Why I’ve found a new perspective on my work life (and why I'll be making no further comment on it)

I shouldn’t be feeling more optimistic about my working life if LinkedIn had its way. All those fellow freelance writer/editors posting their heartwarming here’s every single project I did in 2025 posts just as my professional year, with all its ups and downs, drew to a close and a new one loomed (and you can read all about my theories on those ups and downs here). I tried really hard not to read the posts, and when that failed I tried extra hard not to believe them. Surely nobody had time to do that many projects in one year? Or felt so overworked they’d had to turn down almost as many approaches? Well maybe they did and maybe they didn’t, but either way I’m drawing a line on it all and greeting 2026 with optimistic enthusiasm.

The commission I received right as most publishers began to close down for Christmas may well have helped – an interesting and meaty project that would keep me properly busy throughout January and tick over into February and beyond. Even better, no suggestion that I would even look at the emailed brief in any depth until AFTER the Christmas break. Some commissioning editors really are the dream. But fulfilling new project aside, I’ve decided that instead of writing mildly amusing/grumbling blogs about the vagaries and pitfalls of freelancing, I’m actually going to take some decisive action, set some new work year resolutions and take on board some of the advice I generally ignore on LinkedIn (even if I’m still going to take those roundup stats with a pinch of salt).

I love working with aspiring authors, helping them to shape and write their books, and so in the spirit of doing things I have long put off, I finally got my Reedsy profile approved. For those not familiar with it, this is a website where you can ply your trade as an editor so that wannabe authors can first find you, then engage you to help whip their book into shape. For a small percentage of your fee, the lovely people at Reedsy deal with all the boring things like contracts and payments as you build up your profile and positive testimonials, and thus become inundated with project requests. At least this is how I hope it works. Since I fell foul of their criteria for profile creation so many times I eventually gave up trying to get it approved for a whole year, I wonder if I’m their ideal platform user. But at last I’m now a bonafide Reedsy professional, with an active profile and everything (here if you’re interested). I may not have connected successfully with a wannabe author requiring my services just yet but that’s ok, I’ll wait. Though hopefully not for another whole year.

Many a LinkedIn post urges you to see freelancing not just as little old you, hoping to get commissioned by people you once worked with, or people who now work with people you once worked with, or people who just happen to know people you once worked with. Think about freelancing as not an activity but a business, the posts say. Think about what services you’re offering, what you hope to make financially from them and then how to smash those targets! Think about projections, cash flow, profit and loss. Think about marketing, networking and how to grow your business. To be honest, thinking about all that just reminds me why I became a freelancer rather than choosing to run my own cutting-edge independent publishing company/bookshop/café, but maybe they’re right. But because I don’t actually have an MBA, I’m going to address all this on a slightly smaller scale, though it has made me think: think about upping my online visibility, building, and re-engaging with industry contacts, attending more networking events, and chasing the work I most enjoy. And I’m trying to think of myself as being Claire Baker Limited (metaphorically speaking only, of course – HMRC, please take note) instead of just Claire, that person you used to work with.

And if being a business means growing a business, it seems that stunted growth (in other words, the pendulum between publishing projects and housekeeping-type duties swinging violently in favour of the latter) needs urgent action. All the things above should, in theory, help. But there’s also diversifying, finding other rewarding pursuits, both financially and intellectually, to build that portfolio career. And so I found myself dusting off my PGCE postgraduate teaching qualification acquired way back in the last millenium. After a brief call with a Department for Education advisor, I was astonished to discover that I could literally apply for secondary school jobs teaching English right now. This despite my PGCE having been awarded not only many moons ago, but also having focussed solely on primary teaching, and the earliest years of it at that. Oh, and I never completed my probationary Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) year either, the one where they keep a close eye on you before you actually achieve fully qualified teacher status. Because the whole idea of suddenly teaching Shakespeare to GCSE students seemed frankly terrifying, for both me and, I would imagine, any prospective students, I’m first arranging to do some shadowing at a local school to see if I actually enjoy being in a school environment before I commit to any gainful employment. My dream would be to combine teaching with freelance writing and editing projects. Or at least I think it would be, but ask me again once I’ve sat in on some raucous Year 8s with a similar attitude to great literature as I have towards writing online professional profiles.

Who knows if I’ll follow through on all my work resolutions for this fresh new year, whether I’ll be inundated with new projects or if I’ll discover a love of teaching, and a perfect part-time job to accompany it? I’d say watch this space, but I don’t intend to post an update here or anywhere else; I’ll let everyone else do that on their final LinkedIn post as 2026 draws to a close. And then I’ll try really, really hard not to read it.