When I started working as a freelancer, my first few jobs were for a publisher. I had the security of knowing that everything I touched was guaranteed to make it into print — security I needed as I worked to build my resume — and I knew that I’d be earning the same fixed rate of pay that all that publisher’s other freelance editors got, which offered little room for negotiation. This was also good, since I didn’t know what editors charged, or what my skills were really worth.

Soon enough, though, I had some happy clients through the publisher. Through a friend of a friend of a client’s friend, I got my first query about an independent project. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, my rates depend on a number of factors,” and stalled; cornered, I had realized that I had absolutely no idea what to charge.

I’m fortunate to have self-employed friends and family, and they were able to give me good advice. The best and most important advice I received, was this: Charge what you want to be paid.

It’s profound, yet simple. Choose the hourly (or yearly) salary that you feel is reasonable, and back-engineer your rates so that they provide it.

Do so realistically, of course. As much as I want to make six figures a year, I don’t believe that I’m in a place yet where I can reasonably demand to do so. I aim for a salary slightly higher than the one I finished with at the large publishing house I worked for, and that puts my rates well within the industry standard.

That leads quite handily into the next question:

What’s the Industry Standard?

To determine this, I started searching the web. (What did we ever do without the web?)

I found a couple of useful guides, such as this pdf article on writersmarket.com, written by Lynn Wasnak and based on an annual survey she compiles. (If you’re a freelancer, go to her site and add your data for her 2009 survey!)

They helped a little, but they didn’t help much — Copyediting is worth $1 to $6 per page? That’s quite a wide range! — but they at least gave me the ballpark. The rate I’d decided on was toward the lower end of the scale, as was appropriate for a beginner, but it was still within the scale and not off the bottom or the top.

The Editorial Freelancers Association has a guide to industry standard rates as well, broken down clearly into pace (pages per hour) and hourly rates. It’s easy enough to convert those numbers into a per page rate and see the relationship.

Charging by the Page

Some freelancers charge by the hour, but I’m more comfortable charging by the page. The hour is too subjective a measure for me. You can’t be certain that I’m timing only the minutes I spend on your project. I could tab away to check my email or respond to an IM or wander off to make more tea, and leave the clock running. You’re reliant on my reading speed, and I can’t itemize every minute of work in a way that proves I’m working honestly. Plus, on an easy project, if I’m efficient then I’m only cheating myself. If I’m not, I might be cheating you. I’d rather remove that ambiguity.

By charging per page, with a finite number of Microsoft Word document pages and the knowledge that without substantial cuts or additions, that page number isn’t going to change much, I feel that there’s a much clearer expectation on both sides as to what the final cost of the job will be.

Other Factors

My rates still depend on a number of factors. Primarily, how long I reasonably expect to spend on each page. For a simple, clean manuscript that needs very little editing, my rates will be lower. For something that requires more work (recasting awkward sentences, making more spelling and grammar corrections, or doing more research or fact checking, or something that involves suggesting significant rewrites), my rates will be higher. A short deadline will push my rates up, as well.

How do you know?

I can usually determine within a few pages how difficult a project will be; often, the first page is illustrative enough. For a novel, I generally ask for a ten-page sample when I start a project, set the timer, and get to work. My pace through the first ten pages sets my expectation for my pace through the rest of the project, and gives me a very good idea of the issues I can expect to encounter. Short stories are different; there, I’ll often just ask for the whole thing at once, and make my impression from the first page.

Translating Pace into Money…Fairly

How to translate that into money, though! For my own use, I worked out a simple spreadsheet that shows me rate per page, and how that translates out into hourly (and daily, weekly, monthly and yearly!) rate based on number of pages per hour. This is a very handy tool. Industry standard assumes a 250 word page, and the industry standard editing speed is between 5 and 10 pages per hour, depending on the complexity of the work. If you think about the difference between 5 and 10 pages per hour, at the same rate per page… $20/hour at 5 pages per hour = $4/page. $20/hour at 10 pages per hour = $2/page. (Assuming a 200-300 page manuscript, you can quickly see how giving your editor a clean manuscript is to your benefit!)

Now, before you think that I rush through a manuscript to up my pages-per-hour count and make myself rich, slow down!

This doesn’t mean that I pay less attention and zoom through my work. It means that I can use that scale to pick the page per hour speed that I think is realistic for the job, and I can choose my rate from there, targeting the right overall figure.

I have to charge twice as much for a harder, 5 page/hour job, as for an easier 10 page/hour job, just to be fair to myself and make sure that I’m billing appropriately.

I’m not charging an hourly rate, but I’m still getting a standard hourly rate, and it’s the rate I feel comfortable targeting. This way, I don’t aim too high, but I don’t sell my own skills short, either.

I’ve gone this long without a grammar/punctuation post, but I’ve decided that it’s time for one. Dialog interrupted by narration seems to be a very common punctuation sticking point. Since it’s something I often find myself correcting, I thought it would make a good introductory technical tip.

The rule for inserting narration into dialog is simple. Periods after the first fragment are followed by upper case letters. Commas after the first fragment are followed by lower case.

Determine where your narration interrupts the dialog. Is it mid-sentence or at a break between sentences?

If it’s a single sentence, interrupted mid-flow, it should be offset by commas and neither the narrative nor the continuation should be capitalized:

“I could do that,” she said, “or I could just kill you where you stand.”

If two sentences are separated by narrative, you have a choice as to where the period falls. Just be consistent. If there’s a period in either spot, you have ended the sentence of dialog. The next sentence of dialog must start with a capital.

“I could do that,” she said. “Or I could just kill you where you stand.”

or

“I could do that.” She said, “Or I could just kill you where you stand.”

or even

“I could do that.” She smiled. “Or I could just kill you where you stand.”

Since my last post, I’ve had the privilege of editing galleys for one of the books I’ve worked on. While the process of editing galleys isn’t an exciting one, it means that the book is on its way to the printing press, and that’s always exciting!

With that in mind, I thought I’d offer a few tips on editing proofs. It’s more than just, literally, proof-reading. Proofs offer a chance to catch errors that may have slipped through the editing process, but that’s not their primary function; the purpose of checking proofs is more to ensure that the layout is error-free. Because the layout and format have changed, not the text, a different focus is required. Below, you’ll find pointers on some things for editors and authors to watch out for when reading those final proofs.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that seeing your work in a new font or style is a good way to look at it with fresh eyes. Your galleys—the mock-up of a book before it goes to press—are a chance for editor and author to do just that. Checking galleys isn’t as exciting as seeing something you’ve worked on hit the shelf. It’s easy to let your eyes glide over the text without seeing it. But galleys come with their own inherent set of potential mistakes, so it’s important to give them a careful look.

Publishing has entered the digital age. With the books I’ve worked on, the layout has been set up with the use of desktop publishing software and sent off to the printer as a file. This file needs to be proofread for errors even if you’re completely certain that the source text is clean: any change is an opportunity to introduce errors or inconsistencies.

Because the text of the manuscript is copied and pasted into the layout, it’s susceptible to the common mishaps that can occur when copying and pasting. Because the format has been changed, it’s also open to inconsistencies in formatting and style elements.

So, what sorts of things should you be on the alert for?

• First (and these sound silly, I know), make sure that the proper draft has been copied into the galley. Make sure that any mock-up “placeholder” text on the cover has been replaced with real text. Make sure the book title and the author’s name are spelled correctly in the book and on the cover. (Anyone with an uncommon name knows just how important this is!) If the price is on the cover, make sure it’s the correct price. It seems obvious, but the proofs are the last chance to catch these things, and it’s the editor’s job to take nothing for granted.
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• The most common copy-and-paste errors involve duplicating information and leaving information out. Pay special attention to punctuation, especially at the beginning and end of each line, section, and chapter. Make sure that the end of each chapter is really the end, and that nothing is cut off mid-sentence. There may also be punctuation characters or symbols that didn’t make the change correctly; a symbol that looked like an em-dash on the screen might actually have been a line character in some obscure dingbat font. If so, it may transfer over to the final font as something else, whether a hyphen, a nonsense character, or even a blank space.
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• The most common formatting errors occur where formats change. The beginning and end of a chapter, the graphics or symbols that separate chapter sections, and any place where the text font is changed from regular to italic and back.
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• Keep an eye on chapter numbers and headings. If the chapters are numbered, make sure that all numbers are in the proper sequence and all follow the same style. If chapters always begin on a new page, make sure that all those page breaks are in place.
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• Keep an eye out for font changes. Does it shift slightly, go up or down a size, is a line or a paragraph accidently set in italics or bold? Watch justification, too. Whatever style is chosen, it should be consistent throughout.
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• Watch for widows and orphans: straggling text that ends up isolated from the rest of the paragraph or section. The last line of a chapter should not be by itself on a new page. A stray —” should not be by itself on a new line.

That’s a lot to look for. What’s the best way to go about doing it?

If I receive galleys in .pdf format, I zoom out to the two-page view and basically just scan the lines for anything that stands out. I find that if I rely on pattern recognition to edit for format, my eye catches on things that aren’t as they should be.

I don’t ignore the chance that I might find errors in the text—I’ll check the text itself in my second pass—but when I check formatting, I’m looking at the shape of the words and marks on the page. I look for punctuation, font, and the shapes of the paragraphs. I check each section break and paragraph break carefully, and also make sure that the right text is in italics or blockquotes. If I find a certain type of error more than once I’ll move in and search for it more carefully.

In general, though, the more distant view allows me to focus on the formatting. Think of it as looking at the forest first, then closing in on the trees. The landscape of your book will benefit from the attention!

Since I frequently work in the fantasy genre, and since I’m something of a gamer and a geek by hobby, fantasy elements are bound to creep into these posts fairly regularly. With that in mind, Monday’s post seems like a good segue into the introduction of one of my favorite terms, as well as a fairly important concept: the grammar vampire.

You’ve probably heard of grammar nazis, or maybe grammar police: these are people who patrol vigilantly, armed with their dictionaries, their thesauri and their love for words. They answer a deeply-rooted calling which urges them ever onward to stamp out typos, improper subject-verb agreement and rogue apostrophes wherever they may dwell. It’s a noble battle, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes the defenders of grammar get a little… well, overzealous.

I am not a grammar nazi. I’ll state that right now. For one thing, as much as I can appreciate the term in the proper spirit when others use it, personal beliefs and cultural heritage keep me from ever being comfortable applying it to myself. For another, it’s not really my style.

I eagerly seek out errors on menus and signs; spotting them is something of a hobby (albeit a shamefully geeky one), and often a source of great amusement. These are in the public domain, so I consider them fair game. I don’t, however, pounce on my friends, my family, my acquaintances, my casual email conversations, my forum discussions… you get the idea.

I fully appreciate that proper writing is important, and that pointing out an error is a necessary step to prevent its repetition. At the same time, I feel just as strongly that there’s a time and a place for such things, and I think it’s equally important to keep a sense of perspective about it. I may choose not to get into deep online conversations with someone whose spelling and grammar are atrocious, but at the same time, there are some situations where all that really matters is that people can make their points understood. Everyone makes typos. Everyone lets their fingers get ahead of them now and then. I see no benefit to antagonizing my peers by pouncing on their every mistake. All that does is, well, antagonize people. It doesn’t show off my knowledge or earn me any respect.

I like to think I’m a bit more subtle than that. I don’t rage about grammar; I’m not militant or aggressive about it. If I’m asked to beta-read or offer advice I’ll gladly do so, but I don’t force my red pen upon my friends or anyone else.

That’s the key to grammar vampires: they’re perfectly capable of correcting your mistakes, but they’ll only do so if you invite them in.

The hardest kind of editing is self-editing. You will always find things you want to tweak, things you want to change, maybe even some sneaky little errors that your eye skipped over the first ten times through. The hardest part of self-editing is knowing when to stop editing. Know the difference between things that are actually incorrect and things that you think could have been better. I can’t tell you how many times I go in and tweak even these little blog posts, after I put them up! At some point, even those of us who nitpick for a living must accept that what we’ve written is the best that it can be, and we need to step away.

Conventional wisdom tells us to “measure twice, cut once”. Common sense, right? A cut can’t be undone, but an incorrect measurement can be corrected. It sounds great on paper. Having done my own share of home improvement, I’ve never had it work out that way in practice. Editing is no different. No matter how many times you measure—or how many times you read the same words—you will find something else to change. It will be so glaring that you will wonder how you could have possibly missed it before.

Am I saying that all editors are incompetent and will let errors through, and that you have to resign yourself to that? No. Not at all. I’m saying that you shouldn’t stop looking for errors just because you have an editor on the case, and I’m saying that you can expect a bit of second-guessing from yourself as you do your final read-throughs. And I’m saying that you need to be aware of the difference in scale between something that’s really wrong, and something you wish you’d phrased another way.

Conventional wisdom tells us that after you’ve cut, it’s too late to go back and fix things to meet the measurements. That’s not true, either. You can attach a little extra length onto that cut board, or patch a hole. Likewise, you can catch errors before they go to print. Or even after. Just make sure it’s that first kind of error. The truly incorrect kind. Cut twice if the boards don’t fit together at all. Not if you second-guess yourself and wish you’d gone with a completely different style of trim. That falls under “accepting and living with your choices, and stepping away”, per above.

Now, you can’t erase an error entirely. But you can re-record, re-release, re-send, or even put out a second edition. The sixth Harry Potter book was originally released with three or four typos in it. Even though the print run numbered in the millions of copies, Scholastic was still able to jump on top of it, push through a corrected second edition, and move forward. Are the uncorrected books still out there? Yes, undoubtedly, they are. Yours, undoubtedly, will also be. Going forward, however, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that every new sale, new page view, or new download is of the corrected, best version you can provide.

It sounds so easy, right? Well, how do you do it?

Read.

Really. That’s all there is to it.

When you get a draft back from your editor, don’t just jump from one change to the next. Really read it through again. Read every word. Try changing the font, or reading it out loud. The same words look different when their layout changes, making it easier to catch things you hadn’t caught before. Likewise, reading out loud forces you to slow down and focus on every word, keeping your brain from skipping over the parts it thinks it already knows.

When you get galleys back from your publisher, whether they’re the paper layout of a book or just a .pdf file, read them. Read every word. Read it like you’ve never seen it before. This is your last chance to catch little glitches before your work goes to print. Use this opportunity to your advantage. Always share your galleys with your editor, too. Your editor will be very unhappy if a layout or format mistake goes to print that she wasn’t given the opportunity to catch.

When the finished product is released. Read it. Read every word. Listen to your own podcast. Be your own customer and share in your readers’ and listeners’ experience. Enjoy it and take pride in it.

If you think you should have put your heroine in blue instead of green, consider it a lesson learned. But if you find that there’s been a processing error and two pages in the middle of your story, or two minutes in the middle of a broadcast, came out blank, you need to know about it. You can only fix problems that you know exist. It’s every writer’s nightmare, but it’s not the end of the world. That’s what you have a next edition (or a revised downloadable) for. Even if you’re writing for a periodical (which can’t be changed after it goes to press) an errata can still be published in the next issue, and you can have the corrected edition available for reprints.

Measure as many times as you can, but be comforted in the knowledge that if you need to, you can still cut twice.