[Kathy Swailes]

Hello Freelances or Future Freelances,

There’s a lovely editor called Katie Chambers who I met via a FB group called Editors’ Association of Earth (EAE) which I’d highly recommend you join at some point. Katie loves creating Excel sheets which are in fact very complex, but simple to use. She has made three of these datasheets to help other freelance editors track their business accounts, track their projects’ progress and track their list of projects/clients. This may not seem important to you when you first set up, but in fact if you track everything from when you first start, the data will help you cost up future projects, help you complete your tax returns when the time comes, help you apply for upgraded membership to editorial bodies, and other benefits too. Katie has made these freely available on her website. She does intend on selling access ultimately, but for now she’s got a free password code “Giveback” when you go to the checkout on her website. Katie has given me permission to share this with you, so here’s the web address access: http://beaconpointservices.org/editors-tracking-programs/

I’ve downloaded two of the three, so they appear to be safe to download.

[Susan Campbell]

Thank you for sharing, Kathy, I will have a look at this later in the evening.

[Susan Campbell]

Hi again Kathy

I have joined the EAE Facebook page, and downloaded a couple of Katie Chambers’ datasheets.

The Facebook page is so interesting, I keep wanting to go back in to see what they’re talking about!

I would encourage E&P students to join, and I’m sure we will all learn something from it.

[Kathy Swailes]

I’m happy that you’ve found it so compelling. There are quite a few FB groups for editors and for writers. I have to make sure I don’t spend too long getting lost amongst all the posts.

EAE is quite a public group, so be very careful what you post there. Some of the other groups are more closed, but even with the private groups, I’d recommend you never write anything negative. Once something is on the internet it has a habit of escaping your control. You are spot on though for seeing the opportunities to learn from others.

[Diane Adams-Rudd]

Thanks Kathy, I have joined EAE too (thought I saw you there Susan!) and have picked up so many useful tidbits of information. I have previously tried to find a NZ page with no success – do you know of one? Thinking I could be brave and start one, we can’t be on the student forum forever!

[Kathy Swailes]

Hi Diane and anyone else following this string,

There is a NZ FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216710095132211/?ref=group_browse_new

It is not nearly as active as EAE, but there are also many other groups if you look around: Editor’s Alliance, Across the Pond, Fiction Editors of Earth, etc. Those are just three to get started with, but if you look through the EAE background information (of which there is loads, including all sorts of downloadable material), you’ll also see associated groups to EAE, such as pages that you can promote yourself on (Ad Pages) and others too. Start with just a few, maybe a few writing groups too ( to get the author’s perspectives) and you’ll start seeing other groups suggested to you coming up in your view (FB analogues recognise which groups you already belong to and starts suggesting other similar ones).

I’m sure we’ll see each other in some of these groups in the future.

[Susan Campbell]

Thank you for the advice, Kathy, I have put in my 2c worth a couple of times, but only on things I was pretty sure about. Like Diane I really want to be able to pick up pointers and tidbits that will help me, but couldn’t resist when I saw a couple of questions I thought I could help with!! Doesn’t that say good things about our NZIBS course?

I don’t think I’m a ‘keyboard warrior’ and prefer to say my piece then withdraw, and I certainly don’t think I know enough to write anything negative anyway.

I will also have a look at the NZ FB group you have suggested.

Diane, I would support you if you started a page too.

 

[Diane Adams-Rudd]

Thanks Kathy! I was sure there had to be some NZ based pages, somewhere to go for our uniquely Kiwi editing problems. So we’ll see how we go Susan with these. To think I was awake at 5am this morning thinking up names for a fb page – PAE it forward,  or PAEsters of NZ, or Life of PAE! Oh dear!