How to Expand Your Editing Business & Determine Rates
by Candice Bellows
As it is for a lot of people, my editing journey has been convoluted.
In my first college English class, my professor suggested that I minor in editing. I (ahem) wrote it off at the time, but about two years later, I learned that one of my good friends was doing the minor.
Everyone and their dog has tried to spell my name as Candace for most of my life, so I was already used to finding mistakes in written text. I decided editing would be a good marketable skill to have, and I jumped into the minor.
I was working as a TA (teacher’s assistant) and a research assistant during that time, and when my boss found out about my skills, he started having me edit his journal articles and even a couple of history books for him.
Right after I graduated, I was hired as an intern at Deseret Book and then as a proofreader for my church’s publishing department, which were my first full-time editing jobs.
I Decided to Self-Publish a Book So I’d Know How to Help My Clients
As for writing, I’ve made all of about $7 from that so far (😁), so I’m still in the early stages of becoming a paid author.
When I became a full-time freelance editor, I figured I should self-publish at least one book of my own to learn how the process worked so I could help my clients with it.
I’d been creating a collection of themed crochet patterns for my Etsy shop, Crochet Away Company, so I bundled those into a book. I found some people in crochet groups on Facebook who were willing to proofread the patterns in exchange for a free copy of the finished book, and I hired a cover designer on Fiverr because I didn’t have much money.
I was publishing only in ebook format, so I did all the interior formatting myself using the Smashwords formatting guide.
With all that done, I self-published the book using the tools on Smashwords and Amazon KDP.
How I Got a Job as an Editor for Gryphon House
To make a long story short, I originally contacted Gryphon House about working for them as a freelancer.
As it turned out, they had a full-time editor position open, invited me to interview for it, and subsequently hired me.
We had two “seasons” each year: spring and fall. Each season, I would be assigned a certain number of manuscripts on which to be the lead editor. My primary job was doing the developmental editing: figuring out what structure already existed in a manuscript, whether that structure worked or needed changes, what large chunks of content we needed to add or remove, and other big-picture stuff.
I’d work with the author to get those revisions done, and then I’d do any substantive editing the manuscript still needed. My boss and I were the only editors on our staff, so we always hired freelancers to take care of copyediting, proofreading, and indexing manuscripts.
For my books, I coordinated all the freelancers’ efforts and reviewed their work. I also worked with our designers to approve covers and layouts and make sure the finished book looked great. Our entire company was only about a dozen people, so we all had offices or cubicles on the same floor of our parent company’s office building/warehouse.
I learned a lot from this job about not having too heavy a hand as an editor. It was really important that I didn’t just try to force a manuscript into the structure I thought it should have, because my instincts weren’t always right.
I also learned that it’s super hard to turn off your copyediting brain when you’re doing other types of editing!
Where I Got My Editing Skills
I’ve been a bookworm since childhood. Maybe more than anything else, reading teaches you about what does and doesn’t work well in books, so that created a strong foundation for me.
Writing your own stories, which I started doing when I was eleven, gives you similar experience. My sisters and I are all writers to one degree or another, and we often talked about our stories and bounced ideas off each other as we grew up.
I gained most of my practical editing skills by majoring in English and minoring in editing in college. I refined those skills through jobs as an intern, proofreader, freelance copyeditor and substantive editor, and developmental editor.
How to Convince Clients to Purchase More Expensive Services
I started the Story Engineer [my service business for authors] in fall 2019.
I’d just left the latest in a string of toxic traditional jobs, and I decided I didn’t want to give a boss control over my life again.
I’d been following a freelancer-training program called the No Pants Project off and on for a while, so I launched into it full time. That program helped me figure out what kinds of services I could offer so that I could take a client all the way from the idea stage of writing a book to having a finished book or ebook in their hands.
As part of my coursework in the No Pants Project, I brainstormed all the authorial struggles I could think of and came up with ways I could address those pain points. I then created larger packages by bundling related services together.
By offering a variety of services at different price levels, I can help more clients. It’s also easier to convince clients to purchase a more expensive service if they can hire you for a smaller project first and learn that you do good work.
My Main Consideration When Setting Editing Rates
Pricing is a really tricky thing when it comes to freelance editing.
The closest thing we have to “standard” rates, at least in the US, are the ones the Editorial Freelancers Association posts on its website, and even those are simply the results of a survey of EFA members. Those numbers have helped guide my pricing.
But my main considerations for my hourly rate are the amount of money I need to make each month and the number of hours I want to work. I have almost a decade of experience in the industry and multiple bestselling books to my name, meaning I can charge higher prices than a new editor could.
Tracking the exact number of hours I spend on a project is a huge hassle, so I instead quote a flat fee for each project. To determine how much that fee is, I start by doing a sample edit (which I don’t charge for) of about 1,000 words to find out what kind of shape the manuscript is in. I also ask the author for the word count of the full manuscript.
Using that number and the time it takes to do the sample edit, I calculate how long it would take me to complete the full manuscript. Then I tack on a buffer of four to eight hours, depending on how tough the sample edit was, to cover any unforeseen difficulties (which come up a lot).
I multiply the total number of hours by my hourly rate to come up with a flat fee for the project. That’s the number I give the client.
Two Mistakes I Made in My Editing Business
In the past, I’ve made the mistake of waiting until the end of a project to invoice for my work.
I’ve been fortunate enough to not have anyone try to take advantage of that by taking my work and refusing to pay me, but I’ve heard about other freelancers who’ve had that happen.
Still, projects often take longer than you expect, which can significantly delay your paycheck if you’re not invoicing until the end of the project. Now I require 50 percent of my fee as a deposit before I begin work, and then I invoice for the rest of the fee when the project is complete.
Another mistake I’ve made was forgetting to cancel a certain service on LinkedIn before my free trial ended.
That oversight cost me several hundred dollars that I really could have used elsewhere. Many business services offer free trials, but most of them don’t remind you when your free trial is coming to an end.
If you take advantage of free trials, I highly recommend writing yourself a reminder to make a decision about continuing or canceling the service, then scheduling that reminder to pop up on your calendar several days before the trial ends.
The Hardest Part of Freelancing
For me, getting new clients is the hardest part of freelancing.
Many people grossly underestimate how much editorial services cost, so they get sticker shock when they see my prices. That’s why I look for clients who are serious about treating their writing as a business (i.e., something they’re willing to invest in) rather than a hobby.
LinkedIn has been my best source for finding these types of clients. I maintain an email list on which I share writing tips every Monday through Friday, and I also post those tips on my business’s social-media channels.
Advice for a Young Writer: Have at Least Six Months’ Worth of Savings in the Bank
Breaking into this field is harder than you think. I recommend having at least six months’ worth of savings in the bank before you get started.
Learn from lots of different mentors, both through courses/training programs and through books; not everything every mentor says will work for you or your business.
If you can afford it, join the Editorial Freelancers Association (or whatever the professional editors’ organization is in your country) to get access to their job list and/or discounts on their courses.
Set up your own website, and spend the time it takes to make it look good. I’ve come across some editors’ websites that made me cringe because I found multiple typos or badly designed elements on them.
Provide value on social media each workday. When writing your own books, get as much editing as you can afford, but don’t go into debt for it.
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Candice Bellows became a writer out of passion and an editor in self-defense. (One can only endure being spelled Candace so many times.) She majored in English and minored in editing at Brigham Young University–Provo, editing a handful of professional journal articles and two history books before graduation.
Since then, she’s worked as an intern, proofreader, copyeditor, substantive editor, and developmental editor for employers and clients including Deseret Book, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, McGraw Hill Education, Eschler Editing, and Gryphon House.
Candice became the Story Engineer full-time in fall 2019, providing coaching, editing, and self-publishing services for independent authors who are serious about making their writing into a career. She self-published her own book, The Year-Round Pillow Cover, in June 2020.
When not helping other authors or trying to keep her own characters from accidentally blowing themselves up, Candice enjoys crocheting, biking, playing role-playing and board games, being an aunt, and cooking recipes that require way too many dishes.
For more information on Candice and her work, please see her website and blog, and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
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