First of all, I would like to thank everyone for not pointing out the fact that April Fool’s Day is on Sunday, not Monday, and invalidating the entire first paragraph of Wednesday’s post. I appreciate it. This way I don’t feel like an idiot and can still pretend that I’m funny.
Onwards.
So, I think y’all know that I am an editor by profession. I work freelance, for the most part, with the exception of a couple of different contracts that I work on periodically. Most of the people I deal with are people who have a single project they need help with, which is lovely; it lets me fill up the time in between my contract work and gives me a wide-variety of things to do, which is always good for keeping the ol’ brain in shape. I love trying something new.
Most of my advertising is done on the internet. If you ask, I will tell you it is because it allows me to serve a greater number of clients, but the truth is that the less I have to talk to people, the better. (My husband often, exasperatedly, asks if I could get any more introverted.) All the places I advertise, I make sure it’s clear that I deal in documents. I talk about proofreading and grammar. I give examples of what I’ve done before – resumes, essays, scientific papers, novels, short stories, newsletters, etc. I talk about word counts.
Most people are literate enough to read these and figure out what services I offer. Some people see “Editor” and don’t bother to look any further. And I swear some people don’t actually get that far.
Weird requests I’ve gotten:
- There was the guy who wanted me to reformat his phone. The hardware.
- I get a lot of requests for video editing. Also image editing.
- Someone wanted me to fill out online job applications for him while he dictated what he wanted to put in over the phone to me.
- I received a request for me to type up a 75,000 word document from the original hand-written pages.
- Within the last few days, I had a request from someone to edit their music composition. Not the lyrics – the notes. What does that even entail? I’m still pondering this one because I can’t figure out what they expected at all.
Also, people, if you are self-publishing, I do not need your Createspace/Lulu/Smashwords, etc. password to format your book. You send me your files. I make them pretty. Then you upload them yourself and have full control of your financial and creative material. If someone wants that information – don’t give it to them. I bring this up because I have to tell almost every formatting client of mine this.
It’s been busy this week. Remember: Grammar Week next week! Monday we shall explore the proper usage of speech tags.
