What is a reasonable rate for proofreading a manuscript in terms of sales percentage?
If offered a percentage of profit for an ebook (e.g. after Amazon's cut), what is reasonable charge for proofreading a somewhat specialized non-fiction manuscript, written by someone whose first language is not English (to be fair neither is mine)? I realize the answer will be 'it depends', but just wondering if asking for 10%-15% is too much?
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If someone asked me to proofread in return for a percentage, I'd turn them down, because I'd want to be paid as soon as the work is done, and I wouldn't want how much I get paid to be dependent on sales of copies.
However, if you want to take them up on it, I guess you should first work out the flat fee you'd be willing to work for, then work backwards from there.
Where n is a reasonable estimate for number of copies the book is likely to seel, p is the net profit on each copy of the book, and s is the minimum sum you want to be paid, then the percentage you should ask for is s / p * n * 100.
The tricky bit is n, as you can't know for sure, but you could look at sales figures for similar titles in that subject area and correlate it with sales of the author's previous titles, maybe?
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