The Modern Editor - Editing Tips for Freelance Editors

Defining your editing business’s purpose and values will make your decisions that much easier to come to terms with. Your purpose and values are two key components in making business decisions and keeping your goals in alignment with what you truly hold dear as a freelance editor.

In this episode, you’ll learn the following:

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The number of decisions we have to make daily seems to keep going up…and up…and up…

So in this episode, we’re talking about the one simple question you can ask yourself to help you stay intentional in your business and your life. We’re channeling our inner three-year-old today and learning to ask ourselves “Why?”

Here are a few things you’ll hear in the episode:

• 03:11 – How asking ourselves “Why?” can help us decide when we should act on our ideas.
• 06:33 – If you’re considering adding a new service to your roster, you may want to try this first.
• 07:45 – How to prevent getting irritated with all the “Whys?”

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook

With the growing instability of social media platforms, it’s become even more apparent than ever that we shouldn’t rely solely on social media for marketing our editing business. There are many ways to market your business outside of social media, and we’re going to look at eleven ways to market your freelance editing business.

In this episode, you’ll learn the following:

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It’s my anniversary month (October 2022)! This month marks ten years I’ve been in business as a freelance editor. Ten years! To celebrate, I’m doing a podcast series on lessons I’ve learned, pulling back the curtain on the freelance editing industry, and sharing all the things—the good, the bad, and everything in between. So, grab a coffee (or whatever your favorite beverage is) and let’s jump right in!

We’re going to look at ten things I’ve learned over the last ten years in business as a freelance editor. It was interesting to reflect on my business, see how far I’ve come, and acknowledge all that I’ve learned. My first lesson for you: don’t wait ten years to sit down and look at your journey!

In this episode, you’ll hear me talk about the following:

Connect:

It’s my anniversary month (October 2022)! This month marks ten years I’ve been in business as a freelance editor. Ten years! To celebrate, I’m doing a podcast series on lessons I’ve learned, pulling back the curtain on the freelance editing industry, and sharing all the things—the good, the bad, and everything in between. So, grab a coffee (or whatever your favorite beverage is) and let’s jump right in!

Hindsight is 20/20, and this couldn’t be truer as I reflect on my entrepreneurial journey running an editing business. Listen in as I share five things I wish I had known when I started as a freelance editor.

In this episode, I’m diving into the following:

Connect:

It’s my anniversary month (October 2022)! This month marks ten years I’ve been in business as a freelance editor. Ten years! To celebrate, I’m doing a podcast series on lessons I’ve learned, pulling back the curtain on the freelance editing industry, and sharing all the things—the good, the bad, and everything in between. So, grab a coffee (or whatever your favorite beverage is) and let’s jump right in!

We see a lot of business owners talk about what it’s like to run your own business. This is fantastic, but these anecdotes often swing one of two ways—they’re either super positive and make being a CEO of your own business look easy as pie, or they’re completely negative and only talk about the hardships. In reality, owning your business is a little of both. 

In this episode, you’ll hear about the following:

• 03:37 – The many ways in which owning your own business gives you back control
• 09:15 – One thing that was detrimental for me in my first years of business
• 11:08 – A huge con that almost never gets talked about

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook

I attended the ACES Accelerate conference for editors, and it got me thinking about whether or not attending editing conferences (or business conferences in general) is beneficial for your business. The short answer is: absolutely! Of course, there are many variables at play for every individual and why you may or may not be able to attend a conference. However, with the pandemic and the rise of virtual conferences, they may be more accessible to you than you think!

In this episode, we’ll talk more about the different variables and why I think attending a conference will benefit you and your business. We’ll dive into these topics:

• 02:58 – One of my favorite things about attending an editing conference
• 07:02 – Where to look to find local or non-local conferences you can attend
• 07:55 – How I decide if a conference is a good fit for me

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook

How do we know when we should be investing our time to accomplish a task or investing our money to have someone else complete it for us? Since we can always make more money, but we can’t make more time (at least as far as I know), we often hear that we should invest our money in order to save time. BUT this isn’t always possible for everyone.

In this episode, we’ll talk about the following:

• 04:50 – Paying with our time when starting our businesses
• 09:37 – The one thing that you can never outsource
• 10:04 – Indicators that let you know it’s time to let the experts handle it
• 12:19 – Ideas of tasks you can outsource in your business

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook

It’s so easy to get caught up in the comparison game when starting and running a business—whether it’s comparing our beginning to someone else’s middle or feeling like we should be running our business in a way that aligns with how others are running theirs. We have to remind ourselves that everyone is different, and each person is on their own path. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, I’d love to see more of us congratulating others for their success and lifting others who may need more support.

In this short-and-sweet episode, we’ll talk about the following:

• 01:46 – Why the highlight reels on social media are not real life
• 05:24 – The similarity between our journey and books
• 09:32 – The magical hack to starting a business (hint: there isn’t one!)

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook

When we think of boundaries, we often think of borders, gates, or walls—something to keep people out. But when it comes to our business or personal lives, boundaries are more of a safety net—something to protect us, our businesses, and our reputations. We need to have clear boundaries that set the expectations within our business. If we let these boundaries go unenforced (and let too many people cross them), this can lead to burnout, resentment, and potentially the loss of client relationships. 

In this episode, we talk about what boundaries are, why they’re important, and how to enforce them.

Here’s a snapshot of what you’ll hear:

• 02:08 – What exactly are boundaries?
• 04:42 – My favorite quote that hit me right in the gut while I was experiencing burnout
• 06:52 – Why boundaries can be so difficult to enforce
• 08:14 – How boundaries left unenforced is really just a form of disrespecting yourself…and how I learned this lesson the hard way
• 11:38 – Examples of specific boundaries you can start setting in your business TODAY

Resources Discussed in This Episode:

Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab (affiliate link)

Connect:

• Book a free 15-minute call
• Join the Freelance Editors Club
• Tara on Instagram
• Tara on Facebook