Originally posted here.
For the last few months I’ve been quietly working on a project that I thought may have legs. As it turns out – Sarah Evelyn Edits may have wings.
Our story
The seed of the idea for Sarah Evelyn Edits came to me while reading a Dutch blog I enjoy, written in English. Although the graphics were beautiful and the content useful, the second-language nature of the blog meant that it was littered with spelling and grammar errors, and had some style and formatting inconsistencies. As I knew that much of the blog’s readership were from around the world and many of its readers were first-language English, I knew that in order to be successful, this blog needed help.
And the more I read blogs, the more I realised the help that so many, around the world, needed. They needed another eye to check their spelling and grammar (and catch the kind of mistakes that spell check just doesn’t). They needed consistent formatting, to be clear in what they were saying, to nudge posts from only-relevant-this-week into evergreen territory, and for the basics of SEO to be placed into their posts so that their work could be found, read, and shared by ever-widening audiences.
Related: Our e-Course Services
In order to get something edited, you generally pay someone by the hour, or number of words. But if you’re a blogger, you know that this just doesn’t make sense at all in the blogosphere.
As a blogger you need a service that will provide editing and search engine optimisation for each and every post – long or short, and with very little lead time and for a reasonable set price that’s easily paid every month.
You need someone who understands your voice – because they’re your target market – and who doesn’t reduce your funny, emoji-filled writing to something sterile and impersonal.
You need someone who’s not afraid to go into the back-end of your blogging system and sort out things like focus keywords and meta descriptions – because it’s just one more thing on your rather large blogging plate and you simply just don’t. have. time.
And without thinking too much about it – that’s just what I started doing with a small handful of clients who really needed my services. I had no track record to go on, and so I offered (and still do!) free trials. I became friends with my clients (and started on insisting on calling them frients) – people whose daily lives I read about and who trusted me with their words and login details, and to marshall their posts from pretty freaking great to perfect.
As my handful of frients (it’s going to catch on one day, I know it will!) started growing, I started needing some help. So I talked to people I knew. I enlisted Gwen and Shannon as my VA’s – Gwen is now our Operation Manager and Shannon helps her to find and contact all the blogs we can.
I asked two of my friends with whom I had worked for many years to join me on the editing side, because I knew that Carrie and Silvana would be better at it than I am. I contracted other friends to do our (brilliant) graphic design, and web design. I realised that we already had a set of values to which we ascribed, so I wrote them down (and have helpfully inserted them below so that you can see them too). I emailed, emailed, emailed, emailed and Skyped and connected with everyone who I knew could add value to our project.
I realised that while I had initially developed the idea to make some freelance income, we were becoming much bigger than that, and that our mission had changed. It may sound like some special woo-woo, but I realised that our guiding principle was to Spread Love.
The one thing I didn’t do, was to make much of a noise. We have a page on our website, but I didn’t blog about it, set up a social media strategy, or do any of the thousands of other things I should have done. But here we go: you’ll find us here, shouting out loud, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Our team
Our team at Sarah Evelyn Edits is a dynamic one, and we switch around and give each other grace to do other things, pick up work, put down work and move around on the regular. That said, here we are:
Our founder, Sarah (me!) who has grown a bit taller and who hates talking about herself in the third person.
Gwen and Shannon – our hard-working, big-loving Sarah Evelyn Edits Operations Manager and her 2ic.
Silvana and Carrie – my lovely friends who are so much better at editing than I am.
Our mission, vision, and values:
This section is like my favourite thing. Ever. (Except for my people.) Think it, say it, do it.
Our frients‘ (friend-client) testimonials:
After a bit, I asked some of our clients what they thought of Sarah Evelyn Edits. They blew us away with their answers. We don’t like to brag (ok, scratch that – we love it) but we had to share them with you too.
“Sarah has been such an incredible addition to our team. We previously handled ALL writing/editing, etc. and it got to the point where we were letting things that were less than stellar head out the door. Sarah swooped in and saved the day. She got us to stop flying so much by the seat of our pants and schedule writing in advance. This not only has allowed us to be better writers from the get go, but adds time to get valuable feedback from Sarah. She is now a crucial part of our everyday process. Highly recommend!” – Abagail & Emylee from Think Creative Collective
Sarah is a lifesaver. I am notorious for spelling typos and weird phrasing from copy-and-paste errors. As a professional blogger, such errors make me look, well, unprofessional. Sarah is not only quick, reasonably-priced and accurate, she also has a good sense of flow and voice when it comes to writing for the web. My professional blog is much more professional with Sarah’s help!- Christie Osborne from Mountainside Bride and Mountainside Media
“I first hired an editor to help me catch typos in my blog posts, but what I didn’t realize is how helpful the editing process would be for so many other aspects of polishing up my writing, from sprucing up sentence grammar to maintaining consistency in my recipes and writing. Sarah’s company has been a great addition to my blogging process!”- Kath Younger, from Kath Eats Real Food
So, after all those very many words, you now know what Sarah Evelyn Edits is. If this is something you don’t need, may I ask that you spread the word anyway? If it’s something you might, then just click here and holla for a free month’s trial, or to chat!
Our Frequently Asked Questions:
These are the things that we get asked the most – but it’s not an extensive list. Chat to us if we haven’t answered your burning question!
Phew – if you’re here then well done! Sarah Evelyn Edits team out, but we’d love to continue the chat. Join us on Instagram or send us a message?