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11-17-2012, 07:25 PM
#5
Lowengard is offline Lowengard
Status: Member
Join date: Feb 2010
Location: New York City
Expertise: all editorial, bsns consulting
Software: zotero
 
Posts: 238
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Lowengard is an unknown quantity at this point

  Old

In brief:
a 3 week turn around for a 25,000 word draft would mean working very hard. I would consider this a rush job even without the holiday, but you may feel differently.

Your per-word fee should include such things as a round of edits, 1 or maybe 2 f2f meetings, etc., and everything else. As indexing is a specialist job, you might be able to bill this separately or as extra...up to you. You would identify what the fee includes in your contract, as you would normally.

I can't tell you what to charge, Regina, for the reasons I outlined above. $4000 would not be enough to entice me to take the job, as it's likely to take up the entire 2 months left until the retirement party. You should recognize however, that I have considerable experience at this kind of work and charge accordingly. I also know (from that experience) that jobs such as these, the ones that are thought up at the last minute or aren't started until the last minute because the people who instigate them don't understand how long it takes to produce a good publication, end up being very deep and very dark holes. I know how to avoid the problems and that is worth something to my clients.

On the other hand, if you are learning how to do this kind of work as well as how to freelance, it may be worth it to you to make less money and discover the parameters.

Make sure your contract identifies everything you're responsible for, with deadlines, including number of rounds of revisions and meetings you'll attend. Don't forget to include a payment schedule. Don't forget to mention that, if you submit something and haven't heard in X hours or business days you assume it's approved. Don't let their lawyers tell you that you have to sign a hold-harmless agreement but they can't do the same. Make clear what kind of credit you get for this (will your name be on the finished book? who holds the copyright? will you get copies you could use to promote your work?)

Sarah