Ever have one of those clients who is with you all the way…until they show your editing or writing work to a friend, neighbor, pastor, or checkout clerk and suddenly you’re that fool they’re wasting money on? Having had my fair share of those in the past, I’ve amended my contracts to avoid it. If they ask for outside opinions and then come to me complaining or expecting changes per those opinions, we’re done and they owe me in full.
Sounds harsh, but too much of my writing or editing work has met demise at the hands of a posse. If I didn’t know my skills were worth it, I’d have no self-esteem left and I’d be working a drive-up window somewhere. I’m an educated, trained writer and editor. I’m not a lackey or, as a girlfriend once summed it up, a clerk/typist. Getting them to pay for the additional hassle is now contractually spelled out. Getting them to understand and not besmirch your good name is quite another thing.
If you’re a writer, you understand that writing and editing styles are as varied as the human race. If you’re not, you think your cousin Joe, who took a Journalism course in college, has all the answers. In fact, if you put a roomful of editors to the task of editing one document, you’re going to get a roomful of different results. That’s because some editors are line editors. Some are contextual. Some edit to justify their existence. Some are visionaries who see beyond this piece into the next six pieces from this piece’s content. Some are nervous editors who agonize every syllable. Some just think every writer is a fool and they’re the only ones who have a clue. And some are bad editors.
But your clients don’t know that. They think “editor” is synonymous with perfection. So when Joe gets hold of the work you’ve just completed, he’s thrilled because he gets to spout on about the serial comma being dead (or alive), gets to thump his chest because you started a sentence with a preposition, or you allowed a preposition to live at the end. Your client hears this person, who’s obviously not an expert, going on and now has doubt about you. Mind you, the client isn’t going to doubt Joe. Joe’s a relative and Joe’s arguments sound convincing.
I had one or a dozen such cases. In one, I had a revision sent back that included these little initials beside each change – all different. I couldn’t understand what the client wanted. I asked. The client said, “Oh, those are my friends’ initials…” (note the plural) “…they all gave their input and they think we need to take it in this direction instead…”
Here’s how I handled it – by this time the clause was firmly planted in the contract. I was getting paid, but I was more concerned about the relationship and the negative comments other potential clients may receive. I took each instance in which a friend said “This is incorrect grammar!” or made a change per Grammar Check (I hate that program) and gave chapter-and-verse from the Chicago Manual of Style, explaining to the client that Grammar Check was a horrible program that introduced more troubles than it ever caught (and gave examples of it compared to Chicago). I went through each edit explaining why my way wasn’t incorrect and why the friends’ way was either incorrect or simply a style preference.
Maybe I should have let it go entirely, but I was fed up with well-meaning friends killing or severely damaging the relationship between my clients and me. I stepped up, explained my edits and explained why the friends’ edits weren’t necessary or were wrong. Then I thanked him for business, wished him well, and attached the invoice. He paid instantly, claimed no animosity, and went off to write and edit willy nilly with his friends. When I got a copy of his final project, I couldn’t believe it. It was identical to the original he’d started with, only they’d added the neat little pull quotes and graphics I’d never had a chance to get to.
No great loss, but no loss of reputation, either. Even if I wasn’t convincing him, I wasn’t backing down in the face of four or five friends pointing the finger where it didn’t need pointing.
So stand up for yourself. Don’t accuse or blame, but do point out reasons why your way is perfectly acceptable. And let them know that editorial styles are quite different across the board. And no matter what, get paid. There’s no way you should be stiffed because clients start trusting their non-professional friends over their paid, professional writer/editor.
When was the last time you had this situation? How did it start? What was the result?
10 responses to “Convincing Them You Don’t Suck”
Interesting situation, Lori.
I actually encourage my editing clients to get input from other people on their book manuscripts. I don't think one person has all the answers, and the books have been made much stronger as a result.
However, I recommend that the author selects readers with specific talents, then I send the advance reading copies asking for the readers' feedback. Of course, the author talks to them in advance, and they have agreed to serve as advance readers and are expecting to hear from me. People are usually eager to do this for a listing in the acknowledgements and an autographed copy of the book.
We tell them specifically what we want from each of them.
For example, in a recent book, we asked an expert in Judaism to review the ritual of the Passover dinner the characters attended. The author had left out a blessing, and I didn't know the ritual and didn't catch it. Another reader, who lives in the geographic area where the book was set, pointed out that the author had Indians living in teepees when they actually lived in caves. A third reader is very knowledgeable about the origins of words, and he found a couple of words that weren't used at the time of the book.
The author had spent years researching the history and still missed those things. Although I checked the dates on words I thought were too modern, I didn't even think to check the two the advance reader found; I thought they were words that had been around that long. And without doing extensive research, I wouldn't know the details of a ritual of a religion that I know little about or what kind of dwellings Indians lived in during a particular point in history in a specific geographic location.
Sometimes the advance readers do make suggestions about grammar, etc. that are wrong. But I just ignore them. All the input comes back to me, and I only change or discuss with the author those things that are legitimate.
Having the advance readers submit their suggestions to me rather than the author does two things: it keeps him from dealing with the ridiculous suggestions, and it encourages the advance readers to be honest in their feedback about the story without fear of hurting the author's feelings. The system has worked very well for my clients and me, and I always recommend authors get feedback from other people.
The differences, I think, between what I do and the situations you describe are 1) that I as the editor deal with the advance readers, and the author isn't inundated with wrong suggestions and 2) I as an editor don't know everything and can't possibly catch everything in a book length manuscript, especially on topics that I'm not expert in, whereas you are an expert in what you write.
Lillie Ammann
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye
Lillie, I love that approach. I'm surprised you haven't had a posse-type response, which makes me want to try it. I think it's very useful to cut out the author in this phase as it goes a very long way to removing doubts and souring the relationship.
I love it. I'm glad to know of another way!
Lori, I must thank you til this very day for even bringing this topic up. You mentioned this as a problem a while back and I immediately added a version of that clause to my own agreement. I'd only experienced one bad episode with a client bringing a third party into the mix, but once was plenty!
This discussion reminds me of some of my college writing courses. The professor was really into the parts of speech and diagramming sentences — so much so that the board looked like it should be in an advanced algebra classroom. Me? I memorized the parts of speech for our tests, then promptly forgot half of them. I learn better by doing. If it sounded right, it usually was correct. Then I had to decide how to justify it to the professor, who didn't much care for the, "It sounds right" school of thought.
Luckily I don't usually have to deal with editing by committee. But a long time ago a local city magazine had a dictator-like editor who re-wrote every line in the magazine to be in her voice. She also stuck her "edited by" byline under the authors' names. Seriously. Apparently she had no clue how unprofessional that made her look, and that she was openly ridiculed by most if not all writers who ever contributed to that magazine.
I'd Google her name to see whatever happened to her, but like at least half of the parts of speech, I've blocked it from my memory.
Once is plenty, isn't it, Kim? Glad it worked to pre-empt this for you!
Paula, that's a narcissist right there. I'm sorry – I don't give one hoot most times if I get a byline or not, but I think it's the height of insensitivity, ego, and shameless self-promotion to tag your name at the end of magazine articles as the editor. Your name's on the masthead – be satisfied with the status that comes with that.
I wonder if she's had negative backlash from those who hated her editing style? Hmmm…
I recently did a job for a client that couldn't have gone any smoother. The work was ready to be published and then . . .
. . . a new arrival at the company was invited to give her thoughts. Keen to make her mark, I think, she sent round an email entitled "Further Amendmants" (sic) with a very heavily marked up version of my work. You can imagine what those amendmants comprised.
A call was arranged to discuss the amendmants and I have to say I defended my territory admirably, compromising for the sake of the relationship on those bits that she hadn't completely ruined.
I hate jargon, but I confess I wheeled out big words such as "tautology" and "hyperbole" to articulate why my original was better. At one point, the other person on the call, who I'd been dealing with up until her arrival, said: "I've no idea what hyperbole means, but I agree – Clare's version sounds better".
That's the great thing about being a writer – we know how to make a case!
Oh Claire, that's hysterical! What a way to impress them! (Side note – a relative's child often says to telemarketers "Dad can't come to the phone – he's stuck on his promontory.")
Yes, it's quite annoying to hear "This is great! Thanks!" one day and told, a couple of days later, that their neighbor's, dog-grooming assistant found several things they felt were errors. You then have a battle on your hands convincing the client that you wrote certain phrases a certain way for a reason.
I, too, have read posts about you including this in your contract, so I have since done the same thing. I don't want to get caught with that headache again from a client who finds it necessary to get the opinion of someone like their hairdresser who's using their grade school grammar lessons to edit your work.
Neighbor's dog-grooming assistant? Hilarious!! Wendy, you crack me up. 🙂
I think Lillie's on to something, though. The idea of allowing limited editing to select readers is super. Not so much for articles where editors would have six fits and a cow if you ran it by someone else, but for books it sounds like a great idea.
I've had people run it past friends, employees, coworkers, acquaintances, and the oddest was a personality the client was trying to woo. It's why I'm adamant about this. I can't please the world AND the client, so how about I stick with those who are paying?
I just had a guy point out that one line needed to be "pushed down" so a section wouldn't be broken up on the next page. Fine, if you're talking to the graphic designer or the person in charge of a layout, but my job is content, not page layout.