The Editor's Half Hour

In this “STET Special” one-hour podcast episode with the award-winning copywriter, Erin Brenner, we take a deep dive into her latest book, The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability.

We cover a variety of topics like branding, marketing, finances, setting rates, and last but not least, self-care. This book, published by the University of Chicago Press, has wonderful takeaways for newbies and seasoned professionals.

Erin Brenner is an award-winning copywriter who has been a communications professional for two decades, but before running her own company, she worked for ClickZ, IDC, and Epsilon, which gave her a deep understanding of marketers’ needs.

Erin shares her expertise in communications and business by speaking at industry conferences, such as those for ACES, Editors’ Association of Canada, and MagsBC. She also provides staff training in writing for private companies, such as Slipstream and Meister Consultants Group.

She is the former co-owner of Copyediting, a publications and training brand, where she was CEO and publisher. She is also a former instructor in the Copyediting certificate program at the University of California San Diego.

Erin is the author of Copyediting’s Grammar Tune-Up Workbook, 1001 Words for Success: Synonyms, Antonyms & Homonyms, and Quick Study Dictionary of Commonly Confused and Misspelled Words (with Steve Berner). She has written hundreds of articles and blog posts for Copyediting.com, Visual Thesaurus, and others. Read more of her work on Right Touch Editing’s blog (https://www.righttouchediting.com/blog).

The Universally Acknowledged Truth About Romance examines the editorial approach to romance through the lens of Jane Austen. Our special guest, Sarah Calfee—founder and owner of Three Little Words Romance Editing—has been a fiction editor since 2018 and specializes in romance.

In this episode, Sarah gets into the nuts and bolts of what it takes to provide dev editing and line/copy editing her way. With an MFA in creative writing and a deep, abiding obsession for Jane Austen, particularly Pride and Prejudice, Sarah gets to the core of what makes romance great. She shares her opinions and expertise about dev editing and story-level issues and how they can be solved using a Jane Austen writing strategy.

Visit www.ThreeLittleWordsEditing.com to view Sarah’s website and to learn more about her upcoming book, How to Pride and Prejudice.

Unlock the magic of what it takes to integrate your personal story with your business. In this episode, Sonia Alleyne shares advice that freelancers can take when they are forming their businesses or updating information on their websites. Potential clients need to be sold on an experience, but first, they need to be “seen.” Sonia got her start as an editor in New York and has interviewed high-profile business leaders including Ursula Burns, Oprah Winfrey, Don Thompson (former CEO of McDonald's), and Canadian billionaire Michael Lee-Chin. As press secretary, she has secured a significant and unprecedented amount of content placement in major media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, New York Post, Crain’s New York, Village Voice, ABC, and CBS.

Sonia has written two books and has co-authored one. She wrote I Kick Ass at Work! The Strategy Journal for Career Professionals (Hunter Publishing Group, 2020), which is the first journal of its kind to help women gain better insight and perspective about how they perform at their jobs. She is the co-author of Good is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals (Penguin Books, 2008), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She was also a contributor to Tips for Life, by Maria Shriver.

As founding editorial director for the Women of Power Summit, Sonia created and designed the content of the event for 10 years. She is a member of Black Women of Influence, a by-invitation-only professional women's group, and a former advisory board member of the California Women's Conference—one of the largest women's conferences in the country.

In this episode, Sonia mentions a thought-provoking speech by David Brooks, who wrote, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. She highly encourages everyone to listen or watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwENbKn3tqI

Sonia also discusses her latest book, The Storytelling Business Journal, which can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Storytellers-Magic-Storytelling-Step-Step/dp/1662942966

To learn more about Sonia and her company, Storyteller’s Magic, please visit https://storytellersmagic.com.

What does it mean to find your community?

If there's one thing to be shared from my interview with Tara Whitaker, it's that there's power in numbers! Today more than ever, editors need to stick together, have more open conversations about what we do, and create a way to congratulate and encourage one another. Tara is pioneering a new wave of modern editors to create companionship, camaraderie, and community among editors. She is a book editor, business coach, and host of The Modern Editor Podcast.

Through individual coaching and her membership community, the Freelance Editors Club, Tara empowers modern editors to create a business and life they love. Her mission stems from a decade of work as a freelance editor herself, and a desire to change the publishing industry’s reputation for being isolated, exclusive, and unbending. Her podcast, community, and coaching programs have helped hundreds of editors feel a sense of clarity, belonging, and excitement about their businesses. Learn more about Tara’s work at tarawhitaker.com, or visit tarawhitaker.com/podcast to learn more about The Modern Editor Podcast.

In this captivating and final episode of 2023, Erin Servais and Nadia Geagea Pupa dive deep into the fascinating world of Generative AI. They discuss several capabilities of ChatGPT and how it's constantly changing. There is still "doom and gloom" surrounding the topic of generative AI, but Erin shares her positive outlook, opinions, and insight for the editorial community. Yes, ChatGPT has been replacing all types of jobs, but it's up to us as editors to learn how to embrace this new technology as a tool and resource to help, not harm, our editorial processes.

Erin Servais is an editor, educator, and coach. She serves on the board of directors for ACES: The Society for Editing and is the founder of the Editors Tea Club. Erin has presented about editing, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence for the Professional Editors Network (PEN), the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), Editors Canada, the Northwest Editors Guild, and ACES, and she has been a guest lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Media. Erin will start teaching copyediting for the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in January 2024.

Her current focus is training editors to uplevel their skills using artificial intelligence. She teaches the ChatGPT for Editors course and blogs about AI editing tips. Visit www.AIforEditors.com to learn more about her course.

One of the best things about being an editor is the interaction you get to have with your client. Developing this rapport can elevate your work immensely, but what do editors do when their client has passed away? What liberties is an editor allowed to take? How much is too much when editing in this way? What is an editor to do when they need clarification?

We discuss all this and more in Episode 11: Posthumous Editing.

In this episode of The Editor’s Half Hour, I am joined by Dan Letchworth of Desert Owl Press to discuss the challenges of posthumous editing. Dan, who currently works in corporate communications for Illumina, has over 15 years of professional publishing experience. We discuss the numerous and varied challenges he faced when he worked on two memoirs based on his father’s and grandfather’s military careers after they both passed away.

Dan also has experience working in a freelance capacity for Scholastic, Hachette Book Group, and Penguin Random House. With an MFA in writing from Columbia University, Dan is also a blogger and online journalist!

Find out more about Dan and the two books he posthumous edited on his website: desertowlpress.com

Connect with him on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danletchworth

This episode is a continuation of PART I: Editing True Crime. In this Part II, Maria Carillo gives listeners a chance to explore the world of editing true crime (or narrative nonfiction). Maria Carrillo has edited several award-winning projects. She's the former enterprise editor at the Tampa Bay Times and Houston Chronicle and, before that, managing editor at The Virginian-Pilot. Maria is also a board member of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism and the National Press Photographers Association and a six-time juror for the Hillman Prizes.

In this episode, Maria explains the significance of the editor-author relationship as a delicate partnership. She works closely with Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Lane DeGregory, and co-hosts, WriteLane, which covers the craft of narrative nonfiction (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/writelane/id1342271507). Maria also edited the book, "The Girl in the Window and Other True Tales," published by the University of Chicago Press, and written by Lane DeGregory.

During the episode, Maria makes references to other editors and writers listed below:

• Lauren Caruba of The Dallas Morning News: https://lcaruba.com/
• Leonora LaPeter Anton (Pulitzer Prize winner): https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonora-anton-22944b40/

Below are more links to articles or podcasts in which Maria has been involved:

• True crime series while at the Tampa Bay Times: tampabay.com/bloodandtruth
• Gang raped at 17. Therapy at 65:
• https://www.tampabay.com/news/Gang-raped-at-17-Therapy-at-65-_163790205/
• The saint and the sacrifice: https://www.tampabay.com/news/2020/11/10/barbara-burns-cared-for-her-sister-her-whole-life-then-she-killed-her/?itm_source=parsely-api
• 55 Minutes: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/55minutes/
• Serial indifference: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/serialindifference/

For the editors interested in the inner workings of academia, or for editors already entrenched in the world, this episode of The Editor’s Half Hour is for you! We discuss the realistic side of working with academic clients and the important work they do, in addition to future opportunities for editors, and how generative AI is affecting the academic industry. We also talk about other tips and tools editors need to know, such as using citation managers.

I interviewed seasoned professional, Cara Jordan, Ph.D., who worked as a freelance academic editor before co-founding Flatpage, an editorial agency and publishing house, in 2022. She is an expert copyeditor whose specialty is journal articles and book manuscripts. While her own scholarly specialty is art history, in which she earned a Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate Center, she has worked on manuscripts across the humanities and social sciences.

As the chief editor at Flatpage, she oversees a team of editors and manages all projects, which has given her oversight into the various types of clients, editorial services, and manuscript genres. She has a certificate in editing from the University of California San Diego—where she currently teaches advanced copyediting—and is a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders and a full member of the Editorial Freelancer’s Association and ACES: The Society for Editing.

To purchase the book, The Art of Academic Editing, please visit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMJ1B58S?ref=myi_title_dp

As discussed in this episode, this book is the first full-length guide to the different types of editorial services and when they happen in the life cycle of a scholarly text. For media inquiries, contact David Hariri ([email protected]).

For more information about Cara Jordan and her company, Flatpage, please use the following links.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caramjordan/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flatpage_ep/

UCSD Extension Copyediting Certificate: https://extendedstudies.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/copyediting

Blog: https://flatpage.com/column/

Erika M. Weinert (known as The Werd Nerd) celebrates the one-year anniversary of her book, Cursing with Style. The book contains more than 100 entries and is meant to aid editors in keeping expletives consistent throughout their clients’ manuscripts.

Erika is a line and copy editor with more than a decade of experience in the industry. Having researched more bad words in her career than she cares to admit, Erika shares her knowledge with other authors and editors—especially those who edit fiction.

In this episode, Erika explains how she started writing the book and what led to the idea. Cursing with Style is hilarious, easy to read, and ideal for anyone with an affinity for spicy language. This interview is lighthearted, fun, and full of laughter!

• Cursing with Style: A Dicktionary of Expletives on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578296403
• The Werd Nerd's website: https://www.the-werd-nerd.com
• The Birth of Cursing with Style blog post: https://www.the-werd-nerd.com/post/the-birth-of-cursing-with-style
• Oddmall's Creepsmas 3 event page, where Erika will be selling autographed copies of her book in November 2023: https://allevents.in/monroe/oddmall-emporium-of-the-weird-creepsmas-3-dawn-of-the-toys/200024883461841
• My Word Publishing (the self-publishing project management and consulting service that Erika used to publish her book): https://www.mywordpublishing.com/
• Ron Lamberson's book that is mentioned during the interview, The Poachers of Immortality: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4Z3LYW1?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk
• Alex Galassi's book that I mentioned during the interview, Battle for Eklatros: https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Eklatros-Rebalancing-Cosmos-Galassi/dp/B0BLR5BZWC

It’s common for many freelance editors to get annoyed by having to maintain a social media account because it feels like another chore. It’s also uncomfortable having to be "salesy." But maintaining a social media account is a necessary thing for everyone—not just editors. However, there's one platform that many seem to neglect, or think is a waste of time, and that's Instagram!

This episode sheds some light on an area that is unfamiliar to several editors who are avoiding creating an Instagram account. Isobelle Lans, owner of Inspired Creative Co. (https://www.inspiredcreativeco.com) shares some of the successes she has experienced over the past few years on Instagram by connecting with editors and writers.

Isobelle is a UK-based fiction writer, editor, and book coach. At Inspired Creative Co., she helps writers at all levels grow, learn, and develop their storytelling skills through personalized coaching and solutions-based feedback.

She makes the whole process of maintaining an Instagram account seem doable, easy, and fun. Isobelle is also realistic in the way she talks about creating content on social media. We hope it'll inspire you to share more creative content with others!

Website link: www.inspiredcreativeco.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/inspiredcreativeco_