What: Reedsy connects prospective authors with editors willing to do copy editing, ghost writing, formatting, illustration and design of author websites.
Expected pay: you set your rates
Husl$core: $$$$
Commissions & fees: Freelance editors pay 10%, plus Stripe fees (2.9%). Reedsy also adds a 10% fee onto the client’s bill.
Where: Nationwide
Requirements:
- Be over the age of 18;
- have substantial experience in the relevant field — writing, editing, web design, etc.;
- a portfolio of previous books or projects that you have worked on that match the services you offer;
- testimonials or reviews of your work
- pass the site’s screening
Review:
Reedsy connects authors with professional book editors, writers and designers who can move a book project from concept to reality. Most of the authors using the site are planning to self-publish, so the quality of their manuscripts are likely to vary widely.
The attractive elements of Reedsy’s set up: Editors set their own rates and payment formula, determining when progress payments are required. Those payments are automatically collected by the site, which saves editors from dealing with collections.
Clients say what they need; the site sets them up with five appropriate editors. Those editors submit bids, based on their normal rates and a description of the necessary work. The client chooses the freelancer from those bids. Reedsy also carefully screens prospective editors on the site, favoring those who have worked for big publishers.Â
But your chance of getting a job is likely to be determined by whether your rates are in a normal range. That range runs from 1 cent to 3 cents per word for most types of editing. Thus, you’ll likely to earn $100 to $300 for editing a 10,000-word manuscript. (That’s about 40 double-spaced pages.) The higher prices are for more technical work, such as historical fiction or business books, which both require substantial fact-checking.
If you’re fast and good at rejecting projects likely to require heavy editing, you should be able to make a reasonable living here. But it would be tough to charge premium rates. And, of course, you have to pay 10% of whatever you earn to the site, plus nearly 3% to Stripe to get access to your money.
In our view, the benefit of having someone market and bill for you is well worth the 10% fee. But having to blind-bid against other editors is a negative. Since you’re bidding against only skilled editors, they presumably won’t cut their rates too steeply, though.
Reedsy is a far better place to look for editing jobs than, say, Upwork. But, you may want to also market your services on Fiverr, where you can have more control over your rates and clientele. Â
What their users say:
This piece in Publishing Perspectives summarizes estimated earnings for different types of jobs listed on the site.Â
Suggested Options.
Blogging as a side hustle
Larry Ludwig may well be the poster child for why people recommend blogging as a side hustle. He…
Side hustle success stories: Selling on Etsy
Helen Spallas has worn many hats--investigator, janitor, tax preparer --but she didn't make six…
Great holiday gift experiences
Want to give someone something unique this holiday season? Consider holiday gift experiences.
Jobs for military spouses
The typical military family moves every two or three years. And with all that moving around, jobs…
3 Best tutoring sites
The best places to find a tutor are also the sites that are the best places for freelancers to…
Holiday hustles
One-quarter of Americans are looking for a holiday hustle to help defray the high cost of seasonal…
Learn to teach for free
Have a skill? You can make money teaching it online. And this month two of the best teaching…
5 New hustles — good, promising and pretty bad
We've reviewed 5 new hustles this week, which provide good opportunities for designers, notaries…
Strategies to survive inflation
Basic strategies to survive inflation involve spending (or saving) less or earning more. Or, if…
No college? No problem
No college? No problem. A wide array of jobs -- many of them well-paid -- don't require a degree.…
I had a terrible experience with Reedsy. They do nothing to protect the client. In my case, I never received the rest of the book, and auto payment was not even slowed down. Also, if you receive bad quality, they do nothing.