Re: Consulting Fees

Subject: Re: Consulting Fees
From: "Fred Ridder" <docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:47:09 -0400

*Only* 270 billable days? That's an average of 5.2 days
per week with no holidays or vacation. If you take out
a fairly conservative 21 days for holidays and vacations,
that's an average of more than 5.5 days per week.


From: Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Consulting Fees
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:38:36 -0400

Bill Swallow wrote:

Double your salary and then divide by 2. Why? Insurance,
infrastructure, and other overhead costs. It generally costs a company
twice your salary to employ you.

I must be missing something. Isn't doubling your salary and dividing by two your salary? For example, if I get $30 an hour, then 30 x 2 = 60. If I then divide that by 2, I get 30.....

A number of years ago, there was an interesting article in Writer's Digest about setting fees. It starts with what you want to make annually, then goes from there. Bill is right in that you need to calculate overhead costs -- the costs of just showing up to work (home office or onsite), insurance (medical, life, etc.), transportation, etc. It also mentioned marketing.....you have to let people know you are in business and you have to work at getting the next contract. Assuming that you are the lone employee, you will work only about 270 billable days per year on average. The rest are holidays and weekends. How many of those days will be taken up marketing yourself? In the beginning more than after you are established, but those days spent promoting yourself and trying to get that next contract are not billable. Although doubling your current salary will get you into the ballpark, a pro forma spreadsheet will be a lot more accurate.

That said, I know a lot fo writers who still to this day are charging
less than $50/hr for consulting services. I just shake my head,
because I don't get it. Meanwhile I know writers who charge over
$100/hr for the same types of services, and get it consistently.

It depends on where you live. I've worked in places where you'd starve trying to get $50/hr because the market was glutted with out of work TWs, and I've worked in other places where you could almost name your price. The former was a lot more livable than the latter, which explains why the market was glutted.

Al

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Re: Consulting Fees: From: Al Geist

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