Patricia Anderson 

What do you do?

I am a freelance editor and literary consultant with a background as a book author and scholar of history and publishing studies. Through my business, HelpingYouGetPublished.com, I assist emerging and mid-career authors with the development and publication of their books. My work for clients includes manuscript evaluation, editing, proofreading, book market research, proposal and query preparation, book trailer production, writing press releases, and creating other material for author media kits and websites. I am also writing a book that I believe will be a definitive guide to getting published and distinguish itself from the competition in this genre.

How did you get there?

I have long believed that even when you feel that you are on the wrong career path, the best strategy is to keep moving forward, because one thing leads to another in unpredictable and productive ways.  My own career is an example.

I knew that I wanted to go to university and did indeed enrol immediately following high school. But I was about halfway through a degree in education, when I realized that this was not the best career direction for me. The problem was that I did not know what else to do and, in the end, decided that the wrong degree was better than no degree. A brief stint as a high school teacher later confirmed my belief that teaching English was not the right career for me.

In fact, I had always harboured secret ambitions to have a literary or academic career and now, because I had earned one degree, the opportunity was there. I returned to university and, after a few years, earned an MA and PhD. My time in graduate school pointed me in new directions and, while I studied, I found opportunities to write and publish articles and book reviews, and to gain experience editing both books and scholarly articles. Though I occasionally taught writing and publishing in university and adult education programs, I now set my sights mainly on a literary career. I researched the book market carefully, learned how to prepare and submit a manuscript in a professional way, managed to interest a New York agent, and got three books published by major houses in England, the US, and Canada.  Through it all, I also did occasional contract book editing.

Meanwhile, the book trade was undergoing major changes, brought on in part by competition from other media, the popularization of the Internet, and the advent of print-on-demand book publishing. I decided that there was a niche for me and that I could help authors understand the business and marketing side, as well as the creative and stylistic aspects, of book writing. I went online with HelpingYouGetPublished.com in 1999 and never looked back. A lot has changed since then, and there are constant challenges in sustaining an online freelance career. I keep moving forward, however, and continue to see the Internet as an open frontier for pursuing innovative business and literary directions. One thing leads to another …

Why do you like it?

I enjoy freelance editing and consulting because of the variety of projects I can undertake, the range of interesting clients that I meet, the freedom to work on my own schedule, and the luxury of working at home instead of wasting time and energy commuting. Above all, I like editorial freelancing because it allows me to help get far more stories, ideas, and information out into the world than I could ever do on my own. As one who is an author and scholar, as well as an editor, I find this to be most gratifying.  

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I was always a bookworm and, at about the age of nine, figured that I should be a novelist. I wrote a couple of chapters of a bad mystery novel, which I illustrated using pencil crayons and water colour paints. The characters had such improbable names as Algernon and Leticia, and luckily for both me and the profession of fiction writing, I soon abandoned both them and the novel. A couple of years later, for reasons that I cannot recall, I decided that it would be a good idea to get a PhD, even though I was vague about what this was and how to acquire it. Sometime in my teen years, I thought of becoming a book editor, because I had the notion that this would get me invited to some glamorous cocktail parties attended by handsome and wealthy men, possibly with names like Algernon.

Not surprisingly, my real career did not exactly follow the course I had mapped out in my childhood and adolescent fantasies. On the other hand, one thing did lead to another.

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Photo credit to David Middleton