www.inkthinkerblog.com — I’ve know my whole life that I wanted to be in publishing, either as a writer or an editor or both, so when I graduated from college and didn’t have a full-time job lined up right away, I decided, Hey, why not, and hung up my shingle (by which I mean that I started and advertised my website). I was working half-time at a daily regional newspaper, half-time at a quarterly statewide magazine, and nights and weekends at a so-so bar–in a way, I was freelancing already because I was all over the place! Both of my parents run their own businesses and have done so my whole life, so starting *my* own business was a pretty comfortable idea–I knew what I was getting myself into.
My first client was a guy who used to come into the bar all the time. When he asked me how my weekend was and I told him that I’d launched my website, he got really excited: he had about 30 children’s book manuscripts just sitting in his file cabinet, and he’d been thinking about trying to do something with them–would I be his editor? Uh, yeah! I charged him $25/hour.
About a month later, a nonprofit association that I’d send my resume to called me for an interview. The job was absolutely perfect, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it, especially since I had just started freelancing and it was going well. However, because I was getting married a month or two later and was desperate for good health insurance, I decided to go for it. I told them in the interview that I had started freelancing recently and intended to continue doing so indefinitely, and even went so far as to give a business card to everyone who I met with, and they didn’t bat an eye, so I knew it was the place for me.
Now I’m working full time as a medical editor, going to school part time at night, which I mentioned before, and freelancing 30-40 hours a week. I’m not *billing* 30-40 hours a week–it’s a combination of billable hours, marketing, and maintaining my business (eg, website updates, invoicing, keeping up with client e-mail, etc). Last week, I finished editing a 100+ page dissertation proposal, and I agreed to edit some fiction anthologies starting in late spring/early summer. This weekend (in between getting my tax stuff ready for the CPA I just found), I’m writing a proposal for ghostwriting a series of 7-10 trade articles for a brand-new client whom I absolutely adore. Last weekend, I sent out sample edits and quotes for editing two novels and one memoir, and edited my first article for a new client, a major journals publisher in the Northeast.
Fortunately, my best friend, who is amazing, is a former bank teller and had a weekend free, so I had some help with the tax stuff. Translation: I gave her a mess of papers, invoices, notes written on scraps of paper, and a laptop computer with Microsoft Excel, and she turned it into a beautiful expenses/income spreadsheet that I can take right to my CPA. Voila. Color me grateful.
It’s snowing in Fredericksburg right now, the third year in a row that we’ve had a major snowstorm on the weekend closest to Valentine’s Day. I’m looking forward to curling up in front the fireplace with a cup of tea and my laptop in the morning…
Yours ’til the ink wells,
Kristen
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