This post is a development of a mail I sent out to the editors on Wordy last week. It has to do with the quality of our service, and what we should do to ensure it. After all, when all the nice things about the speed, price and accessibility of Wordy have been said – quality is what keeps us going forward, and customer coming back.
Based on a lot of feedback, we are changing our monthly subscription model to pay-as-you-go credits:
Why credits? Because, like most people, you probably have pretty irregular needs for copy-editing and you’re not all that keen on seeing your account reset every month. Now you won’t. Simply go to:
Wordy editors are constantly outdoing themselves, which means pick-up times are now consistently under 3 minutes (and in many cases under 1 minute) while the turn-around time for 400 words is 20-33 minutes.
Looking forward to seeing you on Wordy.
Wordy’s house style for U.S. clients is Chicago as outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. If the client does not specify a style, you should use Chicago. However, where another style is specified by the client, the requirements of that style guide override Chicago. For U.K. clients, the house style is that given in New Harts Rules.
For Wordy, to build a large, returning customer base is key to keeping all 130+ UK and US English copy-editors on the platform busy. And though it might sound self-evident, the irregular needs of most customers to use professional copy-editing simply demands a well-sized customer base. So, launching an online copy-editing service that works (and works really well) is one thing. Another is distributing Wordy through as many outlets as possible, making professional copy-editing one-click-easy to obtain. Here are some thoughts on distributing Wordy.
Being an editor with Wordy means working from a standardised set of guidelines so that you know exactly what to do, and the client knows exactly what to expect from your work. Editors are expected to be a native speaker of English with a good, professional working knowledge of English language, grammar, usage, punctuation and standard editorial conventions as laid out in New Harts Rules for the UK and the Chicago Manual of Style for the US.
Lately I’ve been looking into how to control the quality of output from Wordy. I’m especially interested in companies and services that offer workflow regulated to the extent that they’ve obtained an ISO certification. Why? Because fixed standards and quality control mean much less hassle for editors and the support function, as well as happier, more confident clients. So how do we secure the highest quality in service without having to go to the extent of ISO certification just yet?
Something is happening at Wordy.com. We’ve committed a set of comprehensive copy-editing subscription plans and made numerous tweaks and adjustments to the platform. The tweaks should provide an even smoother user experience, but the subscription plans are really something else. Publishers, meet your future editing service.
Since Wordy’s launch we’ve been working on putting together a number of subscription packages that will be both practical and attractive. The difficulty is that Wordy’s present customers have some very diverse wants and needs with regard to the services we offer, so the traditional discount for volume has to be combined with whatever technical solutions customers require. In addition we would like to see Wordy implemented in a large number of CMS systems as soon as possible, so putting together custom packages with a high degree of flexibility in terms of services, users, payment schemes and methods of renewal is also crucial.
Being an editor on Wordy means working from a standardised set of guidelines so that editors know exactly what to deliver and customers know exactly what to expect. Editors are, of course, expected to be native speakers of English with a good, professional working knowledge of English language, grammar, usage, punctuation and standard editorial conventions as laid out in New Hart’s Rules (UK English) and the Chicago Manual of Style (US English). Beyond this, editors should be able to work pretty autonomously – as far as getting the job done right is concerned.
Here is how we judge that to be the case.
Since the launch of Wordy in December 2009 I have received a little more than 2,500 mails, of which approximately 50% have been from editors working on Wordy or having a desire to do so. The fantastic thing about all these mails is their great readability, precision and logical structure. When handling 30+ mails per day, this is something you quickly come to appreciate.
And that’s not nearly the only reason why copy-editors make a great community – I can easily add professionalism, passion and the desire to do better to the list.
