Brilliant Editor Tracks Time and Increases Revenue

Continuing with our user profiles, this week we are thrilled to feature Victoria Wright, from BookmarkServices.net.

Victoriais a serial careerist, which in layman’s terms means she could never figure out what she wanted to do when she grew up. It also means she’s done some very cool stuff. She’s been a private eye, a student midwife, a construction estimator, a stockbroker, a writer, and now, for almost 20 years, she’s been an editor. While her lifestyle is not conducive to riches and relaxation, it is definitely never boring and she’s always had the chance to work with fascinating people and pick up vastly esoteric knowledge, all of which helps her in her role as an editor (and a writer).

Tell us about your company, Victoria, and about the services you provide.  

Bookmark Services (http:/bookmarkservices.net) is a full-service editing company. I and my merry band of experts provide assistance ranging from coaching, transcription, developmental editing, and ghost-writing to book proposals, interior layout and cover art, e-book conversion, and to a growing extent, social media marketing consulting. Also, and this is partly in my self-interest (because I get a lot of manuscripts that are in need of combing out), I help people learn to use Word effectively, instead of fighting with it. In other words, I help them with words and with Word.

How important is time management in the day-to-day running of your business AND your life?

Time management is crucial to my business, because I charge by the hour, and until I found OfficeTime, I was truly winging it. I actually considered buying a chess clock to keep on my desk to try to keep some kind of track of my billable time. I’ve always told my clients that even when I am not sitting at my keyboard editing their books, I still carry their stories around in my head, mulling them over, and for that, I do not charge. But otherwise, I can now say that I am on the clock.

As for life, that’s the stuff that fits in around work, right? OfficeTime has been helpful there, too, because I can look and see that, okay, you’ve put in four hours on that book, and three on that one, and four more on this other project, so that’s enough already. Step away from the keyboard!

Talk to me specifically about OfficeTime.  What’s been your biggest takeaway of using it?

My favorite things about OfficeTime are, first of all, that I learned from day one that I was undercharging practically everyone. Not only was I, shall we say, optimistic about how long it was taking me to complete a project, I also tended to say, Oh, I’ll just fix that for no charge. Now, I sit down, the file opens, my clock pops up, and it’s tick-tick-tick till I’m finished. Nothing takes five minutes, and it all adds up. Second, it’s great to be able to time multiple jobs. When I get stymied on one, it’s just a couple of keystrokes and I’m timing the next job, without losing track of the first, which is right there napping till I’m ready to go back to it. I like being able to keep notes right in the program on what I’m spending time on, and I love that I can mark time as invoiced. I haven’t been using it long enough to summarize my year yet, but I’m looking forward to that.

So what new and awesome thing have you been able to create in your business, since you’ve freed up so much time with the OfficeTime time tracking tool?  

One thing organizing this data has done for me is it allows me to make more intelligent estimates for new clients, who are understandably edgy about the cost of editing other work. It’s excellent to be able to assure them that I do, indeed, keep precise track of my time. My kids will say, when they see me get up from my desk, “Mom, did you stop your clock?” They’ve learned early that time management is their friend!

Helping our users remain productive, flexible and successful.  That’s what we like to hear!

Time. The real commodity.
OfficeTime.net