If you provide me with a few pages of your document, I can give you an estimate or we can agree on a flat rate for the project. My standard rate is $46 per hour.

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The minimum charge for new clients is $46 no matter the length of the document. I can make exceptions for some on-going clients who have several short documents throughout the year.

 

For large projects, I may ask for a deposit before I begin.

 

Editing, Proofreading, or Both?

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How long I spend on a document will depend on your needs. If you are already a seasoned writer, you may only need proofreading to check for small errors like punctuation and typos that cannot be found by spell-check alone. It will give your writing that final polish that you can only get by having another “pair of eyes” review your work.

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A full edit may include help with the structure of your document, editing for style to clarify meaning and improve flow, copy editing for grammar, spelling and punctuation, and a final proofread.
 

Examples

 

Proofreading only: A fairly well-written document that requires proofreading and the odd correction for style or grammar would be approximately 9-10 single-spaced pages per hour.

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Legal, scientific, and technical work: These can take longer since there tends to be longer sentence structures and uncommon diction. Recent legal and scientific work took me about 7-8 single-spaced pages per hour.

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Academic papers: It’s best if you can send me a sample of your writing first. Certain subjects I can edit and proof quite quickly (especially English Literature and History papers), but more technical academic work can take about 7-8 single-spaced pages per hour.

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ESL: Documents written by people who speak English as a second language can take about 5-6 pages per hour for short documents. I can get faster with longer documents as I learn the common errors that each writer tends to make over time.

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Creative writing: If you’re looking for proofreading only and you already have some experience as a writer, it may be about 8 single-spaced pages per hour. If you want a full edit, which is generally what would be done for creative writing, it would be about 4-5 single-spaced pages per hour.

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Film and theatre scripts: Proofreading of a film script tends to be quicker since there is a lot of white space on the page. Recent scripts I proofread took about 15-17 pages per hour.

 

The longer the document, the faster it tends to go as I get a handle on the common errors that the writer makes, and a handle on the subject matter and particular needs of the document.

 

Recurring clients often become much better writers over a short period of time because they learn from reviewing the corrections I’ve made and begin to recognize the errors in their own writing.