Rates for Indexing and Editing Books

Our rate range runs from $2.00 to $10.00 per page. Let's negotiate!

Indexing

Our median rate for indexing depends primarily on the subject matter, along with the physical layout size of the book and ratio of illustrations to text: $3.00 per page for simple software manuals vs. $4.50 per page for the average scholarly book. Everything depends on the "density" of the text; that is, how many index terms are on each page. A very dense catalog or encyclopedia could call for a rate in the upper range toward $10.00 per page.

We do charge only for pages that we have to read to take index entries, though, not the whole text. And the pages are book/page proof pages, not double-spaced manuscript pages. We have to work with final proof pages so we can make the index accurate. Book pages (for the standard 6X9 trim size) are normally about 70% of manuscript pages.

Indexable pages generally include the following:

The main text (including introductions)
Footnotes/endnotes with substantive information (not just "see so-and-so for more information")
Prefaces (sometimes)
Appendices (sometimes)

Those parts of the text not normally indexed include:

Front matter (title page, copyright, table of contents, etc.)
Acknowledgements
Bibliography

Copyediting/Proofreading

For copyediting, our median runs around $3.50 per page (mostly technical documents), and for proofreading (just simple grammar, spelling, and typos) $3.00 per page.

If you need to use an hourly rate, particularly for editing projects, our range runs from $50 - $100 per hour. This large range for editing covers everything from simple proofreading to in-depth developmental editing and rewriting.

For editing, we include all of the galley/manuscript or proof pages. We assume 250 words per page for manuscript editing.

Why?

The reason for the large ranges is that...it depends, actually. We don't charge by the hour as a rule, which is the usual way one would think of doing it. If we charge by the hour, you will need a high level of trust, and you may be paying directly for administrative overtime, or learning curves on new software, for instance. There are situations, however, particularly in editing, where an hourly rate is the most practical (because of the probability of multiple passes through the text for initial editing and then clean-up).

Overall, though, we prefer to charge by the text page for both editing and indexing tasks. It gives you, the client, an estimate that will be close to the complete final fee for the project so that you know upfront what your financial responsibility will be.

Factors that affect the rate:

Type of material (book, journal, database, website)
Audience (professional, researcher, student, general public)
Page size and format (our usual for printed text is 6X9)
Density of material (number of words or index entries per page)
Illustrations, tables, etc.
Creating links for website indexes
Creating embedded index tags
Turnaround time
Rush jobs (more than 200 pages per week) may require a rush fee
Number of indexes