Anna's Dev Site

Computer and Cat

Now looking for freelance work

I am available for freelance work in any of the following areas:

  • Proofreading or beta reading for any authors
  • One-shot test pass of your website
  • Consulting with you about how to set up a WordPress website, or helping you with questions about the one you have
  • Consulting with you on the technical aspects of self-publishing your novel
  • Turning your completed manuscript and cover art into an ebook you can self-publish

Proofreading and beta reading

For proofreading, my qualifications are that I’m an author myself with five published works, and a very strong command of grammar and spelling.

If you’re a writer with a work in progress, and you want other eyes on your work before you publish it, I can proofread it for you. I’m particularly good at finding words that aren’t misspelled necessarily, but which are not the word you want in a sentence.

I can also beta read for you and give suggestions on any story structure or character questions that might stand out to me. Any beta reading I do would also include copyedit-level changes, not just spelling corrections. Copyediting examples might include “this paragraph would flow better if you rewrote this sentence”, or “you overuse this particular metaphor, I found six examples of it across three chapters, consider varying it up some”.

You can see examples of my published writing on my author site at angelahighland.info, as well as on this dev site. You can also find regularly posted examples of my writing on my gaming blog posts at Anna Plays Skyrim, which should also give you a really good idea of my command of the language.

Tools I have available to do proofreading work are Microsoft Word, Scrivener, and LibreOffice. I can use commenting and revision functionality in all three programs.

Website testing

For website testing: I have been in software QA for over thirty years, and a significant portion of that has included website testing. This includes:

  • Front end UI and back end API testing
  • Testing websites translated into multiple languages
  • Testing across different browsers and operating systems

I am open to doing freelance web testing for anyone putting up a new website or redesigning an old one, and who needs someone to confidence check it for them and make sure everything is working correctly.

I have macOS, Windows, and Linux all available, and a variety of browsers to test on, including Safari, Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome, and Edge. I can also test on an iPhone and an iPad, to doublecheck if your website is responsive and loads well on mobile devices. I do not have current Android devices available to test on, but can arrange to do testing in simulators of such devices if required.

In addition to English, I would also be comfortable testing websites in French, German, or Spanish. And while I am not a fluent speaker of those languages, I do have enough basic reading comprehension of them to catch occasional translation issues. Or, especially with German in particular, any issues with text being truncated in space originally designed for English.

My professional resume, including my history as a QA Engineer and SDET, is available on request for anyone who needs freelance testing.

WordPress consultation

For WordPress consultation, my credentials are that I have set up a variety of WordPress sites all hosted on our home servers, as well as on WordPress.com. Current active examples are:

I can walk you through what you need to do a WordPress install, either self-hosted or on WordPress.com. I can also advise you on how to choose appropriate plugins and themes to accomplish what you want to do on your website.

I am not a web designer, so I cannot design your site for you. But I can advise on how to use WordPress’s site editor. This very dev site, where I am slowly working on adjusting the look and feel of the Twenty Twenty-Three theme using the WordPress site editor, is an example of my ability with that.

If you have a known theme you wish to use on your site, I can also advise you on how to customize that theme to make it better fit your needs. I have done such customizations with the Ashe Pro theme used on Anna Plays Skyrim, and on the Florence theme used on angelahighland.com.

Using any advice from me on using the WordPress site editor or customizing a theme will require basic understanding of CSS, if you wish to do that work yourself. If instead you’d like me to adjust the CSS on your site or theme for you, we’d need to agree on your desired changes so that I can implement them.

Self-publishing consultations

Since I have self-published two novels and a couple of short stories, I am also prepared to offer consultations of the technical aspects of that. This would include:

  • How to create EPUB or other formats of files to sell on appropriate vendors
  • Programs you can consider acquiring to make the creation of such files easier, both paid and free ones
  • Considerations you should have when formatting your work for self-publishing, including what specialists you may need to find if you don’t have the appropriate skills yourself (including but not limited to cover art and interior book design)
  • What ebook vendors I have personally used, and my experiences in dealing with them

Ebook creation

If you are an author with a work that you wish to self-publish in ebook form, and you do not have the skillset, tools, time, or patience to create your own ebooks, I can do that for you. You would need to provide me:

  • A completed manuscript, including all necessary previous edits to make it ready for publication, as well as any front or back matter besides the story itself, such as Author’s Notes, Dedication, author bio, list of other published works, etc.
  • Cover art, including all necessary design of author and title text, as I am not a book designer and cannot do that for you
  • Any formatting requirements, such as specific fonts you want used for body or header text, especially if you want them to match what you have on your cover art

What I can do in terms of ebook creation would involve:

  • Creating an EPUB file (other formats on request, but EPUB is your best bet for selling on ebook vending sites such as Amazon or Draft2Digital)
  • Basic formatting to ensure legibility of all header and body text
  • Testing of created file on devices I have available, including a Kindle Oasis, an iPad, and an iPhone

Rates

Rates on any of the above services are negotiable. But here are some starting points to give you an idea of what I’d look for:

  • Website testing, including a proofread of all content, testing of links, and cross-browser compatibility on multiple browsers, operating systems, and devices: $30 USD per hour
  • WordPress or self-publishing consultation: $25 USD per consult
  • Basic proofreading:
    • Under 10,000 words: $25 USD
    • 10,000 to 50,000 words: $30 USD
    • 50,000 to 100,000 words: $40 USD
    • Over 100,000 words: $50 USD
  • Beta reading, including suggestions on story structure or character development: Add $10 USD to the proofreading rates
  • Ebook creation: $25 USD per hour

For hourly work, I would send you an invoice for hours worked, not to exceed a total of $599 to be billed. This would allow for 24 hours worked at $25 per hour, or 20 hours at $30 per hour. The limit cap on this is so that a client would not have to arrange to send me a 1099-MISC tax form.

How to pay me

If you engage me for any of my freelance services, I can accept payment in USD via PayPal or Venmo.

Some words of caution

I am not interested in engaging with testing websites or assisting with writing work where an AI was involved any point. If an LLM generated your website for you, I do not want to help you test it.

I am interested in helping individuals or small organizations (such as small presses) who have created a website on their own, but just need help with confidence checking it.

If you asked an LLM to spit out 100,000 words for you and are trying to call it a novel, I am not going to help you clean that up, or help you sell it. If you made a graphic in an LLM, I do not want to help you plug that into an ebook as your cover art. If you are not an artist but still need cover art, hire an actual artist to make that art for you.

I will help you if you’ve done your own actual writing. If you’re not confident in your abilities, that’s okay. That’s what proofreading and beta reading are for.

Finally, I will not work with any website or proofread any story that engages in hate speech of any kind. This includes but is not limited to hate speech against women, LGBTQIA+ individuals (especially transgendered persons, given the current political climate), Black people or other people of color, immigrants, disabled people, or anyone you’re mad at just because they’re not the same religion as you.

In short, I lean hard to the left in my politics. If that notion offends you, you should consider looking elsewhere for the kinds of services I can offer.

How to contact and consult with me

Last but not least, if you want to consult with me, I can do via email or Zoom call.

I can be reached via any of the means identified on my Contact page here on this site, to arrange work or to answer questions.

I live in the Pacific time zone, so am best able to consult over Zoom via time frames friendly to US schedules. If you live outside of the US, I am willing to make special scheduling arrangements to talk over Zoom, but email consultation may be better suited for you in that case.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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Angela Korra’ti

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