Monthly Archives: September 2007

I’m so proud!

Thank you to VANA for awarding me the “VAccolade business entrepreneur of the week”. A special thanks goes out to Taryn Merrick of Merrick Management And Media Services for nominating me.

I encourage all VAs to add VAnetworking.com to their arsenal of helpful resources. They have almost 8,000 VA members, a variety of educational and networking opportunities, and a basic membership is free!

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Have you ever had a client you’d like to clone?

I am very blessed to have some simply stellar clients. One prime example is an author we’ve been working with on editing his short stories. I offered to have a brief phone chat with him to help him figure out the right publishing option for him. We talked for about 15 or 20 minutes and after learning what he wanted, I gave him some referrals to contact. He emails me later and expresses his appreciation, asking how he can compensate me for my time on this, and reminds me to invoice him for the editing that was just finished a few days ago.

I responded that yesterday was just a value-add to the editing we’re doing for him, and I certainly would have told him beforehand if I was going to charge my consulting fee, but if the consulting got more in-depth and he needed a lot of my time, we would address it at that time.

My fellow VAs—don’t you just want to clone clients that pay immediately, are EAGER to compensate you for any “extra” time (I don’t bill hourly for most editing projects), and are just so darn easy to work with?? I’m fortunate that he is not the only client I consider myself lucky to have!

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Editing is like fine-tuning an old-fashioned radio dial

If you’re old enough, you may remember those old-fashioned radios that changed stations via a dial. If you didn’t have the dial turned exactly “so,” you heard static and interference. But even a slight adjustment made a world of difference–you could hear your favorite music coming through loud and clear.

I like to think of book editing in the same way…an editor’s job is not to change the station (over-edit so the original voice is gone), but to fine tune it. This is especially true with content editing. I’ve found that authors usually really know what they’re talking about, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s often difficult for them to step outside their expertise and step into the shoes of their readers. Some sections of their non-fiction book might be too technical, or not thoroughly explained. The reader hears a lot of “static” and either gives up reading your book, or finishes it, but feels unsatisfied.

Never be too proud to use an editor. I’ve co-authored two books, and even as a professional editor, my co-authors and I have utilized outside editors. There is no substitute for an impartial, skilled editor to fine tune your book so your message, just like the radio station on the old-fashioned radios, comes through crystal clear.

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