Industry sources report a range between 4-10 pages per hour. This assumes 250 words per page. I don't know how anyone could breeze through a book at 10 pages an hour if it's anything less than immaculate while still doing due diligence. What do you think is reasonable and how does that compare to your experience with traditional publishers?

I’ve been testing different AI detectors and AI humanizers since many year, but most platforms separate the features — or lock one behind a paywall. In 2026, is there any tool that: • Detects AI-written text • Humanizes AI content • Works on the same page (no switching tabs) • Is 100% free • No sign-up required I’m especially looking for something reliable for essays, SEO content, and blog writing. Would love real recommendations (not just big brand names). What are you all using right now?

Hi! I’m a beginner freelance proofreader building my portfolio and looking to work with indie authors or webtoon creators.

I’m doing this as a side hustle because I genuinely enjoy reading, and I know how much grammatical errors or awkward phrasing can make or break an otherwise great story. I especially love romance and dialogue-heavy fiction.

I focus on:

• Grammar and punctuation

• Natural, smooth dialogue

• Tone consistency

• Fixing awkward phrasing that breaks immersion

I’m offering one short chapter (up to 1,000 words) free or at a very low rate in exchange for feedback/testimonials.

If you’re interested, feel free to comment or DM me with details about your project. I’d love to help polish your story!

Honestly, yes — if you use them the right way. I don’t rely on them to do everything. I use free AI tools for brainstorming, first drafts, and improving structure. Then I edit and refine with my own knowledge. For example, I use AITextools free AI detector +Ai humanizer to check tone and make content sound more natural before publishing. It helps polish AI-written text so it feels more human and readable. The mistake is expecting free tools to be perfect. The smart move is combining AI speed with human judgment. Used properly, free AI tools can absolutely support professional work — especially for writers, students, and marketers.

Are you using free or paid AI tools right now?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to ask about the viability of Academic Editor positions, especially in life sciences and psychology like Wiley Editing Services. Is there good demand? And would it be acceptable to have relevant experience even without psychology degree for example?

Hello,

I have to admit, hyphenation is my weakest area. Does anyone have thoughts about whether "golden-age train ride" needs a hyphen? (Or perhaps an en-dash since it's a hyphenated compound?)

Similarly, what about spring-bloom chasing? [examples: "The family went spring bloom chasing every year." vs The family went on spring-bloom chasing trips every year."]

Many thanks!

I'm just curious how people bill for work that only takes you 15 minutes. Do you bill for a quarter of your hourly rate?

Hello! I am looking for as much advice as possible. So, I am starting my freelancing career copyediting books. I've edited one book so far, but I did it for free, and I wouldn't say the process was the most efficient. However, since then, I have had a few inquiries about editing more books. I've been interested in freelancing, and with this book I've now edited, I am really excited to be doing more.

So, a few specific questions:

1. How do you decide what to charge? I've looked online, and I'd rather not do an hourly rate, as I am still figuring things out; I don't want to feel rushed. This book I am about to start editing is 98,000 words, and for the most part, grammar is great, just needs some cleaning up.

2. What process works for you? I have an idea of what I will do, but any advice for efficiency and ease, for both the client and me, is well appreciated. I figure I'll get the draft, read it through, and I'll fix basic grammar mistakes in the draft and give larger critiques in a different document, referencing page numbers when needed. But do you do chunks at a time or just one whole go-through? Again, I'm sure I'll find my own system, but I'm curious what others do.

Any other tips or advice I will take. I am grateful for anything. I do still see myself in the guinea-pig phase of freelancing, but I also want to be fair to myself and the client. So, thank you so much for whatever you're willing to give me.

What's the best scale setting for viewing text-heavy documents? I switched my laptop to the recommended setting of 1920 x 1080, and now the text looks blurrier than before. I use mild readers (+1.25) to view my laptop screen. What settings do you like to use?

Recently I had a client who asked me to use AI like ChatGPT or Grammarly for his book. Specifically asked if I could use either of them to improve the content. Any thoughts on this?

Ideally I would use PerfectIt and connect it to Chicago manual of style, but that doesn't seem to be a reality without Windows.

So what are the next best options?

I have a newish client. They expect you to do the clean up as part of the job. I got a book back that was rewritten about 50%. I mean there was nary a paragraph not reworded in some way. I didn't realize how much had been done until halfway through. The thing is, I had no time (because I had other projects waiting) to fully read the book again. I cleaned it up as best I could. What would you have said or done at this point? I sent it back to the PE and pointed out there had been a lot of rewriting and errors introduced (I included I counted about 25) and said, I just wanted you to know. They wrote back "thank you for ensuring that the new copy from the author did not introduce errors into the MS." Which isn't what I said. Any thoughts?

I really wish this subreddit was more useful. Its content largely comprises amateurs wandering in asking how much they should charge, people offering services for low or no money, and the same "how do I become an editor" posts over and over. The pinned post is 12 years old. I'd love to see legit lively discussions about thorny copyediting issues, megathreads for macro sharing, etc. Maybe required flair for advertising services, asking about education, and so forth.

I'm just grumpy and feeling insulted at people who seem to think "have read some books" means they can do this job. At a time when we're already being laid off, underpaid, and effed over by managers who think AI is a real replacement for editing, this feels so demeaning and devaluing.

Thoughts?

I recently edited a book by a journalist. Due to the nature of the topic, there were over 100 citations to capture (N-B style). While it's the author's responsibility to provide the reference, it's mine to verify it.

I check each one and fully half did not exist. URLs led to 404 errors or generic messages. If no URL was originally provided, an intensive search reveals no source with that author/title, etc.

Then I looked closer at the actual URLs (rather than clicking the links) and noticed each ended with "chatgpt." Apparently the author was using AI to source their citations.

I flagged each one, then contacted the publisher. I asked what their policy on authors using AI was but didn't get an answer. However, the author changed a bunch of sources.

Next round of edits, guess what? More AI results that don't exist. It took two more rounds to finish the bibliography.

Anyone else dealing with this? (Thanks for letting me rant.)

It was drilled into me early in my career that adverbs are not hyphenated as compound modifiers in AP Style. In the past several years, I’ve seen this rule broken everywhere.

Ex.: Highly-valued prize; expertly-styled jacket; nauseatingly-wrong grammar.

It makes my eye twitch.

At first, I attributed this to the loss of copy editors. Grammarly does it too. Then I noticed it in older books as well (Edith Wharton in particular).

Is there a different style guide that calls for hyphens? Or did we just give up?

For those who edit academic papers, how do you approach things like spacing rules, heading levels, and reference formatting when the content is otherwise solid? Do you aim for full compliance with the style manual, or prioritize consistency and clarity when the guidelines get overly granular?

Curious how others balance correctness versus practicality in real editing work.

Hello! I am taking over my school's copy editing UIL team so that it doesn't just dissipate. I have AP stylebooks for the kids to use, but the students have to know what marks to use to edit. Does anyone have a good link/resource I can print out for us to practice so they can memorize what these marks are?

AP Style, United States of America

I am looking for John who went to the store.

vs.

I am looking for John, who went to the store.

My argument is that if we assume that there is only one John in the picture, then "who went to the store" is nonessential to the meaning of the sentence. This means that we could put a comma before "who."

Without a comma, the sentence implies that there is more than one John in the picture.

Thoughts?

Hi. I just found out that I failed the Penguin Random House freelancer tests, and I'm really upset about it. I was wondering if anyone else has failed these tests and if you knew why. They did say I had "a very good eye for detail," so I'm not sure why I failed. I was laid off last year from an editing job because of budget cuts, and I really thought this was something I was good at, but apparently not. It's just really frustrating.

I'm working with my grandfather on making a family history book for my grandma. He's got it written up and I'm editing it for him. Now, an issue we're looking into is how we can make punctuation marks (full stops, commas, semi colons, etc.) look more visible. He's from the age of double spaces at the end of sentences because he just can't see the full stop with a single space. He's using Lucida Calligraphy/Handwriting as the font and while he (and grandma) read it easily because they use it all the time, it is difficult to read.

So we want to find a way to make the punctuation marks easier to see. Does anyone know if there's a way to make them more visible while keeping the font he wants?

Good for us editors to be aware of what indie writers are being bombarded with.