I am a firm believer in the notion that everyone has a story to tell and that everyone’s story should be told. The primary consideration for copyeditors in relation to this principle is the writing ability of the author. POD publishing services, such as AuthorHouse and Xlibris, offer what they call “copyediting” services for a single per-word fee. Are they claiming that all writing is equal? If you have superior writing ability, will you be forced to pay for more than what is necessary for a light edit? Or, if your writing ability is somewhat lacking, does this mean your work will be given a limited, subpar copyedit?

The average copyeditor works at a rate of 4 to 12 pages per hour—quite a wide range. If you take into account the fact that a typical manuscript page contains 250 words, you can easily calculate the average amount that a copyeditor earns per hour. According to Writer’s Market, for copyeditors in the trade market this amount is around $30. Consequently, to obtain the very best pricing for Booksjustbooks.com of $0.01 per word, an editor would need to complete an average of 12 pages per hour in order to make $30.

The reality, however, is that copyeditors generally must work at a rate of 6 to 8 pages per hour to perform their task effectively. Copyediting levels 2 and 3 are considered the norm. The lowest and highest levels of copyediting are reserved for written works on the extreme ends of the spectrum.

Our editorial evaluation process results in a summary of the strengths and shortcomings of your submitted work and an estimate of the level of editing necessary to put your book into a form that you can be proud of. Our editorial evaluators spend 3 to 4 hours with your manuscript, assessing grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, usage, and overall style. In addition, we provide you with a sample edit of approximately 5 pages to demonstrate what editing of the recommended level can do to improve your work.

I urge you to look at the editorial evaluation as an investment in your work. Should you elect to take the service recommended by the evaluator, the entire cost of the evaluation will be refunded. How can you go wrong?

Last 5 posts by Margaret Jennings

• Why a Copy Editor Instead of a 10th-Grade English Teacher? - September 20th, 2007
• Choosing the “Perfect” Service Provider - March 4th, 2006
• What’s Behind a Proofread? - December 6th, 2005
• Copyedit or Copy Edit? - October 11th, 2005
• Finding the Right Manuscript Editor - September 11th, 2005