The Naked Editor – February

Posted on February 11, 2008 in Uncategorized

I can’t believe it’s already February: the Christmas trees have all disappeared and the cheesy CDs have been hidden away for another year, swiftly replaced by cheesy love songs for Valentine’s Day. I am fairly disgruntled about time moving so fast; I had great hopes for sticking to my New Year’s resolutions this time but I realised I got off to a bad start when I even forgot to write the list containing all my fickle promises to myself.

January is a bad month for most people – apparently many of us consider changing jobs as they become dissatisfied with their current occupation and begin dreaming of a different life. That could be the reason why a good proportion of the people I’ve been talking to recently have been enquiring about how to go about turning freelance. I thought I had already put everybody off with my first article, but apparently the dream of working from home and being your own boss is stronger than I thought. So I decided that it’s time for me to share some more pearls of wisdom and delve deeper into the real life of a freelance editor.

Something that really frightened me about no longer being somebody’s employee was the prospect of doing my own taxes. I’m Italian, so it was of paramount importance to me to show the UK tax people that we are really an honest bunch and dodging payments is not actually the national sport after football. So, I felt a fair degree of pride when I picked up the phone and called Revenue and Customs – it didn’t last long. I swiftly discovered that the person at the other end of the phone had never heard of humour and thought being friendly was against his job description. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that I tend to mumble, ramble on and make the least funny jokes when I’m nervous – I had a type of out-of-body experience with my subconscious screaming at me to stop talking.

Thankfully, I apparently managed to be coherent enough to register as self-employed and felt inordinately proud of that – again, it didn’t last long. From that day I started to receive weekly letters asking for payments that I missed (I didn’t let them know soon enough about my change of status) and that they missed (they got the calculations wrong). On top of that, I now have regular nightmares featuring the guy who keeps saying ‘Tax doesn’t have to be taxing’ on the telly, with him throwing me out of an airplane without parachute.

However, tax is not the first hurdle you have to overcome – in a way you should actually consider yourself lucky if you get to that stage: it means you have earned some money. Indeed, being a freelancer means that you are constantly looking for work; and when I say looking, I mean begging.

It’s a bit of a catch-22 situation: you don’t want to show your potential client how much you need them to give you some work – a whiff of desperation doesn’t exactly inspire confidence – but in reality, when you have just started up your business, that’s exactly what the situation is. Unless you are lucky enough to have many good contacts in the industry, you have to start from the bottom, and the view from there ain’t pretty. Most publishing houses have a list of people they use, which is as daunting as Everest – and just about as accessible. So you are left at the foot of this mount, looking up with the depressing knowledge that maybe (just maybe) you’ll make it to the middle by the time you reach the pensionable age. This knowledge can occasionally affect your sanity– when you meet somebody you know has the power to send some work your way, you feel like begging, pleading, screaming and, finally, stapling your business card to their forehead (I’ve got to say, I’ve never got that far, but let me know if you have).

Since we seem to have established that the behaviour described above is far from ideal, we are left with the other option: play it cool – sort of ‘I don’t need you, in fact, you’ll be lucky to get me’ thing. This doesn’t work either. People want to see enthusiasm, passion and commitment, which don’t shine through if you are aloof and unapproachable.

It’s not easy to get the right balance and I can’t claim to have got it quite right yet – after all, the reason I became a freelancer in this industry is my passion for and dedication to my job. Add to that a pinch of fiery Italian temper and we are back to the stapling of business cards to foreheads!

The only piece of advice I can give is to keep up a high standard of work – before handing in an assignment, be absolutely positive that the work you’ve done is as good as it can be. Your customer will evaluate you with every project you do and a sloppy piece of work can ruin months of excellent behaviour. Also, be scrupulously honest and establish a mutual relationship of respect and friendliness.

As for the recipe for success, well… I don’t have it, but I can attempt a polite guess and say that it’s a mix of what I just said, luck and dogged determination. You have to keep in mind that there will be bad days when your hopes are dashed by an unexpected rejection and you’ll find yourself longing again for your old, regular pay cheque. But don’t be disheartened! Try to focus on the fun aspects of being your own boss and relish the challenge – keeping positive is vital.

In the end, it’s true that working at home as a freelancer is far from the image some people have – a modern-day Jane Austen languidly leaning on her desk overlooking the driveway where Mr Darcy is about to appear (I wish!). It’s a business and as such it demands your time, attention and commitment – but this is the easy part… the difficult bit is spotting that elusive Mr Darcy from your window!

The Naked Editor offers a choice of editorial, proofreading and translation services. For more information, please check out her website at: www.thenakededitor.co.uk.

”If you would like to get in touch, ask me a question or simply say a quick hello to relieve me from the loneliness of working from home, then email me at enquiries@thenakededitor.co.uk (doing this counts as your good action for the day, so you won’t have to keep looking out for that elusive elderly lady to help her cross the street!)."