How much?

Some brands are described as “reassuringly expensive”. We don’t want to be seen as expensive, simply as good value for money. At the same time, we won’t drive down our prices in order to beat the competition, as this would undervalue ourselves as professionals who need to make a living (just like you).

Copy-editing

In Norwegian, the word for copy-editing is språkvask, the literal translation of which is “language wash” (thanks to my friend Simone for this gem). Just as with the wide variety of programmes on a washing machine, different documents need significantly different cleansing processes. For the “slightly soiled” a quick wash might be in order, with other documents needing the longest hottest wash available, to scrub away the stubborn stains. Therefore, we charge for our work by the hour rather than by the number of words, as this is fairer to you the client, and to us. Our hourly rate starts at £28, which is the minimum rate recommended by the UK’s National Union of Journalists (July 2020).

If cost is an important consideration for you, we are happy to work on a section of your document for free and then give you an estimate for the whole document/publication. And you are, of course, free to decide not to proceed when you receive the initial estimate, or to consult your pillow (as they say in Spanish) for a night or two, or three. If later it seems that the estimate was off target, because the section we chose was considerably cleaner than the rest, we will raise this with you as soon as we notice.

Translation

For translations, we charge by the 1,000 words (in the source language, ie the number of words in the document you send us).

From Spanish into English, this is generally £80 per 1,000 words.

From English into Spanish, this is generally £90 per 1,000 words.

Translation plus

It is common for translation clients with large budgets to pay for a second translator to revise the document.  We don’t imagine that most of our clients will have such resources to hand, but a second pair of eyes will help to ensure that absolutely nothing has been overlooked or mis-translated. For this, we charge an additional £20 per 1,000 words for a Spanish to English document, and £25 for an English to Spanish document (based on the word count in the document before it is translated).

Indexing

When a complete list of entries (names, keywords etc) is provided by the author, the fee is £300 for a manuscript of up to 300 pages. When only the manuscript itself is provided and we are commissioned to extract the list of index entries, the fee is £500 for a manuscript of up to 300 pages which, as above, includes copy-ready text.

Every index is unique and special rates can be negotiated in respect of your requirements, so please contact us to discuss your particular commission.  E-book indexing is always priced on a case-by-case basis.

For all our work

If you need express delivery, or if the document is highly specialised, we will take this into consideration in our quote. We can also sometimes offer lower rates for large documents (eg whole books) or for community/campaign groups, so please ask.

Pro bono

When possible, we like to lend our support to small not-for-profits that work in fields we are passionate about and operate under an ethos similar to our own.