I hope I did it right

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- editors-writers -dot- info>]

What do you think?

THE BID
I recently was asked to bid on the job of a final copy edit of a
300-page book written by a "resume expert." She is self-publishing the
book. I looked at one chapter online and prepared my quote, and I told
the author that the quote was based on the premise that all the other
chapters of the book would be comparable in condition to the one I saw.
We agreed on a price and I began the job. Our verbal-only agreement
included that if I saw that things would be substantially different than
anticipated, I would let her know.

THE MANUSCRIPT
Within the first three hours of my editing the book, it was clear that
the job was going to take longer than I thought. The condition of the
first chapter of the book was not at all like the condition of the
chapter I had looked at and on which I had based my time estimate and
thus my bid. I contacted the author and we agreed that I would stop work
at the end of the third chapter and send her those pages so she could
see the kinds of things I was finding that caused the time to be
increased. At her request I invoiced her at the same time for the work
already performed and sent it to her with the edited pages. The entire
verbal-only contract amount for the three chapters had already been used
up.

The manuscript had the kinds of errors found in what most people call a
"rough draft." It was in the condition of something that had been
braindumped on to 8.5 x 11 paper and never looked at again. Therefore,
it required not only copy editing (simple things like subject/verb
agreement and complex things like rewriting of sentences), but querying,
recommending organizational changes, and the like.

We agreed that she would look at what I've done and then decide if she
wants me to continue. Her budget, she had said at the outset, could
handle a bit more than I had billed, so I knew there was some wiggle
room on the final price, but her budget is well under what my final
charge will be if I do the remainder of the book. An initial bid of 10
hours ($250) was going to be $750 or more if I did the whole book.

THE WORRY
While I don't think I could have handled the situation any better than I
did, I do wonder now if I did it right. What is gnawing at me is the
worry that if she was unaware and unconcerned with the multiplicity of
problems with the manuscript when she sent it to me, will she even
understand the problems I found and will she understand that those
problems *had* to be fixed? I'm not worried about her not paying, but I
am worried that she will say, "Oh, those are small things that you
needn't have bothered about."  Of course they are NOT small things, but
I am concerned that she will not see it that way.

Other problems included troublesome word choice, awkwardness, convoluted
sentences, run-on sentences, dangling participles, pervasive passive
voice, spelling errors, grammar errors, and so on. You name it, this
manuscript had it.

So, I wonder if I could have done anything better, and I suppose I want
to prepare myself for her possibly saying a loud, "Never mind." about
the rest of the book.  Lurking in the back of my mind is the question of
whether I handled this situation right. I imagine I will be hearing from
her over the weekend or early next week. I'd like to be prepared for
whatever happens -- especially for possibly losing the remainder of this
job and the feelings of regret that I might experience.

Any thoughts or comments you have are appreciated.




Bonnie Granat
http://www.editors-writers.info





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