Many but not all freelance editors use contracts as part of their business model. What makes a successful contract? What makes a contract fail? Are they essential? Come hear responses to these questions and moreduring EFA Chicagoland’s 2024 kickoff meeting on January 24, which features a panel of three members:

Ginny Ruths 

Ginny Ruths (www.touchstonepubs.com) specializes in developmental and substantive line editing for both nonfiction and fiction manuscripts. She works primarily with independent authors who write in a wide range of genres: from memoir to business, and from thriller to science fiction to children’s picture books. In her previous life she worked in corporate communications with both nonprofit and commercial businesses, and she started Touchstone Publications to get back to helping actual people through her love for the English language. She currently serves as a co-coordinator for the EFA Colorado Chapter and occasionally works on writing a children’s book series.

Ruth Thaler-Carter 

Ruth E. “I can write about anything!”® Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) has honed her knowledge about contracts through writing, editing, proofreading, production, and related editorial work since 1984; hosted the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer”® conference that resulted in the book The Paper It’s Written On by Dick Margulis and Karin Cather; and has written about contracts for the An American Editor blog. An EFA member since 2004, she wrote the EFA’s Freelancing 101: Launching Your Editorial Business booklet, co-authored the current edition, and co-authored Résumés for Freelancers; edited the EFA newsletter; and has presented national and chapter programs.

Michele Combs

Michele Combs is Lead Archivist at Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center. She has been a freelance editor and indexer since 2006 (and has never used a contract!); her clients have included the Smithsonian Institution, O’Reilly Publishers, the Society of American Archivists, and a wide range of individual authors, on subjects ranging from Freemasonry to library science to film studies. She lives in LaFayette, New York, with her husband and more animals than are strictly necessary.

The meeting is open to all EFA members and their guests. You may register here.