Just getting started as an independent contractor? Wondering how to prepare that first proposal for a writing or editing project? Here are some project tasks you’ll want to budget time for.
Client Meetings
How many client meetings or phone calls will you need to kick off the project? Likely you’ll have a major meeting at the onset, and schedule one or two mid-project meetings. All this depends on the complexity of the project, and more importantly, if the direction of the project changes mid-course.
Here are some questions you’ll want answers to. With regard to questions about the audience and what you know about the project, you might want to research the audience before you meet with the client.
- What inspired this project? What made you decide to move
forward with it? - What do you hope will be different after it’s published?
- What will be happening when things are working right?
- How will you measure success?
- What impact will that have?
- Tell me about the audience…
What are their needs?
Why are they in this situation?
What is the biggest motivator of this audience?
What shuts them down?
What does this audience value deeply?
How does the audience make decisions?
Research
How much do you know about the subject matter? In-depth enough to write to the level your client needs? Personally, I can’t begin to write until I feel like I own the content, so I tend to over research. Part of that might be a catharsis, but as the project proceeds, it usually turns into relief–being able to find a needed bit of info at my fingertips. And the cool thing about internet research is that as your research progresses, you learn new key words that get you closer to that piece of information you know exists but just can’t find.
Subject Matter Expert (SME) Interviews
SMEs are the knowledgeable folks who deeply understand the subject you will write about. Some SMEs are great communicators, some aren’t, not because they’re bad people, but because their talents lie elsewhere.
There may be times you need to dig deep into the coffers of your interpersonal skills to get the information you need. For example, some SMEs are just too hard to pin to a schedule.
If you end up getting a bit frustrated during your information gathering process, try to keep a couple things in mind:
- Be absolutely prepared for your meetings with SMEs. Have your questions ready to fire and keep your curiosity turned on. Your experts will appreciate that.
- Be prepared to go to Plan B should your SME experience fizzle. Ask for a referral to someone else who can help if you have to.
Focus Group: create questionnaire, conduct session, summarize findings
Instead of or in addition to interviewing SMEs, you might also conduct a focus group session to get a real-life accounting of the issues your audience faces and how it reckons with them.
From experience, focus group sessions are where the juice is. Hearing directly from your audience about its life experiences, successes, and challenges; and the language it uses amongst peers–that becomes the heart and soul of what you write. If you are unable to conduct a focus group meeting, ask your client how you might personally meet with people from your target audience.
Audience Analysis
Client and SME interviews and focus group sessions will inform you about your audience, but you’ll want to conduct your own research for other issues you might want to address for your audience. See this post for tips on how to analyze your audience.
Outline
Once you’ve establish the project goals and desire outcomes, content direction, and the audience’s issues and needs, you’re ready to assemble the project outline. Typically, your client will want to approve this before you begin writing.
Writing
At last, now you can write.
Do you know how fast you write? Be sure you time yourself. The only way to prepare accurate quotes is to know how fast (or slow) you write. Here is a guide to how long writing projects take (PDF download).
Document Layout and Text Formatting
This part usually goes pretty quickly. For printed works, here is where you create a template in which you’ll work: header and paragraph styles, layout of front and back matter (table of contents, bibliography, appendices). Or, your client will send you a template in which to work.
Even if you’re writing web copy, most web developers require you to prepare content in some kind of template.
Style Guide
Your client likely has a style guide for you to follow: how text, tables, images, and video should appear consistently throughout a publication. If not, you’ll need to create one for yourself. Read these posts for more information on style guides.
Editorial Style Guides (or Style Sheets)—What Are They?
Editorial Style Guides—Types of Guides and How to Create One
Graphics Creation
Whether you create your own graphics or work with a designer, graphics are a must in this visual world. (I need to heed my own advice…) Your client will likely have an idea of the project’s graphics requirement. Ask if you’ll need to manage any aspect of graphic creation.
Editing
We all edit our own work, but it is hard to catch our own mistakes! In the best of cases, your client hands off your work to an editor. If you must edit your own work, (you must!) budget time to set it aside for a day or two before you lay your eyes on that copy for a final edit. We all know the embarrasment a pair of fresh eyes can prevent.
Review Cycles and Draft Updates
Depending on the complexity of the project, you will go through anywhere from one review cycle—a first and final draft—upwards to 11 or 12 cycles. For larger projects, scope creep can become an issue.
When you write your contract, be sure to specify the number of review cycles your quote includes, and that any additional review cycles will be billed at your hourly rate.
Take a look at this article for tips on how to prevent scope creep.
Pre-Production
After your client has accepted your final draft, you go into pre-production mode where you’ll cross-reference the bejavers out of your work. Depending on whether your work will be published in print or online, you’ll:
- x-ref table of content, list of figures and tables, and index page numbers with actual page numbers
- proof for orderly appearance of figures and tables
- check that all URLs are accurate and that they work
- make sure the navigational structure doesn’t take readers to dead ends or unrelated pages
- coordinate timing of events with any involved vendors
Production
Your client will likely take care of the publishing process. If you need to publish the work, budget time for it.
Project Management
Wow, this is a lot to manage. Be sure to budget time for staying organized, calling someone 10 times before you have an actual conversation, and managing things that go wrong, because they will. Rule of thumb: Add 15 percent more time for project management.
Post-Mortem
So how did you do? Was the client happy with your work? What went well? What could have gone better?
A friend of mine is a mechanical engineer for a major U.S. defense contractor. He says his team budgets project time this way: Figure out how many hours you think it will take to complete the project, then double that amount, and add 50 percent. That’s your number.
Rita Braun writes and edits B2B publications for people who research, teach, market, and sell. Take a look at her portfolio here, and contact her here.
