What is a reasonable fee for copy editing?

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iwannabepublished

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I am almost finished with my 95,000 word science fiction story. I'd like to have someone copy edit the story. I think I understand what this term means - more of a mechanical edit like grammar, punctuation and general discovery of plot, flow and character development issues. I found one editor (Windy Hills Editing) that offered to do the work for $150. Is this ridiculously low or fair for what I'm asking? I don't want to be led by my pocketbook but I do have a limited budget.
 

Kerosene

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You get what you pay for with editors. To what I know, $150 is ludicrously cheap--probably in the worse way. Copy editing is typically done by hour, and I've seen rates between $1000-4000 for novels.

If you don't have the money to invest in an editor, you can do it yourself.
 
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Maryn

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I second the idea that with edits, you get what you pay for. I know multiple people online who paid in the low thousands for someone who was utterly incompetent and inserted errors while overlooking the writer's mistakes.

When you hire someone, you want to do a thorough check on their qualifications and contact previous clients if possible.

Whether you want developmental or line editing also affects costs. Check out the common editorial rates at the Editorial Freelance Association.

Maryn
 

thothguard51

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As to the rate of $150. If you have to ask then you have not done your research and more than likely are not ready to even discuss editing with a freelance editor. Do your research about editing.

I might also add that the Cooler has a dozen or so threads about editing and rates. Pull some of those up and you will get an idea of what some members have paid and what some members regret paying...

Good luck.
 

Little Ming

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I am almost finished with my 95,000 word science fiction story. I'd like to have someone copy edit the story. I think I understand what this term means - more of a mechanical edit like grammar, punctuation and general discovery of plot, flow and character development issues. I found one editor (Windy Hills Editing) that offered to do the work for $150. Is this ridiculously low or fair for what I'm asking? I don't want to be led by my pocketbook but I do have a limited budget.

Do you mean this Windy Hills Editing?

From their page:

Innocent, twenty-four year old Emily Bronwyn is thrown into the world of Rock N Roll. When her best friend Stacy calls upon her to help him co-manage Stricken’s, music tour. It doesn't take long for her to bump heads with the hottest rock star on the planet. Stricken’s lead singer Johnathan Striker who’s most famous for being a womanizing male whore. But what he doesn't realize is, he’s just met his match. When Emily refuses to tolerate his mouthy antics or bed him. Even though it’s hard to resist the charms of such a handsome and infuriating man.
I think $150 is overpaying.
 

Old Hack

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I just looked at that website. I am BOGGLING that they're charging money for any sort of editing. Wowsers.
 

Literateparakeet

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iwannabepublished, run, don't walk away from Windy Hills Editing.

I think the hardest thing about self-publishing is finding the right editors. In my experience, the ideal is to have more than one person edit and proofread your manuscript. One certain advantage of trade publishing is that they take care of this part for you. There are different kinds of editing, and they are all important. Being your own editor is about as wise as being your own lawyer. I agree that good editing costs around $1,000-$4,000 for a novel.

Good luck!
 
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Torgo

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God give me strength. I mean, I'm lost for words.

The Society For Editors and Proofreaders recommends a minimum hourly rate for professional copyediting of £25.70 per hour. Let's say your novel is 85,000 words. Hell, let's say it's 200,000 words. How long would it take you to pore over every sentence, checking spelling, grammar, usage, consistency, style, marking the MS up, querying, making suggestions for revision?

Would it take you three hours? Because that's what Windy Hills' $140 fee implies, at the kind of rate a professional would charge. Anything less than a professional-quality copyedit, and you're looking at a finished product that will reliably be riddled with errors at a level detectable by the casual reader.

This is axiomatic: if you have a casual, amateur copyed, the casual, amateur reader will be irked by the copyediting. Because they're the same person standing on different sides of your manuscript, and only one is getting paid, and there's a certain moral inequivalence, no? I casually read a poorly-copyedited novel and it's so irritating I feel like the money ought to be flowing towards me.

If you can't justify the expense of a professional copyed, which is hefty and which the average self-published novel will struggle to recoup; if you can't, rather than paying money to this kind of operation, whose web page reveals less than even a nodding acquaintance with the Muse of Language, do the work yourself. It won't be perfect, no, but it'll be free.
 

Gillhoughly

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Run. This alone set off my warning bells (that and using "towards" instead of "toward"):

"I spend a great deal of time every day reading - and therefore figured that I might as well make a living from doing what I love, and therefore the creation of Windy Hills Editing Services came about."
I'm a professional editor and believe me when I say this person has NO PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER.

I drive my car all over the place. I'm a very GOOD driver. But I don't know jack about how to change the oil or do a tune up. That's what's going on here with this Twinkie--who ends her sales pitch sentence with a preposition?? Oi vey.

If she had anything solid for a resume, she'd mention where she worked in the publishing industry and mention the pro authors she's edited. A string of self-pub titles is like saying, "My Mom says I'm a hard worker!" :roll:

Run. She's sincere, but wholly NOT qualified.

Or contact me via PM and I'll put you on to a friend of mine who does have solid experience and reasonable rates. When I need a copy editor I go to her. She may be open to accepting time payments, but that's for me, maybe not for new people. I've known her for more than 20 years and there's not a typo, dangling participle or passive verb she can't hunt down and delete.

But before you stampede into paying for a copy edit
, I recommend you have a beta reader go over it, or at least post the first chapter here on AW. However hard you've worked on your book, it may still need another rewrite before it's ready to shop to publishers or agents. I thought my first book was ready but 25 rejections told me different! (I did 26 rewrites, and that finally worked.)

Feedback from other writers made all the difference!

Here's a professional site: http://www.the-efa.org/

And their rates: http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php
 
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T Robinson

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Save your money

Seconding what Gillhoughly said. Note the rates at the EFA. Dirt cheap for yours would probably be a minimum of $1000. My spouse is an EFA member and the rates are pretty accurate.

Has your work been beta read yet? My favorite genre is science fiction. PM if you want a quick read and I will give you an honest opinion.

You should never contract with a paid editor till you have done everything you can to perfect it. That saves you money and saves them time. For what it is worth (duplicated in other threads):

1. Have at least a free sample edit of a few pages. This allows the editor to judge the scope of what your work needs. It allows you to see if you can work with the editor.
2. Have a contract. Trust me on this. Have a contract specifying what will be done, including definitions, when it will be done and when and how much you pay for it.
3. Everyone has different definitions for various types of editing. Make sure what you think is the same thing as what he/she thinks.
4. Make sure you have a feedback channel set up with ways for you to contact each other.
5. There are many other things that are good to know, but you will find them in many threads here.

HTH, Good Luck
 
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iwannabepublished

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From all the replies my post received, it's clear to me that $150 will not buy me much. Thank you all. By the way, I know my work is far from ready for submission to an agent or even self-publishing. Every time I go through my story (at least 7 times now) I find more dumb and sometimes really dumb errors. I'll take the advice of continuing to work on the story myself, at least until I can't find any more errors myself. The responses have been most helpful and enlightening, at least in terms of what a 'good' copy-edit should cost.
 

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From all the replies my post received, it's clear to me that $150 will not buy me much. Thank you all.

You're welcome.

So many people set up shop as editors without having the ability, the experience, or the understanding to do the job properly.

If in the future you do decide to pay someone for editing work, make sure they have worked at good publishers, and/or that they have edited successful books.

By the way, I know my work is far from ready for submission to an agent or even self-publishing. Every time I go through my story (at least 7 times now) I find more dumb and sometimes really dumb errors. I'll take the advice of continuing to work on the story myself, at least until I can't find any more errors myself. The responses have been most helpful and enlightening, at least in terms of what a 'good' copy-edit should cost.

Have you put a section of your work up in AW's SYW rooms? If you do that and listen to what's said about it, you'll be amazed how much you could learn from the experience.
 

cmhbob

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PM me and I'll point you to my editor. She charged me $870 US for editing my 87,100 word novel, including "stylistic edits, medium copy editing, and proofreading."
 

Calla Lily

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:Jaw:
How does she eat and pay the rent?

I charge by the page because I prefer it that way, but I always do a sample chapter first at no charge, to make sure our styles will mesh and to see what kind of shape the book is in. If the book is in dire need, the per-page charge is higher than if the book is tight.
 

Old Hack

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PM me and I'll point you to my editor. She charged me $870 US for editing my 87,100 word novel, including "stylistic edits, medium copy editing, and proofreading."

I hope she doesn't try to do all those things in a single pass.
 

Jamesaritchie

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If that place is asking $150, you'd be overpaying by about $300.
 

shelleyo

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Do you mean this Windy Hills Editing?

From their page:

Innocent, twenty-four year old Emily Bronwyn is thrown into the world of Rock N Roll. When her best friend Stacy calls upon her to help him co-manage Stricken’s, music tour. It doesn't take long for her to bump heads with the hottest rock star on the planet. Stricken’s lead singer Johnathan Striker who’s most famous for being a womanizing male whore. But what he doesn't realize is, he’s just met his match. When Emily refuses to tolerate his mouthy antics or bed him. Even though it’s hard to resist the charms of such a handsome and infuriating man.

I think $150 is overpaying.

That's an abomination. I want so badly to see the first draft.

I think they're charging $150 to search for typos and are calling that copy-editing. Please don't let them be taking serviceable prose and breaking up sentences for impact. Lord.

ETA: Those books aren't actually books she edited. They're just reviews. The blurbs are taken from Amazon, so that was probably a copy and paste. That book now boasts being re-edited, and the blurb has undergone an overhaul, too. So the editor didn't write that mess, to be fair.

However, there are only two testimonials on that page, and only one has a book that I can find. Behind Blue Eyes. ]Windy Hills Editing did edit, or at least charge for editing, that book. By the end of sentence one, it's obvious no copy-editing went on there. The rest of that paragraph and paragraph two, and it's obvious that not even basic proofreading with any level of skill occurred. Proofreading on the level of obvious typos, maybe, and that's generous.

It grinds me to see people charge for editing when they don't have a clue what they're doing.

OP, if your budget really is only $150, you're not going to get your book copy-edited. You can save up for the service from someone qualified, or you can pay someone to go through your first chapter or two for much less. This isn't a fraction as good as getting copy-editing, but it can be helpful. It can be especially good for new writers or anyone who hasn't worked with an editor to see the kinds of things that keep cropping up. It can help make you aware of the weaknesses in your writing, so you can work to eliminate those from the rest of the book. Get Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. Take your time and do the best job you can. This will serve you far better than paying a small amount of money to someone without a clue.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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Someone actually qualified to do the job you want done is going to charge somewhere around $1,000, give or take a couple of hundred either way, depending on exactly what you want. And this is definitely not too much.
 

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If you want genuine editing, I'd look for someone with professional experience as an editor at a trade / commercial press.

And I'd ask for references, and a sample edit on five pages, at least.
 

CrastersBabies

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A great place to start is working "in trade." I have friends who beta read for me (and point out some gramma/structural issues). I read for them. We exchange.

The trick is finding someone who "gets" your work and can help you discover items that need attention.
 

iwannabepublished

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A great place to start is working "in trade." I have friends who beta read for me (and point out some gramma/structural issues). I read for them. We exchange.

The trick is finding someone who "gets" your work and can help you discover items that need attention.

Yeah, I'm working with two beta readers, but still feel a professional will do better with the copy editing. Everyone seems to miss a comma here or there or an extra 'that' that isn't necessary.

Aside from all the great responses I've gotten to my original post, I have luckily gotten a few PM's from people offering to edit my work - at various rates. I'm in the process of reviewing some samples right now.
 

RedRose

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I'm looking for a copy editor. I have done lots of research, found one I thought would be perfect with credentials, BUT this editor inserted so many errors it wasn't funny. I critique a lot of people's work, so I picked up on all of them. She added 'only' and 'just' many times over four pages. She changed my voice. I want someone who knows what they're doing, and when they send back a sample, I will know it when I read it because that's something you can't hide when you know what you're looking at.
 

jae_s1978

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Always insist on a sample edit (any professional editor will offer it anyway) and have it looked at by someone who is qualified to evaluate the work of your editor
 
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