about time that I looked back at my freelance editing career to see what big lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Most people are trustworthy
Not getting paid for my work was my biggest fear at the beginning of my career as a freelance editor. Freelancing forums were full of anecdotes about deceitful clients and fake job posts. So I would spend many hours every day sifting job posts to avoid fraudulent ones. By default I didn’t trust anyone who inquired about my editing services online. It was awful.
Luckily, all my clients paid me, so my fear didn’t last long.
Now I assume no one’s trying to trick me into editing a document for free. That’s why I reply to almost every email I receive from potential clients. I even respond to messages that might appear spam because they’re written in faulty English. Many times I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover the author of such an email proved to be a trustworthy client.
I now believe that most people who inquire about my English language editing services deserve my trust. And that makes me optimistic.
Lesson learned: Trust potential clients.
No editing project is unimportant
In my early years as a freelancer, I aimed at big projects. I thought the earnings from a small editing job didn’t warrant all the time I’d have to spend on communicating with the client. I wanted to edit books, courses, websites, theses—not flyers, short blurbs, or product descriptions.
But I wound up working on projects big and small. A few lasted a year or a few months. Many lasted a week but covered my living costs for a month. Others paid so little that I couldn’t even use the earnings to buy a new paperback.
Now I know that small projects can bring great satisfaction. By accepting minor freelance editing jobs, I met wonderful people, learned incredible things about science and art, had fun editing quirky content (including content about muscle cars, electronic music festivals, and contemporary Scandinavian artists, just to give a few examples), and grew my client portfolio.
Lesson learned: Don’t reject projects because of their size.
Never assume, always ask
I made many mistakes when I was new to freelance editing. One of the worst was assuming the needs of all my clients were the same. I used to think every author needed fast and cheap editing services and preferred rewriting or at least heavy editing to light editing. Most of the people I worked for in my early years wanted all these things.
But as I became more experienced in the art of editing, I got a chance to work for other clients: those who want professional editing services, pay fairly for it, and know the difference between light and heavy editing. Some want no stylistic edits or no comments. Others accept heavy editing but not rewriting. Some give me a loose deadline. And still others ask me to take all the time I need to achieve high quality and accuracy.
I now try to understand what flavor of editing service each client needs and what expectations they have about quality, cost, and delivery time.
Lesson learned: Never assume anything. Always ask clients to clarify their requirements and expectations.
Working in the backstage doesn’t dent job satisfaction
Something I didn’t know when I was new to this business was that my contribution as a freelance editor to a publication would remain in the background. Though a few clients have acknowledged my editorial support publicly, most thanked me only privately.
Now I don’t expect anything else. I’ve learned to be happy remaining in the shade of the author.
Not having my name in the acknowledgments section of a publication I edit doesn’t make me less committed to my job. Being able to make a positive difference to a publication while helping authors improve their writing skills is the biggest satisfaction of being a freelance editor.
Lesson learned: Working backstage doesn’t diminish my job satisfaction.
Difficult personalities are great teachers
Since I’ve entered the business of English editing I’ve worked for all types of authors: postgraduate students, faculty, business owners, writers, artists, and scientists. Most of them have taught me something, whether only about the topic of their writing or about working with people. And it’s the most difficult clients who have taught me the most valuable lessons.
- Those who scrutinized my edits have taught me to always have a valid justification for each change and be ready to explain it in plain English.
- Those who didn’t agree with some of my stylistic changes have taught me to accept that good writing can take many forms.
- Those who were unsure my edits were based on grammatical rules have taught me to be patient and diplomatic in explaining my reasons for suggesting a change.
- And those who kept rejecting a correction have taught me that some people prefer to stick to their choices despite knowing they’re infringing the rules. And that’s fine. My role as an editor is not to change these people’s minds but only to point out the grammatical rules they’re not following.
- Finally, the clients who paid me late more than once have taught me to not jump to conclusions. Life happens, and it can interfere with payment due dates.
For these reasons I’m no longer afraid of or hesitant about working for clients who are hard to please or difficult to work with.
Lesson learned: Don’t be afraid of working for difficult clients.
These are only some of the things I’ve learned in the past eight years as a freelance editor. I’ve also learned a lot about writing, editing, and topics I would not have read about otherwise. I may write about these lessons in a future post.
Are you an author who needs to hire a freelance editor? Send me a message at editor@languageediting.com.
Are you a freelance editor? Check out my related posts on freelance editing and/or connect on LinkedIn if you’re interested in networking.
Related posts:
- What freelance editors can learn from project managers
- Freelancing myths: What people think freelancers do (and what we really do)
- Why I worked as a freelance editor on Upwork and why I quit 2 years ago
Last revised on 10 September 2022
