Editing Work - How Much is Normal?

[Jennifer]

I'm a stay-at-home-mom with 10+ years experience as an Executive Secretary and have been thinking about offering a resume service, as well as editing, wordprocessing, etc. I might even be willing to work for tips :-) but no promises.

I was inspired by the guy who owns Self Promotion. See his article on tipping

My question: do you think the foreign teachers and other professionals would find this useful (resume prep and tweaking)?


Jennifer

[ironlady]

I'm not sure that the companies and schools in Taiwan would be that much more impressed with a tweaked resume for foreigners in Taiwan to justify the cost. If you were tweaking Chinese language resumes, there might be some need...? I don't know.

If the school or company were foreign-owned, there might be more payback for having perfect English. Otherwise, most employers won't really know the difference (this is an over-generalization, of course, but I think that's the way many people would think.)

[Jennifer]

Thanks for the reply IronLady.

Something to think about.

[sandman]

Did you make your rates perfectly clear before you started the work?

If so, there should be no problem, as far as I can see, although 11 hours for 24 pages seems pretty long -- I have around 15 years experience and usually manage around 4 pages per hour if the work is pretty messy.

I also routinely make sure the client gets an email with a written quotation that he or she must approve and return before I'll start the work.

[littlemissflip]

It seems long because I did several different revisions of the same 24-page paper. I did the first round in a few hours, submitted it to him, he made revisions and gave it back to me (still with lots of mistakes), I re-edited it, etc. etc. So it was the equivalent of editing maybe 50 pages by the end of the process.

I didn't make rates clear ahead of time, because he gave it to me at the last minute ("I must submit this for publication in two days!") and I had not yet even thought about doing free-lance editing for people.

[littlemissflip]

Sorry--I forgot to say thanks for the comments/info! I really appreciate it!

[sandman]

I billed a (corporate) client NT$15,000 for a 53-page report just before I replied to your post, and it wasn't a rush job.

I know this doesn't do you much good right now, but it should at least give you some idea of prices and reassure you a little. Whether it will also reassure your client, though...

I urge you in future to get into the habit of demanding written approval of your rates from the customer before you embark on any future projects.

I have a feeling you might have to bite the bullet on this one, drop your price to, say, NT$9,000 as a "goodwill gesture" and just chalk it up to experience.

Good luck.

[littlemissflip]

Thanks for your advice--very helpful to me. I will definitely establish a rate ahead of time for future projects. I like your idea of getting a written agreement ahead of time... Gotta run, but thanks!

[sandman]

Oh, sh... shh... OOPS, SORRY JEFF! shoot! (can I say shoot?). Just realized I inserted TWO posts in Living in Taiwan without including any profanity. Won't happen again. [img]images/smiles/converted/hip-o-dude.gif[/img] [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

[littlemissflip]

I, too, am wondering about fair rates for editing, as I've been approached by several researchers wanting me to edit their papers for them. I have a science background and I'm working as an editor for a research journal here in Taipei, but I don't have a clue how to charge people for free-lance work. According to the previous forum discussion on this subject, I gathered that a typical rate was similar to private language teaching (NT$1000/hour, I've heard), or approximately NT$300/page, with double rates for rush jobs. I just completed several rounds of extensive revisions on a 24-page paper as a rush job, taking me a total of about 11 hours. Can I (should I?) seriously charge the guy NT$11,000 for this job?!? That seems like a huge chunk of money, but I don't want to cheat myself either. Will he have a heart attack if I ask for that much money? I'd appreciate whatever advice people may have.