We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeff Rudolph. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeff below.

Jeff, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

Proper vacations are admittedly somewhat rare for me, but I do at least manage the occasional trip every now and then. As a freelancer, my business is a one-man operation that I only need my laptop and an internet connection to conduct, so if I’m being honest, a vacation tends to involve less stepping away from the business, and more taking the business on the road with me.

Even so, I do try to scale back how much I do while I’m on vacation. At the very least, I put seeking out new clients on hold and only worry about projects coming in from existing clients. But it’s important for a vacation to not just turn into spending the entire time working in your hotel room—the whole purpose of a vacation is to let yourself do something other than work, after all—so even then, I try to set some limits on how much time I’ll spend working. Assuming you give them a little warning beforehand, a good client, especially one you already have a relationship with, will understand that everyone needs some occasional R&R and will work around it with you.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name’s Jeff Rudolph, and I’m a freelance copyeditor and proofreader. As a copyeditor, I work with authors to perfect the language of their manuscript; this means straightforward things like correcting spelling and grammar, but also working on the wording and language used to make sure that the author is getting their message across in the clearest and most impactful way. When working as a proofreader, I serve as the last step in the editorial process, acting as a final pair of eyes to catch any lingering errors that may have slipped through previous steps in the process. Altogether, that means that it’s my job to help authors produce work that’s spotless, says what they want it to say, and says it exactly the way they want to say it.

I consider book manuscripts to be my specialty, but I’ve also worked on website copy, marketing materials, magazines, doctoral dissertations, and probably some other things that I’m forgetting. When it comes to books, I’ve worked on many different genres, but particularly enjoy working on fantasy and historical fiction when the opportunity arises.

I don’t think too many people who know me are particularly surprised that this is where I ended up. I’ve always had a love of books. For the great majority of my life, if you saw me out and about somewhere, the odds are pretty good that I had a book somewhere on my person, or at the very least somewhere close to hand. I read a lot. With that in mind, turning books into my profession felt like the natural choice.

Beyond that, it’s incredibly satisfying to work with the authors that are my clients. I think it’s fair to say that for the vast majority of authors and aspiring authors, writing goes beyond simply being a potential revenue stream. They’re writing because they have a passion for what they’re writing, and getting their book published and in the hands of readers is a dream for them. This is especially the case for first-time authors, which many of my clients are. That I’m able, in a small way, to help them accomplish that dream is amazing.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Doing anything to accommodate the client was something that I had to unlearn. It just makes sense that when someone has hired you to do a job, you should do everything you can to make them happy, and work around their needs. “The customer is always right,” right? And while that’s largely a good philosophy, I did have to learn that you do need to set reasonable limits on how far you’ll go.

In my case, it came from working with a client that lived on the other side of the world. They would send me work at times that were early for them—and thus late for me—and always seemed to need them edited urgently. This would lead to me having to jump on my computer at 8, 9, 10 pm to edit pieces for them. I let that go on for . . . too long. I eventually realized that I needed to be willing to set firm limits on when I worked, and that I needed to expect clients to give me a large enough window to work in that I wasn’t scrambling to get the work done during unreasonable hours.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

When I see a client’s book for sale on Amazon and start seeing the positive reviews come in. Obviously, the success belongs to the author far more than me, but seeing a book make it to market, find an audience, and win the approval of that audience, and knowing that I played a part in helping to make that happen, is a fantastic feeling.

I also try to pick up a copy of every book I’ve worked on, and watching more and more of the shelf space at my home be taken up with books I’ve had a hand in also feels pretty good.

Contact Info:

• Website: rudolphediting.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-rudolph-241677140/

Image Credits
Personal Photo: Shaye Briannah Photography