Writer’s Networking Teleclass 11-9-06
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Last night Suzanne Lieurance was away at another meeting and was not able to facilitate our writers networking teleclass, but she asked me to cover for her and graciously obtained the conference line for us. The topic we chose was Setting Fees for Freelance Writing Projects.
I recorded the call and posted it at http://yvonneperry.blogspot.com/2006/11/writers-teleclass-november-9-2006.html. Here are some notes from the call which I turned into an article for ezinearticles.com. Feel free to use the article on your blog or website.
Learning how to set fees for freelance writing projects can be confusing especially for the beginning freelance writer. When I first started my freelance writing business, I had no idea what to charge, so I looked online at websites of other writers. Not many of them posted their fees on their website and now I know the reason. Fees must be set by the individual project after taking many factors into consideration.
The most common pricing options for freelance writers are:
- Flat fee or project rate
- By the hour
- Per diem rate
- On retainer
- By the word
- By the page
I use a combination of several of these methods with the exception of per diem and retainer. Each of the pricing options has advantages and disadvantages depending on the assignment, your writing pace, and your client’s wishes.
Flat Fee or Project Rate — If you commit to a project rate or flat fee before you know much about the job, you could end up disappointed if the project becomes bigger or more complicated than you originally thought.
Hourly Rate — Also, hourly fees may be the best approach for freelancers who write at a slower pace. For me, an hourly rate is the best way to charge—not because I write slowly, but because it is hard to tell up front how long a project may really take. I give my client a ballpark on the number of hours I think a project will take me. In order to let the client know what to expect, I give them a margin of 20% more or less hours than I estimate. For example, if I think a project will take me 10 hours, I’ll quote the client 8-12 hours just in case I need to adjust once I get into the project. If I finish in less hours than I expected, I only charge for the hours I used.
Per diem rate — If you are going on site to write for a client, you wiill have to leave all other projects behind while you travel. You will need to consider not only lodging, travel expenses, food, and your hourly rate, you need to also include an amount that will cover for the help you have to hire to tend to children or pets while you are away. A per day rate is not set in stone. You may give the client a day rate (your hourly fee times number of hours on site) but also ask for expenses to be covered.
On retainer — If you have a client who wants you to be on call and ready to take his or her project on a moment’s notice, you may find that you have to drop everything to tend to that client’s needs. If you have cleared your schedule to allot a certain number of hours to her project and she ends up not having an assignment for you that month, you have lost the money you could have made otherwise. A retainer might come in handy for such cases to insure that you have some income even if the client doesn’t come through with a project.
Page Rate — Our team started out using a per page rate (a page is 250 words). If you work fast, a per-page rate is advantageous. However, I found that we weren’t being compensated for our research, interview and phone time, so if we charge by the page, we charge for research and interview time separately.
Word Rate — A lot of journalists and magazine writers use the per word rate. I’ve seen some charge $1-2 per word. The thing to remember about per word rate is that you may do the same amount of research for a 250-word article as you do for a 500-word article, so your time spent is going to be about the same with some extra time added for the actual writing of the longer article. If I charge by the word, I may also ask for an hourly fee for research.
Yvonne Perry is a freelance writer and the owner of Write On! Creative Writing Services based in Nashville, Tennessee. She and her team of ghostwriters service clients all over the globe by offering quality writing on a variety of topics at an affordable price. If you need a brochure, web text, business document, resume, bio, article or book, visit http://www.yvonneperry.net. While there sure to subscribe to the RSS podcast feed and the free monthly newsletter about writing, networking, publishing and marketing. Read more on Yvonne’s blog at http://yvonneperry.blogspot.com.
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November 10th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Yvonne,
Great teleconference and article - I just finished listening to the recording.
Thanks for taking over for me last night and sharing so much helpful information with other writers.
Suzanne Lieurance
The Working Writer’s Coach
http://www.workingwriterscoach.com