In The Subversive Copyeditor, Carol Fisher Saller outlines three principles that she believes are crucial to developing a good relationship with an author: carefulness, transparency and flexibility. Carefulness has to do with adhering to the “first do no harm” principle—that is, not implementing changes that are incorrect, or that overstep your knowledge, or that you can’t cite a reason for changing. Flexibility has to do with a willingness to break the rules if doing so aligns with your author’s needs and expertise, and if it won’t create a problem for the reader. But it’s her middle term, transparency—arguably underdiscussed among editors—that we’ll focus on in this webinar.
After reviewing what transparency means for Saller, we’ll discuss an expanded definition of transparency, and consider how sharing key measures of changes in your edited text can increase clients’ understanding of editing and trust in your work. Drawing on free online text analysis bots including writingwellishard.com, we’ll discuss which numbers you can share with which kinds of clients, and how to use after-edit metrics as a marketing strategy to increase the number of testimonials and referrals you receive.
Leave this webinar with ideas for how to update your end-of-edit client letter, to both improve your clients’ experience and increase your chances of turning one paying client into many more.
Letitia Henville, PhD, is a book nerd, a bad swimmer and the author of the monthly academic writing advice column “Ask Dr. Editor,” published monthly at universityaffairs.ca. Her resources for freelance editors can be found at shortishard.com; in June 2022, she launched writingwellishard.com, a free comparative text analysis tool to empower academic writers to make informed choices about how they convey their ideas.