How to Evaluate a Freelance Editor
Using the Triple Constraint
Welcome to what is, essentially, a continuation of Tuesday’s Shelf Life, or at least the theme of Tuesday’s Shelf Life, which was about how to find an editor. After you’ve found an editor you want to work with—or maybe a shortlist of potential editors, or even a longlist—how do you evaluate the ones you’ve found to decide who to hire?
Today’s Shelf Life will be about sussing out the particulars of the freelance editors you’re evaluating—it’s about what you need to know to evaluate an editor and how to get that information. Next week I’m going to take it even a bit further and go over creating a decision matrix for ranking candidates in something—in this case, candidates in contention to become your manuscript’s editor. A decision matrix part can be used for a lot of things, not just hiring an editor, so even if hiring a freelance editor is not in your future you may find it worthwhile to read again next week.
I guess you’ve got a list of potential editors based on the sleuthing you did after Tuesday’s Shelf Life on How to Find an Editor. Now it’s time to begin intel gathering on your candidates to figure out which one will work best for you.
My usual go-to metrics for figuring anything out, as I’ve yammered on about in Shelf Life many times, are:
Cost/price;
Timeliness/speed; and
Quality.
Those three things will be crucial in figuring out which freelance editor you want to hire.
Are they in your budget, and a good value?
Can they meet your deadline?
Is their edit likely to meet your expectations for the job?
However, not all of these are equally easy to figure out.
Cost
Cost should be somewhat straightforward. An editor may not be able to give exact quote before beginning the project, because there could be factors they’re unaware of before they start work: For instance, how messy is the manuscript? How heavy an edit does the author expect? Is the manuscript longer than specified?
However, any freelancer should be able to tell you about their rates up front. They will likely provide an estimate or quote for either:
The full project (a flat rate);
The hourly rate (total based on hours used); or
A per-word rate.
If a freelancer bills by the word, then the author will know up front, when they hand over their manuscript, what the edit will cost them. If I charge $0.04 per word and your manuscript is 80,000 words long, then you know the edit will cost exactly $3,200. Importantly, if an editor quotes a rate by “the page” make sure you confirm how “a page” is calculated—is it an average number of words or characters (eg, every 270 words equals 1 page)? Or is it the number of pages in your document?
If a freelancer bills by the hour, they should also provide an estimate of the total hours they anticipate your manuscript will take. Realistically that estimate will be a range and not a single number. As anyone who does editorial work knows, an editor cannot progress through every manuscript at the same rate of speed. Factors just within the writing and the subject matter itself can make a big difference. I might get through an 80,000-word romance novel in 22 to 26 hours but an 80,000-word biology textbook might take more like 50 to 60 hours for me to copyedit.
Finally, a freelance editor may quote a per-project rate based on assumptions like the length of the manuscript and, perhaps, their evaluation of a text sample.
However the freelancer is billing, make sure you understand what is included in that rate. Whether it’s hourly, per page, or per project, the edit may or may not include:
A sample chapter with an opportunity to provide feedback;
An opportunity to speak with the editor after their edit and ask questions;
A phase during which the author reviews edits and answers queries followed by a final cleanup phase during which the freelancer incorporates author feedback and cleans up the files;
And plenty of other stuff I’m surely not thinking of right now. To measure the value of the service and compare providers, you need to know not just the amount of money you will pay (or approximately) but also which services you will receive for that money.
Schedule
“I don’t have a deadline.” Please never say this to a person you are hiring to do a job.
Everyone has a deadline. Some people communicate their deadline and some do not. If you think you don’t have a deadline, ask yourself: If the bathroom remodeler doesn’t finish laying my floor tile until 80 years from now, is that okay with me? Or will I be mad and think it should have been completed sometime before 80 years is up? We all know you think it should be done sooner than 80 years from now. Great! We’ve figured out your deadline is ≤ 80 years. I daresay we could even narrow that down a bit more.
Anyway, everyone has a deadline unless they are truly cool with never getting something finished. When someone tells me “there’s no deadline, just whenever you get to it” I know I am literally never going to do that thing. My life and work are deadline-driven and a thing with no deadline will never rise to the top of the to-do list to get done ahead of things that have some deadline.
Perhaps you already know your deadline and as long as it is a reasonable deadline then you’re all good. You just need to ensure the editor you pick can work within that deadline. You might rate different editors based on the speed they promise or the deadline they can commit to—for instance, you might rank an editor more highly who can get files back in November than one who can get files back in December.
If you do not already know your deadline, then it’s probably not a short deadline—you probably don’t need the files back and ready for prime time in the next several weeks. That’s great—you can be flexible if an editor you really like on other criteria is booked for the next three months and can’t get your manuscript done till after that. But definitely come up with a deadline for the project, even if it’s vague like “November” or “before the new year begins,” before you begin querying candidates for their availability.
Quality
This one’s the doozy, as always. How are you supposed to evaluate a freelance editor’s quality before they edit your work and send it back? There’s always the sample edit, which I’ll discuss in further detail in a moment, but a sample edit aside you need to look at indicators of probable quality rather than indicators of definite, concrete editorial quality.
What do I mean by indicators of probable quality? There are several and it’s likely you’ll be able to find out some or all of these either by reviewing the editor’s website or their clearinghouse profile, or by querying them for information.
Training and Credentials
First: How did this editor come by their editorial skills? Most people acquire their job skills the same way we acquire our writing skills—or any other skill! That is, through a mix of study and experience. In this case, study is equivalent to their training and credentials and experience means on the job, hands-on editing experience (next section).
Second, and important: Most people you find are not going to have every source of training, credential, and experience. You might not find someone with a Master’s in Publishing and a lot of hands-on editorial experience. This is not a checklist that somebody needs to have all or most of. This is just a list of possible sources of editorial expertise. Many editors are self-taught. Degrees and credentials do not mean someone is a better editor than someone without them.
But consider whether the editor has any specific editorial education or training that’s relevant to editing. For instance, have they taken any kind of classes or received any certificates in editing? A number of universities offer publishing and editing degrees and certificates, and many English and communication degrees offer coursework in grammar, linguistics, tech writing, and so on that are helpful for learning editing.
What about continuing education or certification through a professional organization? The American Society of Copy Editors (ACES) offers certificate courses in editing. I’ve met the qualifications for and passed an exam to become a board-certified editor in the life sciences (ELS), which is not that valuable for editing romance novels but it’s competitive when I’m bidding on a biology textbook.
Experience and Prior Projects
Just as an editor doesn’t need a degree or certificate to be good, they don’t necessarily need a miles-long list of former projects to be good. However, prior editing experience may be the best indicator of probable quality for a freelance editor. Have they worked in-house at a publisher, or at an editorial services company like Girl Friday Productions or Editage? Do they have a list of products and projects they’ve worked on that you can review—for instance, published books, articles, magazines, or other content that they have edited?
There’s nothing wrong with taking a chance on a new editor with no experience—all great editors start somewhere—but authors should be realistic in their expectations. An inexperienced editor may charge less for their work, but there are also fewer guarantees for the author that the work will meet their standards.
Consider who their prior clients are and what publications they’ve worked on. Do you see any familiar names or titles?
Ratings and Testimonials
If an editor has had prior clients, have those clients rated the editor and left reviews (for instance on Fiverr or Upwork) or left testimonials that you can see on their website? Naturally with testimonials you will only see glowing ones. Nobody publishes lukewarm testimonials. But the presence of testimonials on a website indicates prior, happy clients.
An editor may also offer to provide references, but personally I wouldn’t ask for them of they are not offered up front. I keep my clients’ names and contact details in total confidence and would not ask a former client author to provide a reference to a new author, even though I’ve had a few clients say they’d be happy to.
Just a thought—you might also try googling your editor’s name with the word “acknowledge” or “acknowledgment.” I did most of my freelance editing under my married name and when I google it I come up with acknowledgement pages from books I edited during that time.
Communication and Presentation
Finally, look at their website, their public online profiles (eg, Linkedin, Fiverr, Reedsy), and any personal communication you’ve had with them. Is everything largely error- and typo-free, well-presented, and professional? I’m not a person who believes that any insignificant typo on a resume or cover letter or in an email should rule a candidate out of something—even editorial roles, nobody’s perfect all the time—but any time an editor is using language it should be fairly fluent and largely error-free. Email communication or a website littered with typos, misspelled words, and grammar errors does not inspire confidence in a freelance editor.
Query for the Information You Need
Maybe you found some of the above information for each of the editors on your list, but you’re missing some information you’d really like to know to make your decision. For instance, not everyone publishes their rates on their website and most editors don’t make their schedule public—you will very likely have to reach out to some folks to find out if they’re in your budget and can work with your deadline.
A freelance editor wants to do business with authors and will not mind answering your questions in a query to them. If you need information, just reach out and ask for what you need to know. Make sure to communicate your deadline and ask for confirmation of their rate and what it includes.
Meet me back here next week for the decision matrix. Fun times ahead and by fun I mean ranking proposals, because I know that’s everyone’s idea of a good time.
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