This section quotes and paraphrases information provided by the Freelance Editorial Association. For more complete information, as well as sample letters and invoices, go to their site.
Book editing of all kinds is frequently outsourced to freelancers. The types of editing jobs that freelancers do are congruent with the types listed in Types of Book Editors. The following sections outline how to find work, the elements of a freelance contract, and suggested payscale.
Finding Work
NetRead's Job Board is a place to start. See
Resources and Professional Organizations
for other sites that may have job boards. As with nearly all publishing jobs, however, word of mouth is best.
Depending on your experience and the position you're interested in, a publisher may require you to take a proficiency test. This is a drain on time, of course, but many publishers are inflexible on the matter.
Contracts
Although many working relationships in publishing are informal, it is preferable for a freelancer to have detailed agreements, especially for large-scale projects. If your client doesn't provide one, consider drawing one up yourself. The following is a checklist of elements in a typical contract.
- Names and addresses of all parties involved
- Date on which the contract takes effect
- Status of freelancer (contractor vs. employee)
- Date on which the project or parts of the project are due to both freelancer and client
- Description of freelancer's tasks
- Schedule by which the project is planned to proceed
- Location at which work will be performed (freelancer's office vs. client's office)
- Party responsible for purchasing supplies, equipment, and additional services
- Basis of freelancer's compensation (project fee, hourly rate, or other agreed-upon arrangement)
- Amount of freelancer's compensation
- Billable expenses
- Schedule of billings and payment
- Interest charges for late payment
- Applicability of reservation fees, rush fees, late fees, or cancellation fees
- Conditions in case of project termination
- Copyright holder for final publication
- Special considerations: equipment needed and any reimbursement for equipment, prospect of project's interruption, possibility of subcontracting a portion of the project
- Printed credit listing the freelancer's name in the final publication
- Complimentary copy or copies of the final publication
Fees
Freelancers generally get paid either by the hour or by the project. Unless the project has very clear parameters (e.g., an index with a known number of entries), it is usually better to insist on an hourly fee, with agreed-on provisions for time overruns. It is traditional for freelancers to estimate their total hours for a project in advance, but an estimate is just that.
The following is a suggested fee schedule published by the Freelance Editorial Association as of 1995. Some fees, accordingly, could be raised slightly.
(A manuscript page is assumed to be double-spaced on a standard 8�-by-11-inch page. Freelancers are encouraged to negotiate according to the particular needs of each project.)
Type of Work |
Estimated Pace of Work |
Range of Fees |
Copyediting, basic |
38 manuscript pages per hour |
$2030 per hour |
Copyediting, substantive |
25 manuscript pages per hour |
$2545 per hour |
Desktop publishing |
14 pages per hour (newsletters) |
$2530 per printed page |
610 pages per hour (books) |
$3560 per hour |
Developmental/substantive editing |
<1�5 pages per hour |
$2850 per hour |
Illustrating |
spot, ½8 hours or more |
$3075 per hour |
$25300 per spot |
full-page, 8 hours or more |
$2501,000 per page |
cover art |
$1,5005,000 per cover |
Indexing |
510 book pages per hour |
$2560 per hour |
$3.5010 per indexable book page |
Project management |
not applicable |
$8.5015 per printed page |
$4060 per hour |
Proofreading |
310 manuscript pages per hour |
$2030 per hour |
Translating |
5001,000 words per hour |
$80140 per thousand words |
Writing |
<1�3 manuscript pages per hour |
$30100 per hour |
$4595 per book page |