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Glad you found that helpful! Also happy to hear you are doing work for them again.
I haven’t ever worked for a publisher, but I do periodically reach out to authors who I know plan on writing more than one book.
I usually say something like “I enjoyed working on your first book and am wondering if you have any more books in the works. I currently have openings around this time. If you have any immediate future plans for a book, let me know, as I would love to prioritize your book.”
With a publisher, I imagine you could say something like “I am just reaching out to see if you have any work for me within the next month as I currently have some openings.”
That way, you are reminding them of your services and expressing an interest in doing more work for them without seeming desperate or demanding.
In that case, you may be better served scheduling your projects in terms of average amount of pages.
The scheduler in my Beacon Point Data Tracking Program has two scheduling options. One is for scheduling time (which sounds like that won’t work for you) and one is scheduling pages (which might).
Of course, you don’t have to use my tracker. You can program your own formulas to do this in Excel, if you know how to use Excel. Or you can just record the data and manually calculate using a calculator.
But anyway, you can just enter in the amount of days you have to complete a project and the amount of pages, and then it will tell you how many pages you need to edit a day. At the end of every work day, you just record how many pages you did, and it adjusts the needed average going forward. So if you have a work day or two or three where you aren’t focusing well and you did less, it will tell you your new average page number for the remaining days.
I definitely think using Toggl Track can give you some insights into where your time is going and if you are managing it well. Though I haven’t used it, I know that Toggl Track also includes a Pomodoro timer, which can help you focus for a given time, then take a break.
I hadn’t heard of Divi. This is good to know. I use Elementor within WordPress, which is a drag-and-drop builder as well. I will have to look into the difference between them and add this to the course lesson. Thanks for sharing!
I love the inclusion of the confidentiality notice. It looks like you also have at least one brand color selected, so that is good. I love that you included a photo of yourself, a description of the type of editing you do, and where you are located. All of this is great information.
When you get your website up and running, be sure to add your website URL to your email signature.
As for your branding documents, your post inspired me to add some additional information to the branding lesson. I added information about hiring someone else to do it and described the various branding documents in a bit more detail. In doing so, I noticed that the other branding documents folder was not complete–it didn’t have all the examples, so it was a good thing I checked that.
I would definitely hire someone to do your logo. You may find that once you have a logo, you can design some of the other branding documents, like your social media posts (if you intend to have those) that can be as simple as having your logo and stating the tip or the blog post title in your color and font, or you may want your designer to design templates for those as well.
When you get them designed, I would love for you to come back and post them here. It helps others who may be designing some of them on their own to see a variety of examples for inspiration.
While nursing my daughter, I was thinking some more about your website. 😀 It really is a great site.
With the quotation mark, it may just be the font size and the font used that make it so it isn’t easily identifiable. On a different spot on your site, you have a quotation mark in a bubble, and that one is identifiable; it is much smaller, so maybe that is why.
Then with your services, you may consider listing the genres you specialize in the top section where you have the kinds of things that can be edited. You can opt to put an asterisk next to your specialities, then explain you specialize in them, like how I have it here.
Then I know I suggested putting why you specialize in those genres in your bio, but some potential clients won’t look at the bio area, so you can include a line or two showcasing your credentials in those genres on the service page in the top section of material you edit.
Since it seems you have different clientele (authors and business professionals) for your editing services, you may want different pages for each so you can address their specific pain points and speak more directly to them. You have your content writing for business professionals on a different page, but currently, the editing is all on one page, which is fine. It’s just a matter of speaking more directly to the specific client.
Feedback on the branding shown on your website: I love the use of your colors, and since your logo is two capital letters, I love how you have a capital letter for each section of your wesbite. The only visual aspect that isn’t working for me is the big white quotation marks. It isn’t very clear what they are. Maybe if you had both sets, one on each side of your top section, that would help. Not sure, though. I do think you could strength the customer experience part of your brand, but the visual part is solid.
Great job on customer-first language throughout. This is a tough one for a lot of people, and you nailed it.
Feedback on the bio/about section: Before I saw your full bio on the actual “about” page, I was going to suggest some personality-type content. You have that on the “about” page. You may consider also having your first sentence from the bio on the home page about section. I wonder why your specialities are children’s books, health and wellness, and music. If you want to attract authors of those genres, I suggest expounding on why those are your specialites.
Feedback on services: Great job having a quick summary, then a more in-depth description on the services page. You may consider putting the proofreading and copy editing package to after the descriptions of the two. Currently, when I read the package content, I saw that the terms weren’t defined, so I didn’t know whatyou meant by those terms and what was included since you don’t say this until after the package portion. If you want to keep your package on the top, you may consider adding in a short description. Something like this: The first step in this package is a through copy edit–editing for style and clarity … a final proofread–editing for grammar and word usage. With your list of what kinds of things should be proofread and edited, is that a list of what you edit or just what should be edited? Right now, it isn’t quite clear.
Feedback on contact form: You may consider adding in specific questions of content you need in order to do a sample edit. I have found it cuts back on time spent emailing if I gather the needed information right away. The attachment of the sample, the word count, the genre, the deadline, etc.
Re:logos–I would absolutely post any logo of an organization you are a part of. It adds credibility. I also would reach out to publishers, as I think so many people are visual and seeing a visual representation of the reputable publishers you work for could help. I only work with indies, so that isn’t an area of expertise for me, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt.
