Author: signordal

How to Start a Proofreading Business At Home

signordalLeave a comment

Do you get annoyed when people keep writing “there” instead of “their,” “its” instead of “it’s” or “ affect” instead of “effect”? Do your friends sometimes call you a “grammar Nazi” (in the sweetest way)?

If so, then you are probably the right person to start a proofreading business at home.

Before you entertain this thought, it should be something that you really want to do. This is because this business is only for those who truly enjoy looking into little details, bugging people about word order or reading the same text over and over just to make sure that “it flows.”

Otherwise, you won’t survive there for too long!

Now, you might be wondering about one thing: How can you start a proofreading business at home?

We know the answer and we will show it to you in a second. But, before that, make sure you know these things about the market:

1. Getting into the market will take some time as there are many people like you trying to top the list of successful business owners in this niche.

2. You will need much patience when trying to build your own network and get your first orders.

3. People in this niche need to take courses and do research on their own to make sure their knowledge is still relevant.

4. You will have to start at a lower rate, so don’t expect high revenue at first.

5. All business people need to be good marketers (or hire the latter to work for them), as that’s the only way, besides networking, to land new orders.

6. This market changes a lot and you will have to catch up with it all the time.

7. Select your specialization as an “I will proofread anything” approach does not sound professional enough to attract new customers.

We hope we painted quite a picture for you here. Now, let’s move to the actual steps on how to start a proofreading business at home.

See Also: 9 Ways How To Earn Money Online

How to start up your own business in proofreading niche

Develop a proper mindset

When you start a business, remember that it is YOUR business. You do not have a boss to blame for a weak marketing strategy, a supervisor to delegate all tasks to, or a director who will cover any financial loss.

You are in charge of all these things. So, before you start acting, think twice. Choose targets carefully, research every step before even making it and search for solutions only after seeking the assistance of experienced business people.

And also, start with a professional business plan, license, checking account, email and a phone number. Be professional on all stages!

Evaluate your financial situation

proofreading business

You need to make sure that you have the funds to start your own business. You will need to support yourself for some time, purchase professional tools and pay salaries if you want to hire more employees to work for you.

So, be realistic when it comes to your financial state and calculate all the possible outcomes before even starting.

Polish your skills

As a proofreader and an editor, you will have to work hard not to lose your skills in the midst of all the marketing campaigns, networking and other business issues that are not particularly related to the actual proofreading.

Besides, there are so many freelancers out there so you will have to work hard to strengthen your presence in the market.

Analyze your target audience

Who are the people you want to deliver your services to? What are they genuinely interested in? What are their core values?

It is important to have a clear customer’s portrait from the start. It is a huge help both to your marketing strategies and customer satisfaction.

Know who you are aiming to reach out to and adapt your strategies exactly to their needs. For instance, students might need an additional plagiarism checker and if you offer this service for free, they will be very grateful. Your success is only one market research away.

Build your portfolio

People want to see results. Therefore, getting testimonials from your former employers, clients or the people you helped before can be a huge step forward.

Boast.io states that “Customer testimonials and case studies are considered the most effective content marketing tactics, identified by 89% and 88%, respectively, of B2B marketers.”

Besides, remember that competition is huge and to have new customers come and tell you to just take their money, you need to go over and beyond with your business ideas.

Establish your rate

Yes, you need to establish your rate. There is no one common formula to help you calculate a perfect rate. However, you need to remember that as your reputation and skills grow, your rate will grow, too.

Research the pricing of your business rivals in the same services and make your rate somehow close to theirs. Remember that you should also have a loyalty program and bonuses to those who leave their testimonials, bring friends, or recommend your services.

Have a set of essential tools to use

Before you launch your business or start your first marketing campaign, you need to ensure that you have all the necessary tools you need to run the business. Thus, you might want to buy some grammar checkers to save your time or your own domain to run the business on.

All this has to be established and tuned up before the first clients fly in, as managing organizational things on the go is not easy if you are a newbie to this area.

Start the advertising campaign

facebook ad

Finally, the time has come to launch those marketing campaigns. Start with Facebook ads as that is where most people spend time daily. Besides, they are easy to set up and analyze so not using them is almost a crime!

Then, consider running special campaigns on Google or elsewhere. You will probably need help with writing all the texts right and pushing the right triggers there so be ready to pay for the services of real professionals here.

See Also: The 5 Internet Marketing Trends That Will Dominate in 2017

Network

Networking is powerful. People find jobs with the help of their friends’ recommendations and you can easily find new customers in the same way. Simply ask your friends if they know anyone looking for proofreading services. It never hurts to ask and you might get new clients in no time.

And also, leave your business cards wherever you go. They might do the job for you, too.

Work on your people skills

Every business is all about relationship. Unless you know how to find a key to every individual person out there, you are at a risk to fail.

So, master the art of being a friendly business as that is your key to success. People like businesses with a soul behind it. Be that kind of business!

Learn how to deliver the best client service

Finally, you need to be ready to deal with the complaints of any frustrated customers. Make sure that they will be left with nothing but a good impression of your business in the end. You can either hire a professional to deal with frustrated customers or learn how to be the perfect fit yourself.

In summary

Running a personal business is a dream come true for many. However, to make sure that your home-based proofreading business will last and prosper after years of struggles in the market, follow our simple tips.

 

 

The post How to Start a Proofreading Business At Home appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

http://ift.tt/2uyFAS9

House with a Tree Designed by Sauter Von Moos in Basel, Switzerland

signordalLeave a comment

This old home, covering an area of 280 square meters, was renovated in the year 2013 by Charlotte von Moos and Florian Sauter from the architectural firm Sauter von Moos. The home is located in Basel, a city on the shores of the Rhine River, in northwestern Switzerland. Basel is a uniquely multicultural town due to its location – located where the Swiss, French, and German borders meet, it also..

More…

The Blinds

signordalLeave a comment

Practically by design, novelists are people who honor the feelings and behaviors that connect us. But few things make them more skeptical than a community. The just-so surfaces of suburbia were a favorite target in postwar American fiction, from Peyton Place to “The Lottery” to the Rabbit novels. A small castle can be constructed out of novels satirizing the degradations of Marxist central planning. Postapocalyptic novels from YA (The Hunger Games) to literary fiction (Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea) reveal the folly of attempts to maintain order amid social chaos. Utopian societies? The only way those succeed is as a story prompt. T. C. Boyle (Drop City) and Lauren Groff (Arcadia) have set novels in such places only to collapse them, turn them into hubristic symbols of our inability to keep our reckless selves in check.

Adam Sternbergh feels no differently. But the neat trick of his third novel, The Blinds, is that he builds a smart, pulpy crime novel out of that material — it’s a critique of our best-intentioned it-takes-a-village sentiments that’s both more realistic and more weaponized than similar treatments. Calvin Cooper is the ad hoc sheriff in a West Texas community called the Blinds, founded by a well-funded institute that’s experimenting in erasing memories. Criminals and those who’ve suffered traumas have the uglier proteins in their brains zapped; in exchange for not being stalked by their memories of the havoc they wreaked (or experienced) in the outside world, the seventy-odd residents must stay within the town limits. “You are not in jail. You are not in hell,” a deputy explains to some new arrivals. “You are in Texas.”

The premise of the Blinds is so intriguing that you don’t dwell too much on that erasing-memories business, even though it’s the most volatile material you can pick up at the Hubristic Tropes Store. Sternbergh helps his cause by treating the matter gently, at least at first. The people responsible for doing the erasing are at a distance, genially described as “head scrubbers,” and the official name for the Blinds is Caesura — just a short pause, a tiny gap. Caesura is framed as an advanced version of the federal witness program, “a way to deal with . . . the killers, the serial rapists, the child predators, the ones who had knowledge and leverage.” Besides, too much else is going on with the plot to consider ethical consequences too closely. The supposedly gun-free town has experienced two gun deaths in a matter of weeks; residents are chafing against the lack of information in their Internet-free haven; and one resident, Fran, has become understandably concerned for the safety of her eight-year-old son — the only child in the Blinds.

“This is a fragile ecosystem we live in here,” Calvin informs the town, and there’s no clearer symbol of that fragility than Calvin himself, a lawman with no true authority except the trust he’s been given, and which is rapidly eroding. That fragility is also clear in the fake names that residents are forced to take as soon as they arrive, pulling one name from a list of old-school movie stars and another from a list of vice presidents. This gives reading The Blinds the pleasurable sense that its characters are populating a Turner Classic Movies marathon — Spiro Mitchum, Fran Adams, Hubert Gable, Hannibal Cagney. But the names are veneers. In time, it’s clear that the stories the residents are hiding are so brutal that they can’t help but force themselves to the surface. And Sternbergh isn’t polite about shocking us out of our hope for the community. How do you feel about animals set on fire? Or mass murder? (One resident, it turns out, was a gangster nicknamed “Costco,” because “he liked to kill in bulk.”)

Grand Guignol gestures like those are easier to swallow than the convoluted path Fran takes to learn the truth about the Blinds and her son. (It involves a tattoo and likely the only time in fiction or real life that a Susan Sontag book will be used to help solve a crime.) And the implications of the concept get a little messy in the telling in the closing chapters. Erasing memories: bad. OK. But recovering from that erasure, in The Blinds, can alternately endow you with newfound moral strength, resurface your old malevolence, or flood you with guilt. This range of behaviors might seem to speak to our messy humanity, too, if they didn’t seem like matters of plot mechanics, a way to ensure the appropriate person gets saved and/or gets a claw hammer lodged in their noggin.

But Sternbergh sells the basic point: We mess with our psyches at our peril, and one way we mess with our psyches is persuading ourselves that we’re just a few regulations away from maintaining order. “The minds of the guilty . . . are endlessly fascinating, once you really roll up your sleeves,” Sternbergh writes. Guilty of crimes, he means, but there are so many other kinds of guilt a novelist can play with, so many ways for a community to interestingly fail. Sternbergh may not even have to leave West Texas to keep exploring that idea. Every dystopian story, Margaret Atwood once wrote, ends with the suggestion of a possible utopia, and The Blinds closes with a reminder that the planned-community dream hasn’t die. “They only face the same challenges of every new hopeful settlement that’s ever been established in human history,” he writes. It’s a cautionary message. But it’s a pretty good setup for a sequel, too.

 

 

The post The Blinds appeared first on The Barnes & Noble Review.

The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2vbsVId

August 7th

signordalLeave a comment
Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.

http://ift.tt/1IMp00y

5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good

signordalLeave a comment

You’re reading 5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

We all know the feeling of overwhelm; that wrung-out exhaustion with no idea where or how to start fixing the stresses behind it.

Making the decision to declutter your lifestyle is a great place to start.

Should we find ourselves buried in work and a demanding social schedule to match, we might feel that we have little time to deal with our own basic needs, such as eight-hours of sleep, healthy meals and time with our loved ones.

With this neglect, clutter begins to accumulate.

Clutter comes in many shapes and forms, such as the physical clutter which we can see and touch, and then tell ourselves we will deal with it later.

It can also be experienced on an emotional level; stress from growing daily pressures, or feelings of overwhelm and discomfort with your lifestyle and duties within it.

To be able to tackle these challenges in our lives, we should consider the following steps, to implement positive change and say goodbye to negative clutter, once and for all:

  1. Get Organized

Love it or hate it, developing your organizational skills will help you get a grip on many aspects of your life.

Whether it’s time-awareness that catches you off guard, or self-management that often leads to loss of motivation, finding areas to improve how you organize your life can mean being a step ahead of the rest.

Start by writing things down: to-do lists, have-done lists, daily schedules, a monthly agenda.

Write down anything you can think of, that will aid you in getting to grips with your goals and prepare you for what’s ahead.

When it comes to the declutter of your environment, find ways to implement an organized routine, at home. A good place to start is by designating areas to return items to; dishes in the cupboard, unopened letters in a tray, shoes in the hallway, and so on.

Returning items to their pre-decided space will cut down a lot of procrastination in the long run.

  1. Small Changes Stick

Starting with one small change is all that you need.

Don’t put any extra pressure on yourself.
Ask: What tiny change can I implement, today, that could benefit my daily routine?

Whether it’s committing to clearing your mind of clutter through meditation, for ten minutes each day; or implementing the habit of making the bed as soon as you get up in the morning, just one change, to begin with, can make all the difference.

Remember to keep it small and make it as easy as you can, as you get started. Then repeat daily to make it a habit.

  1. Take it Slow

Great change doesn’t happen overnight, just as clutter accumulates over time.

Our natural urge to see results instantly can lead towards impatience and frustration, such as moments of binge-cleaning the house when the mess gets too much to bear.

Binges, in any form, never lead to consistency; when making life changes, be prepared to see the bigger picture and break your new routines down into manageable chunks.

If you feel overwhelmed because you’re always dashing about, trying to get everything done at once, look for ways to slow things down.

Delegate tasks, wherever possible, and leave enough time in the evenings to read, relax, switch off your phone and be present.

 

A group of friends, student or colleagues working together, declutter, no clutter
Spend time with those who bring out the best in you.

  1. Choose Company Wisely

Clutter doesn’t just come in the form of stuff, it can also be social.

Look at the people in your life who lift you up and encourage you in the right ways.

Should you find yourself exhausted by a certain person’s company, then it could be time to move on. Toxic relationships do nothing but drag you down and dull your shine.

Make space in your life for those who truly want to know you and who leave you feeling happier, healthier and supported. You deserve friendships that fulfil you, without any hidden agenda.

  1. Failure is a Step Forward

The word failure feels so final.

So, see it this way: each time we find ourselves succumbing to bad habits, we are presented with an opportunity to learn more about ourselves.

If you forget to do a specific task you’ve planned to help declutter your schedule, such as forgetting to make your lunch to take to work, before you go to bed, which leaves you racing to get out the door on time the next morning, look closely at what caused you to “fail”.

Do you avoid tasks when you’re tired? Is there something on your mind?

Once you identify the cause, look at ways to work around it in future. Failure becomes an opportunity, so don’t give up!

Remember that this is your journey, so accepting and understanding your own needs is essential to reclaiming control of your life.

We can learn so much about ourselves if we practice kindness and patience within our daily routines.

You can find more about how to declutter your home life in my latest book, The Habit Architect: At Home available on Amazon or by signing up to my mailing list at http://ift.tt/2sFlTIa

 

two people sharing an adventure with a map, laptop, coffee and useful clutter, declutter your space
Embrace the journey and allow your passions to fuel you

You’ve read 5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

http://ift.tt/2vEwJCo

5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good

signordalLeave a comment

You’re reading 5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

We all know the feeling of overwhelm; that wrung-out exhaustion with no idea where or how to start fixing the stresses behind it.

Making the decision to declutter your lifestyle is a great place to start.

Should we find ourselves buried in work and a demanding social schedule to match, we might feel that we have little time to deal with our own basic needs, such as eight-hours of sleep, healthy meals and time with our loved ones.

With this neglect, clutter begins to accumulate.

Clutter comes in many shapes and forms, such as the physical clutter which we can see and touch, and then tell ourselves we will deal with it later.

It can also be experienced on an emotional level; stress from growing daily pressures, or feelings of overwhelm and discomfort with your lifestyle and duties within it.

To be able to tackle these challenges in our lives, we should consider the following steps, to implement positive change and say goodbye to negative clutter, once and for all:

  1. Get Organized

Love it or hate it, developing your organizational skills will help you get a grip on many aspects of your life.

Whether it’s time-awareness that catches you off guard, or self-management that often leads to loss of motivation, finding areas to improve how you organize your life can mean being a step ahead of the rest.

Start by writing things down: to-do lists, have-done lists, daily schedules, a monthly agenda.

Write down anything you can think of, that will aid you in getting to grips with your goals and prepare you for what’s ahead.

When it comes to the declutter of your environment, find ways to implement an organized routine, at home. A good place to start is by designating areas to return items to; dishes in the cupboard, unopened letters in a tray, shoes in the hallway, and so on.

Returning items to their pre-decided space will cut down a lot of procrastination in the long run.

  1. Small Changes Stick

Starting with one small change is all that you need.

Don’t put any extra pressure on yourself.
Ask: What tiny change can I implement, today, that could benefit my daily routine?

Whether it’s committing to clearing your mind of clutter through meditation, for ten minutes each day; or implementing the habit of making the bed as soon as you get up in the morning, just one change, to begin with, can make all the difference.

Remember to keep it small and make it as easy as you can, as you get started. Then repeat daily to make it a habit.

  1. Take it Slow

Great change doesn’t happen overnight, just as clutter accumulates over time.

Our natural urge to see results instantly can lead towards impatience and frustration, such as moments of binge-cleaning the house when the mess gets too much to bear.

Binges, in any form, never lead to consistency; when making life changes, be prepared to see the bigger picture and break your new routines down into manageable chunks.

If you feel overwhelmed because you’re always dashing about, trying to get everything done at once, look for ways to slow things down.

Delegate tasks, wherever possible, and leave enough time in the evenings to read, relax, switch off your phone and be present.

 

A group of friends, student or colleagues working together, declutter, no clutter
Spend time with those who bring out the best in you.

  1. Choose Company Wisely

Clutter doesn’t just come in the form of stuff, it can also be social.

Look at the people in your life who lift you up and encourage you in the right ways.

Should you find yourself exhausted by a certain person’s company, then it could be time to move on. Toxic relationships do nothing but drag you down and dull your shine.

Make space in your life for those who truly want to know you and who leave you feeling happier, healthier and supported. You deserve friendships that fulfil you, without any hidden agenda.

  1. Failure is a Step Forward

The word failure feels so final.

So, see it this way: each time we find ourselves succumbing to bad habits, we are presented with an opportunity to learn more about ourselves.

If you forget to do a specific task you’ve planned to help declutter your schedule, such as forgetting to make your lunch to take to work, before you go to bed, which leaves you racing to get out the door on time the next morning, look closely at what caused you to “fail”.

Do you avoid tasks when you’re tired? Is there something on your mind?

Once you identify the cause, look at ways to work around it in future. Failure becomes an opportunity, so don’t give up!

Remember that this is your journey, so accepting and understanding your own needs is essential to reclaiming control of your life.

We can learn so much about ourselves if we practice kindness and patience within our daily routines.

You can find more about how to declutter your home life in my latest book, The Habit Architect: At Home available on Amazon or by signing up to my mailing list at http://ift.tt/2sFlTIa

 

two people sharing an adventure with a map, laptop, coffee and useful clutter, declutter your space
Embrace the journey and allow your passions to fuel you

You’ve read 5 Ways to Declutter Your Life and Beat Overwhelm, For Good, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

http://ift.tt/2vEwJCo

The True American

signordalLeave a comment

These days the question of what it means to be a “true” American resists rational analysis. Whatever one can say about Americans that is true, the opposite is equally true. We are the most godless and most religious, the most puritanical and most libertine, the most charitable and most heartless of societies. We espouse the maxim “that government is best which governs least,” yet look to government to address our every problem. Our environmental conscientiousness is outmatched only by our environmental recklessness. We are outlaws obsessed by the rule of law, individualists devoted to communitarian values, a nation of fat people with anorexic standards of beauty. The only things we love more than nature’s wilderness are our cars, malls, and digital technology. The paradoxes of the American psyche go back at least as far as our Declaration of Independence, in which slave owners proclaimed that all men are endowed by their creator with an unalienable right to liberty.

http://ift.tt/2vrfOEj

Ain’t It Always Stephen Stills

signordalLeave a comment

Several years ago an academic colleague and I embarked on what we called a “Stills-off”: we would listen to our record collections and narrow the musician Stephen Stills’s oeuvre down to its top five songs. Then we’d see whose list was better.

http://ift.tt/2f0eXDB

Southwest Colorado’s Alpine Loop National Backcountry Byway…

signordalLeave a comment

Southwest Colorado’s Alpine Loop National Backcountry Byway provides access to some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in the Rockies. Here, jagged peaks up to 14,000 feet in elevation rise above rushing streams and wildflower-filled meadows. A few miles further West, the American Basin in Handies Peak Wilderness Study Area has a plethora of wildflowers including fields of Colorado’s state flower, the columbine. You can scale 14,000 foot Handies Peak with a long non-technical but demanding day hike. Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, @mypubliclands

Southwest Colorado’s Alpine Loop National Backcountry Byway…

signordalLeave a comment

Southwest Colorado’s Alpine Loop National Backcountry Byway provides access to some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in the Rockies. Here, jagged peaks up to 14,000 feet in elevation rise above rushing streams and wildflower-filled meadows. A few miles further West, the American Basin in Handies Peak Wilderness Study Area has a plethora of wildflowers including fields of Colorado’s state flower, the columbine. You can scale 14,000 foot Handies Peak with a long non-technical but demanding day hike. Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, @mypubliclands