Editor Needed

[Tink]

I was sent this email from the Ling & ELang dept at BYU (it's the dept. that editing is under). Just in case anyone is interested:

I need an editor to format my wife's book. It is about 250 pages long. We would like to find someone this weekend if possible, and have it done in 1 week. The job pays $10 hour. The person will need to have acceess to MS word or open office (open office preferred so we can port it to pdf, but either one will work) on a computer. The book is called polkadotmoms and is the ultimate self help book for moms- it helps mother's regain their passion for life. We will require a signed nda (non disclosure agreement) and we will pay an estimated 50% payment up front and the remaining upon delivery of completed work.

We prefer to find someone who is interested in this topic as there may be more editing/ writing work for this same topic in the near future as well.

Thanks for your help!
Clint Wilde

Edit: Personal info taken out since they've probably found someone by now and I don't want them to be spammed on their phone.

[Shrain]

yeesh. They want it done in one week? Let's see, roughly 6 pgs per hour, with 250 pgs, that's still 41 hours, a full week. Tough if you've got a job already and classes. Hmm. I could use the money, though. $10 isn't too great, though. That's about half the going rate.

[Tink]

That's what I felt like, which is why I'm not doing it, but if you need money and have time or want the experience, it might be worth it. Most of those who got this are still students and it's good pay for BYU undergrads.

[Shrain]

I think I'll let this one pass. If they were offering a decent wage, I *might* think of doing it despite the short deadline.

[Skar]

The wage together with insisting on an NDA seems awfully amateur to me.  Like, so amateur I wouldn't have any confidence that they'd actually pay up.

[Tink]

Well, I'd say you just don't give them the product until you have payment. You'd have to meet to get paid anyway. You could put it on (I know archaic) a floppy, or a CD, and not give it to them till they've paid you. Of course, if you're not in the area, I guess you just have to hope they would send payment in the mail.

[JenaRey]

From the description of the book as being the 'ultimate' and the very short deadline, I would suspect this is more a call for proofreading rather than editing.  Most of the time when someone believes they've created the ultimate of something they just want someone else to make sure they've spelled everything correctly, not really for input on ideas, flow and such.  As well, I wonder at how many hours the writer thinks it will take to edit that many pages.  I know one of the folks that recently asked me to work on a 300 page manuscript assumed I could edit about 30 pages an hour and had budgeted 10 hours worth of pay.  They were very surprised when I very seriously informed them that 30 pages an hour was NOT reasonable for any kind of decent editing, even proofreading that fast is ridiculous unless all they want is the very worst of the edges whacked off.

This is only an opinion, but it is my gut impression that there would need to be quite a bit of negotiating and setting of expectations in this situation.

~J

[42]

They expect it to be formatted in MSWord?

I saw a lot of things (vanity projects) like this pass through the publication center when I worked there. They were good for people who needed some experience, but we almost always disasters. Typically the people contracting the work had no idea how a book was put together or how to get one printed. And almost always they under budgeted for the total cost. Often it was a number of months (years) before the student-editor got paid.

[stacer]

Yeah, Brenna could tell you a few stories about her experience with one particular guy...

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Do tell...

[fuzzyoctopus]

You would declare him insane, too, Mister Faster Master Pastor

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

My being insane has nothing to do with the hilarity of a story it just makes them more fulfilling.

Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether or not I declare someone insane, as long as I get the dirt first.

[Brenna]

Ah, yes. The man who tried to pay me in self-help books.  

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Keep going...

Edit: Wait, you mean he tried to pay you for working with self help books, instead of money?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Also, they seem to think that you can't make a PDF from Word. What are these people? Dumb? I'd write them an email and tell them that everyone you've found wants to take at least 2-3 weeks, and twice as much money, and to use real software instead of a common word processor.

/me shakes his head.