Job Discussion Forums

[Yu]

I got a question for you about how much to charge for editing.

I am going to be helping this Japanese guy with his autobiography.
He have given me a third or fourth draft, and wants my edit to be the final draft. It is about 170 pages long.

When I got it, it was in complete disarray from the previous editior. (He is currently involved in a lawsuit with this company). It took about 8 hours to put into the correct coherent page order.

Now he wants me to retype it and edit it for errors. There are many errors, some incomplete sentences, and lack of coherence were the biggest problems I have noticed so far.

So my question is, How much should I be getting paid to do this sort of work? I have not done this before so I really have no idea. We briefly discussed payment, but I told him I wanted to get more information.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

[Glenski]

You could charge by the page or by the hour. Depends on the amount of work you have to put into it and level of difficulty.

1000-2000 yen per page is pretty standard.
3000-4000 yen per page is also about average.

[Glenski]

Sorry, that should have read 3000-4000 yen per HOUR.

[lajzar]

How many pages per hour is a competent proof reader usually expected to manage?

[Glenski]

lajzar,
Depends on the material and the competency of the author, of course. I do scientific proofreading, and I might get 3- 5 pages per hour (graphs and tables not included).

[cafebleu]

Some arrangements even pay per word - maybe Paul H or somebody can fill Yu in on that.

Yu - whatever you do, DO NOT accept payment that is less than it should be. If somebody wants to learn English in Japan privately, or have you edit their work or whatever then it must be assumed they have the money to pay for it. A disturbing trend in Japan is the demand from Japanese people for cheap private lessons (as Celeste commented elsewhere), or cheap services. Sometimes free services.

I have experience of a doctor at a school I quit getting me to proofread medical papers which he then submitted to journals without my name being on them. I also was not paid. I found myself put under pressure to please the students at this school. It was downright exploitative to put in that position of using my skills for free.

The bottom line is - if the Japanese are not prepared to pay you properly then let them find somebody else to exploit. I find it ludicrous and mean to the marrow that professionals want free services from foreigners, and I find the younger people who work and live at home but ask for cheap private lessons symptomatic of people who need to grow up and realise that they live in a very comfy world of parental cocooning. Even when they are in their 30s and 40s sometimes.

If they don`t want to pay properly, DON`T give it to them. Rule number 1.

[Glenski]

Well put, cafebleu.

One of my own experiences is as follows. I work with a Japanese teacher who finished his master's degree in the UK and asked me to proofread his thesis. Due to its size, I told him that I could only give him a quote based on a sample page or two. After reading that, I could tell him a per page or per hour amount. He agreed.

Two reminders later over the course of 6 months (he kept on getting an extension to write it), he never gave me the work and never spoke to me about it.

About a year after that, I was surprised to see a colleague (native English speaker) proofing something that looked suspiciously like this guy's thesis. It was piecemeal work, too, so as not to overwhelm him. I inquired discreetly and confirmed it. The shocker? He was not getting paid a single yen! He thought it was a professional courtesy especially since he got it in small pieces. I pulled him aside and clued him in on the background story.

Ironic ending? The Japanese colleague slipped me a single page as part of his acknowledgements section to proofread (for no pay, of course). I did it as quickly as possible just to get it out of my hair and to avoid stewing over it. Took me all of 3 minutes, but I still feel backstabbed over the whole thing.

[Iwantmyrightsnow]

Can understand the frustrations-

Spent about 20 hours rewriting a colleagues master's thesis last year. "I just need you to proof read it for spelling errors etc" Yeah right! It was in complete disarray, the thesis statement didn't even refer to what she was writing about. So much rewriting went on that I felt guilty. She realy shouldn't have passed. As a qualified educator I was embarrassed that I was particpating in fraud. I would not allow it to happen again.

In my defense, I am sure that the university knew and encouraged this kind of thing to go on. It was foreign university in Japan that seems to be hapen raking in the yen.

[guest of Japan]

I've done two edits of scientific papers while here. I did the first one when I was new. It was a chemistry paper on exactly the stuff that made me hate chemistry in college. I didn't give him a price because he was a student and I didn't want to rough any management feathers by operating a business inside the business. Upon finishing the student gave me 10,000 yen and a sincere thank you letter. I was underpaid, but he did acknowledge my efforts in the paper. The paper won him an award and enabled him to get a prestigious placement in Germany.

The second time happened under nearly identical circumstances. This time it was a genetics paper on cabbages and even more frustrating than the first one. Not one yen. No acknowledgement. The sad thing is I knew the student well. Actually, I did get some cabbage.

I agree with everyone else. Set a price first.

[Gordon]

When I was in Korea I proofread and heavily edited a manual for a laser company. They had the bucks or won I should say. This would be distributed to about a dozen countries. I named a ridiculously high price and got it. It did involve more work than I anticipated and allowed for that. You should too. Make it worth your while.

[bearcat]

I've done this kind of work at 3000 a page before.

[Yu]

Thanks to all who replied.

I am currently in the US now, as is the person I am doing the editing for.

I decided to charge $25.00 per hour for editing, $20.00 for meetings with him, travel, and other related time towards the project. Additionally I will charge $1.50 per page for retyping.

I will also be sure I get paid. Thanks for the head's up.

I have never had a problem getting paid by the Japanese. Although when I think about, it I did used to tutor, and I would get paid well for the time I spent tutoring, but I also was invited to stay for tea after tutoring, and I did not get paid for that time. Sometimes I would stay several hours. But, as it turned out I became close friends with the family, and last time I visited Japan they came to meet me in Tokyo. I never really had a problem to stay and chat with the children's mother. This also happened in the US.

[cafebleu]

I should have apologised for the errors in my previous post - no, I don`t need a proofreader. I was merely in a hurry!

I`d like to ask those who have already contributed as well as anybody else - why do you think some of us have had the experience of being expected to do work tada when those who are doing the asking are professionals with much money?

Or in the case of not so highly paid people, usual company people who live at home with mummy and daddy into their 30s, sometimes even 40s and don`t have to worry about paying rent, bills, etc usually.

Plus they get pension payments and other payments from their company while most of us are foregoing such payments while we work in Japan and thus falling behind financially.Why do they assume we don`t need an income here or our qualifications and skills amount to something that they can draw on when they need it - free of course!

Can anybody tell me why such Japanese (note I am saying such, not everybody is like that) feel they can freeload off us when they actually have more money than us?

[MarcusK]

cafebleu wrote: