What It Is (posts below left; rate sheet, client list, other stuff below right)

My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor and proofreader, and occasional indexer. This blog is my website.

You'll find my rate sheet and client list here, as well as musings on the life of a freelancer; editing, proofreading, and indexing concerns and issues; my ongoing battles with books and production; and the occasional personal revelation.

Feel free to contact me directly with additional questions: landondemand@gmail.com.

Thanks for visiting. Leave me a comment. Come back often.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Haiku Monday: New Host

If you're looking for Haiku Monday for November 28, the host is last week's winner Serendipity, and the hosting is here. Topic is energy/energized.

Have fun.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I'm Really Not Trying to Turn This into Facebook or Twitter

But I'm drinking a Coke from a white and silver can. That's just wrong.

 Happy Thanksgiving all.


UPDATE, December 1:

Coke to Drop Snow-White Holiday Can



Monday, November 21, 2011

Updates on Some Old Stories

Back on September 26, I wrote the following:

Do you think the fun ends there? Looking down the road, I am scheduled to receive the book for proofreading on October 17. The book will need to be read/marked up and FedEx'd back to the publisher. And when do you think the book is due back with them? October 19? October 18?

Stop it, you're killing me.

October 17.


Well, I guess the joke was on me, because I wrote the publisher around November 17 to find out about this and another job scheduled to come in at the same time. Both were under time constraints and went to press without proofreading -- at least not proofreading by me.

Gulp.

Not much I can do about that. But hearing about it from the publisher would have been nice, without having to track it down.

Here's the thing: I actually waited a month before contacting the publisher, because I've waited that long on earlier projects with this company . . . but the jobs always eventually showed up.

Any other publishers, I call the day after I'm supposed to receive something, and they are apologetic, not just for the lateness, but the lack of notice.

I suppose I can be thankful that not everyone does the lack-of-communication thing. Sometimes small projects from independent authors or occasional publishers can run late, but companies that are full-time in the publishing business are usually pretty good about keeping freelancers informed.

Usually.

====

A young woman who worked with me as an intern some years back accepted a job last week as production editor with a large religious publishing house, of all things. Yes, English majors, jobs do exist. She also had an MA, though, which she earned after her time in the LandonDemand bunker. Production editor . . . that's sometimes the title of a person who hires freelancers. Hmm. How provident.

Another intern is working with me now, and I am thinking of having her do a guest editorial for the blog. Maybe what she thought editing was going to be about vs. what it actually is, or whether editing still holds any attraction for her after being exposed to three to four months of it. Any ideas?

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Sunday Morning Coming Up/Down

From the joys of the work-at-home department: It's 11:30am Sunday, and 20 yards from where I'm now sitting, my neighbor is tearing up his driveway. With his two young daughters. Not a quiet process.

So, everyone else . . . please enjoy this. If I've posted it before, well, it deserves a second hearing.




Saturday, November 19, 2011

A Real Stop-the-Presses Moment in Academia

No need to know the topic; you can fill in your own blank.

"The theme stemmed from the idea that decadence could serve as an exciting inspiration for examining [insert anything here] in a broader context."

Friday, November 18, 2011

"I'll Be Watching You."














Beth Cavener Stichter
American, born 1972
The Inquisitors, 2004
Stoneware, porcelain slip, and wood
61 × 78 × 25 inches overall
(154.9 × 198.1 × 63.5 cm)

Two Words That I'm Beginning to Hate

Capacious
Quotidian

I can't read a book these days without seeing them. Nothing, though, could ever rival the Abraham Maslow loathing of the 1980s and 1990s. Lord.

Newsworthy Comments from a Co-Vendor

It's frustrating as hell to expect something at a certain time, open a hole for it, arrange your life and work around it, and have it not show. It impacts cash flow. What are we to do: sell other orders, and once knee deep in that, drop it?



Thursday, November 17, 2011

State of the Morning

December 2011 is in a few weeks, and I'm stunned. I'm not going to do a preliminary year in review; I'm not even sure I've got the stomach for the real thing when time comes. While I'd really like to turn the page on this year, there's always the possibility that next year could be even stranger. One nice thing, though, about incipient senility is that I've probably forgotten half the stuff that's made this year feel like I've been tossed in a clothes dryer for 11 months, taking the ride with a few good-sized rocks, for proper weathering.



I feel like I've aged a lot since the photo at the bottom of this page. I certainly look it. I guess that photo was taken a little more than two years ago. If I were to shave off the snow-white beard I now have, that would probably help, but that would mean walking around looking (even more) like a bum most days of the week, as keeping clean-shaven is way down on the list of priorities.

Anyway, I was checking Feedjit and came across It's Been Jessified. Thanks to Jess, whoever she is, for at least starting off my day right today. She listed this blog among a few editing blogs she recommends. For each of the other blogs, she has some statement about the blog's purpose. Not for this one. Instead, her comment attached to the link for my blog reads, "I have just spent all my free time today reading the entirety of this blog." She stopped posting back in 2010 sometime, but at the time I guess the educational or entertainment value of this blog was enough to hold her attention, or at least I didn't receive a ticking package in the mail.

Heaven knows I waste too much time on the Internet reading comments and opinions and musings from perspectives that I loathe, although I don't spend all day at it.

Anyway, I'm elbows deep in wrapping up a huge, complex proofreading project. At least the topic is sort of interesting. The book should be beautiful when published, and if history is any indication, I'll receive a comp copy. Thanks, New Haven.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Bibliography Entry of the Day

Work--What? How? Why? Philadelphia, 1893.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Quotes from the Workdesk

Narikela-pāka: Books come in three levels of accessibility—the grape style, easily available to anyone; the banana style, where you have to peel off the outer layer; and the coconut style, where the reader has to work hard to crack open the text in order to reach the soft inner substance.





By killing their husbands, Śiva reduced these women to widows who cannot wear earrings.


[Bibliographic entry] Lalita, G. Tĕlugulo cāu-kavitvam. Vijayavada: Kwality Publishers, 1981.