Tag Archives: Copyediting

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How Much You Can Expect to Pay an Editor

When I wrote about where to find a good editor, I alluded to $500 for copyediting of a 100,000-word epic fantasy novel being a low-ball budget. So what is the going rate for copyediting or other such services?

In their book APE: Author Publisher Entrepreneur, Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch cite $1,050 as a reasonable rate for copyediting a 60,000-word manuscript. They note that “some people might argue that our costs are too high.”

Editor Pay

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Well, maybe some people would. But at $35 per hour, the rate cited is smack in the middle of the range given by the Editorial Freelancers Association. Continue reading →

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Q&A: When to hire an editor

Q: I took your Elements of Fiction seminar and read the blog posts and I’ve gone through the checklist. Now what? How do I know when to hire an editor or writing coach?

question answer

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A: When you feel stuck, or when you’re ready to go.

If you’ve worked through the checklist and you still feel stuck on your manuscript, not knowing what to do next, that’s a good time to bring in a writing coach. You may just need to talk things though so you can get advice about what the next step is. Continue reading →

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When to use who or whom

English is complicated and can confuse the best of us. Many editors have dog-eared grammar manuals and style books with Post-It notes on the sections we have to double-check every time. One fine point that even experienced editors find hard to memorize is the distinction between who and whom.

The short answer to the who or whom question is that who is for subjects and whom is for objects. Only it isn’t that simple, or why would we all keep asking one another, “Is this right?” Continue reading →

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English is hard. I’m here to help.

English is a beautiful but complex language. Because it borrows words from pretty much every other language on the planet, it has a massive vocabulary. Syntax can be intricate. Word formation is often illogical; for example, flammable and inflammable both mean “easy to burn.”

Reference Books for study

Feodor Korolevsky • http://istockphoto

Rules for punctuation are almost inscrutable. The Chicago Manual of Style’s section on commas is 14 pages long. For a seminar handout, I condensed the bare minimum most writers need to know about commas, and it’s still almost a whole page. This kind of thing makes writers crazy and keeps copyeditors in business. Continue reading →