Hourly rates

Janet Mackenzie

I agree with much of the previous discussion in this blog, but it seems to me that a whole dimension is missing. Although other bloggers recognise that different rates are paid in different sectors, their comments seem to be based on the false assumption that ‘editing’ is a uniform process that can be delivered in precisely measured units.

The hourly rate of pay cannot be divorced from quality and speed – the standard of the editing and the number of pages edited per hour. It’s a horrible thought, but perhaps there are editors out there whose work is so deficient or so slow that in fact it does not merit more than $35 an hour. A recommended minimum hourly rate is desirable, but to mean anything it would have to be based on some uniform standard of editorial achievement or skill. The proposed national accreditation scheme will obviously be important in establishing this.

Inflation

Before we look further at quality and speed of work, there is another consideration that we cannot afford to ignore: the continual decline in the value of money. At present inflation is about 2–3 per cent, so freelancers who are not raising their rates by that amount every year are falling behind.

A couple of percentage points may seem insignificant, but compounding has a powerful effect. For instance, supposing inflation is steady at 3 per cent, the sum of $50.00 in 2000 is equivalent to $54.64 in 2003 and $67.21 in 2010. Pam Hewitt’s surveys of editors are extremely valuable, but their information about rates cannot be accurately compared over time unless the figures are adjusted for inflation.

Fitting the brief to the budget

Some editors contest the concept of hourly rates, preferring to quote a fixed sum for a particular job. It is true that they generally derive this from some notional hourly rate, but they need not reveal what that figure is. If freelance editors generally adopted the practice of quoting a total sum for a particular job rather than by the hour, variations in the quality and speed of work would be more readily apparent to clients.

Whether the editor’s hourly rate is implicit or explicit, it combines with three other factors to determine editorial costs. These are: the client’s budget; the desired quality of the finished publication; and the hours worked by the editor. The editor has no say in the first, some influence over the second, and total control over the third.

Where a client has a fixed budget, in the initial discussions about the job brief the editor may negotiate the standard or amount of work to be done. Other professionals commonly do this. If you have a troublesome tooth, for instance, the dentist may suggest replacing it with an implant for $10,000, or fitting it with a crown for $3000, or extracting it for $200.

Similarly an editor may say to a book publisher, ‘This job would benefit from a structural edit, which would cost $5000, but it would not result in any extra sales. I therefore recommend only a copyedit, which I can do for $2000, but I warn that the reviewers may pick on the structural weaknesses.’[1] Clients who are not professional publishers may need the editor’s help to articulate their assumptions about the quality they require.

Pages per hour

Once the hourly rate, the budget and the quality of the publication have been decided, the only remaining factor is the hours worked. And apparently this factor varies wildly: if anecdotal evidence is to be believed, some editors can do an acceptable job in about half the time that others take.

Freelancers can achieve a respectable number of pages per hour if, for instance, they:

• can touch-type at a good speed
• are expert in the use of Microsoft Word
• can read very fast with full attention for long stretches of time
• are swift to decide whether a sentence is so ungrammatical or obscure that it needs to be altered
• have a systematic approach to the range of editorial tasks required on a job, such as copyediting, language editing, checking references, preparing prelims and captions, and managing various versions of a document
• maintain courteous and productive relations with authors and clients without wasting time on unnecessary meetings, phone calls and emails
• take care not to do more work than the brief requires
• operate their business efficiently, having reliable, up-to-date equipment and streamlined methods for keeping track of work in progress, performing computer back-ups, maintaining financial records and so on.

Let’s look at one of these points, expertise in Microsoft Word. An inexperienced user who is replacing a word may delete it letter by letter instead of combining the Control and Delete keys to remove the whole word or – even faster – highlighting the word and typing the replacement over it. Such techniques, multiplied by thousands of alterations in a document, can have a significant effect on the pace of the work. An editor who does not use macros for routine tasks, such as removing unwanted formatting and changing hyphens to en rules in spans of figures, is probably working too slowly.

Every job presents different challenges; as each one reaches completion, the editor should evaluate the working methods to see where time could have been saved.

Yes, but

I entirely agree with other bloggers that in many cases hourly rates are scandalously low for the skills applied. I have said elsewhere that anything less than $50 an hour (in 2004 dollars) is derisory for a competent editor.[2] I am not arguing that rates can be raised to realistic levels simply by an improvement in working methods. Such a suggestion would amount to blaming individuals for a systemic failure.

Nevertheless, wide variations are reported in the quality and speed of editorial work. If these reports are true, some editors need to lift their game. It is easy to sit back and bleat that editors are underpaid, but the obligation cuts both ways: the client should pay a reasonable hourly rate (whatever that means), but the editor should deliver work of reasonable quality done at a reasonable pace (whatever that means). I agree with Grant Bailey that research is needed, but it should go beyond a questionnaire on remuneration.

Efficiency is an area that is entirely under the editor’s control; while we’re waiting for the research to be done and the clients to be persuaded, freelances who constantly strive to work faster and smarter will improve their hourly rates.

Notes
This article expresses my personal views. In my capacity as liaison officer for the Institute of Professional Editors, I have informed the Interim Council of IPEd about Grant Bailey’s suggestion for a national survey of rates. All rates are expressed in Australian dollars.
[1] Paraphrased with updated figures from Nick Hudson, ‘Money’, in J. Mackenzie (ed.), At the Typeface: Selections from the Newsletter of the Victorian Society of Editors, Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc., Melbourne, 2005, p. 16.
[2] J. Mackenzie, The Editor’s Companion, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2004, p. 182.

© Janet Mackenzie

The great rate debate

Pamela Hewitt

In last week's blog, Grant Bailey puzzles over the results of my 2005 national survey of editors whose respondents reported an average national hourly rate for freelance editors of $61. He compares this with a 2001 NSW survey finding of $40 and current anecdotal reports of a shameful $35 an hour. ‘Who should we believe?’, he asks.

The answer, I think, is straightforward.

The three findings are probably all accurate. These different results are neither inconsistent nor unreliable. It's just that the evidence was collected at different times, from different groups of people, in response to different questions.

The most important factor in a freelance editor’s rates is client. Publishers, universities and private clients pay much less than corporate and government clients. It’s as simple as that.

Another factor that has an influence on freelancers' income is location. It’s not surprising that the NSW survey reported lower rates in that state than the national average. This finding is mirrored in the state breakdowns of the data on rates. It is also likely that rates in NSW have increased in the intervening four years.

I’m not sure which editors were consulted to arrive at Grant’s anecdotal $35 an hour ‘or less’. If they worked in trade publishing, however, this would also be unsurprising. Editors who work for publishers receive payment far below the going rate for corporate and government work.

Of course, some freelance editors command appropriate rates in their trade, academic and private work and some work for absurdly low rates for government agencies and businesses. My findings suggest that these are the exceptions.

The hierarchy for editorial rates, in my experience and backed by my research, goes something like this: at the top of the tree is corporate work, followed by government contracts. When quoting in these areas of the market, you would not be taken seriously if you listed less than $50 an hour, average rates are around $70 and many charge a good deal more, into three figures. Climbing down the scale, in terms of profitability, most editors who work for publishers and universities find that they are expected to work for $35–60 an hour. Students and private clients sometimes baulk at even these extremely low rates. My surveys report some individuals working for as little as $20 and $25 an hour, a discounted rate for students and writers. This amounts to subsidy since it is not possible to operate a professional business on this basis.

Each time I’ve conducted my national surveys, respondents have sought guidance about rates. A common comment was that they didn’t want to undercut their colleagues and yet they felt under pressure to keep their rates down in order to win quotes.

Let the debate begin

I’d like to open Writing & Editing Blog to comments on rates. Here are some thoughts and questions to get the discussion going.

• If we don’t discuss rates, they will remain low. Isolation promotes exploitation.
• Should editors consider promoting a recommended minimum professional rate for editors? (The Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers has done this for many years, and their base rate of $55, excluding GST, is widely accepted across the profession and by clients.)
• Would there be benefits in discussion and negotiation about rates with organisations such as the APA (Australian Publishers Association), ASA (Australian Society of Authors) and MEAA (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance)?
• How can freelance editors grapple with the problem that their ‘industry’ is as decentralised as they are themselves? We often think of ourselves as working in the ‘publishing industry’ and some of us do, some of the time. But many of our clients are not publishers. To concentrate only on book editing in trade publishing is to ignore the majority of our colleagues, who work in universities, banks, councils, museums—anywhere words are published, whether on paper or on screen.

What do you think?

Please contact me with your thoughts, articles, comments, questions and criticisms. It could be that 2006 is the year of the Great Rate Debate.

© Pamela Hewitt
www.emendediting.com

The Emend Editing courses most relevant to this article are On your marks An introduction to editing, Tricks of the trade Freelance editing and What’s it worth? Costing and quoting.

Please contact me if you have any comments on this article or if you'd like to reproduce it.

Pay rates of freelance editors

This week's blog is by Grant Bailey, a Sydney freelancer responding to Pamela Hewitt's Third National Survey of Editors. Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment on rates.

Conflicting reports

What is the going rate for freelance copyediting work? The current evidence presents inconsistencies. The most recent survey, undertaken by Pamela Hewitt during the National Editor's Conference in Melbourne in October, indicated that the average rate of payment for editors nationally is currently around $61 per hour (the results, and a useful discussion, can be viewed below). The NSW Society’s 2001 survey of members (the most recent available for that state) indicated that an average rate of around $40 per hour was typical for copyediting work at that time (although direct comparisons are difficult due to the methodology employed in the survey). But even this much lower rate compares unfavourably with the current ‘target rate’ of $35 or less that a significant number of editors have reported anecdotally.

Who should we believe? It is likely that the differing reports about pay rates can be explained by differences in the circumstances of the editors surveyed. For example, it is possible that the results of Pamela Hewitt’s survey overstate the national average due to the sample being over-represented by editors from Victoria (presumably because editors from other states – particularly ‘strugglers’ – were unable to afford the cost of attending the conference). Conversely, the NSW results might reflect poor rates in that state which are not accurate for the rest of the country. The anecdotal reports of $35 per hour or less might arise from experience of some particular sector of publishing not representative of the industry as a whole. It is not clear, for example, that the copyediting of trade publications is paid at the same rate as the copyediting of government reports. Neither of the surveys asked respondents to specify the type of work they do.

The need for further evidence

The inconsistent evidence thus far justifies a more detailed and widespread investigation. The best means of obtaining accurate data about pay rates would be by means of an anonymous survey to be mailed to all members of the various state and territory editors’ societies nation-wide. The Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) should give serious consideration to organising such a survey.

The methodology of the survey will require careful consideration. Rather than focusing on hourly rates, the aim of the survey should be to obtain a true picture of the market value of editing work by eliciting data about the time worked in, and the income received from, editing. This is because declared hourly rates are often an inaccurate indication of income received from editing work. For example, a full-time librarian who does editing work part-time as a means of supplementing their income might be inclined to charge $70 per hour for their services on the grounds that it would ‘not be worthwhile’ to do the work for lower rates. Being able to ‘pick and choose’, the part-time editor’s hourly rate looks favourable. By contrast, a freelance editor devoting themselves full-time to editing work may have no option but to accept $35 per hour for the same work. If the latter situation was the norm within the profession then the average of the two rates would not be an accurate indication of the economic value of editing work.

The survey should ask respondents to estimate the average number of hours worked per week (over the last twelve months) as editors and their annual income from editing work for the last financial year. This would provide the most accurate means of estimating the average hourly rates of editors. Moreover, the survey should clearly differentiate between employed editors and freelance editors to account for differences in their pay and conditions (while freelancers may earn a higher hourly ‘rate’ they do not necessarily enjoy regular work, holiday pay, sick leave and superannuation).

Whether or not the concerns about deteriorating pay and conditions are confirmed, the collation of accurate survey evidence would have the further advantage of enabling IPEd to set recommended minimum rates for editing work. Minimum rates would provide individual editors with guidance on what rates to expect and would help to promote fair pay within the profession.

© Grant Bailey 2005