Meet Alexandra DuSablon: An Interview with CanvasRebel
This text is excerpted from the CanvasRebel interview linked here.
Alexandra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Quality control is a challenge almost every entrepreneur has had to focus on when growing – any advice, stories or insight around how to best ensure quality is maintained as your business scales?
My clients put a lot of trust in me when they let me in on the one thing they’ve been pouring all their creative and emotional energy into. As a professional copyeditor and proofreader, I partner with authors to make sure their manuscripts are clean, correct, and ready for print. I take my role seriously because I understand how wonderful it feels to see one’s words turn into a beautiful, professional book. As I’ve grown my business—bringing on more clients, taking on design-heavy book projects, and streamlining my editing process—I’ve kept quality front and center. I have to. Ensuring quality is essentially my job description! I’ve learned that quality is all about understanding clients’ needs. Before starting in on a new project, editors take time to get a sense of the writer’s voice, identify the parts of the manuscript, understand the story and audience, and set up a style sheet. Similarly, when I onboard a new client, I focus on understanding their goals as a writer, their target audience, their writing style and quirks, their own favorite authors, and more. I ask them what challenges they’ve faced so far with the manuscript and how I can jump in as the best partner and supporter possible. Then, it’s time to dive into the fun part (the editing!) with all the confidence that I’m ready to deliver a quality service customized for my client.
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 is Alexandra DuSablon, and I am a mission-driven copyeditor and proofreader. I work with indie authors, publishing companies, organizations, and entrepreneurs. I help writers craft stories that connect with readers by correcting issues with consistency, clarity, style, grammar, and flow. I’ve also just begun offering proofing services for indie authors producing their own audiobooks, as this becomes more and more popular (and accessible) in the world of self-publishing. My wordsmithing expertise is grounded in my editing certificate and linguistics degree from the University of Washington. I launched my business just over a year ago, after a decade of working in public service. I am a board member with the Northwest Editors Guild and a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association. I absolutely love books—reading them, discussing them, editing them, and advocating against book bans that restrict access to the very stories and perspectives that enrich our lives. So it goes without saying that I love my job.
Read more of this interview over on the CanvasRebel website.
“I help writers craft stories that connect with readers by correcting issues with consistency, clarity, style, grammar, and flow.”
