Work online opportunities are everywhere! Use your experience to create your own work online business. Manca, an editor and the writer of this blog post, did it just over a year and a half ago. She used her experience in language arts to create her own work online opportunity, first as a freelancer and then a year later as a business owner consulting and managing editorial projects for publishers in Slovenia.
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Working online has been a trend in recent years, significantly growing in popularity after the long period of social distancing and working from home. People from many fields pivoted and learned to adapt, seeing the value in saving time, money, and resources, such as in the daily commute or renting office space. One of the most appealing aspects of working online is its flexibility. You can be your own boss, set your schedules, manage your workload, and set your prices, all of which can lead to a better work-life balance.
However, freedom is a double-edged sword, as it comes with quite a few challenges, most of which are personal in nature, which is why this type of work is not for everyone because the biggest requirement and obstacle for success in this business depends solely on one person – you.
However, if you rise to the occasion, working online can offer a stable, dynamic, and satisfying environment that nurtures professional growth, garners personal fulfillment, offers global work opportunities, and allows you the ability to tailor your work to your lifestyle.
There is quite a lot of ground to cover, so let’s dive in!
Manage Your Time
There are a few qualities that I would deem to be essential to succeed in this field. First and foremost is maintaining discipline. If you are like me and working as an editor is your chosen career path and you wish to build it online, there is no compromise on time management. This is the only way you can complete your tasks on time and meet the strict deadline requirements. In short, strong time management skills are crucial.
Usually, your clients will give you a very tight schedule, whether you’re editing a book, contracts, online content, legal documents, or any other type of material. Procrastination will not work to your advantage since the work can quickly pile up. But fear not—there are tools that can help you manage your projects and keep your workload in check – which we will go over a tad further down the line. In short, be consistent!
Manage your clients
You will encounter clients with a wide range of knowledge about writing and different expectations and requirements. Some clients may be professional writers seeking light editing, while others might require developmental guidance on structure and clarity. Learning to discern your client’s exact needs and how to tackle them is low-key paramount.
Adaptability on your part will provide you with a significant advantage since you’ll be able to offer a variety of services, from proofreading to substantive editing, while educating clients on the value of each process.
Communicating with your clients in a language they understand and a manner that resonates with them will nurture a trusting relationship. Strong communication and interpersonal skills are also beneficial to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. You should strive to maintain a professional working relationship and provide your clients with clear, helpful, respectful, and constructive feedback. This will result in higher customer satisfaction, which translates to repeat customers. Use CRM to keep organized.
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You need all three in order to manage your clients successfully.
Use the proper tools of the trade.
You’ll probably never come across a physical manuscript anymore, so there’s no need for the red pen. Your tools will have to be much more versatile than the humble pen, as being an editor in the digital age requires much more than the ability to edit what would be considered a document. You can be contracted to edit podcasts, video scripts, online courses, or even multimedia projects. Therefore, a modern-day editor’s toolbox relies primarily on digital tools to enhance work efficiency and client collaboration.
While a word file processor like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any other alternative remains crucial, online work requires proficiency in project management software, such as Trello, Asana, Slack, and many others. This will significantly improve communication and coordination, especially since you’ll work simultaneously with multiple clients, authors, designers, or publishers.
Which Project Management Tool is Best
As a digital content editor, you must be familiar with the latest technological developments in social media editing, content marketing, digital publishing, and emerging Content Management Systems or CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. These systems allow editors to upload, organize, and edit web content. Make sure you stay as current as you can with these.
A key part of being a digital content editor is understanding how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works. You will be expected to know how to optimize content for search engines by using the right keywords, meta descriptions, and formatting to ensure the content reaches its target audience.
If you are a freelancer, platforms like Upwork or Fiverr can facilitate connections with clients, provide you with project management tools, take care of invoicing, and provide you with an opportunity to get customer feedback in the form of reviews, which have become essential aspects of finding work as a freelancer.
You should also consider utilizing cloud storage solutions like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, as they play a critical role in safely backing up your files and ensuring their accessibility. The ability to quickly share and collaborate on documents in real-time is invaluable for projects requiring input from various stakeholders.
As you will mainly communicate online, you will also be expected to be available online, so virtual communication tools like email, video conferencing, and messaging apps such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, and many others are crucial for keeping in touch. These tools can help you achieve the aforementioned successful communication goals.
Advances in technology have also provided us editors with an opportunity to streamline some of our working processes. Grammarly and ProWritingAid are especially useful. These programs use machine learning algorithms to help identify spelling, grammar, punctuation, and stylistic errors. A more advanced program, such as PerfectIt, will help with consistency checks in long-form documents, which is especially useful in technical and legal editing. These tools can speed up the process and do some of the heavy lifting for you.
However, they should not be considered a replacement for a thorough editorial read-through, especially with the emergence of AI over the last few years. AI is undeniably transforming the digital landscape, which can also present significant challenges for editors. These tools offer new possibilities for improving productivity, accuracy, and client engagement. Still, they also raise questions about the future of the profession, the role of human expertise, and the ethical implications of AI integration. However, remember that no AI can replace the insight or the linguistic knowledge of a good editor and that their emergence could present us with another useful tool for any editor to utilize.
In short, I strongly encourage investing time and effort in honing, expanding, and mastering your technology-related skills. Staying on top of the latest developments ensures you never fall behind the curve, regardless of any technical challenges or issues you face.
Be creative!
The fact that creative skills are at the core of working as an editor is a given. A keen attention to detail will help you catch grammatical errors, style inconsistencies, and factual inaccuracies. The content should be engaging, coherent, and suitable for the nature, topic, and target audience of what’s being communicated. Storytelling and structuring skills will also be useful, as you will be helping the author shape their narrative and improve their style through your feedback.
Do not be discouraged, and stay consistent
As a freelancer, finding consistent work, juggling different projects, managing and communicating with clients, negotiating rates, and tackling linguistic problems are just a few of the challenges you will undoubtedly face. Of course, the financial uncertainty aspect of it, as you will most likely not have a paycheck-type of income or a stable work environment, can also be extremely stressful. Especially when clients delay payment or projects dry up. You could, of course, look to work as a remote in-house editor, but this would mean less autonomy, a more rigid professional hierarchy, and less freedom to choose the projects you want to work on. Do not be discouraged by this. Staying consistent will establish long-term relationships with clients and build a good reputation, which will lead to steady work and offset any issues you might encounter.
To sum it all up, working as an editor online presents us with exciting opportunities as well as unique challenges. Yes, there are drawbacks, but you can build a sustainable and successful career by staying disciplined, honing your skills, continuously learning, and leveraging the right tools. Keep in mind that consistency and creativity will allow you to reap the benefits and the perks of remote work.
This post was written by a real-life editor who works online from a charming Slovenian village where she enjoys her slow life with family and friends. She has to visit the capital city for business occasionally, but mostly, she works from home. If editorial work sounds like the right option for you, check out our affiliate link for Fiverr to start out freelancing. Then, as you improve your skills and get better, you can move forward with your own business, too.
Keep consistent, as it’s a big part of any freelance-to-business move; you must be consistent.
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I hope Manca’s experience as a publisher has ignited the fire within you to start your own journey. It’s going to be a lot, but we have plenty of resources to help you along. Subscribe for a weekly newsletter sharing new things and some business tidbits. Follow on your social media of choice for occasional posts and have a look around the website. Have a lovely day.
