THE EDITORS' WEEKLY

Facts Follow Feelings

I was 14 years old when I found out what it feels like to hit a wall in a car that’s moving at 8 kilometers per hour. That might not sound very fast — it didn’t to me — but let me tell you, it felt plenty hard. If I hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt […]

Tips for Editors New to Horror

In honour of the final day of spooky season, here are some great tips for editors who want to explore the haunting world of horror literature.  Focus on atmosphere The setting is important in every story, but more so for horror. It’s quite hard to scare readers, so authors must rely heavily on the ambience, […]

Count Your Hours to Boost Your Freelance Editing Business

I love data. And maybe because my first jobs involved punching a clock, I’m really good at tracking my time. But many freelance editors I talk with don’t track their time. Tracking hours takes effort. If you’re not billing per hour, why bother? To that I would reply, Would you rather earn $20 an hour […]

Mind the Gap! The Point of Sensitivity Reading

We’re all familiar with the aphorism “write what you know” and the endless debates on who should be allowed to write what. Multiple studies have shown that our perceptions are shaped by the media we consume, from the books we read as children to the evening news we watch as adults. When those media rely […]

Five Tips for Creating a Newsletter People Will Actually Read

Michelle Waitzman will be discussing more about using plain language principles to improve newsletters — as well as professional emails and presentations — in her webinar “Newsletters, Emails and Presentations: Improving the Tools of Business Communications” on October 29 at 1 pm ET. Marketing experts have been telling business owners and solopreneurs for years that […]

Sohini Ghose: An Editor’s Top 3

In this series, experienced editors reflect on their Top 3 tools, rules and suggestions for clients and colleagues. Sohini Ghose (she/her) is an editor with over fifteen years of international experience, having worked on an array of books with indie and major publishers, university presses, and debut and bestselling authors, including a Nobel Prize laureate. […]

Discussion Scenario: Editing While Under the Weather

[Content note: This post contains non-graphic discussion of mild pneumonia.] By their very nature, dilemmas don’t offer a clear right answer. So this week, I’m turning the advice over to you. I’ll be honest: this has been a challenging September. I’m feeling much better now, but I spent the first part of the month exhausted […]

Editing with Vision Loss: Accessibility Tips

Editors with vision loss? It is not possible. After all, editing is a visual practice, isn’t it? How can you catch every typo and every errant comma in a manuscript when you struggle to see? Yes, I have heard these and similar comments. I am here this week to show you how I, a professional […]

Customer Service for Editors: “Saving the Table” When You Make a Mistake

Before striking out on my own as a freelance editor and writer, I worked in maybe 10,000 restaurants. I’ve since found there’s quite a lot of overlap between hospitality and editing — especially when it comes to making a mistake.  In both industries, our job is to finesse things to the point where the work […]