Editing rates by edtited text wordcount?
Thread poster: Inna Ivanova
Inna Ivanova
Inna Ivanova  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 15:46
Member (2019)
Bulgarian to English
+ ...
Dec 18, 2020

Hello All,
I have accepted a proofreading job BG-EN for which the client sent me a pdf file and told me the wordcount is about 2400 words (without some passages of the pdf). We agreed to edit the English translation in Word with Track changes. But the wordcount of the translated text is over 2700 words, i.e. more than 1 page more per 8 pages.
So my question is does anyone charge for editing by edited wordcount (target text) and not by source text, because we are actually dealing with
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Hello All,
I have accepted a proofreading job BG-EN for which the client sent me a pdf file and told me the wordcount is about 2400 words (without some passages of the pdf). We agreed to edit the English translation in Word with Track changes. But the wordcount of the translated text is over 2700 words, i.e. more than 1 page more per 8 pages.
So my question is does anyone charge for editing by edited wordcount (target text) and not by source text, because we are actually dealing with the target text? Shall I charge by source text or by translated text to-be-proofread?
I don't like charging by the hour because I am usually a slow translator/editor and like to take my time and reread the text a lot. Furthermore, I don't know of any tool that could actually track the time spent on the editing (except for the one on Upwork). Do the clients only take your word for charging by the hour?
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Ying-Ju Fang
Elena Kharlamova
 
Dr. Matthias Schauen
Dr. Matthias Schauen  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:46
Member (2007)
English to German
Only per hour Dec 18, 2020

Since the time needed for proofreading a certain amount of text varies enormously - by a factor of up to 3 for me - depending on the translation quality and other factors, I only invoice such work based on the actual time spent. And my quotes give an estimate already including a range spanning a factor of 2. Charging such work by word count is quite a large business risk for solo entrepreneurs like us.

I am also a slow translator/editor, and that is another reason why I charge based
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Since the time needed for proofreading a certain amount of text varies enormously - by a factor of up to 3 for me - depending on the translation quality and other factors, I only invoice such work based on the actual time spent. And my quotes give an estimate already including a range spanning a factor of 2. Charging such work by word count is quite a large business risk for solo entrepreneurs like us.

I am also a slow translator/editor, and that is another reason why I charge based on the time spent. It should be for you, too, IMHO. Clients who appreciate the higher quality delivered will be happy to pay the higher rate. I use the tool TimeStamp, a "donationware" tool, to keep track: http://www.syntap.com/products_timestamp.htm

For this to work you need clients trusting you, because even with a tool like TimeStamp you cannot prove what you did while the tool was running. By the way, none of my clients ever requested to see the TimeStamp files.

In 13 years of doing this I only had a single case where this did not work with a new client: I told the client very early on that their time estimate was much too low due to several additional problems with the text and extra work requested by the end client after the project started. They said "okay, just tell us how long it took you in the end", but when I did, they were only willing to pay half of my invoice, because editors for other languages had invoiced only half the hours I had. Explaining everything and sending the TimeStamp file did not help. They were based in Australia, so I cut my losses instead of fighting this through: In the end they paid 60% and I think both parties decided not to work with each other ever again.

[Edited at 2020-12-18 12:26 GMT]

[Edited at 2020-12-18 12:27 GMT]
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Robert Rietvelt
Christopher Schröder
Daryo
 
Barbara Carrara
Barbara Carrara  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 14:46
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Proofreading or editing? Dec 18, 2020

Inna Ivanova wrote:
I have accepted a proofreading job BG-EN for which the client sent me a pdf file and told me the wordcount is about 2400 words (without some passages of the pdf). We agreed to edit the English translation in Word with Track changes. (...) So my question is does anyone charge for editing by edited wordcount (target text) and not by source text, because we are actually dealing with the target text? Shall I charge by source text or by translated text to-be-proofread?
I don't like charging by the hour because I am usually a slow translator/editor and like to take my time and reread the text a lot. Furthermore, I don't know of any tool that could actually track the time spent on the editing (except for the one on Upwork).


Hi
In your post, you switched betwen proofreading and editing. Can you be more specific as to what this particular assignment entails? Is it a proofreading or an editing job?

From what I understand, your client emailed you an incomplete .pdf file but told you they had worked out the total word count. Correct? Is that what you mean by '(without some passages of the pdf)'?
Do you happen to know if your client calculated the approximate word count on the source or the target text? This might explain the discrepancy.

In your profile page, you list both proofreading and editing among your services. So, how is this task different from the ones you normally do?

I'd be also curious to know more about the editing tool you've been using on Upwork. Any info you'd like to share on that?


 
Inna Ivanova
Inna Ivanova  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 15:46
Member (2019)
Bulgarian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Editing Dec 18, 2020

Sorry, editing and proofreading, i.e. producing a final translation which will be given to the client.

 
Inna Ivanova
Inna Ivanova  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 15:46
Member (2019)
Bulgarian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Upwork tool Dec 18, 2020

The Upwork tool is not an editing tool. It tracks hourly jobs. It makes a screenshot of your desktop every 5 minutes or when you stop typing for a longer time.
The client sent me the whole pdf file, but not all of the file was for translation. It wasn't an approximate number, but I wasn't able to check if it was right because I didn't OCR it.


 
Barbara Carrara
Barbara Carrara  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 14:46
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Proofreading AND editing Dec 18, 2020

Inna Ivanova wrote:
Sorry, editing and proofreading, i.e. producing a final translation which will be given to the client.


So you are required to perform both tasks on the same text. But how can you edit a translation without the source text to compare it with?

Have you skimmed through the EN translation? Was it done by an EN native, knowledgeable about the subject matter, you reckon? And are you up for the task, I mean, is the topic one you are comfortable with, in EN?

Isn't there going to be another passage before your edited text will be forwarded to the end client? I mean, normally, the original translator should have the final say on it, i.e. accept or reject your edits.

The reason I am asking these questions is that unless the above requisites are met, you might end up spending much more time on the file that you had bargained for with the agency.

Re. the Upwork time-tracking tool (sorry for mistaking it for an editing one. My bad), how trustworthy is that? What happens if you stop typing to do some research, online or on paper resources? Ah, the joy of 'tools'!


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 14:46
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Inna Dec 18, 2020

Inna Ivanova wrote:
So my question is: does anyone charge for editing by target text and not by source text?


You can do that if you want (on the next job), but usually when a client wants a per-word rate for editing translations, it is because he wants to know beforehand what the final price will be. And this would mean that the per-word rate would have to be by the source word count (since you don't know what the target word count is going to be). As a translator, you should know typically by how much a translation expands or shrinks in your language combination, and take that into account when deciding on what rate to charge for translation editing. If clients do not need to know beforehand what the final editing fee is going to be, charging per hour is often the safest.


 
IrinaN
IrinaN
United States
Local time: 08:46
English to Russian
+ ...
Inna, your question is a bit tricky Dec 18, 2020

It all boils down to what you feel like a good outcome in the end.

For a GOOD quality text of average to higher complexity:

In the US, average editing speed for calculating the rate is 5-6 pages/hour, provided that the editor is an expert on a subject. Average editing rate is 45/hour (I took the middle between 40 and 50). With these numbers, your job should be worth 2 hours tops, + 30 min to an hour for the whole turkey:-), or 2.5-3 hrs/135 - 150 dollars. With a per wor
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It all boils down to what you feel like a good outcome in the end.

For a GOOD quality text of average to higher complexity:

In the US, average editing speed for calculating the rate is 5-6 pages/hour, provided that the editor is an expert on a subject. Average editing rate is 45/hour (I took the middle between 40 and 50). With these numbers, your job should be worth 2 hours tops, + 30 min to an hour for the whole turkey:-), or 2.5-3 hrs/135 - 150 dollars. With a per word rate of 0.03 (I charge 0.04 for target but almost never undertake any editing) it's 81 dollars. You can make your own comparison with your own rates.

I don't think that the client should be paying you for endless number of hours simply because you are a slow editor. It means that it is, in fact, your problem to charge 3 hours but spend 8. I certainly wouldn't pay 8 hours for 2700 GOOD words. But will you make more with a per word rate, regardless of the time spent? Hourly rate can simplify everything, if you apply it properly.

For a POOR quality text: negotiations should be in order, anything from fully justifiable extension of the number of hours to re-translation from scratch on your terms.

Good luck!
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Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:46
Serbian to English
+ ...
As far as I'm concerned Dec 21, 2020

anything that is not my own translation should be charged as if a translation was required - especially for clients who want first to know the rates before showing the text - and then depending of the quality of the text to "edit" a fair reduction of up to 50% would be applied - or not.

Whoever is not happy with that is welcome to look for another mug to do translations at "editing" rates ...

Just for comparison: try to go to one garage to have some
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anything that is not my own translation should be charged as if a translation was required - especially for clients who want first to know the rates before showing the text - and then depending of the quality of the text to "edit" a fair reduction of up to 50% would be applied - or not.

Whoever is not happy with that is welcome to look for another mug to do translations at "editing" rates ...

Just for comparison: try to go to one garage to have some other garage's botched job "put right" at reduced price ... and insist that it's "normal" for translator to do that kind of pricing. Would really love to be there to hear the reply!

BTW à propos "because we are actually dealing with the target text"

That in fact is not true - if you are "editing" a translation your starting point and your reference is the Source text - you are dealing in the first place with the Source Text. The translation is only a "derived product".

There is a "standard" ratio between the character count of the ST and the translation for each language pair - poor translations tend to be more verbose, so it adds insult to injury - not only you are forced to twist your brain with a not so good translation, but there is also more of it! (Just reminded me why I would rather watch the paint dry than accept blindly to "edit" anything...)


[Edited at 2020-12-21 00:58 GMT]
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Inna Ivanova
Inna Ivanova  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 15:46
Member (2019)
Bulgarian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you all Jan 8, 2021

Thank you all for your support and comments. I am especially grateful for sharing the information on the software tool. We resolved the matter in a good spirit. I am happy with what I received for the editing. For now, I feel more comfortable with going with rates per word. I also like to know how much I am going to be paid roughly before I make the job. With the hourly rate I cannot make an estimate. In the future I will compare my word rate to an average hourly rate turnaround of 5 pages/hour.... See more
Thank you all for your support and comments. I am especially grateful for sharing the information on the software tool. We resolved the matter in a good spirit. I am happy with what I received for the editing. For now, I feel more comfortable with going with rates per word. I also like to know how much I am going to be paid roughly before I make the job. With the hourly rate I cannot make an estimate. In the future I will compare my word rate to an average hourly rate turnaround of 5 pages/hour.
Thank you all! I am wishing you a successful new year!
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Eric Azevedo
 


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Editing rates by edtited text wordcount?







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