What It's About
A novel expert proves that true love can be monetized!
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
So, let's get down to business—why exactly does something like this work? Well, I think that a lot of the success she's experiencing is how closely it relates to employment and making additional income. I’d also imagine that most people who want to proofread or copyedit romance novels are actually fans of the genre, and it provides them with an opportunity to get paid doing what they would already be doing.
Secondly, Phon has real authority in this arena because she's done this for 15 years! And last (but certainly not least), she’s also used a classic model of selling information with the tried and true 5-day course (we have one!).
Fun Fact
Phon has proofread over fifteen hundred books and counting in all types of sub-genres ranging from Amish, mystery, erotica, Western, paranormal and more. If you can think of it, she’s probably read it!
One genre that she can’t really sink her teeth into is vampire books—they can often be downright gross and puts her off even looking at food for a while after reading them.
Notes from Chris
Episode 440
Phon Baillie loves reading books and has always had a knack for finding pesky typos in them. She was the go-to proofreader for friends and family, freely giving away her special talents. That is until one day while studying media and communications at university, she realized she could be profiting from her eagle-eyed proofreading skills. After getting a post-graduate certificate in publishing, she got her first full-time job as a proofreader at Harlequin, a leading publisher of books for women. At Harlequin, she quickly became enamored with proofreading stories with strong female leads and tales of romance. What she didn’t love, however, was the nine-to-five lifestyle of the corporate world. The cubicle routine proved to be too confining, so Phon decided to break out on her own. She loved the flexibility the freelancing brought to what she was already passionate about—reading books for a living. And with her background at Harlequin, she quickly carved out a niche proofreading romance novels. Whenever she went out with her friends, they would get a kick out of telling people that Phon made money reading love stories. Over the years, with all the content being written for both online media and traditional media, the role of proofreading has begun to change. Content creators want more than just typo-correctors, they want proofreaders who can go deeper into the content and make sure it’s a highly polished piece that keeps the writer’s voice. Phon saw these changes and noticed that others were interested in learning more about how to get into proofreading, but didn’t know much about the field. She also found the resources available on proofreading didn’t go as deep as necessary for most client needs. With her fifteen years of experience as a Proofreader and Copyeditor and her background as a freelancer, Phon realized she could teach others how to be successful as a proofreader in today’s content-rich environment. The Art of Proofreading was born! She wrote blog posts on the nitty-gritty of proofreading life, with topics ranging from ‘The difference between Copyediting and Proofreading’ to ‘How to be a Proofreader Without a Degree’ and also wrote guest blog posts to reach more readers. She created quizzes where people could test their proofreading skills and produced a free 5-day email course, Intro to Proofreading, to generate leads for later paid content. And after receiving some feedback from her community, she also decided to create an e-book called the Ultimate Guide to Freelance Proofreading for those wanting to make the leap to freelancing but weren't sure how to get started. The site has been up for just over a year, and is bringing in an additional two thousand dollars a month of income! I guess Phon has proven that sometimes, true love is worth monetizing!
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- The Art of Proofreading: Learn how you can monetize your love of good books over on Phon's website!
- Wordpress: Phon used Wordpress to setup The Art of Proofreading, and here you can learn how to install your own Wordpress site in 5 minutes
- How To Make Extra Money Proofreading: If today's episode gets your side hustle senses tingling, learn more about how to get started in proofreading with this post on Phon's blog
- TV Producer Gets Paid to Look for Blog Typos: In search of a way to improve his personal finances, this TV producer discovers a profitable project helping bloggers rid their posts of grammatical errors
- Freelance Writer Starts School To Help Writers Start Side Hustles: After answering the same questions over and over, this freelance writer opens an online school to help others break into the business
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