Interview with: Danny Ratnaike
Working with in-house editorial teams: What freelancers need to know
Q: Tell us a little about yourself, your background and your role at Alzheimer’s Society.
A: I’ve been an in-house editor at Alzheimer’s Society for over 14 years. For a long time, I’ve produced the charity’s magazine and podcast for people affected by dementia, though a recent restructure means my role is broadening.
I really learned my editing craft at a contract publisher in the noughties, working on journals and membership magazines for healthcare professionals. Joining the CIEP and becoming a Professional Member helped me to contextualise what I’d been doing, as well as filling in quite a few gaps. It also gave me more confidence to explore what else ‘being an editor’ could mean.
Co-production has become a particular joy – finding meaningful ways to involve the people we’re usually creating content about and for, so that we’re also planning and creating it together. I’ve found that this builds on aspects of collaboration that sit at the heart of good editing anyway.
Q: How do workflows and editorial processes operate within your organisation, and what is the size and structure of your in-house editing team?
A: The recent restructure has brought more people working on our content into one team. I’m one of seven writer–editors with fewer specialised and more channel-neutral roles, working to an agency model. We work on a really wide range of content, from health information to supporter comms, so the coming months will be really interesting as we establish our new ways of working.
In charities generally, I’d say this way of working is much more common now, but change is also pretty usual as our organisations respond to all kinds of pressures.
Q: How do freelancers fit into the process?
A: Freelance editors and proofreaders? From my experience – and talking to colleagues in other teams and at other charities – not as much as you might like if you’re a freelancer!
My sense is that editing is a part of the process we’re less likely to outsource. It’s the bit where we’ll tend to most want an in-house person, who’s most likely to ‘get’ what we’re doing, how we do it, and how that’s constantly evolving. So we’re more likely to commission freelance writers, designers, photographers, videographers etc.
Having said that, we have had freelance editing support on specific projects – things that otherwise stretch our capacity. There are also content agencies working in areas where editing is part of what they do for us.
Q: From an in-house perspective, what do you most value when working with freelance editors and proofreaders? How can freelancers stand out, and what do you wish they better understood about working with in-house teams?
A: A key thing would be a solid grasp of the cause, and an understanding of our brand and overall purpose – are there ways you could demonstrate this?
Do you have a stand-out specialism you can evidence? For example, if you’re editing health information, PIF TICK recently established a PIF TICK Competent badge for freelancers (previously they only certified organisations and individuals who have control over final resources).
Are there networks you could have in common with in-house content team members – CharityComms, the Story Network, Media Trust and others? As well as taking part in events, are there opportunities for you to present or lead an event on something?
Do the organisations you’d like to work with have preferred supplier lists (PSLs)? If you have in-house contacts who appreciate your work, can they help you get on their PSL? If they don’t have one for editors and proofreaders, would they consider establishing one with you on it?
Q: If a freelancer is working with you or another publisher and finds that the in-house project manager isn’t fulfilling their side of the agreement, how would you recommend they handle that situation?
A: I’d say communicate about it with them as clearly as you can. Try to take into account the deadlines and pressures they may be dealing with, but if it’s really not working then consider contacting the person who leads their team. Focus on the impact of these difficulties on the project you’re working on together.
Prevention is so much better than cure though. If it feels like a new piece of work has the potential to become complicated, risk stalling or change direction over time, suggest being paid for specific stages, perhaps to be agreed as you go along.
But do communicate, do ask questions. As a commissioner, I think my most useful learning over the years has come from freelancers’ questions about what’s expected from them.
Q: If a freelancer has completed a project and hasn’t heard from you for a while, but would like to work with you again, what’s the best way to check in about future opportunities?
A: Do get in touch if you feel things have gone quiet. My preference is by email and after a month or two, but obviously preferences will vary – you can only use your best judgement based on your sense of that person.
If you don’t get a reply, it doesn’t mean they’re avoiding you or that you’ll never hear from them again. You can be someone they’d love to commission again for the right opportunity, even without being their number-one priority at that moment.
If you’re concerned that there might have been something about your previous work that didn’t quite hit the spot, then do ask for feedback about it. If there’s an aspect of a freelancer’s work that could have been better suited to what we were looking for, I’m less likely to feed back about it if it’s not asked for.
Q: What skills do editorial professionals need to develop or adapt to stay relevant, and which traditional skills remain essential?
A: I suspect those skills people often don’t realise we have as editors will become more in demand as organisations try using AI in more areas – successfully and otherwise.
So, editorial judgement and sense, but also our strengths in collaborating and co-producing written content.
Being flexible is always going to help.
What could you bring to editing and proofreading content that’s been repurposed (often using AI) for various formats and channels? Or perhaps transcripts of audio or video content (again, often produced using AI)?
Are you keeping up to date with what makes content more likely to be drawn on by search engines' AI summaries and other AI tools?
If you want to work with organisations that don’t often outsource editing and proofreading, do you have parallel skills that could help you get in the door? Most obviously writing, but maybe with audio, video, accessible formats, co-production …
Q: What excites you most about the future of the profession?
A: How we’ll establish the real value of what we do in others’ minds in the light of more being done using AI – our judgement, deep understanding of purpose and audience, and more. This is a time when it should become more obvious to people why they need human editors and proofreaders, even if they need a bit of help from us to realise this.