Editor Insight: Miranda Darrow
I’ve been talking with newer and more established freelance editors about how they find clients and deal with ups and downs in freelancing.
This week’s editor is Miranda Darrow, who has been editing part-time for a little over ten years. Here’s our Q&A:
Tell me a little about your background and the kind of editing you do.
In my day job, I’m a corporate attorney at a nonprofit corporation. But fiction writing and editing are my passion. I edit most types of genre fiction: mystery/thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary, book club/women’s fic, romance, historical, and more.
I do developmental editing and book coaching, and my company does line edits and two-pass edits, as well as reviewing query packages and helping authors perfect and practice their pitches. I’m also available to speak and present at writing events and do that around once a month (more during peak conference season).
How do you typically find clients? Through social media, content marketing, etc.?
I find most of my clients through either word of mouth from other clients. I meet people when I present at writing conferences. I have found a few clients through social media, including the RevPit annual contest, and several found me through my YouTube channel.
I do post pictures of myself on social media, largely in connection with the RevPit annual contest, but the more I post myself “out of context” doing something silly, the more followers I seem to get.
What is your top marketing tip for newer editors?
Volunteer with writing groups, offer to write a newsletter article, or sign up to give a presentation to a group. If you’re just starting out, getting your name out there is more important than getting paid for this work. And make sure you’re bringing value and showcasing your expertise, rather than using that platform as a sales opportunity.
Find ways to highlight your book-savvy that aren’t salesy, and writers will get to recognize you as a “trusted book expert” and then when they are looking for an editor, your name will have a positive affiliation more than if they only know you through ads.
What is your top tip for handling the ups and downs of freelancing?
If my schedule isn’t fully booked with editing projects, I use that time to develop workshops or other promotional activities and submitting workshop proposals for upcoming conferences. I’m not getting paid for most of that time, but I am building my profile. I speak at online or in-person writing conferences almost every month, but I started small and built slowly over the last decade.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Other editors are not your enemies. I recommend collaborating with other editors to work on events that benefit authors and raise both (or all) of your profiles. I’ve been a volunteer editor with the RevPit online writing event community for eight years now and the group of editors are a great resource for each other, with business and editing advice all year long.
If any editors (or authors) would like a joint promotional opportunity, on my YouTube channel I host “Novel Deep Dive” sessions where a guest editor or author meets with me (on Zoom) and we pick apart a bestselling novel to mine it for writing craft tips for authors. We focus on a specific aspect of writing craft and one novel that we can use as a positive example for it in each episode. I’m looking for potential cohosts.
Check out my channel https://www.youtube.com/@mirandadarrow3994 for examples of previous Novel Deep Dives and reach out to me at [email protected] if you would like to join me for a novel deep dive. I have a list of novels I think would make good candidates to discuss specific writing craft tips and I’m open to suggestions as long as they are recent (within the last 5 years) bestselling titles that would be a positive example (I’m not using my channel to bash authors).
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Jennifer Lawler has been a freelance editor for more than twenty-five years and has been teaching editing skills for more than fifteen years. She is the founder of Club Ed LLC.
