As I sat thinking about how I’m going to start organizing my daily calendar for the new year, it also occurred to me that readers may be interested to know what a day in the life of a freelance magazine editor looks like.
No day ever looks the same. The magazine world runs in production cycles, so each week looks a little different. Also, the majority of the staff of the magazine I work for are remote. Working from home has pros and cons, as I’m sure you can imagine. I get paid a set salary per issue, and can also pay myself out of the editorial budget if I have to write individual articles (besides the editor’s letter). This position offers no benefits, however, so it is strictly contract work.
I thought it would be simplest to break down the cycle by week:
Week of Jan. 6, 2020. This week, writers and photographers are busy tackling the assignments for the February issue I gave them over the last few weeks, and we are behind due to the December holiday. This is the week I focus on things I need to write myself, such as the calendar of events in the back of the magazine (which also requires me to request photos), an article I write each month called “Renee Wants to Know,” the editor’s letter, a nutrition article I haven’t been able to assign and several advertorial profiles of medical professionals for a special advertising section on health and wellness. We also have our monthly staff meeting on Jan. 9 at a local coffee shop, where I’ll distribute the finalized editorial budget to our sales staff so they can make any last minute sales calls.
Week of Jan. 13, 2020. The creative designer takes my final editorial budget, coupled with the final page count from the publisher, and puts together thumbnails of the magazine. I check over the thumbnails on my end to make sure all stories are accounted for in the layout. I will continue writing and editing things assigned to myself in this week. Because we have a special advertising section, I will make revisions on the profiles from the advertisers as they come in and upload them to the Dropbox account we use to share content as they are finalized. I’ll also edit stories as they come in from writers and upload them, as well as request invoices from the writers. As photographers send me their photo galleries for stories, I’ll make a selection of five or six images and upload them to the assigned story folders in Dropbox, which is how our designer gets everything to lay out the magazine. Because of the way the month falls, I will most likely be proofreading the first few drafts of the magazine over the weekend, and sending my edits to our designer to make.
Week of Jan. 20, 2020. We are scheduled to go to the printer Jan. 21. I will be looking at the final proofs of the magazine this week and making sure everything looks good. I also take one last look at the PDFs of pages as the entire book is being uploaded to our printer. During this week I also ask any writers for invoices that I may not have received and submit them to the publisher. This is a good week to file all my e-mails related to this issue and look ahead at my Excel spreadsheet where I keep my departments organized for each issue. My goal will be to have stories for the March issue assigned by Jan. 24.
Week of Jan. 27, 2020. I continue filing e-mails and plugging in any story holes for the March issue and respond to e-mails from writers and PR professionals I may have put on the back burner. I'll also file future story ideas in a folder or into my Excel spreadsheet with the corresponding issue.
Then I'll start the process all over again for the following month.
I hope this post has been helpful for you. I’d also love to hear your observations about this type of cycle and any questions you may have.
Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and magazine editor who also blogs at Finished Pages.
