Huh.

[apocalypsos]

I may have gotten myself a bit of a part-time job. (A bit being more like a smidge, and a smidge being more like a few bucks here and there possibly.)

So my mom asked me to bring the kitten down to her work to show him off, and while I was down there, one of her bosses asked me about a letter that my mom gave me to look at. The last time we went to the movies together, my mom gave me a memo her boss wanted to send out to everyone who worked there and told me to check for errors, and I did. So I guess she took it to work and told them about the errors I found, and now they have a fifty-page document they want me to check for punctuation, spelling and grammar errors.

Here's my question -- I know some of you do this already. How much do you charge? He asked me how much I'd want to do it, and "I'm dorky enough, I'd do it for free just for fun!" didn't seem like the right answer, so I didn't say it. ;)

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

I charge about $2 a page, assuming a page is doublespaced 12 pt Times Roman with 1" margins. That's actually a pretty low rate as these things go.

[channonyarrow.livejournal.com]

I generally go with $2/page or $25/hr, depending on length and complexity of the tasks asked. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some, depending on what people want done, but my reading speed drops enough when doing a really thorough proofread that I can make money on that $25/hr - I prefer that when the document's a hot mess. The hourly rate there is a corporate suggestion that I've taken; the page rate is from poking around on the internet.

[scottique.livejournal.com]

I would ask for something between $15 - $25/hour, but I don't know anything--that's just my gut feeling on it.

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

My friend who proof reads textbooks charges £1 per A4 page, but makes conditions regarding font and point size. If the point size is below 11pt, she charges an extra 10p per page, and if it's not in TNR, Courier or Arial, she charges an extra 15p per page.

So - 12pt Arial = £1 per page, but 10pt Verdana would be £1.25 per page.

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

I do freelance editing for a university press, and the starting pay is $3.25 a page. It may entail a bit more work than in your case, though; I also have to check term usage, citation format, formatting in general, works listed in the biography, endnotes, overall structure of the writing, etc. (You haven't LIVED until you've tried to decipher sixty pages of acronyms for German theological journals, I'm telling you.)

But yeah, around that. I'd say per page is probably a better way to charge than per hour (if you were on the fence about that).

[kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com]

For just straight edits (punctuation, spelling, grammar) I do about $2/page. If I have to rewrite sections, I do about $5/page.