Having been traditionally published, I've never needed to hire a copyeditor until now, so I'm curious as to how the rate structure works. I often see editors charge per word. So, for example, a 100,000-word ms. at 2 cents per word would cost $2,000 to copy edit. As a former journalist and editor, I know that some manuscripts are clean and tight, while others are, shall we say, on the sloppy side. When charged per word, the sloppy ms would cost the same as the clean one to edit. And yet, the sloppy ms might take twice as long to edit. Does anybody know of free-lance copy editors who adjust their rates to account for these descrepencies? Or, are self-published writers who do work very hard to write clean copy expected to throw up their hands and concede defeat? Thanks for the feedback!
Last edited: