Editorial Services: Tricks of the Trade

Writing about writing is difficult because most of the time a writer is too busy writing something else. As a writer providing editorial services, my priority is to serve my customers in helping them with their writing needs. These needs include providing content for websites, conceptualizing and creating marketing collaterals, rebranding corporate profiles, copywriting, technical writing, corporate and marketing communication, among many other areas.

Over the years, I have received many assignments and requests to write different kinds of writings. I have written articles on technology and digital lifestyle which are areas of my expertise, and topics such as health, career, and entrepreneurship, which are areas I am not entirely familiar with. Once in a while, I also receive requests to write on topics I have no idea about or beyond my ability to get involved, such as beauty products and services, wine and dining, real estate, and others.

No doubt, as an editorial services provider and freelance writer, I should make every attempt to learn the tricks of the trade to write whatever is needed by the customers, but sometimes there are simply topics that are beyond my ability. The important thing is never to turn away customers empty-handed. Recommend them to another writer or editorial services provider.

If like me your wish is to run an editorial services business, the first thing you need to think about and act on is to get to know as many writers as possible and to stay in contact with them. If you can find business associates in the same trade, all the better, build close ties with them. When you are unable to take on an assignment request by customers, always recommend the lead to your associates.

All About Writing

Some of you may find it difficult to search through my blog for specific topics on writing experiences and tips in the archives, so I have created this entry to help you navigate:

• A Writer's Nightmare
• Editorial Style Guide
• Fee or Free?
• Writers' Block
• Live to Write
• Ghostwriting
• Copywriting
• Content Writing
• Feature Writing
• News Reporting: The Inverted Pyramid
• Contemporary Fiction: Genres and Beyond
• International Journalism: Freedom of Press
• International Journalism - A Book Review
• Online Journalism
• Photo Journalism
• Reaching the Readers
• Writing News Feature Story
• Writing Beyond Cultures
• Writing on Unfamiliar Topics
• Writing Dialogues
• Writing Press Releases
• Writing Simple
• Writing Techniques

Feel free to share your views on writing at this blog!

Challenges of Freelance Writing

Writing freelance has its ups and downs. Sometimes we get many assignments, at other times we get none. Keeping ourselves alive and supporting our dependents in such a way is not only unreliable, but also unsustainable. Unless we have lots of savings to spare, working freelance or providing editorial services as a full time job may not be the best option for livelihood.

Nonetheless, working freelance has many advantages. Among some of the greatest benefits of working freelance is flexibility—we get to choose to take on an assignment or not, depending on our timing and availability. We can spend more time with our family and do the things we like or choose to busy ourselves earning money. However, if there are not enough requests for freelance writing and our finances are tight, we may be left in jeopardy. For some of us, such a free and casual lifestyle may not be viable.

Observing from past trends, editorial service requests seem to come periodically. In certain months of the year, requests can be overwhelming, and if we are alone doing the work, we can only do as much as we can, and drop the rest. Unfortunately, by dropping the rest, we face the dilemma of not earning enough to sustain during off-peak.

One of the best ways to work around having insufficient funds during times of low editorial requests is to have multiple source of income or a contract with a corporation or organization for an ongoing project. Such a project may be to write for a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter or in-house magazine, or an arrangement with a publishing house to write for its periodicals.

Contacts and connections, however, are crucial if we hope to get writing contracts. Unless we know the right people, if we plan on going full time into writing freelance, we need to consider carefully all the aforementioned pointers before we jump in.

Two Facets of Freelance Writing

Writing for freelance entails two facets, one as a professional providing service to the customers, the other as servicing customers to provide them what they want. The former assumes as professionals, customers should accept and go with our style or way of writing, proofreading, and editing. The latter does not assume anything, but goes with customers' planned agenda, which often involves many rounds of re-writing, proofreading, and editing.

Of the two facets, the first approach is usually much sought after by freelance writers because of its clear cut relations with the customer. The second approach, however, is what most customers seek today. Customers want to be able to maximize their invested cost to put their engaged freelancers to work for them, not as slaves of course, but much like employees or people who owes them a living.

Sadly, reality often dictates how freelance writers should decide on which facet to go with. Either we are worth something to our customers, or we may end up always waiting, but never receiving.
If you are a freelance writer or someone who is providing editorial services to customers, feel free to share your thoughts on this subject here.

Fee or Free?

There are many people who are willing to write for free, especially when they have a full time job of their own. They do not mind contributing to publications so long as they get to see their articles published in magazines or books. Few however actually realise that in so doing they are jeopardising the survival of people who write for a fee.

I used to write for many publications at no cost in the past when I was an employee earning a regular income. Occasionally, I get paid writing for a supplement of the main newspaper only because of the publisher's required ownership and rights to the article, and that works fine for me. All these happened about ten years ago.

Today, as a freelance journalist and writer, my livelihood depends on being paid to write. As a gesture of goodwill, I usually provide one free sample of my unpublished works to editors in the hope of them hiring me to write for other articles. Many editors welcomed the gesture and some even assured me that my sample articles will be published. Often these turned out to be empty promises and when the next issues of their publication were released, the content of their topics seemed to be not much dissimilar from my ideas, except that it is written by someone else. This is how it is these days, possibly because there is no black and white to intellectual property rights as far as non-contractual freelancing is concerned.

Writing freelance is not a monetary rewarding job. Usually a writer gets paid about 20 to 30 cents per published word, and this payment do not usually gets received until a month after the article is published. If I write an article in August this year for a November or December issue of a magazine, I will usually only be paid around January next year. If the article is about 1000 words and the fee is 30 cents per word, it means I will be paid $300 after three months from now. In the real world, most editors for magazines only require freelancers to write articles of about one page or up to four pages. Each page is about 500 words and this means a writer must write a substantial amount of articles before he or she can survive.

Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. The fee paid to the writer includes expenses incurred during the course of writing the article, such as the use of Internet, phone calls and transportation to conduct interviews on phone or meeting interviewees in person.

These are the things being faced by journalists and writers constantly. Print media editors usually get lots of articles free of charge from contributors and from full-time hired staff writers. Freelancers are often only hired for their skills in areas that normal writers do not possess, for example, technical knowledge required for articles of technological content. If you are aspiring to be a freelance writer, your first step is therefore to craft out an area of writing that requires your unique skills or expertise, according to the demand of publishers.