CHECKLIST

SET UP SHOP AS A
FREELANCE MEDICAL EDITOR
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1. Develop Your Writing & Editing Skills

This can be done by reading and studying any of the classics, such as On Writing Well, by
William Zinsser and The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E.B. White. Many others are
available. Browse and pick whichever ones look appealing and have excellent reviews. You
cannot read enough books on this topic. I would commit at least 20 hours of time to learning
the basics.

2. Learn AMA Style

The online 11th edition version of the AMA Manual of Style can be accessed here. This
unwieldy tome is at the core of most medical editing, and it’s important to have a strong
working knowledge of it. My course is here to help with that.

3. Install a Medical Spellchecker

It’s important to install a medical spellchecker on your computer. The default Word one will
not be sufficient. You’ll likely add an incorrectly spelled drug name at some point (we all do)
and then spell it wrong until a client points it out. Not what you want. Both Stedman’s and
Spellex work on a PC or a Mac these days and cost about $99.

4. Select a Business Name

Make the name short and descriptive of the work you do. Try to get a name that has the .com
website available. Your initials or last name (if short) plus “medical editing” is a good choice
when it comes to what will show up in a search. You can also simply use your own name.

5. Create an LLC
This is an optional step, and you might want to wait until you have some income coming in
before creating one; however, an LLC provides legal protection against your personal assets
and also makes you seem like a real business. In most states it is relatively inexpensive to set
one up and maintain it. Legalzoom is probably the cheapest and most efficient way to set up
an LLC (although be warned, they will try to upsell you). Your accountant may suggest setting
up an S Corp, but for various reasons (covered in my Become a Freelance Medical Editor
course), it would likely not make sense in this setting.

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6. Set up website
You will want to create your own website. There are many ways to do this, and I will cover
those in my course. I will also tell you what pages should be on your site, what samples to
provide and other aspects about an effective website that are specific to a freelance medical
editing business.

7. Get a Business Bank Account

It’s important to open up an account that is solely to deposit payments from clients. You can
also use the account to pay for work-related expenses (ie, not groceries). Then your financials
become very simple. Whatever is left in your account is profit. Be sure to keep up with your
estimated and current taxes. Talk to your accounting professional to make sure this is all
done correctly.

8. Reach out to prospective clients

Now you are ready to start promoting your services. One strategy is to reach out to medical
writers on LinkedIn who might want your supporting services in their day-to-day work. Lead
with the clear benefits that you can provide. The work that you would offer to do (eg,
formatting references) is often the least fun part of a medical writer’s job, so approach them
from that aspect; you may be surprised at their willingness to hire you. Any of the medical
communications agencies would also likely be eager to have you as a resource if you present
yourself as a specialist editor. More strategies to be covered in my course. All you need is
about 5 clients to be extremely busy. You can expect to make 6 figures if you do this full
time. I will show you how.

Become a Learn AMA Style Freelance Medical Editing Course

Find out more at learnamastyle.com
Module 1: Introduction Module 4: Related Types of Work
· About This Course · Annotating & Fact Checking
· Are you a Writer or an Editor? · Referencing
· Types of Work · Veeva
· How Much Can You Make? · Medical Slide Decks
· Compiling and Managing Documents
Module 2: Mechanics of Writing
· Writing (and editing) mechanics Module 5: Running Your Business
· Sentence Length · Building a Website
· Clarity · Taxes and Legal Business Set Up
· Subject Verb Agreement · How to Get Medical Editing Work
· Parallelism · Working With Clients
· Consistency
· Resources

Module 3: AMA Style*

· 10 Things You Need to Know
· Step-by-Step Coverage of The AMA
Manual of Style
*Available separately

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