Inside an AI editing contract: Statement of Work

When I bid on a developmental editing job, I ask typical questions to inform my quote: What’s the topic, what’s the schedule, and what kind of shape is the draft in?

Now, though, I must always ask an additional question: Did you use AI to write this draft? AI-generated drafts are tedious to edit and need a complete rewrite to preserve copyrightability.

The statement of work for editing an AI-generated manuscript

Every consulting contract includes two parts: the terms and the statement of work. The terms don’t tend to vary from client to client unless the client has some unusual legal requirements. The statement of work is where you put all the items specific to a particular job, including milestones and corresponding payments.

I’ve already posted some clauses from my contracts that help protect me now that AI is a factor. Today, I’ll share the statement of work for one particular job I’m about to start. In this case, the client has already told me they used AI to generate the manuscript draft. I’ll include commentary on why I wrote this statement of work the way I did. (The client made no changes to this and accepted it just as written.)

Scope of work:

• Creation of a publishable manuscript for a book on [redacted for privacy], tentatively titled [redacted for privacy], based on source material supplied by Client.

This is a general description of the job.

Compensation:

• On start of an idea development discovery session, $3,500.
• On completion of idea development, table of contents, and project plan: $3,500.

The first two milestones are typical for all jobs I work on. I do idea development with the client to nail down the title, subtitle, and main idea for the book. This is my chance to get familiar with the client and their objectives, and their chance to learn what I do and the value I add. The cost is modest percentage of the total, and that’s intentional — if things are not working out, either of us can parachute out without an enormous commitment of dollars or resources.

• On start of development of AI tools to identify and mark the identifiable AI-generated portions of the manuscript for rewriting, with Client’s approval: $5,000.

This is unique to this job because the manuscript is AI-generated. I know I’m going to have to review the manuscript in detail and understand which AI-sounding features are in there and need to be revised, corrected, or replaced. I plan to use AI to find the AI tells in the manuscript — AI is actually pretty good at that sort of thing. (Even though it knows what sounds like AI, it’s not good at purging that . . . which is one reason a human editor like me is necessary.) I don’t do this work for free; the client is paying me to create these automated tools that I’ll use in my editing work.

• On start of revision and developmental editing of client’s existing text: $9,000. The purpose of this revision is to improve clarity and effectiveness and to remove evidence of AI writing where possible.
• On revision of first 30,000 words of client’s existing text: $9,000.
• On revision of remainder of client’s existing text, including drafting of new material in the final chapter as needed: $9,000.
• On completion of final round of revision of manuscript: $9,000

I’m charging $36,000 to rewrite the text, with one-forth paid up front. On the one hand, this is an easy job, because the text is already well-organized and there’s no additional research to do. But it does require rewriting every word. I’m charging twice what I’d charge for a non-AI developmental edit, but much less than if I were ghostwriting this from scratch. That’s the Bernoff Premium for editing AI-generated text.

• On completion of supervision of book through production process (copy editing, page layout, cover design): $3,000.
• On completion of index, if Client has requested it: $2,000.

These are also standard charges that account for my time after the manuscript is complete. (Clients don’t like to pay a lot for these tasks, even though they are essential, but I price the other portions so that a lot of this time is already paid for in the earlier work.)

Consultant agrees to limit use of AI in this project to the following:

• Transcribing audio interviews
• Checking spelling and grammar 
• Cleaning up formatting or citations
• Assessing reading level
• Reviewing text to identify inconsistencies, redundancies, and other flaws
• Performing AI-augmented web search 
• Producing research reports based on relevant Web content for review by Consultant
• Summarizing papers or other relevant content for research purposes
• Summarizing of audio recordings
• Suggesting words or appropriate terminology (as a thesaurus)
• Using AI tools as thought partners in discovery, ideation, and brainstorming
• Compiling and querying repositories of relevant content

Consultant will not use AI tools to generate text for inclusion in final manuscript.

Clients deserve to know exactly what I use AI for in my work. This is directly in line with the AI Guidelines for Ghostwriting.

Additional notes specific to this project:

• Consultant’s participation is confidential and cannot be disclosed by Client without express permission.
• Consultant retains all rights to AI and technical tools created for analysis of text for this project.
• Client remains responsible for factual errors and inadvertent plagiarism in any source materials that Client provides. Consultant has no responsibility for fact-checking, verifying originality, or verifying authenticity of direct quotes from such material.

These terms are included to protect me from the additional risks that AI-generated material creates. I’m in control of whether the client can associate my name with the project. I can reuse the tools I create for AI-detection, even though the client paid me for them. And most importantly, if the AI-generated source material includes misquotations, plagiarism, or hallucinations, it’s not my responsibility to fix them. As a competent developmental editor, I’m likely to notice, identify, and fix many of those problems, but this protects me if I miss any.

Is this still worth doing?

There are three reasons I’m doing this project.

First, the topic is quite interesting to me and I believe the result will be worth publishing. The client really has done some interesting work that’s ought to get out into the world where people can appreciate it.

Second, I’m curious what it will be like to work on a quality AI-generated text. Rewriting text of this kind is a creative and interesting activity, just like ghostwriting, but without all the arduous research. This may be way more work than it appears to be. It may be easier than I’m anticipating. I want to add a project like this to my breadth of experience, since I’ll know better how to prepare when the next one comes along. And clients who’ve chosen to use AI to write, like this one, will know I’m experienced at turning their manuscripts into interesting, readable, publishable work.

Third, it pays well compared to the amount of work I anticipate. This is going to take many months. The $53,000 price tag should make that effort worth it.

I’m interested in what other ghostwriters and editors think. Have you been offered jobs like this? Do you reject them on moral grounds? Are you getting paid for the extra effort? Let me know about your experience.