Author: Katherine Trail

Editing Globally: The first year

It might be Valentine’s Day, but here at Editing Globally there’s another milestone to celebrate! Today marks the first anniversary of Editing Globally. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we launched, but in some respects, it feels like much longer too as we’ve all done so much, both separately and as part of a team, in that time. 

When we launched one year ago today, we did so with the mission statement of providing seamless and thorough editorial services by pooling our knowledge and resources. Our aim was to offer clients full support from manuscript evaluations right the way through to the finished product and to be able to take on large or very time-sensitive projects that just wouldn’t be possible for one editor to handle. 

Happily, we can report back that during the last year, we have done exactly that. We’ve worked on some great projects together, sometimes with just a couple of members taking part and other times with all five of us getting involved. The range of work we’ve taken on has been varied and interesting, too; we’ve been able to help clients with memoirs, novels, legal documents, marketing materials, blog posts, business reports, and plenty more. We’ve also learned a lot from each other. Being able to collaborate over pieces of work and see how each of us handles certain things has made all of us better editors.  

As we begin our second year of Editing Globally, we have lots of plans in the pipeline. Janet and Katherine can now provide training to other editors in a variety of subjects, including working with students, general copy-editing, fiction editing, working with independent authors, and working with publishers. There’s also a six-part blog series on working on dissertations and theses coming soon. At least three of us (Janet, Katherine, and Kelly) will be presenting at the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SFEP) conference in Lancaster in September too, after Janet and Katherine, along with friend and colleague Erin Brenner, led a very successful panel on rates at last year’s conference. And we recently started work for a large international firm, handling the proofreading of all external communications – a task that would be impossible for one editor to handle alone, not least because of the numerous time zones in which the client has offices. 

We are all looking forward to the opportunities and challenges ahead and to a year filled with interesting work, professional development, and most of all, friendship!  

 

Editing Globally: A rewarding week

Virginia Durksen, left, and Janet MacMillan with their well-deserved awards. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Glossop. 

At the Editors’ Association of Canada annual conference held last weekend, our own Janet MacMillan was awarded the President’s Award for Volunteer Service. The award recognizes outstanding service to the organization by member volunteers. Anyone who knows Janet knows that she is a born volunteer; she is selfless with her time and is involved with so many groups and initiatives, not just in Canada, but also across the water in the UK and in various online groups. We are all delighted for her here at Editing Globally (and we are some of the luckiest beneficiaries of Janet’s time and effort!). Janet had also been nominated for the Karen Virag Award, which was won by Virginia Durksen.

A full list of winners can be found here. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

Editing Globally: Recognizing dedication

Here at Editing Globally, we are all about teamwork, networking, and supporting each other. So it was with great pleasure (but very little surprise) we recently learned that one of our own and a close colleague in the wider editing world have both been nominated for the Editors’ Association of Canada’s Karen Virag Award for their dedication and unfailing commitment to the editing community.

Editing Globally’s Janet MacMillan is a familiar face and name to many in editing communities across the world, especially the Editors’ Association Canada and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). Janet dedicates a large portion of her life to helping others, whether it through formal mentoring, running the SfEP’s Skype club for far-flung members of the editing community, giving workshops and seminars at conferences, or just being a sounding board for editors with problems. And we’re very fond of her here at Editing Globally too!

As if Janet’s nomination wasn’t enough, the indefatigable Louise Harnby, a friend to all of us here at Editing Globally, has joined Janet on the shortlist. Many of you will probably have seen her fantastic books and guides on editing and proofreading. Her advice on starting a business and marketing one’s editorial services has been invaluable for many new editors and proofreaders (and for established ones too). She is unfailingly generous with dispensing her wisdom and lending her time.

The award ceremony takes place this weekend and typically both Janet and Louise each want the other to win! The rest of the Editing Globally team are just delighted that the hard work of two valued editorial professionals is being recognized.

Well done, Janet and Louise.

You can find out more about the Karen Virag award here.

Editing Globally: An international editorial collective 

Welcome to the first Editing Globally blog post!

We would like to explain a little more about who we all are, why the international editorial collective concept enables us to provide a full editorial service for clients all around the world, and why we formed Editing Globally.

Who are Editing Globally?

We are a group of experienced editorial professionals who have joined together under the Editing Globally banner to offer thorough and comprehensive editorial services to clients across the world. Etty Payne, Janet MacMillan, Katherine Trail, Kelly Lamb, and Madeline Koch are all experienced editors; four of us are Advanced Professional Members of the UK’s Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) and two are members of the Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) – Janet being a member of both. We are all incredibly passionate about words and communication.

Why did you form Editing Globally?

We are stronger when we work together! Before forming Editing Globally, we all collaborated on an informal basis, referring work between each other, supporting each other in our professional endeavours, and working on projects together where a team was needed. We came to realize that each of us benefitted from this collegiality and partnership. A collective enables us to offer a more formal collaborative service to clients. Between the five of us, we have a vast range of skills, knowledge, and life experiences, and we can almost guarantee that one of us will know something about any particular topic that arrives in our inbox.

What can you offer clients?

Lots! First and foremost, we aim to offer clients excellent and comprehensive editorial services. By pooling our resources and forming such a clear and cohesive unit, we are able to take on work in almost any discipline, genre, or sphere. We can also undertake big projects with tight deadlines, as we are able to draw on the individual expertise and resilience of the five Editing Globally members. It’s our hope that clients will appreciate having a one-stop shop for their editing needs, and where they know they are working with seasoned, well-trained professionals. A look at the services we offer and our areas of expertise confirms that clients (both potential and current) will be hard-pressed to find all that anywhere else in one place!

What are your qualifications?

Anyone can hang up their shingle and call themselves an editor. However, to offer a professional and knowledgeable service to clients, an editorial professional needs both proper training and practical experience. Four of our members are Advanced Professional Members of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, which means they have attained the highest level within the organization and have had their training, experience, references, continuing professional development, and other involvement in the profession (such as mentoring or presenting at conferences) verified and assessed by a panel of editorial experts. In addition, two of us are members of the Editors’ Association of Canada. We have all worked as editors for years and have undertaken comprehensive training and continue to do so.

Our biographies show the breadth of both experience and training we all possess, and our testimonials show what other clients have said about us.

In future blogs, we will explore editorial and business issues, so make sure you follow or bookmark us for ease of checking back from time to time. And if you want to get in touch with any of us (or all of us), visit our Contact page.