Within my various editing groups, there seems to be a common complaint among editors, and it revolves around the issue of appropriate rates to charge. We editors seem to be in this "damned if we do, damned if we don't" position.
Most of us encounter those who look at our quoted rates and balk at the price — but as one said to me the other day, it's not necessarily the people we think either. (She sent out two quotes the week before, with the same rate quoted: one to a lawyer and the other to a retired gentleman. It was the lawyer who complained about the cost. The retired gentleman smiled as he paid the bill.) The flip side of this coin is that some look at our rates and compare it to the rates offered by others, and go, "Oh, you mustn't be very good. You're not charging anywhere near enough for what you say you do."
What are we editors to do?
Most of us encounter the former type of writer more than anything. Let's face it, there's this inherent nature that people have to be stingy with their finances, complaining that they can't get something for free. There's not a lot I can do about the second category, but with the first, I can educate writers about what it is they really face when working with freelance editors.
In a previous blog post, I complained about the ludicrous expectations that same writers had, wanting editors to edit their entire manuscripts for $10. (It wasn't an exaggeration, though I wish it was.) In that post, I broke the costs of hiring an editor down based on the time it takes to edit. Today, I want to do something similar, but I want to shift the focus from the idiotic budgets that some have set on freelancing sites to the minimum wage and recommended rates from editors' associations.
Factors that Impact on Editors' Rates
There are many factors that directly impact on the rates that an editor charges. Life is actually the biggest one. As the cost of living goes up, the rates an editor charges will also go up. We have bills to pay, just like everyone else. For many of us, our editorial work is our only stream of income.
However, other factors that will impact the editorial rates include:
- the type of editing sought (e.g., manuscript assessments, substantive line editing, copyediting, proofreading);
- length of your manuscript and its genre;
- the experience and qualifications of the editor;
- their availability;
- and the lead time (i.e., you want that manuscript back in a few days, expect to pay through the nose).
But putting together an editing budget is not an easy task. It doesn't help that there is such a wide range of editing charges out there, with some charging as little as $500 for a full manuscript to others charging well in excess of $5000 for the exact same manuscript.
To help put this into a little perspective, let's construct an example for editing time and look at this using the minimum wage numbers.
Reading Time (Because It Takes Time to Actually Read a Manuscript)
(Please be advised that the time calculations provided here are a rough guide based on my own experience. Other editors will work to different time schedules. We all read at different speeds.)
Let's consider an 80,000-word manuscript. This is a respectable length, sitting at 320 pages (assuming 250 words per page). That's a decent size book — happily an inch thick in printed form.
If I was to give that manuscript a single read through at casual reading speeds (i.e., with no eye to actually edit it, just enjoy the story), that manuscript will take me 3 to 4 days to read through it. This is assuming that I was really enjoying the story and was flying through it. If that story doesn't grab me, my reading speed does drop significantly, and reading time goes up. This is also assumes that life doesn't get in the way and I have nothing else that I need to do. I'm talking about doing nothing but reading for 8 hours a day.
(Oh, that would be nice, to be able to do nothing but reading the latest books all day. Sadly, life doesn't work like that.)
The moment I put on my editor's hat, reading something with that careful eye, looking for the holes that need to be filled, my reading time easily doubles, often triples. As such, that 3 to 4 days easily becomes 6 to 12 days. This is still only a single read through. Most editors will read through a manuscript multiple times. For me, it will depend on whether I'm performing substantive edits (which often requires three passes) or if it's for a manuscript assessment/critique (for which I can get away with a single read).
To write an editorial report, translating my notes into something that actually makes sense to another person, I always allow a minimum of 2 days: one to actually write the report and the second to edit that report (because a professional editor should never send a client a report that hasn't been edited).
So, for a single read through on a 80,000-word manuscript, providing only a critique with an editorial report, we're looking at a minimum of 8 to 14 days, not accounting for weekends or life! Based on an 8-hour day, that's 64 to 112 hours.
This is just the reading time, people. This is a basic, low-level pass of developmental editing. This is the cheapest way that I'll work. Even then, I often give manuscripts a secondary read as I'm writing my reports, pulling examples directly from the manuscript. The time for that secondary read hasn't even played a role in this calculation.
(Be advised that in practice, I always quote a minimum of 4 weeks turnaround on a manuscript of 80,000 to 100,000 words. Life always gets in the way.)
The Minimum Wage Calculation
Okay, so we're looking at 64 to 112 hours minimum for this hypothetical 80,000-word manuscript. If an editor was to work for the minimum federal wage in the US (which at the time of this post was $7.25 per hour), then the minimum charge would be $464 to $812.
Let's start by saying that editors never work for minimum wage (although sometimes it feels like we working for less than minimum wage, but that's a different issue). There are people out there who even complain about those numbers. So, let's shock a few people into reality.
I'm in New Zealand, so the minimum wage is different again. Effective April 2022, the minimum wage within New Zealand will be NZD$21.20 an hour. (Based on the current exchange rate, that equates to USD$14.25 per hour.) As such, that same reading/editing time would cost NZD$1,356.80 to NZD$2,374.40. I'll let you convert that to other currencies if you want to.
Now for the real shock (and it even shocked me the first time I did these calculations). The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), which is the main association for freelance editors in the US, recommends that editors charge a minimum of USD$46 per hour for developmental editing and manuscript assessments. Based on that rate, then the same 64 to 112 hours contract would be $2,944 to $5,152.
*Blink Blink* $5000 USD? You have no idea how much this number shocked the hell out of me when I first saw it. There is no way I would ever get a client to agree to pay me that much for just a manuscript assessment. Sure, it would be nice, but what? Even $3,000 USD for just a manuscript assessment seems totally over the top to me. But this is what one of the leading organisations in the world is recommending that editors charge.
This discrepancy within the recommended rates to what actually seems reasonable for the job at hand is the root of the issue. So many writers are of the viewpoint that it should be cheap and affordable. Editors agree, but we also need to pay our bills.
Good Editors Cost Money
People, I get it. I totally understand. Writers are starving, struggling to find the pennies to pay for their caffeine fix without raiding the kid's piggy bank. But for editors, this is our livelihood.
All freelance editors that I know are trying to be reasonable with our rates. We deliberately price ourselves at levels that we believe are affordable, hopefully attracting the kind of client that we would love to work with. Trust me, behind the scenes, we agonize constantly about our rates. Are we charging too much? Are we not charging enough? We might be getting the clients, but we're struggling to pay the bills, so we up our rates, only to agonize more.
When we encounter a client that is deliberately (or maybe unintentionally) trying to negotiate our rates down, swindling us out of our hard earned cash, it only makes us irritated and agonize more. When clients don't pay their bills, because they suddenly can't afford what they knew was coming their way, it makes us angry, because we can't pay our bills either.
I get it. Trust me. I'm a writer too, and have been in your position looking at the quotes from the editors, wondering where that money is going to come from. But please, dear writer, I beg you. Do your homework before you contact an editor. Do not delude yourself as to the cost involved. Just based on the minimum wage calculations, editors are doing what they can to be affordable, but survive.
The work we editors do takes time, and our time possesses worth.