# How much would you pay a proofreader?



## CedarCollie (Jan 31, 2021)

I'm thinking about looking for a career as a proofreader as it is a genuine line of work and is good for people with my illness. How much would you pay a proofreader personally for your work?


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## Faustus (Feb 2, 2021)

I've worked as a proofreader a couple of times, and they didn't go above national minimum wage, plus both were fixed-length contracts, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.


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## reptile logic (Feb 2, 2021)

From Bookbaby(dot)com, straight from their website: I didn't delve deeply enough to learn what word count per page they had settled on. Keep in mind that those actually doing the work only get some unlisted percentage of that:
Proofreading: $3 per page​Proofreading is the vital last step of the book editing process. After your manuscript has received its professional edit, your book proofreader will perform a final review to fix any remaining mechanical and grammar issues before your book is printed and published. Proofreading is not a structural edit and instead focuses on eliminating minor mistakes and inconsistencies.

Correction of misspellings, punctuation, capitalization, verb tense, and grammar issues.
Estimated editing time: 6 to 8 business days.
Edit: This doesn't answer the question of what I'm willing to pay.  I don't know what I'm willing to pay. So far, for good or ill, I have not hired anyone for this service.


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## Borophagus Metropolis (Feb 2, 2021)

I've proofread some truly awful writing. They should have paid me $3/word, but I did it for free because it was college. Scratch that, I paid them for the privilege.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Feb 5, 2021)

I had a proofreader for literally twenty years until they decided not to support .odt format. The claim was LibreOffice was too hard to use. I was paying them $15 per chapter the last few years because the major mechanical edits had been done line by line by me.

I have been working on the *MAJOR* edits to my brother-in-law's novella, trying to work from printed text. He kept no digital copies because he's computer illiterate. I did a rough OCR, took that text and pasted it back into another document, then started to edit. I'm in hell, trust me. Did I mention I'm doing this for free? Yeah. In actuality, this is more like a re-write than anything else.


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## TheUniverseofCMed (Feb 8, 2021)

CedarCollie said:


> I'm thinking about looking for a career as a proofreader as it is a genuine line of work and is good for people with my illness. How much would you pay a proofreader personally for your work?


An alternative to finding an editor or proofreader is Grammarly. It costs like a hundred dollars a year and is way cheaper than finding an editor that can charge you $2K to $3K per book. Trust me, I know because I have to face similar situations.


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## Keefur (Feb 9, 2021)

If you are looking to get printed works, contact me in a PM.  I'm a printer by trade and can do perfect binding of paperbacks.  I can give you some tips to save some real money.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Feb 11, 2021)

Keefur said:


> If you are looking to get printed works, contact me in a PM.  I'm a printer by trade and can do perfect binding of paperbacks.  I can give you some tips to save some real money.


Always a good thing to be skilled in.

My last publisher that turned out to be a POD pub, who shall remain nameless, *cough* *cough* PublishAmerica *cough* did a bang-up job of murdering about 500 copies (so they say) that were printed and distributed without my final approval. They left the print invoice from the actual printer in the box of books they sent to me. I was paid royalties on eleven books. Uh-huh! I have ten of the ones sent to me left, basically tinder for a fire. The sets of pages, can't remember the term, some were backwards, some were upside down, there were sixteen blank pages in the middle, missing text, stuff like that. All of the ones sent to me were just alike in misprint along with the one I bought off Amazon as a control sample.

I will be reprinting my first novel as a second edition after I fix everything they effed up in the text. That will take some time. I'll keep this info handy for when the time comes.


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## Keefur (Feb 12, 2021)

It's hard to mess up digital printing.  I have a semi-automatic Duplo perfect binder, but you do have to feed the interiors in.  The misprints are a mystery to me.  I had a digital press memory go bad about ten years ago and it randomly shuffled the pages inside.  Xerox had to eat 100 copies of a book, but for random misprints, that is just crazy.  The printer sounds like he sent them overseas to print or something.  I normally request 24 books on a first run, then I print in multiples of four as needed.  I don't do royalties.  You get your books and you know the price.  Other than shipping, book costs are the same, so you don't have to print a zillion books to get a price break.  I also use a gate fold on the covers.  This alleviates stress on the spine.  I can send you a sample book if you wish.  I can also do galley proofs.  Normally the turn around time for books is just a few days.  Faster if you really are hurting, but I try to work with you as long as you don't abuse me. lol  For chap books, 5" x 8.5", I print 4 up on sheets.  This means I print four interiors in a stack.  When I quarter cut the stacks, you get 4 books per stack.  The covers are laminated (usually).  The process is to crease and laminate the covers (2 up on a 12" x 18" sheet).  The interiors are fed into the binder, the binder mills the spine of the interior for adhesion then cycles the interior over a glue roller which puts the glue on the edge of the interior.  As this is happening, the cover is fed in and the interior cycles back and is clamped/pressed onto the cover where it is held for several seconds to bind the book.  The book is released and drops from the binder.  After the books are bound, the stack of unfinished books is taken to the electric paper cutter and trimmed on the head, foot, and face.  The book is now done and ready to send to you.  I've been doing this for about 16 years or so.  If you ask around, I have a reputation for being very laid back and easy to work with.  I print lots of Furry con books, but of course, with the virus, that has dried up for now.  I am used to proprietary information, so I won't go blabbing about the content, and I don't sell "under the table".  I have had cases where people wanted a book off the press, and I directed them to the owner of the book.  I tell them,"I can't sell you that book because I'm not the owner."
I will work with you any way I can to help you save money.  If you need any advice on layout, or banner pages or even if you need a cover designed, let me know.  I have some mad Photoshop skills. lol  OH... yeah.. I do like to talk a lot, if you can't already tell.


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## reptile logic (Feb 12, 2021)

^

Message sent


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## Kellan Meig'h (Feb 12, 2021)

Keefur said:


> It's hard to mess up digital printing.  I have a semi-automatic Duplo perfect binder, but you do have to feed the interiors in.  The misprints are a mystery to me.  I had a digital press memory go bad about ten years ago and it randomly shuffled the pages inside.  Xerox had to eat 100 copies of a book, but for random misprints, that is just crazy.  The printer sounds like he sent them overseas to print or something.  I normally request 24 books on a first run, then I print in multiples of four as needed.  I don't do royalties.  You get your books and you know the price.  Other than shipping, book costs are the same, so you don't have to print a zillion books to get a price break.  I also use a gate fold on the covers.  This alleviates stress on the spine.  I can send you a sample book if you wish.  I can also do galley proofs.  Normally the turn around time for books is just a few days.  Faster if you really are hurting, but I try to work with you as long as you don't abuse me. lol  For chap books, 5" x 8.5", I print 4 up on sheets.  This means I print four interiors in a stack.  When I quarter cut the stacks, you get 4 books per stack.  The covers are laminated (usually).  The process is to crease and laminate the covers (2 up on a 12" x 18" sheet).  The interiors are fed into the binder, the binder mills the spine of the interior for adhesion then cycles the interior over a glue roller which puts the glue on the edge of the interior.  As this is happening, the cover is fed in and the interior cycles back and is clamped/pressed onto the cover where it is held for several seconds to bind the book.  The book is released and drops from the binder.  After the books are bound, the stack of unfinished books is taken to the electric paper cutter and trimmed on the head, foot, and face.  The book is now done and ready to send to you.  I've been doing this for about 16 years or so.  If you ask around, I have a reputation for being very laid back and easy to work with.  I print lots of Furry con books, but of course, with the virus, that has dried up for now.  I am used to proprietary information, so I won't go blabbing about the content, and I don't sell "under the table".  I have had cases where people wanted a book off the press, and I directed them to the owner of the book.  I tell them,"I can't sell you that book because I'm not the owner."
> I will work with you any way I can to help you save money.  If you need any advice on layout, or banner pages or even if you need a cover designed, let me know.  I have some mad Photoshop skills. lol  OH... yeah.. I do like to talk a lot, if you can't already tell.


Quite enlightening. Those books were through some outfit that claimed to be a printer in Buffalo, NY. I only wanted 25 books, my 'publisher' took it upon themselves to print the extra ones that might have been a mistake on their part. And yo could be right about the overseas printing.

My novel was on Amazon for quite some time after PA tanked, took on a new name, then tanked again. Always out of stock with no estimate on being back in stock. I learned my lesson about ISBN numbers, too. That's why I want to do a revision and buy my own ISBN numbers this time so I can actually get a Library of Congress number. The old PA-issued ISBN is no good as far as I know for me to use it.


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## Jaredthefox92 (Feb 12, 2021)

I just get my friends on Discord to read it. lol, but I do believe if you work for a company you should have a hired proofreader.


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## Keefur (Feb 12, 2021)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> Quite enlightening. Those books were through some outfit that claimed to be a printer in Buffalo, NY. I only wanted 25 books, my 'publisher' took it upon themselves to print the extra ones that might have been a mistake on their part. And yo could be right about the overseas printing.
> 
> My novel was on Amazon for quite some time after PA tanked, took on a new name, then tanked again. Always out of stock with no estimate on being back in stock. I learned my lesson about ISBN numbers, too. That's why I want to do a revision and buy my own ISBN numbers this time so I can actually get a Library of Congress number. The old PA-issued ISBN is no good as far as I know for me to use it.


If you are self-marketing your book and not selling through third parties, you don't need an ISBN.  They run about $60.  It's actually been a while since I had to order any.  I don't know if I have any left in my inventory.  I don't think I do.  You will need an ISBN to sell on Amazon, but you don't need a Library of Congress number.


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