They've sent me the first 55 pages. What do I charge for that? A hundred bucks? It'll take me the better part of three to four hours, I'd say.

Just don't invite them to Thursday night. t /bitch I think you should charge them at least $25 an hour.

Yup. A hundred bucks sounds reasonable to me. And them present the review head-to-head so they can ask questions.

$25 per hour isn't enough for the specialised work you'd do. What's Nic's hourly consultant fee? ita's? Betsy's? Your expertise is no less valuable than theirs, different specialty, that's all.

Bev, again - friend of Nic's boss. They get the buddy rate.

Just don't invite them to Thursday night.

BWAH! Trust me, honey, I am so planning on not.....

They get the buddy rate

Ah. Well, as you say. I do hope the book is at least fun to work on, though.

So, they wrote me this:

Re: your warning about being up front, that's exactly why I looked to you for this. Your critique the other day was so refreshing! There's no room for sugar coating. Lesleyann and I want to make this worthy of publishing. We recognize that we have a lot to learn, and what may appear immediately axiomatic to you is obviously slipping right past us. I suppose one of the struggles we're facing is how to deliver the description without falling into the "telling" trap, and how to "show" without making the reader feel like they're being lead by the hand as opposed to experience it themselves.

Of course, if you dig into this and completely disagree with the agent's take, then that's fine. But my gutt says he's probably correct.

The first 55 is attached. How do you want to charge us for this?

And I wrote back:

For this sort of editing, I generally charge rather a lot. But you get the family rate, so I'll do the first 55 pages, in a very deep intensive way, make notes, make suggestions, restructure bits so that you can see how the characters' and story's voices should take the place of your own voice, suggest a first scene (my take would be to begin with Gina, since she's your main protagonist), and see if that gets you on your way with fixing the rest. If you need more, we can discuss. For now, call it $100 for the deep edits and we're even.

But I would very strongly suggest - in fact, I'm teetering on insisting - that after I do this, the three of us get together, that we put aside an afternoon to sit down and go over this, and that we do it in realtime and not online.

Does this work for you? If so, I'll get started and should have this by tomorrow morning.

---

And the ball is now in his court. I'll do it, collect the hundred bucks and make them buy me lunch, and hit them with a ruler.

Get them to love the machete, Deb. It's VERY good of you to do this, and worth far more to them than $100 and a good lunch (make it Boulevard, yes? *grin*)

What you're offering is far more valuable than what they'd get from an editor at a publishing house, I expect. And it's the only way for them to learn, despite the blood all over the ms.

Heh. Consuela, that's why I told them I charged rather a lot. If they need more than that first 5o pages? Hoooboy, they get to pay for it.

deb, my mother charges $50/hour for her writing consulting-lessons-coaching-tutoring-thing for her (few) adult students. From what I've heard, that's pretty standard. (Also, that's what alice's teacher charges a hour-long violin lesson, to give perspective.)