The Concierge (Blog)

Stop Focusing on a Sales Funnel Marketers talk a lot about sales funnels, where you get a bunch of people to purchase a no-cost or low-cost item, then get them to buy a higher-priced product and so on up to your highest-priced product. Fewer people will buy your highest-priced product (thus the narrowing of the…

How can I get someone else to license my content?  I got this question a while back and I’ve been pondering what I want to say about it ever since. The idea is that if you’ve written a novel, say, you might be able to license it to a movie or television producer and earn…

A burning question for editors – how fast can you edit? There is a limit to how fast you can edit. Editors often ask me how they can edit faster. Some even boast that they’ve found techniques that allow them to go 15% faster! Or 25% faster!  And . . . okay. I get it;…

Mastering Storytelling: Emotions in Writing Being able to convey emotions in writing is a storyteller’s dream. Kate Rusby is an English folk singer-songwriter whose songs sometimes make me laugh and sometimes make me cry. I typically write and edit in long form – novels, not short stories. So I’m always interested in how writers manage…

The goal of every editor should be that of providing a cohesive developmental edit for a manuscript. A lot of the skill in developmental editing is just keeping your mouth shut. Not every single thing you notice needs to be commented upon. It doesn’t make the author’s revision go more effectively when you’re nitpicking about…

If you’re a freelance editor trying to drum up business, then stay tuned for a big time-saving marketing tip. One of the challenges when you’re starting out as a freelance editor is that there is SO MUCH you could be doing to market your services. There’s Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and YouTube (not to…

This case study is courtesy of Kat Thomas, a book editor I’ve known for many years. She agreed to share her experience of building her freelance business. She is the author of this post. – JL The Road to a Freelance Book Editing Career I’m a freelance book editor with experience in developmental editing, line…

I established Club Ed on a bleak winter day on the Kansas prairies, dreaming of blue skies and sunshine. That was in 2018, and now it’s 2024, and I’m about to celebrate Club Ed’s sixth birthday. Pretty spectacular for something I wasn’t sure would last out the winter. The following year, I packed up The Chicago…

The plot twist editorial query From time to time, world events occur that make fiction editors look at each other and say, “We can never again tell our authors their plot events are implausible!” And I smile along with everyone else. But of course it’s not true. “It really happened” has never been a measure…