When I first did the math to see how much editing per book cost, my heart just about jumped out of my chest. Holy crap, it was that much? I know how my clients feel the first time they see the numbers for an estimate. It’s not cheap. Not at all cheap. Or, if it is, you’re working with someone new or dishonest. On very rare occasions you’ll have someone qualified but retired and keeping up as a hobby, but that’s definitely not the norm.
Double check that. Seriously. I know people who have been burned to the tune of thousands.
In order to break down why editing is damn expensive, I want to highlight a few things that folks may not think about when thinking about how much something costs because, to be honest, no small percentage of the costs we charge clients come from costs we have to bear, ourselves. I can’t speak for people working for companies, but as a freelancer, here are some of the things our rates have to factor in:
- Utility bills (electricity, internet, heat, water)
- Professional memberships (CIEP, EFA, and other organizations to which editors belong for professional development and so on)
- Professional development (things like classes, conferences, and books we use to continually improve our craft and understanding)
- Website hosting and domain name
- Marketing costs
- Healthcare or insurance
- Sick leave
- Subscriptions to software needed to do our job (PerfectIt, Office 365, Dropbox etc.)
- Student loan payments (for many of us)
- Equipment (computer, monitor[s], ergonomic keyboard/mouse, ergonomic chair, adequate desk)
There are other things I could list forever, but this is in addition to whatever we have to make to feed ourselves, take care of our families, pay car payments, and live as human beings with some degree of comfort. All of these things, sadly, cost money in this day and age. And with inflation, it costs a great deal more.
Depending on the type of editing, the editor may also have to have received special training in specific style guides or types of notation (scientific articles are rife with this stuff). Also, editing takes a long time. Many folks mistakenly think that editing is just reading plus a little extra, but it truly isn’t. Even then, doing nothing but read an 80,000 word book might take a person five or eight hours. Many editors I know work four or six hours a day on average due to the intensive nature of our work, so that’s one to two work days just to read the book and do absolutely nothing to it. Editing slows that process down a lot because we are evaluating every single piece of the work as we go.
Let me tell you, even if I’m doing a developmental edit (looking at story structure, pacing, characterization, etc.), I am still aware of all the misplaced commas. Even if I’m studiously ignoring them. The EFA puts the average editorial rate for fiction for line or developmental editing at 4-6 pages an hour. These being pages in a word processor, so between 250-500 words. Which means at the fastest listed pace on average, you are looking at between 26.6 and 40 hours to edit an 80,000-word book. And this can be far slower if the manuscript needs deep edits. I’ve had edits slow to an absolute crawl at times when I am working on something that is intensive.
If we are looking at the US, and at pay here, the average take-home for full time workers (excluding self-employed) was $1,089 in the fourth quarter of 202 according to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. This is the median, which means it is the center point of the range with 50% of workers having above the median and 50% having below. I’m not going to get into all the detailed technical math of how they figured that out, but you can click the link above if you want to get sticky about it.
Now, that’s employees. If you are a full-time employee of a company, they likely help with healthcare, equipment, utilities, and so on. Self-employed people have to earn more than that to cover their expenses and hit a take-home pay (after taxes) that allows them to live a reasonable life. Remember, as mentioned above, a significant chunk of money goes into the costs of doing business (including business taxes and so on, too, for many of us). Much like the mechanic charges clients $100/hr but doesn’t take anywhere near that home (they usually take home $26.53 (according to the internet). 3/4 of what a client gives them goes into the business to pay other people and pay the bills of the business.
If this sounds like a lecture on business pricing and how we arrive at our costs, you’re spot on. That’s exactly what this is.
So if I want to take home that median amount per week above, I need to build the costs of running my business into that. Which leads us directly to the numbers you see for editing. Particularly since most edits are looking for a solid week’s worth of work on average. Not only are edits looking for a solid week’s worth of work, you are looking for a solid week’s worth of work from people who, by the nature of their job, absolutely must be skilled and educated for their work.
To be clear, I don’t make that weekly pay because I don’t have a client every single week. I wish I did! But I do not. Not even close. But were I marketing and pushing to the point where I was trying to make that happen, making the median income as someone working in a skilled trade seems like a fair wage to me.
Of course, and finally, different types of editing have different expected price points. Some folks will command $4,000 for a line edit on an $80,000-word book. If they have people who will pay them that, and they are worth it, that’s their business. Just like some chefs charge $10 for a steak and some charge $100. Presumably, the latter chef has the experience and expertise to command those rates if their restaurant stays open, and they have clientele.
I won’t shame anyone for their rates because it’s a very personal decision for every one of us, and each market has different rates it will support. We also have individual needs as human beings. Some people have higher costs of medical care or rent that they need to factor in. It’s not that editors are trying to wring work out of our clients or take them for a ride while we live high on the hog. At least not the vast majority of us. The truth is you’re asking for about a week’s worth of work on average. Sometimes more than that. So we deserve to be paid a week’s worth of wages.
