This year started busy for me with proofreading and has turned into my best year yet for business and repeat clients. I was booked every month for the first time in my freelance business life.
Tall Tartan Talks here … I have worked hard to get to this place of stability.
Consolidating events of 2024
Looking back and reflecting on the events of last year (as mentioned in my review of 2024), the proofreading I have taken on this year has reinforced my position as an experienced and trustworthy freelance proofreader.
Monthly blog posts
In this post I give you an idea of the kind of proofreading projects I have done. It also includes links to posts that I published this year in case you missed them when I posted them on social media or in my newsletter.
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January
My proofreading projects were for three indie children’s book authors. You can see the cover images in the relevant genre page.
January’s blog post: What are the signs of a good listener?
February
I proofread a children’s book for a Christian publisher client #1 called I AM: Stories from the Gospel of John by Laura Cerbus.
I wrote February’s blog post after consultation with a book designer who had collaborated with one of my indie authors: How does a book designer work with an indie author?
March
My proofreading was for another three indie children’s book authors. Two of them had written a series of books on education that they wanted me to proofread. One found me through my website. The other was a referral on LinkedIn from an edibuddy who thought I was a better fit.
With the end of my financial year looming, I wrote March’s blog post called How to do a SWOT Analysis of Your Business.
April
Three proofreading jobs this month began with a repeat non-fiction publisher client. The book was called 365 Days of Self-Care and was published in November.
Also, I started proofreading for Christian publisher client #2. It involved liaising directly with the author, resolving my queries and those of the author and annotating my PDF with all comments before returning the collated PDF to the typesetter via the editorial manager.
April’s blog post was inspired by the two men in my family training for cycling events: Why editing is like long-distance cycling or any endurance sport
May
Two of the indie authors came back to me for proofreading of the second books in their series.
Completing my Self-Assessment (tax return) for HMRC prompted a review of my income and expenses. I had thoughts about how to use money through the genre I have most experience with – education: Teaching Children About Money
June
The commissioning of my new logo this year using my tartan branding prompted me to write My Branding Update.
July
I proofread a substantial non-fiction book for Christian publisher client #2. Again, I liaised with the author and learnt about systemising the queries in batches as the book was over 400 pages. The author appreciated our collaboration. As a result I wrote The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Author Queries.
August
I proofread a non-fiction historical book for a colleague who is a book designer and subcontracts me for proofreading for her indie authors. (The same talented person who designed my logo!)
September
Once I had attended the annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), I wrote this blog post: CIEP2025 Conference for Editors and Proofreaders
October
I got very busy again with proofreading work from Christian publisher client #2. The Editorial Manager (EM) referred me to another EM, so two books were proofread concurrently. It became vital to schedule query responses efficiently.
Marketing when working – How?
As someone who enjoys creating valuable content and sharing my business and editing tips by blogging and through LinkedIn posts, it was a very real struggle to continue the content process while I was busy with paid work and deadlines. I mean, how?
I couldn’t even get my head around using scheduling tools to publish short posts on LinkedIn which would have been one way to maintain a visible presence. So marketing my business was paused in October and November to keep overwhelm at a manageable level.
November
Self-care continued …
December
Christian publisher client #2 got in touch with a substantial proofread of a collection of reflections. I’ll start that this month; it will take me to the end of January 2026 so starts the new year nicely. It is my fifth book this year for that client. I think they like me!
I did very little editorial training this year because I didn’t have time! The CIEP’s course Copyediting 2: Headway is on my list for next year.
How has 2025 been for you? Have you experienced feast, famine, or a controllable schedule of interesting work?
See you in 2026!
Sprinkling publishing confidence,
Annie
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