Gracious, Has It Been That Long?

Hello all,

So it's been over a year since my last post. As a marketing tool, I'm pretty sure that means I fail at blogging. But I'd like to get into the habit of posting here a bit more regularly, and see if it's at all possible to build up a following again, because well-maintained blogs are, in fact, decent marketing tools. They just have to be, y'know, maintained.

My last post - over a year ago, I know, I know - talked about how it would be cool if I could maybe become an editor somewhere. That has happened. I'm still a little bemused and full of wonder over that fact, even a year later, largely because of how it happened.

It's a funny story, really - and also I absolutely can't give anyone any advice for how to break into editing, because, God's honest truth, I became an editor because Neil Gaiman retweeted something from me and the next thing I knew, I had clients.

No, I'm not kidding. This actually happened.

I wanted to be an editor, and had no official, on-the-resume experience in editing, so I didn't know where or how I could possibly get hired. So I sent a tweet to Neil Gaiman, asking him if he knew of anybody who might take an editor with no experience. He has a habit of responding to people, so I figured he might - or an assistant might, heck I dunno - somebody might respond with an idea of where to start looking. Instead, he retweeted my request. Did I mention Neil Gaiman has over a million followers? Yeah. He does.

I got a bunch of responses almost immediately, and to be fair, none of them actually panned out. To be fair again, mainly that was because people were asking questions I wasn't prepared to answer at the time, like, when could I fit them in and what were my rates. BUT, one of those million followers saw the message, and she knew someone who ran a publishing company, and put us in touch with each other, and the next thing I knew I was editing. For almost no money, because it's a small publisher and they can't afford much. But there are different levels of editing, and if manuscripts need a lot of work, they won't take them; instead, they'll recommend editors to their clients to look into on their own dime. So, thanks to them, I've gotten freelance clients, and now I'm editing.

I'm editing on a laptop I was able to purchase with my editing money. One of my clients says that she names her laptops and that I should name mine, and I strongly considered naming it "Neil Gaiman".

Turns out that I don't actually get into naming laptops, so it's just "the laptop". But it's mine and I love it and I only own it because of my editing money, so that's perfectly fine with me.

However! I am not yet self-sufficient with editing. I make grocery money, definitely, and can splurge on things like this laptop every once in awhile, but I don't make enough to pay all my bills, and I'd like to get to that point. So, here I am. Blogging.

Know anybody who wants to publish their story? Have them talk to me. I charge by the word, and what I charge depends on what type of editing they need and how badly the manuscript needs it. And I'd like to get more clients, so, yeah. Pretty much everyone I've had so far has been pleased with my work, except for the guy who was sent to me by the publisher and who disagreed with the notion that his piece needed any editing at all. (IT DID.)

I'm a pretty good editor, I think. But I'm pretty sure I still fail at "marketing blogs".