I just got an email from a friend of a friend asking if I would edit her book.
It’s not a normal editing job, it appears, since the person specifies that it’s already been edited and the publisher is now allowing for “up to fifty corrections” before final submission.
She wants to know how much I want to charge. I have no idea. How much should I charge?
-Kris
Is the book already typeset, then? Anyway, as of about ten years ago, when I did that sort of thing freelance, I was paid $13/hour.
Unsolicited advice: Since this isn’t someone you know directly, I’d definitely draw up a written agreement, with payment terms and a deadline, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings between you.
If I charge per hour, what’s the typical method people use to document the hours worked?
I’ve never worked with a freelance proofreader* that was paid by the hour. It’s usually by the page.
It’s been quite a while since I hired proofreaders or copyeditors, but I used to pay a couple of bucks ($US) per page, depending on the person.
The going rate in my neck of the woods is about $3.50 to $4.00 a page for a standard copyedit, or 30 dollars an hour (whichever is most cost effective for the freelancer). You’re doing a much lighter edit/proofread, so I’d base it on maybe $2.50 a page, since you’re a friend as well.
My company’s top earning freelance copyeditor is making 4.10 a page right now, and that’s for heavy copyediting.
Well, I figured that’s a kind of editing. Sorry!
Fifteen years ago I charged $20/hour as an approved (by the university in question) dissertation editor. That was the going rate, but then I also had to pass a test on the university style rules to be approved.
By the way, how do you measure a page? In other words, how much is a “page”?
Never mind. 250 words, I see.
Is it fiction or nonfiction? Last time I checked, fiction was going for 1.5 cents per word. It’s been about three years since I checked.
It’s non-fiction. She called it a “thesis.”
I sent her an offer to do it for a penny a word.
No need to apologize. They’re very different jobs, though.
An editor might say, leave out chapter 12, or make that character female, or explain this section better.
A copyeditor might say, you misspelled “ubiquitous,” or you missed a comma, or you should use “me” instead of “I” in this sentence.
For my last significant nonfiction book, I had an editor, a proofreader, a copyeditor, a fact-checker, and a cover designer. I talked them into paying me to do the layout and the indexing, though. It had a bunch of charts and tables and illustrations, so it was easier to do the layout as I went–and I just don’t trust someone else to index my books.
One big variable is the experience/education you have. Why has she recruited you to be her editor? Are you a subject matter expert, or do you have prior experience editing?
For me, it depends upon the scope of work.
• For smaller jobs, like resumes, web articles, employee manuals, brochures, newsletters, that sort of thing, I charge $40 per hour, give or take $10 depending on what shape the raw material is in when it’s turned over to me. Something that’s full of sentence fragments and typos – that I would have to do a lot of re-writing – I would jack that up. Something that’s fairly clean and I’m being asked to proofread for typos only, I would discount that quote significantly.
• For larger jobs like dissertations, book drafts, anything with an index, footnotes or bibilography (references I have to check), I take a look at the length of the document, edit one page and base the per-page quote on how long it took me to finish one page.
I don’t want to find myself working for $0.30 an hour fact-checking a 250-page dissertation, but I also don’t want to rip people off for $50 an hour if it took me ten minutes to proofread a single page.
Upon preview, it appears I might be a tad expensive, but I also might be right in line with market value for editors. There is no single flat rate or fee; just base your quotes on the depth of editing that is expected. Just outline what services you are willing and able to perform and get a very clear understanding from the client about what they expect you to do. If you want to do your own indexing, I’ll adjust my rates down accordingly. If I have to check every single citation, footnote, bibliography, and page number reference, that’s a lot more time so I adjust my rates up accordingly.
I find it impossible to quote without having a very clear idea of the material I’m about to work with.