October 2009 Get out of a Price Rut Challenge - Who's In?

[Celeste Stewart]

How much time do you anticipate each article taking? How much do you generally need to make per hour? For example, if you generally like to earn $40 per hour and each article will take one hour to write, then you'd need to charge $62 per hour to account for the CC cut. If each article is 1,000 words, then six cents per word would be the least you could charge. It helps to know how much you need to make per hour when figuring out what's fair. Then of course you also have to consider what the customer has paid you in the past as well as what you charge other customers for comparable work.

[eek]

That "per hour" thing really confuses me. You're talking to a tortoise, remember. (Writing style. Don't start picturing some decrepit old woman over here.) Based on previous comparable articles I've written, I'd guess it would take 8 hours, from start to finish, including edits and submitting, for a 1200-word article. That's a conservative estimate - somewhere between 4 and 6 of actual work on the article might be a better guess. Looking at what he's purchased before, articles of that length went for $70-100. (The higher priced article was about 1350 words.) That's a range between .05-.07/word. Those were all articles that were not private requests, mind.

[Celeste Stewart]

It's always tough to find the magic number.

[eek]

Yep. But thanks for helping me think it through, Celeste, and pointing out a few different angles. I'm going to give it a night to mull over.

[Celeste Stewart]

Don't worry, a new challenge is coming soon. . .

[Antonia]

I had an article that a private client usually pays $50 for, she didn't need it after all so I bumped the price up to $75 when it went public. Lo and behold, it just sold for my asking price! Plus, the buyer sent me a very nice email asking me for a bio even though he purchased full rights. This was a great challenge--thanks Celeste.