Editing a book

I may have an opportunity to edit a non-fiction book in the near future, but I've never done anything of the kind (I've been a sports editor and news copy editor for the past nine years).

I'm curious if anyone has any insights on this type of thing, particularly how to go about negotiating compensation. I have no idea what I should expect an average book editor to receive (it would be under a contract).

Any help y'all can provide would be appreciated.

 

You need to see the manuscript and spend at least 30 minutes to an hour looking through it to see what kind of shape the writing is in, as well as a general sense of how well organized.

The amount of editing needed is wide-ranging. A base fee of $400 plus a dollar for every 100 words is reasonable, if well written and clean. Anything worse and substantial rewriting needed, it spikes up from there.

 

I assume you are comfortable with the field of non-fiction this book represents because editing requires a level of understanding here. I think that is an important place to start in your deliberations.

I would be much more comfortable working to edit a book on basketball than I would a book on quantum electrodymanics.

 

Yeah, those dymanics can be tricky SOBs. ;D

 

An example of my dyslexic typing combined with sadly deficient proofreading skills.

[hangs his head in shame while sitting in the corner...]