When to Raise Rates for Book Editors
Let’s talk about when to raise rates for book editors. How do you know when it’s the right time? I have a few tips for this.
Is it Time to Raise Your Rates?
It’s common for freelancers to get stuck on a low-paying treadmill. They take a few poorly paying gigs to get some experience but once they have that experience they keep on working those low-paying gigs.
That’s not just depressing, it’s hard, hard work.
The Calculation: When to Raise Rates for Book Editors
Suppose you want to earn $60,000 this year (this is low income where I live but it’s a reasonable number for a newer editor to shoot for). If you charge $600 per project, each year you need to do 100 projects. If you’re a freelance editor who works with indie author clients, this often means finding 100 clients, as most indie authors don’t write more than one or two books a year. So you have to find those 100 clients and you have to edit those 100 projects, and you just cannot possibly have the time to do good work or have the bandwidth to find better clients.
I’m using a ridiculously low fee here to illustrate the point, but I also know there are editors that charge this rate to edit a full-length novel.
Frankly, I’m too lazy to work that hard for so little money. Be lazy, too, and you’ll wind up with a fatter bank account.
A 20% increase to $720 = 82 projects per year or about 1.5 per week. For editors working with indie authors, that means finding about 6 clients and doing 6 projects per month month versus finding 8 clients per month and doing 8 projects per month.
That’s still a ridiculous number of projects and clients but it is much more doable.
Even if you lose some clients by raising your rates, it doesn’t matter because you don’t need as many clients to sustain yourself.
Tips for Editors & Writers
Focusing on the Big Picture
One of the first things I teach newer developmental/story editors is to focus on the big picture. That means looking for problems with a novel manuscript’s plot, character development, and setting. It means noticing perspective/point-of-view problems, flabby scenes, unnecessary exposition. It does not mean pointing out every unnecessary adverb or overused word. Don’t Overwhelm the…
Unpacking Your Assumptions about Fiction
If you’ve ever taken a class from me, you know that I have a pathological hatred of using questions in editorial queries. By this I mean asking questions like, “What is Joe’s motivation?” where you are, or think you are, asking the author to address the problem of Joe’s lack of motivation. Use statements instead…
What Is the Difference Between Line Editing and Copyediting?
Line editing (LE) and copyediting (CE) are related skills, as they both focus on the sentence level. Obviously there is significant overlap between the two skills. Basic Definition of Copyediting But copyediting is about ensuring consistency across a manuscript, correcting egregious errors, making sure the manuscript conforms to a specific style guide, and otherwise smoothing…
