The Tech Editor Hub

This will be the last newsletter of 2024. I am off for a combo of travelling to see family and doing a personal 3-day retreat. Here's what I wrote awhile back about taking breaks: How close are you to burnout? As editors, we tend to be the type of person who Loves the feeling of being busy, but may not recognize when we are doing too much until it is too late, and/or Feels that unless we are busy, we aren't good enough at our jobs. Do you identify with either of these? I think I have both and...

With 2024 winding down, many of us small business owners take stock of the last 12 months and start looking at the next 12 to plan and goal set. So what kinds of things should a technical editor review and plan for their business year? I would suggest we are a little different here; we have a few things that we might consider in our yearly review and forward thinking that are outside the box of all the traditional fill-in-the blanks. In addition to the more general business planning, here's...

Many of us are hustling to help clients wrap up patterns that are launching early in 2025, I know I am! There are less than 30 days left in this year, which can make you either want to hibernate, want to panic, want to reflect, or some combination of all of the above. I propose we all throw some gratitude outward. Technical editing is a service. You serve others, day in, day out, pattern by pattern, design by design. And in exchange, your clients pay you. But what else have these...

Time for another tech editor interview! Recently I interviewed Cherie Mellick of https://sweetbirdcrochet.com/. Cherie is a designer and editor that cares deeply about helping to create great crochet patterns that amplify the designer's voice and confidence. She empowers designers by educating them through the design process, not just telling them what is wrong in their patterns, but guiding them like a mama bird would her chick. Click below to watch the interview on YouTube or scroll down to...

I had a day last week where I spent most of it not editing. I created agreements, onboarded clients, answered emails, messed around with some of the tech I was trying to implement. None of it was paid work, just the admin side of my business. Has this happened to you? Some of us start editing without a clear plan. We start editing like we may start a sweater project, we wing it without actually reading the pattern or swatching. We take on whatever editing work comes our way and tell a few...

Just over 9 years ago I hit "buy" on a course called Learn to Tech Edit from a website called Joeli's Kitchen. I always tell new students that I never expected it to change my life like has, and I do sincerely hope it does the same for them. Nine years is a long time. It's about 17% of my life so far (all y'all can now figure out how old I am), and I feel a time well spent. I love what my brain can do when it hits the spreadsheets and the PDFs. In the last 9 years, things have changed....

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last newsletter! You all are so thoughtful and inspiring. I read and reply to every email I get, so hit reply anytime. -- Do you charge flat rates or by the hour? If you are charging by the hour, your client is paying you for the time to do the things you agreed on, usually editing and other editing-related tasks. But there are situations we run into during our workflow that we might stop our timers. Here's some things I stop for: Confusion Well, I don't...