On pricing.

My current project is a book of personal stories written by women who have suffered miscarriage or stillbirth, or who have struggled to conceive. The book has a coordinator and she's the person I've been dealing with.

I love working on books {although my preference is for fiction}, even though it means a lot of early mornings and late nights. I love the challenge of working in-depth on a project. It can be pretty tiring when you're working full-time and fitting in editing around the job! But I love it, and I'm not going to stop doing it.

This project has been valuable for me because it has made me think about how I price my work. Pricing is a vexed issue for so many freelance editors. I know this because it comes up a lot in the Backroom {the editors' group I belong to on Facebook}. When you're a freelancer you can charge whatever you want; and you can charge however you want - by the hour, the page, the word, the project. There are almost too many options!

I admit I am a little bit squeamish about money. I have a fear of over-charging people. I am, after all, not yet qualified {nearly!} and I don't have years of experience behind me. So when a potential client asks me about my charges I usually tell them a figure that's much lower than I would like. I don't want to scare them off.

I've been charging by the word recently, because I thought that would be appealing to the client - it gives them certainty about the price. But in the case of this current project, it means I will end up working for less than NZ$10 an hour, I expect. And that's not sustainable.

I've decided that beyond this current crop of projects I will start charging by the hour. My hourly rate won't be high, but I won't be squeamish about charging for more hours than I think I need. It means I will need to learn to be savvy about how fast I work so I can work out an accurate rate.

Why I want to freelance.

Why do I want be a freelancer? Why do I want to give up the security of regular hours and a regular pay cheque, to work irregular hours for irregular pay?

It's simple.

I want to be my own boss.

And I want to work from home.

Does this happen to everyone in middle age? I don't know. What I do know is that I want to decide how I spend my days. I'm an adult, and a capable one; why should I have a boss hanging over my shoulder, or requiring me to sign out every time I walk out of the office?

The work that I do requires me to be around people all day, every day. I have no control over my exposure to people and, as an introvert, that exhausts me. When I come home from work I have no desire to be social; it requires all of my energy to be nice to my husband and dog! {Joking. I love my husband and my dog.}

I have no illusions about freelancing. I know that it will come with its own frustrations like difficult clients and irregular pay days. I know I will be just as subject to deadlines as I am now. The difference is that as a freelancer I will have choices. Difficult clients? Replace them with better clients. Tight deadlines? I could work 5am to 2pm if I wanted, or 5pm to 2am. My schedule would be my own to set.

In January this year I had a "holiday" which I spent, not holidaying, but working on a novel for a client. It was a remarkable experience for such a newbie; and I'll be forever grateful to that author for hiring me. I learned so much about editing! And I also got my first taste of being a freelancer, working from home.

I loved it. I wasn't lonely. I worked really, really hard. During breaks I went out to meet friends for coffee, or prepared dinner, or hung out the washing. While I worked, my dog snoozed beside me on the comfy chair in the pink room that serves as my home office.

This is the life I dream of and plan for myself. One day soon...

You win some, you lose some

Today was somewhere between a success and a failure.

I found out this morning that I had failed the second proofreading test for a small publishing company that I was hoping to start working for in July. I was shocked: I've never failed a proofreading test before! I aced the first proofreading test, and expected to do the same with the second.

When the managing editor sent through her critique, there were one or two things that I disagreed with. {Would you put "with" on the end of "She hoped to find someone to go."? I did - and the ME marked it as unnecessary.} However, the majority of my 18 mistakes were just that: creaking, nails-down-the-blackboard mistakes. I have no excuses. I mucked up.

I said as much to the managing editor and she sent me a nice email in reply, saying that she had purposely made it fiendishly difficult, and that I had done better than most people. She ended by telling me not to be discouraged.

So there's that.

Right after this, I got notification that yet another Upwork proposal had been rejected. Sigh. I swear I'm going to throw a party when I get my first Upwork job!

On the plus side, this afternoon I emailed the editors of five local arts magazines, offering my services as a proofreader or sub-editor. I've come to realise that my experience in writing about arts could be put to good use as I move into self-employment. So why not give it a try? There are plenty more arts magazines out there - and I intend to approach all of them!

The best news from today was this:

Assignment 6 of my diploma arrived in the mail from my tutor - and I got an A!! My previous assignment received a C grade and the one before that a B. So I was very, very happy to see that perky little A!