Halloween, or 31 October, is a big anniversary for me. This one marks 7 years from the day I packed up my London life and hit the road as a digital nomad editor. That also means that it’s been 7 years of running my editing business. Every so often, usually after a LinkedIn or Instagram post, I get an email asking me how one can become a digital nomad or what sort of work one can do to go freelance. Editors will understand when I say, ‘It depends!’ So, to celebrate this milestone and to answer that question, and to help those looking to go freelance and travel, here is my story, together with some ideas on how to approach such a transition.
Find what you’re good at
Before I became an editor, I was an environmental consultant. A big part of that job involved coordinating large reports written by multiple technical authors. Without realising it, I was copyediting each chapter to make the terminology and language consistent across the report. I was checking for errors and for structural flow. And I was tidying up formatting and layout and cross-checking figures and tables. In other words, I was doing what a copyeditor does. Only, I didn’t know any of this at the time. I had never heard of copyediting, and proofreading was something publishers did for books.
A chance encounter with another traveller on one of my trips got me thinking laterally. They were a proofreader (with a very specific niche) but they were able to work while they travelled. And that ability to travel, more than anything, is what triggered the realisation that I was already partly doing that with my copyediting tasks.
The takeaway: Find what you’re good at and where your experience lies. Can you directly apply that in your job or industry to go freelance? If not, can you adapt it – like I did? Could what you’re good at have nothing to do with your job but with a hobby or interest?
Get some training and experience
Once I’d figured out what I wanted to do, I started doing some research into training. My first port of call was the professional body for editors and proofreaders – today’s Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP). Following a quick call to them, they guided me to some introductory training courses, which I promptly signed up to.
I was still in full-time work. So this meant early morning wake-up calls to study before work and late nights doing editing exercises. A few months in, I turned over my weekends to proofreading and editing for friends and colleagues to get some real-life practice and to build a portfolio. Soon that turned into time spent joining job boards and spreading the word among all my contacts that I was tentatively open for business. And slowly but surely, I began to build a small business.
The takeaway: You need specific training by an accredited body to build your knowledge and skills if you’re switching careers. The biggest issue is that you don’t know what you don’t know, so you need training. And if you are not prepared to put in the extra time to develop and grow, you won’t get very far.
Jump and the net will appear
If you had told me 7 years ago that I’d be a business owner and entrepreneur, I would have laughed. That just wasn’t me. But the desire to travel and be my own boss were stronger than the fear of failure. A year and half after I started my editing training, and with a few agency clients who sent me regular work, I packed up and left London. I only had enough work to go part-time, and my income was still low. So I chose to travel to Southeast Asia, which had a lower cost of living. From there, I continued to build my client base while doing what I loved: travelling and exploring new places.
I vividly recall the night before I flew out of London to travel to Cambodia. I was distractedly leafing through a magazine, wondering what on earth I had done and how I had blown up a good life. More than a few people thought I was a fool and that my venture would never work. It was never too late to put a stop to the madness and go back to my old career, right?
But a quote leapt out at me from a page: ‘Jump and the net will appear.’
Yes, I was terrified of what I was about to do. But right then I knew that it would work out. How? Because I was ready to make it work. I wanted it too badly to let myself down by not trying. And, to use another cliché, fortune favours the brave. If you don’t try, you don’t get. So at least give it a go! If nothing else, you can learn from the experience.
The takeaway: If you have prepared well, you have set yourself up for success. And if you fail, for whatever reason, pick yourself back up and learn from it.
Marketing, marketing… and training
Yep, I hate marketing too! There are those who love it and who excel at it. I’m not one of them. But I understand that it’s necessary and that it can take all sorts of forms. One of the early things that I did was set up my own website as a shop front to my business. The benefit of a website is that you’re always in control of what’s on there and how visible it is. I also took advantage of LinkedIn and posted whenever I could. I joined some CIEP local groups and participated in the CIEP’s forum discussions. I also set up an accountability group with other editors to support and spur each other on. (Four years later, we’re still going strong and have become good friends.)
Continuous training is also important. This could be taking courses, attending webinars or conferences, joining working groups and doing on-the-job training. There’s always something new to learn, some new regulation or way of doing things.
The takeaway: Aim to do some form of marketing every week. Post on social media, reach out to your target audience, network with colleagues (online or in person). Marketing consistently is ideal, but not always possible. Just do something to keep your name in people’s minds. And keep up the training!
The year I nearly lost my business
Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. Failure is always a possibility, although one that can help you grow. But you still need to put food on the table and pay the mortgage (or rent). The Covid-19 years were lean, with many clients cutting back on work, which began to affect me. By January 2022, having lost more than half my business since the start of the pandemic, I was ready to find a part-time job to make ends meet.
While I was putting feelers out for local work, I was approached by an old contact on LinkedIn who needed some help. It would mean moving slightly sideways in terms of work, but it paid well and gave me the time I needed to rebuild my editing client base. So I took it. And I used the weekends, early mornings and late nights to again throw myself into marketing, more training and networking.
And here I am, 7 years after I started, with the lean years a valuable lesson in future-proofing my business.
The takeaway: Failure is not something to fear. But neither is hard work. No one is going to know who you are if you’re not marketing yourself in some way. And no one is going to hand you work without evidence that you know what you’re doing.
And there you have it. Here’s to the next year, and to the ones after that. And here’s to you doing it as well. See you somewhere on the road…
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Christina Petrides is a proofeader and copyeditor who works with businesses, publishers, academics and court reporters. She works across most industries and has a particular love for the environmental and travel sectors. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and Affiliate Member of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES). Connect with her on LinkedIn.
