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 (publishing@flatpage.com).

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_

Book coaches guide authors through the writing process from ideation to publication. They hold writers accountable and assist them as they develop content into fully formed manuscripts. In most cases, however, experienced authors write in isolation, finish their manuscripts, and find copyeditors. In this episode, we speak directly to copyeditors who instinctively provide feedback to authors on how to improve their manuscripts. Even though it’s not asked of them, copyeditors might offer specific advice on how to better develop characters in fiction, arrange content for educational material, or pinpoint areas in content that seem vague. In doing so, copyeditors are leaning into the book coaching process, but are simply not getting paid for these services. They might continue and carry on in a back-and-forth conversation with authors, which is essentially book coaching.

This episode walks copyeditors through the book coaching process with Caroline Malloy, Ph.D.—a Chicago-based book coach who specializes in helping women write nonfiction (from scholarly to narrative to memoir) by providing them with the skills, strategies, and support systems to do it. From planning to pitch, Caroline helps women embrace being authors. Along with coaching amazing writers, Caroline puts her Ph.D. to good use as a resident historian with Viking Ocean. She also teaches indoor cycling and reads books on her front porch alongside her husband, Steve, and her two mutts, Boo and Emma.

Please click on the links below to visit her website and to follow Caroline on social media:

https://linkedin.com/in/thewritemalloy

https://instagram.com/thewritemalloy

https://thewritemalloy.substack.com

https://thewritemalloy.com

Given its intense subject matter, it takes a special type of editor (or writer, journalist, etc.) to work on true crime. Throughout the developmental process, editors ask questions that often go much deeper than expected. We question the nature of content and how explicit it should be. And depending on your role in the project, you may be called to make ethical decisions when you least expect it.

This episode is the first of two parts. In part one, I introduce Andréa Topper—a writing coach and editor—who has had a varied career in journalism, content marketing, and corporate communications in Silicon Valley. She describes her role in 2018 as a writer for CrossFit’s Journal to cover a new program, Redemption Road CrossFit, which supports health, wellness, and personal redemption within the prison system. She was assigned to visit the Limon Correctional Facility, a men’s maximum-security prison located roughly 100 miles southeast of Denver, Colorado. While attending one of the sessions, she met Damian Arguello who fatally stabbed his wife and toddler while high on crack cocaine. He is now serving a life sentence.

Andréa is currently working on a book that covers Arguello’s story and her first-hand observations about our country’s prison system. We discuss a wide variety of topics that come into play when handling true crime: the writing process, emotional unrest when stepping away from work, journalistic skills required for interviewing, and making ethical decisions related to developing content.

For more information about Andréa’s prison visits, click on the following links to her blog and other articles:

• Building Community Behind Bars—https://journal.crossfit.com/article/limon-seminar-cecil-2
• Reporter’s Notebook: CrossFit in Prison—https://journal.crossfit.com/article/limon-2-cecil
• Redemption Chronicle (blog)—https://medium.com/redemption-chronicle
• For a full list of posts, please use this link—https://medium.com/redemption-chronicle/stories/published

In addition to her experience in writing and editing, Andréa played a vital role in editing and contributing to the book, Speal: A David and Goliath Story, which sold tens of thousands of copies: https://www.amazon.com/Speal-David-Goliath-Chris-Spealler/dp/1544500564.

Not all beta readers are editors, but editors seem to be the best type of people to take on this task. This episode explains what it takes to perform this high-value task of providing writers with useful feedback. Beth Wojiski (https://www.bethwojiski.com) is an editor, writer, threshold singer, and artistic soul passionate about offering editorial support to other creatives. In addition to proofreading and copyediting, she provides beta reading as a professional service and explains how she discovered it, how to set rates, and most importantly, how it’s a fun and interesting way to supplement your editorial income.

Beth Wojiski's career spans more than twenty years in positions varying from legal assistant, development associate, or analyst with a major tech firm, but a common theme with every job has been perfecting written communication and analyzing language for its best use. In one past role, she trained machine learning algorithms to understand language to surface better search results. Several years ago, a friend and mentor asked, "If today were your last day alive, what would you regret?" Beth realized she was living for other people's goals, not her own, so she took training in proofreading, copyediting, and line editing and hasn't looked back. She is also writing her first book, a memoir about thriving after a traumatic event. Beth lives in southeastern North Carolina and enjoys reading (especially cozy mysteries), singing, and making pretty things with yarn.

Listen to this episode to learn how you can add beta reading as a new service line to your successful editorial business. For more information on the specifics of beta reading, visit Beth’s website at www.bethwojiski.com/services/beta-reading. Learn how she breaks it down for her clients and the specific mindset required to support writers in their publishing journey.

Editors around the globe have been waiting for the highly anticipated book The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction. With more than 500 novels and anthologies under her belt, Amy J. Schneider is a true expert when it comes to copyediting fiction. Amy’s book is a road map and go-to resource to help copyeditors navigate the world of fiction. In this podcast, we discuss the copyediting process for fiction, building your style sheet, and examining the copyeditor’s mindset when approaching the work.

Amy J. Schneider founded Featherschneider Editorial Services in 1995. She copyedits and proofreads scholarly and trade nonfiction and bestselling fiction in a variety of genres for traditional publishers and university presses. Since 2012, she has written articles and presented in-person and online sessions on various editorial topics for regional and national editors' associations.

When Amy is not working in the soft glow of her four-monitor desktop, she enjoys running, singing, and teaching her springer spaniels to do silly tricks (not all at the same time). To learn more about Amy and her company, visit http://www.featherschneider.com.

To purchase your copy of the latest book, visit https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo183690033.html.

In this episode, we also discuss some upcoming editorial-related events that are virtual and in-person where we can find Amy.

• March 7, join a live Zoom session with Amy on “That Word Chat” hosted by Mark Allen: https://www.markalleneditorial.com/thatwordchat.

• March 22–25, she will be presenting at the ACES Evolve conference in Columbus, Ohio: https://aceseditors.org/conference/aces-2023-columbus/evolve-scheduleofevents

• May 6, Amy will be the keynote speaker at the Red Pencil conference of the Northwest Editor’s Guild in Seattle, Washington: https://www.edsguild.org/red-pencil-2023

• May 8, Amy will be at the Bay Area Editors’ Forum at the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the EFA: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/baef-and-sf-bay-area-efa-present-amy-j-schneider-tickets-560015109267

• June 17–18, she will be at the Editors Canada conference in Toronto: https://www.editors.ca/news/get-inside-scoop-editors-canada-conference-2023

• August 17–19, you can find her at the EFA conference (EFACON 2023) in Alexandria, Virginia: https://www.the-efa.org/event/efa-conference-efacon/

• September 9–11, she will be attending the CIEP annual conference in Glasgow, Scotland: https://www.ciep.uk/networking/conferences/

Erin Willard, copyeditor, walks us through what it takes to edit a fictional book in a series, how to manage the characters in the stories, and the logistics of how the process should be managed. Erin's past projects have included editing manuscripts of award-winning novels, short stories, and memoirs. Working with independent authors and small publishers is her specialty, giving a light polish to the voices of new writers, seasoned professionals, and those in between. Erin received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from San Diego State University and her certificate in copyediting from UC San Diego Extended Studies. She is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA); ACES, the Society for Editing; the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals (AIPP); and the San Diego Professional Editors Network (SD/PEN), where she served as secretary in 2017–2018 and co-president in 2019–2020. More information about her business, Erin Willard, Copy Editor, can be found on her website, www.ErinCopyEditor.com.

Ellen Polk, copyeditor and proofreader, will explain her perspective on AI technology in the world of editing. What does this mean for editors, what are the pros and cons, and what are some of the things to pay attention to as AI gets more and more sophisticated?

Learn more about your host, Nadia Geagea Pupa, and the purpose behind the podcast.