No two editing jobs are alike!

This makes it difficult for a professional editor to provide an exact quote for a job without conversation and seeing the document. As a guide for pricing, I have provided three scenarios below. These three give an indication of the variety of editing on which I work and how jobs differ. To assist in the quoting process, it is helpful that I see a sample of your work before I can provide an accurate quote. For academic work I ask for a chapter including the Contents. For PhD theses, this needs to be the final version and approved by your supervisor for professional editing.

When I provide a quote it will be a project cost that will include consultation, editing and agreed revisions on the final version.

CASE STUDY 1

PhD Edit - 90,000 words incl references

Steven* requested an edit for his PhD in the field of linguistics. He gained approval from his supervisor for editing and provided his final version for a copyedit. He used APA 7 style for his references. Steven's copy was of a very high quality but there was a lot of work needed to standardise headings and formatting. His tables and figures weren't consistent and needed to be refined to be of a consistent format. He used some US and some UK spelling so I checked this throughout. A list for figures and tables had not been created so this was included to the complete the job. Issues for clarification were noted as comments.

Total cost: $3200 incl GST

(*based on real cases, names changed)

case study 2

Nonfiction Edit - 35,000 words

Matt* realised his dream of writing a wellbeing guide based on his own life experiences . All the great ideas were in the text, they just needed refining and a fresh pair of (professional!) eyes. I ensured that his chapters were of similar length and that the formatting was consistent for headings and Contents. Matt wanted his book to appeal to a general audience, including children, so I suggested the inclusion of images to break up the text and make it appealing to a wider reader audience. Some of the language required reviewing for a younger reader and there were some inaccuracies that needed manual checking. A thorough edit for spelling, grammar and punctuation completed the job for him.

Total cost: $2,200 incl GST

case study 3

Website copy - 15,000 words

Five years after Fiona* started her own homewares business she realised it was time to upgrade from her basic launch website and invest in a professional one. Working with designers on the template, she chose to craft her own copy and approached me to help refine the copy to project a professional image that would authentically represent her brand. Being her 'baby' it was clear she found it hard to separate herself from the project and to be more objective. The text was unnecessarily wordy and overly exuberant in parts. Coming to the project as a professional not associated with her brand or company, I was able to fix this by refining the text to create a clear, professional message. Her homepage was busy with text so I moved less pertinent messages to 'less lucrative' real estate and ensured the copy was error-free and focused on her product and message.

Total cost: $1,200 incl GST