Writers: Do you take editing jobs?

If you work as an academic freelancer online - do you take editing jobs?

At times, I am asked to edit works the customer has written, or half-written. Sometimes I do some editing and some writing and calculate a price based on how much I did of each. For editing, I charge half my usual writing rate. However, I find that this line of service is not very fruitful, as the editing often takes just as long and is more trouble. I am thinking about starting to refuse these orders. Either that, or I will charge more. However, I see people advertising themselves on Craigslist and essaydirectory as native-English-speaking editors, and they often charge only $5 per page. What is up with this?

I take editing jobs, but I never quote a rate until I see the project and then I try to give an honest estimation of my time. If all they really need is proofreading for spelling and grammar I charge a lot less per-page than for writing, because the work goes a lot faster. If what they actually need is re-writing, I charge about the same as I do for original work because it takes about the same amount of time (and can take longer, depending on the specifics of the project).

The way I approach this business as a whole is this: writers are not on salary, nor are we really paid discrete mounts per-unit (we charge by the page because that's a convenient way to present the price per customer, but we adjust our price per page based on how hard the order is, etc). We are paid for our time, and it is up to us to value each project and our time accordingly. Why not take an editing job, as long as you are paid the same rate for the same amount of effort as for your writing? Why not take a math order (assuming you can do the math) as long as the client understands that the single page of calculations they receive is going to cost three times more than a single page of writing because it took three times as long to complete?

It's all about reviewing the individual project and fixing a price based on an estimate of time. This is also an advantage individual writers have over companies: we are able to actually discuss each product with a client before setting a price, whereas clients pay companies ahead of time and might overpay for something an individual writer would find quick and easy, or might underpay for a complex order that a writer could do for more compensation but that will end up getting cancelled and go uncompleted as is.

Great way to look at it. I will start pricing more along these lines. Thanks for your response.

Yeah, there's no way you can charge substantially less than straight writing. All you have to do is a few heavy editing/rewriting projects and you realize very quickly that it's often harder, more draining, slower, and a lot harder on the hands than just writing from scratch. Almost anytime I tried to give a really good price I ended up regretting it by the time I was halfway into the project.

I've learned that you have to explain to customers why you can only charge a little less for heavy editing than for writing new material...and that even that break is more because you sympathize with their perspective than it is a reflection of how much time and effort is involved on our end. Anytime they inquire into the price of editing before they have their own draft, I advise them to spare their time and just let me do it from scratch for only a little bit more money. Otherwise, I charge by the wordcount of their draft and give them maybe $5 or $10 off the usual writing rate per page. Anything less and it's just not worth the headache on my end. Established customers understand but it's more of an issue explaining to someone inquiring for the first time about editing work. Typically, the expectation is that "editing" will cost only a small fraction of "writing." You should always ask to see the material before quoting a price, too.

i don't know how many times i've gotten into an editing order thinking it would be a quick paycheck, only to find out the entire essay needs to be done. unless it's proofreading it never goes smooth and it's physically and intellectually draining.

The students themselves do not understand the difference between an editing job and an actual research paper. When I was still participating in academic writing through a company, I found that the students oftentimes would ask for an editing job but not upload any essay that they had written at all. The only opt to list the job as an editing job because the company charged less per page for the job. They would get around the editing requirement of an actual paper by uploading a series of running header pages accompanied by a title page and then say "please edit the work for me." Now, complaining that this was not actually an editing job would not get me anywhere so I eventually started to decline those orders. I would rather write a paper from scratch than touch an "editing" job because more often than not, it isn't just a simple editing job. Sometimes, a client actually uploads a complete document for editing, then I am asked to revise the whole paper because his professor said his research was not in accordance with the instructions. In which case, that is not an editing job but a new model paper. The students are very creative when it comes to getting around the description of an "editing job" so I found it best to simply shy away from such orders.

I don't refuse them, but I never quote a price until I can actually see the file that (supposedly) just needs "editing" along with any editing specs they may have received from a reviewer or (previewer). Once in a while, a project described as needing "some editing" really only needs exactly that, in which case I charge roughly half as much as for new writing. Much more often, what they send me is, essentially, useless and requires a full rewrite because salvaging whatever they already have would be even more work and cost more than new writing without any benefit to justify the cost. About once every few years, someone sends me a file for editing and I respond that the changes it needs are so minor that they're probably not important enough to spend the money for me to make them. That's probably happened about three times in the last 15 years.

I am never picky when it comes to orders being placed by clients. Editing jobs are as good an order as any and can help a writer tide himself over during the dry seasons. If a writer is good enough at editing jobs, he can actually parlay it into a regular income for himself. There will always be a student or several students who have already done the work themselves and are just not confident about the presentation. Such students should be provided with all the help that they can get. Editing jobs also helps the writer hone his own writing skills and refresh or update his knowledge of academic English grammar rules and writing rules. By detecting the mistakes in others, they become better writers themselves, knowing what to avoid when they write original orders for other students. It is important that writers not be picky when it comes to their writing jobs. Even the shortest and simplest editing jobs, when done properly can earn them a regular client and add to their coffers during the month prior to payout.

This is what's particularly rewarding about editing jobs. Not only are they a lot calmer compared to general writing jobs, but they also give the writer the pleasure of being extra cautious with their own writing. Writers typically write numerous pages daily; generally speaking, this is also the reason why some writers do have tendencies to have slip-ups in their writing as they tend to be overshadowed and bombarded with so much research. I also love editing jobs because they feel a bit more rewarding at times compared to regular essay writing jobs. I have noticed that clients in this area tend to be a lot more communicative and consultative as they're truly curious as to how they can improve their writing.

I just had a series of these and charged the same as for all-new writing. The client had to have his original drafts revised instead of a brand-new project, because the professor reviewed all the drafts and graded the project based on its "evolution" and degree of improvement between the drafts and the final versions. On my end, it's actually more work to "revise" someone else's work extensively than it is to write the whole project from scratch. Writing flows smoothly, whereas rewriting someone else's work involves constant stops and starts to go back and forth between the original draft and the version that I'm writing.

This is particularly interesting to me as a freelance academic writer. I find that most companies charge around 50% less when it comes to editing jobs because of the assumption that they're easier to finish. Nonetheless, I also generally agree that editing jobs take longer than full-on writing jobs. I have also observed that clients who ask for editing tend to not really know how to estimate the work that actually needs to be put into the paper they're sending in. There have been a few instances wherein they asked for a minor edit; however, it still ended up to be a major revision that warranted that I added an immense amount of work into the final project. Writing jobs are a lot more straightforward, especially since counting per page, word count, and research needed would be way easier than having rough estimates of probable editing work.

That's because "editing" jobs ordinarily imply copyediting and very light line-editing. Typically, whenever clients send me projects requesting only "editing," they usually require nearly-complete rewriting to produce anything decent that fulfills the project specs. About 10% of the time, projects sent to me for "editing" really need only copyediting and/or light line-editing. In 20 years of doing this, I've had only 2 or 3 projects sent to me that needed such light editing that I responded by telling those clients to save their money, just do a spellcheck and proofread it for punctuation mistakes themselves, and contact me in the future when they have a project worth paying me to do for them. One or two of them paid me to do that for them anyway and the other one or two took my advice.

I believe that editing jobs should cost more when compared to regular writing jobs. The reason why charging more seems logical to me is because the task requires the writer to review the work of someone else and verify information within the paper for accuracy by doing the research all over again using given sources. The time it takes to edit the essay is double the time one would spend on writing an original paper. Hence, if a task takes longer to complete, the more one should charge for his time spent working on the edited version.