How much should I get paid for proofreading a novel?
Monday, March 15th, 2010 at
11:34 pm
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I’m proofreading a novel for a dyslexic guy 
. This is my first time doing this for money so I would like to know the going rate for doing something like this.
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I edit and proofread professionally. The service I work for pays me depending on the word count and deadlines, but in general for novels I get about $1 per page double spaced/$2 per page single spaced. Of course, this is a formal relationship that includes some corporate clients, so doing it informally for someone you know will be much less.
Shop around some professional proofreading sites and see what their rates are. Then you can adjust your price.
Depends On How Many Pgs. It Has. I Think Like..100 Pgs. = $ 20?
$10 an hour.
I charged 1.25 for every double-spaced page, and did half pages for free.
I also did copy editing while I was at it.
Other professional editors and copy editors charge more, but the stuff I worked on was for unpublished writers, so I gave them a break.
If you’re not a pro connected to a pro operation, a lower rate would be fair to your client. You get something for your resume, should you decide to continue in the business.
http://www.hyperlife.net/editing.htm#rates
Whatever hourly rate you normally get on your other jobs. If you regularly get $10 per hour as a lab assistant, then your worth per hour is someplace in that range.
Many proofreaders charge by the word, or for larger works, by the page.
Look up some online proofreading companies to find out what they charge, and then step it down a bit from that since you’ve never done it before and aren’t a pro.
Charging by the hour for proofreading is really not fair since if you happen to be a fast reader you get paid less for the same amount of work as if you were a slow reader.
Proofreaders generally charge either by the word or by the page, depending on the format of what they’re reading.
I do some freelance proofreading/copy-writing for websites and I charge by the word. Since I don’t do it professionally I charge 0.02 per word, but the average rate seems to be about 0.03 cents a word.
This is for short documents though, about 10 pages each. For a novel I recommend charging by the page. Probably somewhere between 1.00 and 1.25 per page is reasonable, but you should choose based on how many pages it is and if it looks like you’ll be doing a lot of editing or a little.
I am a Professional proofreader and you can go to my site below to see what I charge, and how it is broken down by page vs. word.
Contact me with any questions, I’ll be glad to help!