More than an editor.
A one-man production crew.
Audience growth often hinges on visual appeal as much as anything else. Rich Smith can work wonders for you in that regard. His strong eye for page design gives you dramatic, impressive, impactful publications, endowing your project with the extra edge that spells success.
As well, Rich Smith's superb copy editing and proofreading processes maximize clarity—and optimize the power of your project to inform or persuade. Proper organization, no misspelled words, no weirdly disjointed sentences, no eye-glazing paragraphs and no untamed, incoherent pages, whether for print or the Web.
COMPETENCIES:
Able to quickly, comprehensively assess editorial content for grammatical correctness, readability and information accessibility • Graceful handler of contributing writers who need guidance or mentoring, of skitish advertisers or sponsors who need hand-holding or special accommodation, and of production-side vendors who encounter glitches small or large • Fast assembler of editorial strategies, calendars, budgets, story ideas, story sources, production timelines, in-house stylebooks • Extensive familiarity with print and Web production, including use of Photoshop, QuarkXpress, Dreamweaver • Adept at discovering online search trends so that web content can best be made to conform to them (SEO optimization)
SAMPLES:
"Houston Blockshopper redesign." Demonstration project. This market-specific real-estate circular when it landed on my desk was a jumble of text and images. Only by working hard could readers find the information they wanted, and harder still to learn the name of the publication (since it lacked even a proper masthead). So, I took out my trusty broom and cleaned house by giving the page a sleek look and revising its content formulation to make information much more accessible and reader-friendly. SEE IT HERE>>>
"Western Canvas Products Association." Writer-editor, page-designer, publisher. I performed all tasks involved in the creation and production of an annual 88-page news digest for this nonprofit trade group. Content consisted of a mix of industry reports and personality/company profiles. I used Photoshop and Quark software to create the print-ready pages. The ability to set and adhere to tight deadlines was paramount. SEE IT HERE>>>
"McGraw-Hill Dodge Construction News." Editor. In the Los Angeles regional market, Dodge is a trade paper providing builders advance word about projects to be let for bid. During my tenure, it featured a special-section insert produced multiple times annually to profile a selected major contractor or to showcase a single major project and the many contractors who helped build it. My role was to develop story ideas, write some articles and edit those contributed by others, shoot and edit photos, layout the pages and coordinate with the production department and advertiser reps. SEE IT HERE>>>
AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Healthcare/medicine/biotech • Business • Politics • Legislative-judicial processes • Lifestyle • Entertainment • Education
BACKGROUND: Rich Smith put pen to paper as a professional for the first time soon after graduating magna cum laude from the journalism school at California State University, Long Beach. He is currently enrolled as a second-year law student at Concord School of Law, Los Angeles, and is a past-president of the Independent Writers of Southern California.
