The Top 5 Lessons From Year 1 of Building My Editing Business

Your editing process has more in common with building a business than you might think.

Editing a novel and building a business . . . well, they’re actually not all that different.

That’s something I’ve been thinking about all year. As I’ve coached writers through the editing process, I’ve been struck again and again by how similar novel editing and business building really are.

After all, they’re both large creative projects. The kind that demand a lot: grit, perseverance, continual learning. And the kind that lead to incredible rewards for those with the courage to pursue them.

Which means the lessons I’ve learned in this year of building my business also apply to you in your writing. (And I’ve learned a lot of things!)

In this episode, I’m sharing five of my business-building lessons that will apply to your novel, too.

You’ll learn:

• Why you might be closer to building your own business than you think
• My #1 marketing tip for a business or a book
• The mistake I made at the beginning of my business and how I’m fixing it now (hint: frozen burritos may be delicious, but they are not entirely nutritious)
• And more!

Your Next Draft is all about inviting you in to the editing tools and strategies I’m using in my own editing practice. And in this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain and getting a little more vulnerable than usual.

I hope this inspires you to reflect on your year of writing and editing, too. What have you learned this year? What new editing wisdom are you taking into 2024?

Links mentioned in the episode:

• For a podcast all about building an editing business, check out The Editing Podcast with Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle.

Transcript

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all year, as I have worked with clients, I have felt like there are tremendous parallels between the project of a book and the project of building my own editing business. I definitely relate to what writers are experiencing in your own creative projects through the lens of my own editing business. I see parallels all over the place. So I want to share some things that I have learned about running this business, because I think that you will find that there really are parallels to your creative projects, even when your project is a book and not a business. Welcome to your next draft. This is a podcast about developmental editing. But today it is a podcast about how to develop an editing business. We're at the end of the year, the time when everyone is doing a lot of reflection on where we've been and where we're going next. And for me, that means looking back on the last year of my editing business, which coincidentally was also the first year of my editing business and seeing what I've learned. As you might imagine. I have learned a lot in my first year of running a business and editing novels. Full-time. And while some of the things that I've learned are really nitty gritty details, like which tools I prefer for AI transcriptions. Many of them are bigger picture concepts that apply to more than just editing. I also, I have a feeling that I just made a few people super curious about my favorite AI transcription tools. I set myself up for that. So I'll tell you. I use fathom as an AI note taker to record all my client calls on zoom. And I'm a little bit obsessed with fathom. So if you haven't tried it, check it out. I used the script to record and transcribe and edit my podcast. And I use Otter to record quick notes to myself on the go. But my point with this episode is not to give you a list of my top tech tips. Actually, I want to give you a bit of a glimpse behind the scenes at some of the bigger picture lessons that I have learned this year. Why am I pivoting from editing tips to editing business tips? Well, I have a few reasons. First. Because this is top of mind for me right now. And what you get on this podcast is what I am literally doing in my editing business on the day to day. All the tips that I share here on the podcast come directly from the work that I am doing with writers one-on-one. As I edit their novels, they're straight from my editing sessions. And this month, since these editing business reflections are top of mind for me. You're getting to hear them to What's top of mind for me comes straight onto the podcast. Second, because all year, as I have worked with clients, I have felt like there are tremendous parallels between the project of a book and the project of building my own editing business. I haven't talked about this a ton. Either on the podcast or with my editing clients, because I don't know how relatable it's going to feel to writers. If I talk about my experiences, building a business, rather than something that's specifically within the context of writing a book. But I definitely relate to what writers are experiencing in your own creative projects through the lens of my own editing business. I see parallels all over the place. So I want to share some things that I have learned about running this business, because I think that you will find that there really are parallels to your creative projects, even when your project is a book and not a business. And the third reason why I want to share what I have learned from a year of building my editing business is because. I've wanted to be an editor for so many years. I've dreamed of being an editor since I was a very little child. I know you've heard me talk about that on the podcast before I say it often, because I love this work so much. And it has been so important to me for my entire life. I think it's been a few episodes since I've said I love editing. So let me just say it again. Who really, really love editing. And I think about what I would have loved to have had in all of those years when I was thinking about editing and dreaming about editing and editing friends' papers and school and reading all of these books and having big thoughts about how those stories worked, But having no real idea of how I could actually make this my career. And I would have absolutely loved a podcast that would both teach me all the things that an editor does and their daily work, and would also teach me some insider secrets about what it's actually like to run that editing business and to do that work. Now there are podcasts out there that are specifically about how to run an editing business. One of the ones that I can think of right off the top of my head is called the editing podcast. And it's a podcast by Louise Hornby and Denise cowl. And they talk about how to run an editing business. So if you're interested in a podcast specifically on building an editing business, that's when I, for sure. Recommend. But I'm also running an anatomy business and I have a lot of thoughts about it. So I wanted to share just a few takeaways from my experience, running an editing business. With you here on my podcast. So this episode is for all you writers out there who are following me, who are downloading all my worksheets and my guides, my templates, who are putting those to use in your own writing. And you're leveling up your book using the tools that I'm teaching on this podcast. And this episode is also for anyone out there who's listening, who just really wants to be an editor because I have been there and I get it. And to be honest, I'm still in the early stages of my editing. I've been editing professionally for about six years. But I've only really been building an editing business and really honing in on what I do as an editor for the last year or so. I'm still very early in my editing career. But I would love to use this episode to Linda helping hands to. All of those aspiring editors who are coming up behind me. This work is so fun and it's so rewarding. And I have wanted every bit of insight and knowledge and support that I could get. And now I would love to share with you what I know and what I've experienced so that I can give you a little bit of that taste and a little lift as well. So in this episode, I'm going to share the top five things that I have learned this year from running my own editing business. Well, I'm going to share five things that I have learned this year from running my own editing business. We don't have to rank them. I have learned many more than five things. These are just the five things that I picked. I hope you find these useful and inspiring for tackling big creative projects, like editing your novel. And I also hope that you get some insight that further inspires and prepares you To start your own editing career. If that's the thing that you're dreaming of. Also, I'll throw this one out there too. When you start publishing your books, whether you're doing that traditionally or self-published. And certainly, especially if you're self publishing, but also not exclusively. If you're self publishing. When you start publishing your books. You really are building your own business. You're now creating a product that you want to sell to customers, which is not the way that any of us like to think about books. We're here to think about stories and creative, exciting things. But the reality is once you get to the publishing side where you want to get those stories in the hands of readers. It's going to be really, really helpful for you. If you start thinking at least in part. Of your writing as a business. And so some of the things that I share with you here, you might apply them not only to literally writing your book. But also the publishing and marketing side of your book once it becomes not just a story in your head and pages on a computer, but a physical, tangible object that you want to share with readers who are hungry for it. So keep that in mind as well. You might not be as distant from the business building side of this experience, as you think. All right, let's get into the five things. Here's the first one. The first thing I have learned. Is that editing is deeply thought intensive work. It requires an enormous amount of brain power. In a full day of editing. I spend all of my brain power and I fall into bed at the end of the day, mentally exhausted. I have used all of my brain energy up. And brains take a lot of energy. It takes a lot of fuel to run a brain. In order to do my best work. It is absolutely essential that I fuel myself. Well. I started off this business as a solo printer who was too busy to cook too busy to do anything other than work from the moment that I jumped out of bed in the morning to the moment I rolled back into bed at three in the morning. No time for anything but work. So I was leaning hard on a diet of frozen burritos and no sleep. And the diet of frozen burritos into no sleep does not the best editing thoughts produce. As I learned very quickly. In order for this to be something that I can sustain. I have to fuel myself well. So for the last few months, I have really pivoted hard to leaning on building and reestablishing and focusing on maintaining and prioritizing healthy habits. Eating well, eating vegetables, drinking water, moving my body and sleeping. Not sleep one honestly is still the hardest one on that list, but I'm working on it. When I do these things. Everyone benefits everyone across the board, in my entire life, I benefit my client's benefit. My friend's benefit. My family benefits. Literally everyone benefits. And when I don't do these things, everyone misses out. These are hard, hard, hard habits to build and maintain for me. Like I said, sleep is the real killer here. But they are absolutely essential for my own health and for the health of my business. So that's number one, fueling myself well is non-negotiable is what I have learned this year. Second thing. Marketing. Marketing. In its simplest form. It's just figuring out what you do and then telling people that you do it. My business really caught momentum in may. I was on a zoom call talking with one of my editor colleagues. Her name is Kim Cussler. And if you've been listening to this podcast awhile, then you know who she is. I was talking about the clients. I was hoping to work with the clients I had, where it was going really, really well, the spaces where I could just tell something wasn't a great fit and what I really wanted to design in my business going forward. Just all the data that I had so far about what I'm good at. What I want to do, who I want to work with and how I want to work with those people. And then I took a look at everything I had just told her. I thought. You know what. If I just say that to people, then I bet I would find some clients. So I organized it into a tidy little post. And I posted it in a Facebook group for writers. And that honestly was the one post that fueled my business for the whole entire rest of the year. I'm not even joking. That post gave me all of the momentum that I needed to carry me through the whole rest of the year. So when you know what you do and you know who to tell. That is what marketing is. That's it figure out what you do, and then tell people that you do it. At the same time, that is really, really hard to do. If it were easy, everyone would find marketing easy all of the time. And nobody finds marketing easy. Marketing is something that people spend lots and lots and lots of money hiring other people to do for them. And they do that for a reason because it's really hard. And it's really hard because it's really hard to figure out what you do. And then it is really hard to figure out where and how to tell people that you'll do it. This is not easy stuff. So I personally am constantly iterating on and exploring what exactly it is that I do best and how I best serve writers. And I'm constantly refining what I do and what I focus on in my business. I don't think that's ever going to stop. I will always be learning more and more about how I work best, what things I can best offer to writers and how I can serve those writers even better. So that's thing. Number two. Figure out what you do, and then tell people that you do it, which is easier said than done, but it really is the key to marketing. And like I said, this goes for your book as well. Number three. Community. Is essential. Absolutely essential. Before I launched my editing business and became a solo preneur was editing full time. I worked for several years on a team at a writing company. So I was in the writing world. I was still working with books and editing books, but I was on a team And I had a lot of other responsibilities. The besides editing books. And one of the things that I was most afraid of in leaving that job was that I would no longer have a team. I would no longer have coworkers. I would no longer have friends that I would get to sit on zoom with every week and chat with, and troubleshoot with and share my problems with and ask for support from, I wouldn't have companions to go through my work life with and get help whenever I get stuck and celebrate when things are going well. I was very afraid that I was going to end up very lonely and isolated because I was going to launch my own thing, become a solo preneur, and then never talked to anyone ever again. But. The moment that I left my previous job. And I launched my own business. Two of my editor, friends. We're like welcome. You are ours now. And they immediately folded me into their community and they connected me with a whole network of editors and book people. Those two editors and diet. Now co-work on zoom multiple times a week. We are building our businesses alongside each other. We are collaborating, sharing our strengths with each other to shore up each other's weaknesses. So we can raise this tide and raise all the ships in it. We're untangling sticky plot problems in business marketing strategies together. And I can honestly say that if it were not for the community of editors around me and these two editors in particular, Then my business would not be what it is today. And I, as an editor would not be who I am today. I would still be working super hard. I would still be building this business. Let's not imagine that I was ever going to give up on this lifelong dream of being an editor. But it has made such a difference to be surrounded by a supportive community of people who get it. Who are doing the same thing and who can help me figure out how to do my thing even better. So that's thing. Number three. Community. Is essential. think for. And this one honestly has been maybe the hardest one of these for me to learn. The work that I'm doing is valuable. And I am helping writers make their stories better. Yeah. It might sound weird for me to say that, to admit that I have been afraid that that wasn't the case, but it's true. Because imposter syndrome can be rough. So thing, number four is that I am learning. I am seeing, I am confirming every day that the work that I do is valuable. And that I am helping writers make their stories better. My absolute favorite days on editing calls are the ones where I get on calls with writers, right after reading the revisions. And I just slow clap because they freaking nailed it. They took my feedback. They made it their own. They edited their story in exactly the way they wanted to. It worked. They fixed the problems And their story is so much better for it. So good that I have nothing more to say no more feedback to add. This is the most rewarding part of my work to see writers taking my feedback, using it, to spin dozens of brilliant ideas of their own. And transforming their stories for the better. I've been seeing that happen more and more just because I've been doing this long enough, now that I'm starting to see the results of the work that I've been doing with writers, not just the early beginnings, but the happy results at the end. And the results are so good. You guys. The results are so good. It is so, so, so exciting to see the stories that writers are creating based on the feedback that I'm giving them. And the ways they're leveling up their writing with all of this feedback. It's so cool. It's so good. I never get tired of it. It never gets old. This is what I think about when I'm falling asleep at night. This is what is most encouraging to me, most rewarding to me, most exciting to me in this business. I just want more of this. More getting to celebrate the writers who are freaking nailing it, telling awesome stories. That's it. That's what makes this job worthwhile? And the last of the five things that I'm going to share with you. Certainly not the last thing I have learned this year, but the last of the five things that I've learned that I'm going to share on this podcast. Is that I am capable of far more than I realized. But I never would have discovered that if I had not made the leap. I dreamed of being an editor for a long, long time. For years, the only vision that really felt right to me for what editing would look like. Was to build my own independent editing business to take on clients, myself, and to work one-on-one with writers directly. That was really the only thing that I could imagine that really felt like it was going to allow me to do the kinds of work that I wanted to do with the writers that I wanted to work with. But I was so afraid that I couldn't do it. That for years, I never made the leap. I told myself that I needed to find a more stable job, something more responsible that was irresponsible to go into entrepreneurship. That was risky. There wasn't a market for it that I wasn't going to be able to deliver on the work that I was selling or that I wasn't going to know enough to do it, or nobody was going to want to work with me. I just told myself all of these reasons why I wasn't enough to do this. Not realizing that for several years before I made this leap, I actually was prepared. When I first decided I wanted to edit, I was not ready. Let's be clear when I've got my first job out of college, I was not ready. I could not have built this business right out of college. I could not have built this business. The first time the idea came into my head. It came into my head years and years ago, and I could not have built it then. But I could have built it several years before I actually made the leap because I was ready and I didn't know it. I didn't know it until I made the leap. And I'm saying this to you, because I think that there's something universal here about risky creative projects. And your book is one of those risky creative projects. You're never going to know that you have what it takes to write and edit and publish an amazing story and reach your readers with that story. Until you do it. It's not that you can't do it. It's the, you don't know that you can do it and you won't know that you can do it until you try. So I encourage you just like I encouraged me. Well, No, I didn't encourage me. I told myself all the reasons I couldn't do it. Other people encouraged me. I encourage you the way that other people encouraged me to take the leap and do the thing. Because you can do it. And you are capable of far more than you realize. I believe that for you. All right. Those are the five things or rather those are five things, not the five things. Again, I have learned a lot of things this year in my business. Many of them are tiny little nitty-gritty things that really do not matter to you. You do not need to know all the random details that I have learned in this year of business building. But these are five things that I have learned that I think are applicable both to building an editing business and also beyond. That in order to do my best work, I must feel myself well. That marketing and its simplest form is simply figuring out what you do and then telling people that you do it. That community. Is essential. But the work that I am doing is valuable and I am materially helping writers make their stories better. And that I am capable of far more than I realized, but I never would have discovered that if I hadn't made the leap. And the same is true for you. I hope that those five things are encouraging to you. This episode is a little bit more personal and vulnerable than most of what you hear on your next draft. But I think that there's some value to digging into some of that vulnerability. Sometimes I hope that. This kind of creates a space for you to reflect on some of the things that you have learned this year in your writing, in your publishing, in your editing process, In your editing business building process. If you happen to be in that camp as well. And I want to give a special shout out to all of you. Aspiring editors who are listening to this who are just yearning for the day, when you can make your own leap into editing. You can do it. I believe in you. I am so excited for you to get involved in this work as well, because it truly is the most fun and rewarding work that I have done in my life. I love it. And I hope that you do too. I cannot wait to read more stories and help more writers in this editing business that I am building. Thank you so much for listening and for joining me along the way. Happy editing.