Sandra De Freitas, the Tech for Coaches, hired me to edit her book, "Does this Blogsite make my Wallet look Fat? How to use a WordPress blogsite to make money, attract clients and gain expert celebrity status."
WordPress is a free (open source) blogging tool that’s also a powerful content management system (CMS). With Sandra’s book, you’ll be able to use WordPress to create your very own blogsite (a combination of a blog and a website). And you could probably do it over a weekend.
This was the perfect time for this book to have come into my life, because I was actually creating a blogsite at the time (for a non-profit group that I’m involved with). Not only did it make it MUCH easier to get my site done, but I was able to be much more helpful to Sandra. I had first-hand experience building a site with WordPress AND I had used her book to do it.
Aside from editing, I also made a couple of suggestions about WordPress functions that still had me confused, and we worked together on adding some new sections to the book.
Above all, CLARITY was key for this project. We needed to ensure that "geeks" and "non-geeks" alike will be up and running with WordPress in no time flat. So as I read Sandra’s helpful, jargon-free instructions, I tried them out in my own WordPress system, and made sure they were crystal clear and accurate.
I am SO pleased with the work I did on Sandra’s book, and extremely proud to be involved with it.
Sandra is amazingly disciplined – it’s truly inspiring! "I gave myself a tight deadline and then made it even tighter, " she said, "I wrote this book from start to finish in 3 1/2 weeks and I only used the weekends to do it." Wow!
When I asked Sandra about the difference it made having an editor on the project, she had this to say:
"I knew before I even wrote the book that I would hire you to edit it. You may not know this, Linda, but I actually considered extending my deadline a few times because of various excuses. Having you on my team and reading your emails about our time line really helped me focus and stay with it. I also loved the funny subtitles you added to the book! Thanks for keeping me on track, encouraging me to keep writing and making me look good!"
UPDATE (May 9, 2008) – Sandra’s book is now available from http://WPBlogsites.com. Here she is with the book: