HubPro Questions Answered

We recently ran a survey asking the 16% of Hubbers who opted out about why they chose not to participate in HubPro, our free editing service. These Hubbers have concerns about HubPro; we hear you! We want to address the big fears and also clear up some of the misinformation surrounding the program. Ultimately, HubPro is intended to help both individual Hubbers and the HubPages community as a whole by raising the quality of the Hubs that have the most impact on our readers. The survey asked Hubbers to choose the following statements that addressed their concerns:

HubPages hasn’t sold me on the benefits of the program.

There are two major goals of HubPro: to fix up the Hubs that are seen by the most readers in order to improve the overall reader experience on HubPages right now, and to improve the reputation of the site over the long-term by making sure all of our most frequently viewed Hubs are our most beautiful and helpful. In other words, each Hub that gets a makeover is helping both that Hubber and the HubPages community as a whole. But how do we know we’re really making Hubs better? Take a look at the data:

Displayed above is a chart that shows the reader satisfaction for HubPro Hubs before and after editing. We measure reader satisfaction with a metric similar to NPS (or Net Promoter Score). We ask readers to rate the Hub from 1-10 based on their level of satisfaction. The NPS is found by subtracting the percent Detractors (people who rated the Hub a 6 or less, shown above in red) from the percent Promoters (people who rated the Hub a 9 or 10, shown above in green). As you can see, edited Hubs have about the same number of Passives (people who rated the Hub a 7 or 8, shown above in yellow), but significantly more Promoters and significantly less Detractors, meaning more readers are satisfied with the Hub in general, and less are having a bad experience. Moving the score from 8 to 25 is a huge improvement!

I’m worried that I won’t be told before my Hubs are edited and that I won’t be able to talk to my Editor.

Communication is a very important part of the editing process. If your Hubs are eligible, you will receive an email notification one week before editing begins; plus, there will be a notice in your My Account Page. You will receive a second email on the day that your Editor is scheduled to begin working on your Hubs. The second email introduces your editor and lists the Hub(s) that he or she will be editing.

Once you have received the second email notice, you are encouraged to email your editor directly and let him or her know how involved you would like to be in the process. If you’d prefer not to be bothered, you don’t need to email—we’ll take care of everything for you. If, however, you have concerns that you would like to discuss with your Editor, don’t hesitate to write a note.

I’m afraid the Editor won’t respect my voice as a writer; I’ve heard about some bad experiences like this in the Forums.

Our Editors are primarily concerned with spelling, grammar, formatting, and factual accuracy. They work as hard as possible to maintain the tone and style of the original work.

It’s true that a very small number of Hubbers were not happy with their edits, but it’s also important to keep in mind that our feedback from Hubbers who have been part of the program so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Asking to be kept up to date with the changes your Editor is making can go a long way to make your experience a good one too; the Editors are professionals and want to work with you, not against you.

I’m concerned about the changes going live before I have the chance to look them over.

It’s true that you won’t be able to edit your Hubs for about one week on average while a HubPro Editor is working on them (simply because the HubTool is not built to accommodate more than one user at a time and we don’t want to risk losing any of your Hub’s content), and that the changes to your Hub will go live automatically as the Editor makes them. However, your Hubs will remain published throughout (meaning you will continue to earn from them), and the Editors are careful to always leave your Hubs in a presentable state.

Additionally, you are free to revert any changes you aren’t happy with when the process is over (you’ll be provided with before and after versions of your Hub for comparison), and through close communication with your Editor, you can retain a lot of control over the types of edits that are made and the information that is edited. If you ask, your Editor will be happy to explain the changes made to your text and check with you first for approval before adding content or making factual corrections.

I don’t trust the Editors. What are their qualifications?

Our HubPro Editors are all highly qualified with postgraduate degrees and extensive professional editing experience. We chose the best of the best from a very large pool of candidates, and we think you’ll be impressed with them too. That’s why we’ve decided to start a new HubPages Blog series introducing each of the Editors and taking a more in-depth look at their qualifications starting next week. Stay tuned to meet them! You won’t be disappointed. 🙂