I’m looking for more editing/proofreading and beta reading contracts on Upwork as the editing one I had recently didn’t work out. The tldr from that is heatwaves aren’t good for speediness (mind you, neither is chronic pain/fatigue) when working by the hour. I’ve learnt my lesson there, so will aim for fixed price contracts as a preference in future. Anyhow, I’m remembering what my biggest gripe is about beta reading contracts on Upwork.

There are far too many people who frame it as ‘all you need to do is read the story and give comments‘ as if that’s a really easy thing to do. I know, just from my fannish experience alone, that if you want to give useful detailed comments that’s a very different kind of reading, in terms of attention, than reading something casually. That’s why, much as I would love to give detailed comments on all the fanfic I read, I just can’t manage it energy-wise even when the appreciation is fully there. Doing that commentary can be pretty mentally draining and that’s why I only tend to do it on things I really really enjoyed. Even then, I bookmark fics to come back to later because I can’t do it right away for everything I want to. There’s no ‘just’ about reading with analysis etc in mind.

So it frustrates me no end to see really low fixed prices for reading an entire novel that wouldn’t even cover a couple hours wage in the contract setter’s own economy. It isn’t taking into account how long it takes to read the story itself, before you even get to whether people are good at giving feedback. I know some people set low prices because they simply can’t afford more on low budgets, that I can respect. They are usually upfront about that and willing to take on newbies who need some feedback for their profiles.

I feel like this kinda thing is playing out all over different industries, particularly with arts and crafts too. It’s far too common to have people who are asking for a task to be done, and have a price in mind, but haven’t thought about how long it takes to do the task. How long it takes is actually one of the key things you need to think about if you’re aiming to set fair prices for people’s labour.