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Does anyone know how much you earn from proofreading?

shes_so_high [Edit] [Delete] 17 replies 19:51, 5 January '09

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, however most of the big publishing houses require that you have some sort of qualification. I have seen a course I can do via distance learning but am reluctant to go through the hassle of doing a course etc if the actual work pays badly.

So, does anyone have any experience of doing this, or know someone that has?

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  • Our external proofer gets paid £1000 per issue for about 20 hours work

    But she is an ex-Lawyer, which jacks up her price obv.

    Lucien | 5 Jan '09, 19:55 | X
    • WOW

      I'm guessing that's for some sort of legal documentation though? If only I were a trained lawyer!

      shes_so_high @Lucien | 5 Jan '09, 19:59 | X
      • Not exactly

        It's mainly economic articles, which she knows very little about. But she was hired because she has a 'lawyer's eye', which basically means she can remember details from several pages previous that may clash with what she's currently reading.

        But if you became very good at it there's no reason you couldn't earn something similar - she works from home too, so it's a pretty sweet gig. Too sweet in my opinion given we've just laid off a lot of people, but that's another story...

        Lucien @shes_so_high | 5 Jan '09, 20:06 | X
        • Also

          when we were looking around at proofing options, we investigated doing it through an agency, and both the ones we looked had £40 an hour as the going rate. I'd assume the agency would keep half of that, the proofers themselves the rest.

          Lucien @Lucien | 5 Jan '09, 20:17 | X
  • you need experience to get £ just like everything

    .

    definitionofself | 5 Jan '09, 20:00 | X
  • I work in publishing and I've tried quite hard to get freelance proofing work, but to no avail.

    If you do get work then the pay can be quite good - the society of proofreaders (or whatever it's called) recommends minimum hourly rates of £20 or so, which is really good. Unfortunately, the reality is you get less than that most of the time. Still, from what little I know I don't think it would be unlikely for you to get £10-15 an hour or so. The problem is getting work in the first place. A qualification (which I don't have) would certainly help, so would experience (which I do). The problem is there are so many people trying to do it, and although there are lots of jobs going, with most publishers giving their proofing and editing to freelances, they tend to have established contacts that they use. It's not a bad idea long term though - keep plugging away and you could end up with some nice extra income for doing a job that is, for me anyway, never too stressful and often quite satisfying.

    Oh, and if you have specialist knowledge, for instance medical or legal, that would help too - then you could do journals and it would cut down the competition dramatically.

    EustaceHPlimsoll | 5 Jan '09, 20:04 | X
  • weird, i was talking about this earlier

    something i quite fancy doing when i finally finish uni and there will be no jobs in local journalism

    Ru87 | 5 Jan '09, 20:11 | X
  • Yeah but that's for the title;

    Ruth Sedar; proofreader

    joeydubya | 5 Jan '09, 21:56 | X
  • Yeah but that's for the title;

    Ruth Sedar; proofreader

    joeydubya | 5 Jan '09, 21:56 | X
  • So good I said it twice, apparently!

    ...!

    joeydubya | 5 Jan '09, 21:57 | X
  • i had a job as a proof reader

    but i was only proof reading the desk top publishing - layout, fonts, styles, punctuation etc. It was all digger manuals in lots of different languages (i was checking the originals against the translated). I didn't need any qualifications - just had to pass a test piece - and i got £7 per hour on a casual basis, then £16,000pa when i switched to full time. but MY GOD was it boring. Did listen to lots of podcasts and music though.

    hannnah | 5 Jan '09, 22:01 | X
  • Thanks for the replies

    That all helps a lot. I think I might make some enquiries about the course. It sounds like something I could work towards over the next year or so. It's always good to have a bit of extra income, and I think I'd actually enjoy doing it.

    shes_so_high | 5 Jan '09, 23:45 | X
  • The NUJ's rate as of March 2008 is £21ph

    whilst the SfEP's is £19.25ph. I'd expect them to go up by about a pound each by March this year. Oh, and these are freelance rates and not in-house wages by the way.

    Be wary though; most employers will be reluctant to take on someone with little to no experience unless you are willing to work for much less than this, and even then you may struggle.

    DanielKelly | 6 Jan '09, 08:21 | X
  • so how do you get these gigs?

    I reckon id be really good at it. I have to read 'Business requirements' documents and 'IT solution' documents and spot the gaps/ommissions and weak areas in each and both combined, Im really good at spotting holes in them.

    creakyknees | 6 Jan '09, 11:18 | X
    • That isn't proofreading!

      DanielKelly @creakyknees | 6 Jan '09, 11:25 | X
  • I QA peoples documents (including missing meanings/conflicting meanings)

    superflous statements and spelling and grammatical errors......ooh and factual errors too of course, and unreasonable claims or assertions

    creakyknees | 6 Jan '09, 11:32 | X
  • what is proof reading then?

    If not that

    creakyknees | 6 Jan '09, 11:33 | X
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