Managing Editorial Freelancers
Publishers of print and digital products are increasingly out-sourcing their editorial work to freelancers, leaving the in-house editorial and production staff with the important task of overseeing, co-ordinating, and maintaining the quality of their work.
This well-established course will give you a comprehensive overview of the issues that must be taken into account when using freelancers.
You will learn how to:
- source the most appropriate freelancers
- give clear, concise and complete briefings
- keep a tight grip on costs, schedules and quality standards
- give feedback and motivate your freelancers to get the best out of them
- understand the legal and tax issues.
The course will give you a more rounded view of using freelancers and help you ensure that the advantages of reducing editorial overheads aren't being undermined by insufficient planning, briefing or quality control.
Four main questions will be answered during the day:
- how can freelancers help me?
- how can I keep control of the job?
- how can I get the best out of my freelancers?
- what are the legal and tax issues?
Programme
- The ‘why’s and ‘how’s of using freelancers
- Why use freelancers?
- Discussion of the pros and cons of outsourcing editorial work
- How publishers use freelancers
- Additional skills that freelancers can offer to the client
- Delegation skills
- Introducing the idea that projects can be managed in a variety of ways, ranging from ‘hands on’ (close in-house control) to ‘hands off’ (project management model)
- Self-employment status
- Why awareness of HMRC’s employment status criteria is important in how freelancers are used
- The Employment Status Indicator
- What to include and avoid in freelance contracts
- Why use freelancers?
- Selecting freelancers
- Team building
- Building a team of reliable regulars
- Freelance records
- Awareness of the eight main principles of the Data Protection Act and of anti-discrimination legislation
- Finding new freelancers
- Various useful sources for finding freelancers
- Screening CVs
- What to look for and what to ask
- Finding good e-editors
- The skills and knowledge that a good on-screen editor should have
- What to ask
- Tests: worthwhile?
- The pros and cons of using editing and proofreading tests
- Location: local or global?
- The merits and demerits of using freelancers based locally, nationally or internationally
- Team building
- Briefing
- What makes a good brief?
- The essential ingredients: its qualities and specifics
- The ideal brief
- What makes a good manager?
- The qualities needed to produce a good brief and get the job done efficiently
- Commissioning the job
- First contact
- Standard letters for editors, proofreaders and indexers
- Examples of checklists
- Commissioning indexes
- Levels of edit
- Factors affecting the depth of edit but keeping budget and schedule in mind
- On-screen editing
- Awareness of problems with formatting, conversion and layout that may exist when files are passed on to the next production stage
- Author queries
- Advantages and disadvantages of the freelancer liaising direct with the author
- What makes a good brief?
- Time, quality and cost control
- Schedule control
- Suggestions for keeping projects on track
- Estimating time
- Methods for estimating editing, proofreading and whole projects
- Cost control
- Keeping projects within budget
- Rates of pay
- Late Payment Act
- Checking quality
- How long to spend
- Checking tips
- Keeping a balanced view
- Checking indexes
- Schedule control
- Feedback and motivation
- Feedback
- Why feedback, and how to do it constructively
- Motivation
- Why motivate, and how to do it cheaply and easily
- Feedback
- Summary and conclusions.
Who will benefit from this course?
Anyone responsible for managing editorial freelancers in a print or digital publishing environment.
Note that most of our short courses can also be run as in-company events.
- Dates: 23 October 2012
- Duration: A one-day course
- Price: £385+VAT
- A number of discounts are available
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