Marketing Yourself as an Editor
Presenters: Ann Gosch and Amy Smith Bell
Day of Meeting: March 08, 2010
Marketing oneself as an editor requires direct activity and is built off networking and referrals.
Ann and Amy took turns speaking and answering questions from attendees.
In Amy's experience, here's what hasn't worked: sending out mass letters or emails with no personalized info; sitting around and waiting for people to find her; not talking to people. You have to do the opposite of those things: you have to personalize it, do your research into the client, make a strong argument for yourself. You have to reach out and overcome the "signal to noise" ratio (communicating valuable content your services versus all the other marketing material and sales offers vying for the client's attention), clients aren't going to magically find you. Amy always recommends face-to=face contact with a potential client, and making the most of the meeting by putting your skills in context, showing samples of your work in progress, and generally demonstrating how would you fit into their needs.
Networking
In Ann’s experience, networking, referrals, and direct contact provide a lot of clients. In terms of formal networking through organizations, Ann emphasized that you can’t be timid, you have to get out there and talk to people; think of it as playing a role, being a host, instead of standing back and waiting.
Realize that you’re doing networking all the time, with your friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Think of three things you’d like to say about yourself, and get a spiel down; work comes from all of those places, it’s always possible to share something about yourself and connect. The “elevator speech” (a pitch brief enough that you could make it while sharing an elevator with someone) is important.
Developing relationships with your peers is important; Amy for example has a list of four or five people she’ll contact if she gets work offers that she’s too busy to do. (And they likewise may do the same for her.) It’s also important to develop relationships with complementary industries, such as graphics, corporate, tech. Be willing to take risks, in areas you’re not familiar with or don’t feel comfortable in.
How often do you think an in-person networking event is essential?
It can’t really hurt (unless you’re not doing your work), so go as often as you’re comfortable (and if you’re not, make yourself go at least once a month); but some groups are not rich sources of clients, you need to judge each group’s usefulness and balance that with frequency of attending.
Networking Online
Email discussion lists are good for being in touch with the community too. Responding to posts on a list (such as the Editors Guild list) also raises your profile and helps people remember you and make connections. You’re more likely to be recommended by people who’ve seen your comments and have some basis to gauge your competency.
Alumni groups also can be useful for online networking.
Your bio (on the Guild site or elsewhere) can be a networking tool as well: make sure it’s up-to-date and detailed with keywords for the kind of work you’re looking for.
How can I make better use of LinkedIn?
Try joining the group LinkedSeattle; there are also tutorials and webinars.
If you’ve run out of networking connections, hit limits of who you know, are there resources for finding new people to contact, along the lines of cold calls?
For a cold call, the worst they can do is say no, so if you’re really starting cold then the best you can do is just go for it and not take rejections personally. There are directories for industries, at least in book publishing, but it depends on the type of editing or work you’re looking for. If you’re on LinkedIn, and have a specific type of company in mind, you can do a search and see if there’s anyone in that field somehow connected to you. Just work all the contacts you possibly can; if you’re really starting from scratch, any kind of directory is worth checking, but there are no shortcuts.
Also look for professional organizations for industries you want to work in or with.
Referrals
Ann advised finding ways to make more of referrals than sitting back and waiting for them to call. The first rule of self-marketing is “open your mouth.” Ask for referrals, letting people know you’re looking for more work. Facilitate the connection, such as calling or emailing the person you’ve been referred to rather than waiting for them to contact you. Don’t overlook the value of doing an Internet search on your prospects, to find connections and find more about who you might be working with. Follow up on prospects, let as many people as possible know what you do and that you’re looking to do more. Amy added that you’d be surprised how many people don’t follow up; it’s okay to follow up, and you’re flaky if you don’t.
Don’t underestimate the power of a thank-you note; at least email an acknowledgement, but an actual written note if called in for an interview can make the difference. Also, Amy likes to reach out to old clients who haven’t contacted her in a long time, something like sending a handwritten card just to remind them of you. Ann added that having a signature in email that mentions what you do is also a good way to remind people or alert potential clients.
Résumés, Samples, Portfolios, Websites
Make sure your résumé is clean, and have others look it over; also make sure, if submitting a résumé electronically, that it looks correct cross-platform. Also, even if you work at home in pajamas, be professional: have some portfolio materials ready, have a website, have business cards.
How does one show a sample of one’s work or process? What are the ethics of submitting a piece of raw copy and showing what you’ve done with it?
In the past Amy has used documents such as an assessment of a manuscript, or a letter addressing issues on a particular project, to establish her ability to handle different issues; Ann said she does sometimes do sample edits for a client. You may have before-and-after pieces with changes tracked in Microsoft Word, for example, but you need to check with the client to see whether they’re okay with showing draft versions; it’s questionable ethics to show drafts without permission. One option is simply showing the final version but doing a write-up explaining in general terms what was done to shape the document.
On websites, if you’ve been a professional editor for years in-house, and don’t have a lot of freelance background or projects, isn’t no site better than a crappy site?
Amy responded that you may have “meat” (substantial work) that you don’t realize is worth posting, even if it’s not paid or freelance work, even if it’s been years since you did that work. Also, once you get the clients, loyalty is a real thing that matters; once you’ve done the work, they’d rather stick with a known good quantity.
What do clients respond to, résumé versus exhaustive list of projects versus portfolio?
It depends on the industry; one advantage of having a website is that you can just link to a PDF with details on your site. One audience member mentioned she’d had more people ask for her website than a résumé, but the necessity to make sure the design is clean still applies. Also keep in mind, you can’t always upload a résumé document to agency/job-hunting/client sites, sometimes it has to be text pasted into their preset form.
How do you get metrics or other useful feedback to use on your résumé?
Amy said once a year or so she asks clients for feedback, and when she gets good comments, she asks if she can use them, and puts them up on her website; she has maybe only six quotes from past 15 years, but that still has some value. Audience members also suggested that we may not have many production numbers or metrics, but we can still say things like so many pages edited in so many weeks; further, if you can’t quantify it, there are qualitative ways sometimes produced something for something significant, etc.
Is it better to have a business name versus using your own?
Ann and Amy agreed that it’s a matter of personal choice, and doesn’t matter that much from a marketing standpoint; it depends on whether you come up with a business name you like or think is clever/fun.
Ann’s final words summed up the theme of the evening: What we’re in is a relationship business, so any way that you can possibly form a relationship is good: “They know you, they like you, they trust you, they hire you.”
Note-taker: Philip LaRose
Location: Hugo House