How do you determine your hourly rate?

There is no mathematical formula you can apply to determine the market value of *your* work. The *intrinsic* value of work varies wildly from project to project, the values of the same work to two different *clients* can be wildly different, and two different contractors with different credentials may command very different rates for the same project with the same client.

Let's look at that last point first, because it's the most important one. One freelancer may get a much higher rate for a project than another freelancer would get for the same project with the same client. If editor A charges a lot more than editor B would charge for a project, and the client chooses A, it's not because the client is a fool who is eager to be separated from his money. It's because the client thinks that the value of A's contribution to the project will be high enough to justify the cost. It's A's task to prove him right.

I have heard publishers claim that all of their freelance editors must receive the same hourly rate (or that no freelancer can receive a rate that is more than a trifle higher than "the norm") on the grounds that paying one freelancer a lot more than others for doing a job is unfair to the others. I wouldn't give that reasoning the time of day, and I wouldn't work for a publisher who used it. Life is extremely unfair in the ways it grants qualifications to people. Some workers are worth a *lot* more than others, no matter what job is involved.

A highly-qualified, skilled, experienced editor produces a better edit, offers a greater range of options to the author and a higher level of precision and dependability to the publisher, and produces a better manuscript foundation for the book that goes to the reader. But even if a lower-drawer editor and a top-drawer editor produced the same edit with the same performance—and they never do—a top-drawer editor would cost the publisher a *lot* more than a lower-drawer one.

At the bottom end of the editing services market, a publisher purchases an edit. The selection of some particular editor is not important to the publisher, and at that end of the market, the workers are an undifferentiated crowd. Rates are set by the publisher, and there is very little chance for negotiation. At the other end of the editing market, where the most highly qualified editors live, the publisher attempts to obtain the services of a professional editor who has special qualifications for the job in hand. Negotiation is the norm, the vendors of professional services set their own rates, and the base price for service is many *times* the price at the low end.

Recently, I read of a publisher who is seeking freelance editors with five years' experience. The editors are to edit university press publications at $12 per hour—for a minimum production of eight edited pages per hour—on hard copy. That publisher is seeking bottom-end workers, not professional editors.

One of the *many* reasons I find freelance rates polls silly is that they are based on the premise that people should get the same ballpark for the same project, regardless of who the people are. That's the mentality of the *pool* we hear about from some publishers. "Please let us know if you would like to be added to our pool of available editors and will be available when we contact you." Some freelancers think that their market only exists in the form of pools, where the clients only pay by the hour and there is no way to rise from the crowd and be recognised as worth a lot more than everybody else. If you are caught in that situation, I wish you well, and hope your clients are tormented by Scrooge's three ghosts early and often. But work on getting *out* of that situation.

On the principal mailing lists that involve editors (CE-L and Freelance), where money discussions arise from time to time, we often see the question, "How much should I charge for this project?" No matter how much detail about the *work itself* the questioner provides, I always want to respond with the questions, "Who are you? What are you bringing to the table? What's the value of your contribution to the project?" The answers to those questions are far more important in determining *your* right fee for a project than the answers people send in to those rates polls.

Every freelancer must deal with the setting of fees at some point, unless he or she is willing to work forever for the rates offered by the lowest bidders. When a freelancer must think about his or her worth in the marketplace, two distinct approaches are common. On the one hand, there are freelancers who think "I must be careful about pricing, because I will lose jobs if I ask for more than my clients think I'm worth." I associate this mindset with people who work by the hour: they let their clients set their rates, and their success or failure depends on their ability to survive on the rates their clients set and offer. On the other hand, there are freelancers who think "I must be careful about pricing, because if I ask for less than I'm worth, my clients might think I'm only worth what I ask for." I associate this mindset with people who set page and project fees: they set their own rates, and their success or failure hinges on the accuracy of their assessments of their own worth. The one group is worried about charging too much; the other, about charging too little.

There are geographical differences in rates, all other factors being equal, but all other factors are seldom equal, so a really well-qualified freelancer will get as high a rate from a New York client as from a California client. The Internet and electronic communication have made geography irrelevant to freelancing, and it is no longer possible for clients to pay lower fees in some geographical areas than in others, except at the very lowest, entry-level ranks.

The major factors in the pricing of freelance services are the qualifications of the freelancer who is setting the prices. If it were possible to set up a form that freelancers and clients could fill out, and from that form to project some *accurate, appropriate* rate for every freelancer for every project, the process would inevitably assign *negative value* to many freelancers ("With your credentials, you'll have to pay *the client* if you want to do this work") and impossible value to others ("Nobody would ever pay what you're *worth* for doing this particular job, so either you take the maximum available or, better, refuse the job").

You're worth no more than the average income in your field if everything about the value of your contribution is just average. It's up to you as an individual freelancer not to be average or below average. You have to choose contract situations in which excellence is recognised, strive to produce excellence in what you do, and demand appropriate compensation for the value you contribute to the projects you take.