RE: Newsletter bid question

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

Hi Susan,

The forum has already discussed InDesign in response to your post.  I think
that the 30-day trial should be sufficient, but don't install it until you
are ready to work in it.  You may spend a little time mocking up drafts and
ideas before you will need to use InDesign and you may want to have the full
30 days available.

You can bid for time and hours and estimate the time required, like two
days, two weeks, or whatever at part-time or full-time hours.  Make sure
that your hourly rate is appropriate for what you would realistically expect
for the work and that it is acceptable to your client.  You can look at
salary.com for job titles similar to what you will do and see what possible
salaries are.  Sometimes, monster.com and dice.com show hourly rates.  

If your client is looking to "help you out" in your business, then they
might expect to billed less than the standard market rate for your area.
Non-profits and small companies might look to pay half of the typical market
rate, so you might need to be ready to make compromises.

You might be able to make an initial bid of say $20 per hour for two weeks,
part-time, so 40 hours to produce one newsletter and adjust the time for the
next month if the time frame is too long or short.  You won't be able to
adjust your hourly rate, so find one that you like.  $20 an hour is quite a
bargain, but it could prevent scaring away your client and get you started
without being too low a rate.  $45 an hour for a newsletter can get a little
scary but be alright for technical writing, in my area.  Look at the
complexity of the newsletter.  A newsletter that requires research or a lot
of brain power should get a higher rate than one that just provides
information about the previous month.

Lauren
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On 
> Behalf Of Susan Hogarth
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 12:09 PM
> To: Techwr-l
> Subject: Newsletter bid question
> 
> Sorry if this is a bit off-topic. I've been asked to bid on a
> freelance job editing (and some writing and/or badgering people to
> write) and layout of an organizational newsletter. It's generally a
> 8-24 page newsletter. They require it to be composed in InDesign and
> 'prefer it done on a Mac' (I have no idea why they are
> software-specific and hardware-hungup since they aren't providing the
> hardware). I'm not sure if they have an available template, thoyugh I
> have to assume they
> 
> They won't get it done on a Mac (unless I decide it's a good enough
> excuse to buy one:) but I might-could be persuaded to buy InDesign.
> 
> A couple of questions:
> 
> 1) InDesign has a one-month trial. Does anyone know offhand if there
> are limitations to the trial version that will somehow muck up the
> version I send to the printer?
> 
> B) Any advice on bidding (amount)? It will be monthly or 
> bimonthly, 8-24 pages.
> 
> Generally, I've been wanting to get into newsletter freelancing, so
> this is cool (plus it's an org I am involved with), but I really am
> not 100% sure of the questions I should ask or the rate I should set.
> I'd love thoughts!
> 
> -- 
> Susan Hogarth
> http://www.colliething.com
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printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
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True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
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