Author Ink Blog

I work from the shed.

There, I said it. It's out there. Phew!

It's not that I've ever made a secret of the fact that I work from the shed; if a customer asks, or maybe we're just chatting, I'm always happy to say where and how I work - but I've never really thought about it as a unique selling point. 

My light bulb moment...

This changed very recently, when I went along to a social media workshop (given by the rather brilliant Pop Social in a rather brilliant kitchen). Whilst there, I broached the challenge of finding my 'voice' on social media. Who and what is Author Ink Limited? What do I want to say?

This is something that I'd been giving a lot of thought - like the builder whose own house is falling down or the gardener with a lawn that's been neglected for years - I can do a great job helping customers express themselves on blogs and social media, but my own feeds lay like tumbleweed, occasionally catching the breeze.

Anyway, somebody at the workshop asked me a simple question: 

"What's different about Author Ink?"

I thought for a second and then said the first thing that came into my head: 

"Author Ink is just me working from a shed in the garden, usually with a cat overseeing the process."

Everybody leapt on this instantly - "That's It!" They said. "That's your voice!"

And of course they were right. My voice - my unique(ish) selling point - is my shed. Totally obvious when you think about it. 

OK, not literally the shed. But the fact is that Author Ink is only me; there are no officlal offices or people to delegate things to (when did you last try to get a cat to do anything on demand...?), but there is a very good, very professional technical writer who just happens to do things a bit differently. I think that's worth talking about. 

There are some truly brilliant technical writers out there who can reverse engineer Robohelp in their sleep; wax lyrical about advanced macros for Microsoft Word; explain the difference between a diphthong or a digraph in a nano second - they all have their niche and I for one love hearing and reading about that stuff. But now it seems I might have a little niche of my own. I've got technical writing in the shed.

So, back to that shed...

When is a shed not a shed? If anyone were to get really accurate/pedantic about it, I'm not entirely sure that 'the shed' actually qualifies as a shed because it's made of stone. Truth be told, it's an old wash house complete with copper (the washing kind - not a sitting tenant policeman) and its own chimney - but with a new roof, big glass doors and LOTS of white paint, it makes for a lovely place to work:

Being stone, it's gloriously cool in this current heatwave (hoorah!) and keeps the heat in winter. On the downside, I've seen some doozey spiders - horror film scale spiders - but other than that I'd have to think long and hard about any real negatives.

Do I miss working in a glossy office? Sometimes, yes. Not so much the office gloss, but the people and the buzz and the camaraderie when you're working late for a seemingly impossible deadline and someone turns up with pizza and some rubbish jokes. Sometimes I miss that.

But right now, working from home has some amazing advantages and I love it - that's why you're likely to hear me banging on about it a bit more as I try to breathe new life into this blog and my social media feeds...

Endnote

Author Ink has had a makeover!

How apt that the sun has finally seen fit to shine on the day that my shiny new website has quietly propagated out into the ether and into a brave new world. A world that is full of Zen shades of blue rather than the bold (some might say brash) orange that went before. 

Amidst all of the excitement, I confess to saying farewell to the old designs with just a tinge of sadness; we've been together for four years so I won't apologise for just a little bit of sentimentality! Wrapped up in all of that orange was the start of Author Ink Limited - my first logo, my first website...my first clients. It was a new start for me then and now this feels like the next chapter. 

The re-branding is thanks to Agent8 Design in Petersfield whilst the website is courtesy of Digital Forest, based in Farnham. I have to say a big 'Thank you' to both for such great ideas and their endless patience.