Freelancing is a major life decision – it’s challenging, demanding and requires a dash of courage. How can you flourish as a self-employed individual in the publishing industry?

On 17 January 2024 the Publishing Training Centre (PTC) hosted an online seminar in collaboration with the Society of Young Publishers (SYP) Wales to answer this question. Our expert panel shared their practical insights and advice on how to succeed as a freelancer in publishing.

These eight steps below are what they suggested for freelance success.

1. Freelancing – is it for me?

Imagine a career flexible enough to fit around family life, a professional life where you are in charge. It was this quest for a realistic work−life balance that drew all four panellists into freelancing, offering the freedom to work from home, choose your own projects and set your working hours.

“Anyone can become a freelancer, at any point in their career – if you have the skills that publishers want to buy,” explains Petra Green, Head of the PTC. “To succeed as a freelancer, you need to be organised, self-motivated, disciplined and able to work on your own.”

It can be challenging, with feelings of isolation and income fluctuations. If you thrive on self-motivation, freelancing as a copy-editor, proofreader, or in marketing and publicity, could be right for you.

2. Gain the necessary skills, experience and qualifications

In-house experience is not essential, but it helps. You can gather a wealth of insights and knowledge, particularly in a specific subject area. As Alysoun Owen, freelance publishing consultant and owner of AO Consulting Ltd advised, “You need a track record and one job to get going. When leaving an employer, try to take at least one commission or contact with you.” Gain as much training and experience and as many qualifications as possible before leaving employment.

3. Be clear about what you can offer

Identify what services and expertise you can offer. When Alysoun became a sole trader, she chose to advise on digital, bridging the gap between publishing creatives and technical professionals. By focusing on a specific area, she gained invaluable experience from working with diverse individuals and businesses.

4. Agree a realistic fee

When taking on any project, assess whether you are qualified (or want) to do the work, and that it fits comfortably in your schedule to meet the deadline. Know when to say yes, and when to say no. Price your services realistically. Will you charge a fixed fee or hourly rate? Ensure the client brief is clear and that you understand exactly what is expected of you – the type of publication, word count, inclusion of illustrations and your role in the process, will all influence your charges.

5. Communicate effectively and honestly

“Effective communication is at the heart of successful freelancing. You are only as good as your last job,” explained Caro Drake, a freelance editor with over 30 years’ experience. “Always follow the brief, check and recheck.” Communicate openly and honestly and apologise if necessary. Be courteous, friendly and professional at all times. And pick up the phone – it’s more personal than email. By nurturing relationships, through impeccable customer service, you are paving the way for repeat work and other opportunities.

6. Take charge of your finances

“Financial planning is key to achieving a sense of stability and success,” says Heather Rawlin, owner of Future Perfect and a freelancer since 2015. “Fluctuations are common – you may experience busy, slow, affluent and poverty-stricken months. Look for regular work – even if these jobs are just small, their reliability is a comfort.”

There is no paid holiday or sick leave, and you need to buy your own equipment. You’re on your own when it comes to managing your own finances – including invoicing and tax returns.

7. Build the business basics

Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and create a long-term plan. Consider if being a sole trader or limited company is best for you – each has its pros and cons. You’ll need a business name, a LinkedIn profile, and perhaps a website, to get started. Building a strong online presence is essential. There are plenty of resources available to help guide you through the process.

8. Expand your contacts and ensure clients return for more

Freelancing is all about who you know. Before leaving employment, share your CV with colleagues. Then announce your exciting new venture to your network (after you’ve left!) and target publishers aligned with your field of expertise. As Heather says, “Recommendations are crucial for freelances – more than 50% of my work came from referrals from current clients.” Maintain your edge with ongoing training and attending industry events and webinars. Affiliation with relevant societies and professional bodies and societies will enhance your credibility.

Actively market your services and pursue new opportunities. Remember, persistence is key – even on tough days, keep your head up and an open mind.

Gill Box-Grainger is Marketing Manager for the Publishing Training Centre.

If you are interested in becoming a freelancer within the publishing industry, have a look at these useful links for working as a freelancer, recommended by the panel. For more information about the SYP, visit www.thesyp.org.uk.

22 December 2023

Petra Green is Head of the PTC and a freelance publishing consultant. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Cookbooks, handbooks, textbooks, scholarly monographs, catalogues: a good index is still essential across a range of non-fiction books. Indexes help readers find the information that they need and are often the first point of entry to a text – many of us will have browsed the index before committing to buying a book.

Indexes are made by professional indexers, who anticipate the needs of all sorts of readers when choosing the terms that will form part of an index. That’s why an index always wins out over a simple search – the indexer will have weighed the significance of each mention of a term, only including those in the text where there’s useful information to be found. Back-of-the-book indexes remain standard in print books, and eBook technology allows pinpoint indexing to the exact place in a book where a topic is discussed, with a clickable link to take you there.

Who are indexers?

Indexers come from different working backgrounds: there are former librarians, teachers and academics, lawyers and doctors, as well as publishing professionals. They often have considerable expertise in the subjects that they index and can be highly qualified. Some also specialise in particular types of publications, such as biographies, children’s books or journals.

The Society of Indexers (SI)’s membership base reflects this variety of expertise. It is the only autonomous membership body for indexers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Many members combine indexing with editing and/or proofreading as part of a portfolio career. Like proofreaders and editors, they’re nearly always freelancers working in the publishing industry.

Indexing can be an interesting, satisfying and intellectually challenging career – with the bonus of reading for a living.

Working with indexers

Working with a professional indexer will enhance the quality, and sales, of a book. Authors and publishing professionals can find a suitable indexer for their project through the SI Professional Directory. It’s helpful to contact your indexer and place the project well in advance of any deadlines, as they do get booked up. Ideally, you would book your indexer once you start to plan the project schedule, and give two months' notice. However, like most freelancers, indexers can often take on a project at short notice. Before you brief your indexer, make sure you have all the information you need about the project and your publisher’s usual requirements for indexes such as layout, style and length. The costs of indexing vary according to the extent and complexity of the book; the SI’s recommended rates are a good starting point for negotiation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and indexing

Like many professions that work with language, AI is affecting indexing. Automated tools for indexing have existed for some time but have not been able to produce a quality index. They cannot reproduce the human skills of judgement and analysis in context. Generative AI tools work by predicting the most likely next word rather than informed understanding and empathy.

Current AI tools like ChatGPT will, if asked, create an index for a work in the public domain, but the headings inevitably need review and the page numbers are often inventions. AI tools that create summaries of text or extract keywords could be useful during indexing, but an AI tool alone won’t have the human indexer’s insight into readers’ needs. And there are legal issues involved in sharing any book with an AI tool that will incorporate the text into a large language model.

Indexers make good use of technology, however. Indexing software takes a lot of the drudge work out of indexing. Changes to proofs can be dealt with more easily and indexes repurposed for revised editions. Embedded indexing, where the index entries are coded into a Word manuscript, InDesign file or similar, generates an index that is automatically populated with page numbers. This is very useful for texts that will appear in various formats and especially helpful for eBook indexes.

Discover more about indexing

If you are interested in a career in indexing, or honing your skills, the SI website and blog is the best place to start. You’ll find plenty of useful information – including the qualities you need to be an indexer, professional training and workshops, the index commissioning process, the qualities of good and bad indexes, the negotiation of fees, and more.

If you want to learn how indexing works, Indexing for Editors is ideal. This workshop explains the commissioning process, how to evaluate an index and the conventions of indexing.

The Society’s online training course is a self-study programme that leads to professional accreditation, preparing students to work as professional indexers. Assessments, tutorials and support from experienced indexers help students progress through the course modules.

Tanya Izzard is a freelance book indexer and Marketing Director for the Society of Indexers. Follow her on LinkedIn.

23 November 2023

Right at the start, let me come clean. During my career, AI has been a significant source of concern for me. But that’s enough about my Atrocious Indolence.

Today I want to focus instead on the subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which suddenly the whole world seems to be talking about. As a professional writer, I have to say, I have mixed feelings about the arrival of this technology on planet Earth.

On the one hand, it’s true that, for writers like me, AI can be helpful. It has the potential to supercharge our way of working, removing a lot of pain from the task, while generally speeding things up.

For example, among many other things, we can use this technology to:

• carry out some rapid, in-depth research, before embarking on any new project

• find alternative angles and approaches that we might previously have overlooked

• arrange for awkward sentences to be fixed or overly long pieces of text to be shortened

• highlight all the clichés associated with a particular subject, so that when we write about that subject, we’ll know which words to avoid

• act as a second pair of eyes, closely scrutinising our writing for errors and inconsistencies which we might otherwise have missed.

Indeed, it’s fair to say, many of the problems we copywriters routinely encounter could be handed over to AI for a near-instant solution. By taking that option, we could become more productive and our written output less prone to human error.

This, in turn, could lead to us offering our clients an even better service, one which would enhance our reputation in the industry. Word could soon spread about the quality of our work. If we’re not careful, we could end up earning a lot more and therefore needing to work a lot less.

In other words, AI could be the rocket fuel that lifts our careers to greater heights, proving it is indeed a transformative technology. What an amazing time to be a copywriter, I hear you say.

But hold on a moment. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

A few threats

Superficially, this technology may seem like our new-found best friend, streamlining our work, potentially boosting our income. But it would be naïve to think that AI doesn’t also pose a few threats.

From a copywriter’s perspective, there are at least three less-than-welcome things it could bring about. It could:

• take much of the fun out of writing

• make us so reliant on the technology that our personal creative abilities start to seem redundant

• kibosh our jobs, as companies realise they can produce their own copy in-house by machine, without needing to hire a professional.

Taking all this into account – especially that last point – it would seem the arrival of AI is set to cast a worrying shadow over our careers. We copywriters might soon be extinct. We could end up feeling every bit as antiquated as an alchemist, town crier or VHS repair engineer.

However, based on the quality of the AI-generated copy I’ve seen thus far, I think we can relax for a while.

Without doubt, the technology provides an incredible level of detail and responds unbelievably fast. For example, it can blast out a 450-word article in about 11 seconds.

But the text it offers tends to be dry and lacking in character. Businesses using AI copy to sell their services would surely be underwhelmed by its lacklustre, won’t-pass-muster prose.

Upgrades in the pipeline

In view of this weakness, it might seem that we humans have little reason to be concerned. However, these are early days. Who knows what amazing upgrades may be in the pipeline?

Give it a year or two, and the technology may well have caught up or even overtaken us. Bearing all this in mind, how worried should we be? How much of a risk could the technology eventually pose for human copywriters?

Well, to check this out I put my concerns directly to the artificially intelligent chatbot, ChatGPT. It’s fair to say I got a mixed response.

On the one hand, it promised that AI could be helpful to writers like me. On the other, it suggested that. if I wished to survive in this brave new world, I would have to accept changes.

Opportunities for copywriters

Somewhat ominously it wrote, “While the increasing availability of AI in copywriting may pose challenges, it also presents opportunities for copywriters who are willing to adapt . . .”

In the midst of so much uncertainty, one thing is clear. Big changes are heading our way. While we shouldn’t panic, we need to familiarise ourselves with this remarkable new technology as a matter of urgency. In that way we can identify the associated benefits and risks.

Bev Legge is a copywriter and tutor of the PTC’s courses, Copywriting for Publishers and Creative Copywriting for Publishers. He has over 25 years’ experience in writing, editing and training worldwide. Follow him on LinkedIn.