What is a...?People You Can Hire to Help You Write
🖊️ What is a WRITING COACH?
A writing coach is an editor and mentor. Usually on a one-to-one basis, they help you to establish a writing practice, improve your writing and research skills, navigate the publishing industry, and connect with others in the writing community.
When might you need a writing coach?
If you are in a writing-heavy career (or identify as a writer) or you are enrolled in a writing-heavy educational program and find that writing is not coming to you as "easily" as you'd like, or is causing you a great deal of stress, hiring a writing coach could be very useful. You might also consider hiring a writing coach if you are a writer (e.g., a scholar, student, journalist, author, blogger, whatever!) and are seeking a support system, a collaborator, and/or someone who can keep you focused.
How much can hiring a writing coach cost?
This really depends on the person, their business philosophy, the services they provide, the type of writing you're doing, your experience, their experience, and many other things. Rates can range from $50ish to $500+. (Psst...I charge $60/hr. or "pay-what-you-can.")
🥣 What is a DEVELOPMENTAL EDITOR?
A developmental editor helps you, well, develop your writing by addressing the text's "big picture." They/we take a very thorough look at the text and give you feedback (usually both as comments throughout and in an editorial summary) on things like a text's overall organization and flow, pacing, plot, places where more information / elaboration / further explanation is needed, the strength of the argument(s) and evidence, and so on.
When might you need a developmental editor?
Once you've written your piece and now need some honest, engaged feedback from someone who understands how your genre works.
How much can hiring a developmental editor cost?
Again, this depends on whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, what genre you work in, and what the topic (or, in academia, the field) is. For nonfiction work in the humanities/social science, editors like me charge between $0.04-0.05 a word (according to the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA)). So, for an academic article of about 10,000 words, a developmental edit might cost between $400-500. Some editors charge by word (like me), some by hour, and some by project, so pricing can vary here, too.
🖌️What is a LINE EDITOR?
A line editor looks at your piece at the paragraph and sentence level, addressing issues of clarity, conciseness, consistency, tone, flow, and point-of-view.
When might you need a line editor?
Line-editing comes after you’ve addressed the “big picture” items and are ready to work on how you’re saying what you’re saying rather than what you’re saying. In other words, when you’re happy with the overall structure and content and are ready to begin refining, you’ll want to hire a line editor.
What can it cost to hire a line editor?
As with all other writing-adjacent hires, this one depends, too. In the humanities/social sciences, line editors charge around $0.04-0.045/word.
🏗️ What is a COPY EDITOR?
A copy editor addresses the nitty-gritty mechanical stuff in the text, including use of language, syntax, grammar, and punctuation.
When might you need a copy editor?
You’re ready for a copy editor when the bigger elements of your text are ironed out, and the overall style and tone (line-editing things) are addressed. Typically, you'll want at least one round of copy edits before submitting your piece to a journal or publisher to ensure your argument, storyline, etc. comes through clearly. There is also at least one round of copy edits after you've resubmitted your article or book to a publisher or press for a second time (after all of the content issues have been dealt with / following your edits after peer review).
How much does hiring a copy editor cost?
Again, this depends on all of the aforementioned factors, but for the nonfiction humanities/social sciences realm, this typically costs between $0.03-0.04/word (slightly less than developmental editing).
🔍 What is a PROOFREADER?
Sometimes authors are thinking of "proofreading" when they really mean "copyediting." A proofreader looks at proofs, or the final draft, typically right before it's sent to press. A proofreader searches for typos, misspellings, missing commas, weird spacing between words, and all the other little errors that were missed in the last few rounds of edits.
When might you need a proofreader?
A publisher will hire a proofreader or provide a proofread as one of the very last steps of the publishing process. A good proofreader polishes the piece, making the form and mechanics of the piece as near to perfect as it'll get (the content is something dealt with in the developmental and, to some extent, the copyediting phases). If you're submitting a dissertation or thesis to the graduate school for archiving, a proofreader is a good person to hire in the month prior to doing this.
What can it cost to hire a proofreader? Again, this depends. For the humanities/social sciences nonfiction world, a proofreader might charge between $0.02-0.03/word, or slightly less than a copy editor.
🔑 What is an INDEXER?
An indexer creates the book's index.
When do you need an indexer?
Not all books have indexes (or indices), but for nonfiction books or something like a poetry book (with a first-line index or a title index), the indexing happens at the very end of the publishing process. This is typically done during the penultimate proofreading stage (when an author is addressing minor things an editor has pointed out). The text will then (again, typically) go through one last round of proofreading, this time including the index, before being sent off for publication.
How much does it cost to hire an indexer?
You won't always have to self-hire an indexer, but if you do, it might cost around $0.02/word for a nonfiction humanities/social sciences text. That means, for a text with 80,000 words, it will cost about $1600 to have your book indexed.
🧩What are some other services Frazier-Rath Editing can provide?
Manuscript formatting ($0.03/word on avg. for my area)
Checking and fixing references (depends on how much work needs to be done; usually I charge about $200 for a pretty messy Reference section.)
Fact-checking ($0.05/word on avg. for my area)
Frazier-Rath Editing is committed to providing writing services like those listed here to anyone who needs them, no matter their access to wealth or institution funding. Please inquire about pay-what-you-can pricing.
