Why is proofreading so expensive?

HapiSofi

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Take a smallish publishing house with a somewhat egotistical publisher who thinks he is more computer-literate than he is; add to that his certainty that if he drops into any department and make changes he will improve things, and not cause chaos; and then consider what might happen if he thinks that one of his own books (which he acquired for his own publishing house) is ready to go because he's fed up with his editor questioning the potentially libellous statements he's made about the American president.

Consider what might happen in such a situation. But please don't ask me about it, because I still wake up in a panic nearly two decades later.
I can think of too many publishers that might be.

I once worked at a house where I had an entire system in place for hiding books in progress on my computer.

When I first got into New York publishing, I noticed uneasily that when people praised some publisher because "at least he's not a violent sociopath," they weren't entirely kidding. Just mostly kidding. Ha ha.

I was out on the West Coast when the whole Bret Easton Ellis/S&S/American Psycho thing broke. I heard about it at a fairly literary party. "The head of Simon & Schuster has pulled it from their list on the grounds that it's morally objectionable," someone told me.

I was dumbfounded: "Dick Snyder...? thought something was morally objectionable?" Then, brow rapidly clearing: "Oh! He must have gotten someone else to read it for him." Which of course turned out to be the case.

Things are probably worse in Hollywood.
 
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Wilde_at_heart

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According to many economists going by costs of living, if the minimum wage had kept up to what it was 20 years ago, it would be around $20 or so an hour now.

Plus it's tedious work (at least I find it is), requires more skill than even I have to do professionally and there's always a demand for it.

Remember this - plenty of people complain about how expensive books are too and yet we all need to earn a living.
 

Lil

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This thread is a joke, right?

I certainly hope so. I would hate to think that any writer would be so dismissive of the skills and efforts required of a good proofreader to question the pay expected for the job. Has the original poster hired a plumber lately? an auto mechanic? someone to clean the house? or clear the snow out of the driveway?
If you can hire any of those people for less than $50-$100 an hour, let me know.
 

TonyHeld

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My two bits

Since I normally have self-published authors for clients, I have not yet adopted a per-hour or per-word rate because indie authors generally do not have the same deep pockets professional authors do (at least in my experience). Instead, I either charge $1 per page for proofreading or offer a special $165 rate that nets my client a proofread completed in 72 hours. (In fact, right now I am doing one of my 72 proofreads for a client named Julie Kent, whose novels have landed on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.)

I can see why proofreaders who cater to trade-published authors would charge what they do, though. Trade-publishing is a whole different game than self-publishing is, in my opinion.

Update: I have put a limit of 80,000 words on my 72 hour proofreading offer and now charge $200.
 
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Old Hack

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Since I normally have indie authors for clients, I have not yet adopted a per-hour or per-word rate because indie authors generally do not have the same deep pockets professional authors do (at least in my experience). Instead, I either charge $1 per page for proofreading or offer a special $165 rate that nets my client a proofread completed in 72 hours. (In fact, right now I am doing one of my 72 proofreads for a client named Julie Kent, whose novels have landed on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.)

I can see why proofreaders who cater to professional authors would charge what they do, though. Professional publishing is a whole different game than indie is.

Tony, I don't think you mean to disparage self-publishers but by distinguishing between "indie authors" (which is a horrible and inaccurate term) and "professional authors" you imply that self-published writers aren't professional.

What about using "self-published writers" and "trade-published writers" instead? It's more correct (and as a proof-reader I'd guess that you'll appreciate that), it's clearer, and it's more respectful.

Meanwhile I'm reeling at the idea of someone being able to proof-read a full novel in just seventy-two hours; but working at that speed does perhaps explain how you can offer a full proof-read for so low a price. I'd be cross-eyed if I tried to work at that pace.
 

TonyHeld

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Meanwhile I'm reeling at the idea of someone being able to proof-read a full novel in just seventy-two hours; but working at that speed does perhaps explain how you can offer a full proof-read for so low a price. I'd be cross-eyed if I tried to work at that pace.

Old Hack, I went and changed my terminology based on your expert feedback. "Indie" is a term I see used often at KBoards so I thought it was a neutral definition of self-published authors.

However... I am at a loss by why you said you were "reeling" from my 72 hour proofreading offer. I work full-time at proofreading and currently have plenty of open space in my schedule at present. Plus, the book I received to proofread from Julia Kent has already been beta read and edited, so it is a dream to proofread for both mistakes and continuity issues.
 
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Old Hack

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Old Hack, I went and changed my terminology based on your expert feedback. "Indie" is a term I see used often at KBoards so I thought it was a neutral definition of self-published authors.

It's not a neutral definition at all, I'm afraid. If you read the "guidelines" thread in our self publishing room you'll see a lot of information about this.

However... I am at a loss by why you said you were "reeling" from my 72 hour proofreading offer. I work full-time at proofreading and currently have plenty of open space in my schedule at present.

The spaces you have in your schedule aren't the issue.

Proof-reading requires a lot of close concentration to do properly. Reading a full-length book at the level of attention required to proof-read well is hard work, and requires lots of breaks and refocusing.

I'm very surprised that you can work so quickly, that's all.

Plus, the book I received to proofread from Julia Kent has already been beta read and edited, so it is a dream to proofread for both mistakes and continuity issues.

You shouldn't proof-read a book until it has already been edited and copy-edited, so I'm not sure what your point is on this one. And if you're looking for continuity issues then either you're not proof-reading, you're performing a different editing stage but calling it by the wrong name, or you're doing it wrong: by a time a book has gone to galleys it's too late to do anything about the continuity in a book. They should have been picked up in the first editing stage.
 

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I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place. Can anyone recommend a reliable proofreader? My regular proofreader is going through a difficult time right now and I need to find someone in the next week who's available to proofread a 110k romance novel.

If I need to post this somewhere else, please let me know.
Thanks.
 

profen4

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You shouldn't proof-read a book until it has already been edited and copy-edited, so I'm not sure what your point is on this one. And if you're looking for continuity issues then either you're not proof-reading, you're performing a different editing stage but calling it by the wrong name, or you're doing it wrong: by a time a book has gone to galleys it's too late to do anything about the continuity in a book. They should have been picked up in the first editing stage.

I think a lot of people mistakenly use "proof-read" when they mean copy-edit. I find the mistaken usage bothersome too. I never know if they're actually reading a proof and making sure it matches up how it's supposed to, or if they're copy-editing. I think it's because in school teachers are forever telling students to "proof-read your work" before handing it in.
 

Torgo

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I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place. Can anyone recommend a reliable proofreader? My regular proofreader is going through a difficult time right now and I need to find someone in the next week who's available to proofread a 110k romance novel.

If I need to post this somewhere else, please let me know.
Thanks.

You might wish to look here: http://www.sfep.org.uk/directory/directory.asp

110K is going to come out a bit steep at industry minimum rates - £750 minimum, I'd say.
 

aus10phile

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Grammar and punctuation rules are vastly different in fiction versus non-fiction.

What would be an example of how they are different? I'm imagining dialogue being an obvious case, as well as breaking rules for artistic liberty or establishing voice...is it more than that?

I have done copyediting for nonfiction, but never for fiction, so I'm just curious. Rest assured, I have no intention of passing myself off as a professional fiction copyeditor. :)
 

AbielleRose

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What would be an example of how they are different? I'm imagining dialogue being an obvious case, as well as breaking rules for artistic liberty or establishing voice...is it more than that?

I have done copyediting for nonfiction, but never for fiction, so I'm just curious. Rest assured, I have no intention of passing myself off as a professional fiction copyeditor. :)

I'm a proofreader/editor/transcriptionist/formatting queen/yadda yadda yadda... for one of the largest law firms out there at the moment. The most important thing to remember is that you want your fiction reader to be in character. Words may be spelled to dictate an accent or your character may go on a rant so there can be more wiggle room. The best example that comes to mind is Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

With the kinds of legal documents I work on the lawyers may, after 40 pages, decide to use the Oxford comma so I need to make the decision of whether to delete the Oxford comma going forward or change the first 40 pages to reflect it. There are also AWFUL paragraph long sentences as they cram multiple "this, that, and this" situations into one big thought separated only by ; or :... which is okay to do in these papers. The other biggy some people don't think about is random spaces. After every sentence is there one space or two spaces? Are all the quotes consistently curly or straight? Sure we can all figure out the your/you're thing, but how about affect/effect or council/counsel?

Again, I do proofreading professionally for legal paperwork, not fiction, but proofreading requires more than just knowledge of spelling and grammar. You need a good memory because if you have a 150 page document you can't zone out for one single sentence because you have to keep the entire document consistent. It is not as easy as it sounds. If you're not committed to it then your client isn't getting what they're paying for regardless of the end $ amount. If I sent a wonky document back to a lawyer who isn't great at writing and my job was done poorly, that guy looks like the idiot. The court sees it, his client sees it and he has the potential to lose respect for his quality of job done (not to mention potential future clients) because of me. The same would go for readers of their author. There are certain rules with the sort of proofreading I do. If a number is 9 or under you have to spell it out- nine. I also do projects in both American English and British English (whole other can of worms... darn Brits and their extra "u"'s!) (Just kidding, I love Brits.) Anyways, I'm rambling now. My main point is that if you want someone to proofread your work, you get more than a breathing Spell Check machine. Even highly educated lawyers have entire offices full of outsourced experts trained in this particular skill. I have to take 2 classes and pass 2 tests a year to keep up my certification in proofreading.
 
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Old Hack

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AbielleRose, that image is vast. It's 620 x 465 pixels, and AW has a maximum size allowed of 400 x 400. Can you reduce it, please?