Proofreaders are usually paid by the hour. So what happens when you are asked to price a job? How long should you allow a review task or expect to claim from your customer?
Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this question. The amount of time a review job will take depends on at least three factors:
1. The nature of the text: Complex scientific material will clearly take longer to proofread correctly than a popular novel.
2. The number of errors: A text that is riddled with errors will take longer to correct than a book that has almost nothing wrong with it.
3. Your skills and experience: Different people work at different rates, and experienced proofreaders can obviously work a little faster than those new to the field. Also, you are likely to work faster when proofreading text on a topic you are familiar with rather than one you know nothing about.
As a very rough guide, you should expect to be able to review between 2 and 5 pages in an hour. The actual figure will depend on the three factors listed above, plus the number of words per page.
It follows that you should be very careful when quoting a price without first seeing at least a sample of the text. You should assess its complexity, how many corrections are likely to be needed, and (in the case of nonfiction books) how familiar you are with the topic. Once you’ve assessed this, and only then, should you be able to estimate the number of pages you can proofread in an hour and multiply that by your normal hourly rate to work out a price you can quote.
As a new proofreader, it’s tempting to assume that you can work faster than average so that you can quote a competitive rate. However, it is almost always a mistake to do this. Proofreading is painstaking work, and your client will not, or should not, expect you to rush them. And if you quote a rate that is unrealistically low, the customer is likely to be put off by a quote that is unreasonably high.
When starting out, it’s best to keep your estimate of how many pages you can read in an hour on the low side, and perhaps lower your target rates a bit to keep your rate competitive. As you gain experience you will undoubtedly get faster, and with experience you will also develop a ‘feel’ for each job and how long it will take.
Finally, if you’re still in doubt, you can always try asking your client if they have a budget in mind for the job, or even roughly how long they expect it to take. Some clients may feel like it’s not their job to tell you this, but most won’t mind giving you a ballpark figure, if only to avoid any awkwardness later on.