How long does it take to edit a manuscript?
Editors often aren’t sure how long it takes to edit a manuscript, from the first read-through to the final review of the revision letter. I’d say that editors underestimate by about 25% (sometimes more) much of the time. If you underestimate badly enough, you wind up earning less than you would shaking a fry basket at McDonald’s.
(My goal in life is to make sure that skilled editors get paid more than they would working at McDonald’s.)
When you underestimate the time it takes to edit a manuscript, you can’t say to the author, “Oh, I thought the fee would be $3000, but it’s really $4000.” Once you’ve quoted a project fee, you have to stand by it.
Even if you’re quoting per-word rates, you still need to know how long it takes to edit a manuscript so that you can charge the appropriate per-word rate.
Track Your Time
The best way to figure out how long it takes to edit a manuscript is to time yourself as you edit. Every time you do an editing-related task, even if it’s just looking up a date for fact-checking, record it. All of this data helps you adjust your project quotes (and your expectations!) appropriately.
I used to jot my time down on a pad of paper but then I discovered Memtime. This is a paid app that tracks what you do so that even if you say you’re researching the dates for the Battle of the Bulge, it will show that you were actually on Facebook. This can be very helpful as a reality check. (You can choose to keep this data stored locally instead of sharing it to the cloud.) (I’m not an affiliate for Memtime, so I don’t earn anything from mentioning them, I just like the app.)
There are lots of other apps and approaches you can use, so just pick the one that you find easiest to use and stick with it.
If you don’t have clients yet, track the time it takes to practice editing. For example, if you’re doing a free beta read for a friend, track how long it takes you to do the work even though you’re not charging for it. It’s not the same as an actual edit, but it will give you a sense of the time involved. Similarly, if you’re taking an editing class, track how long it takes you to do the homework.
Rule of Thumb
I’m neither particularly fast nor particularly slow as a developmental editor. I know that I can typically edit about 1,000 to 2,000 words per hour. That means for an 80,000 word manuscript, I can expect to spend between forty and eighty hours editing it.
That includes the entire round, everything from the first read-through to the final review of the revision letter. It is not for one pass (going through the manuscript one time).
This is where a lot of editors get tripped up. They think the main pass they take through the ms is where most of the time is used, but the other passes (first read-through, final pass) also take time, and so does writing the revision letter, reviewing your edits, and so on.
You also need to add time for any back-and-forth you may have with the author while you’re editing, for follow-up coaching sessions you’ve included in your edit (if any), and anything else that is connected with the edit.
And you can’t forget to look at the manuscript itself before you offer a quote. Some manuscripts have such big problems they need more than one round of development and you would need to talk about this with the AU ahead of time. Other manuscripts may be in fairly good shape and won’t require as much time. Doing this assessment is where I determine whether it’s an eighty-hour job or a forty-hour job.
Here’s a link to my blog post on manuscript assessment that may help you do this more quickly.
