Question for editors on here.

[Goblinmonger]

I have a colleague who wants to hire me to edit a portion of her dissertation (I'm an English teacher so this isn't a question about how to do it). It would be about 50ish pages to edit. What would be a reasonable rate to charge (she isn't a close friend or anyone I would do it for free for)?

[NV Whino]

1. I'm not a professional editor

but I do edit stories and or books on occasion. You can charge by the hour or by the page. By the hour, $35 to $45 is a reasonable rate.

[Goblinmonger]

2. Thanks for the input.

What do you think of my math here? In an hour I could probably fully edit 12 pages (5 minutes per page assuming the person is neither a really gifted nor horrible writer). So a comparable rate would be $2.75 to $3.75 a page? I guess as I think about it, that seems high. Maybe my pph (pages per hour) rate is off.

[MountainLaurel]

3. Are the pages single or double spaced

And will you also be keying in the changes in the electronic document? Your estimates seem awfully low (I've never done freelance, but most figures I've heard are at least $5 page.) If you charge by the hour, which might be a better approach since you don't know how much time this will consume, I'd ask at least $18/hour.

[Goblinmonger]

4. Interesting information

I would probably be keying in changes or making suggestions via Word comments. I will probably take your advice and go by the hour. $5/page would be $250 and I don't know that I could charge that to this person. Not a close friend, but she is a principal at a school in the district.

[NV Whino]

5. You also might want to read a couple of pages

and get a feel for the writing style and how much work you would need to do.