FW: Hourly Wages for Tech Writing

[James Barrow]

>Khizran Kaleem asked:

>I am planning to take up some freelance work on an hourly wage. I will be
>working on help file (.chm) for an application. I know quite a few people
>who haven't really had a good experience with being paid per hour. Let's
>say if the writer has put in 3hrs to work on a User Manual, the client
>might not agree that it was actually a 3hrs task which often causes problem
>during payments.

>Can anyone please give me a tip on how to make sure everything goes
>smoothly.

Document everything you do in regards to the task.  If you speak with a
developer about the features/functions, then this translates to a meeting.
Mark it down.  If someone stops by/calls you, and you talk about food for 10
minutes, and the project for 15 minutes, then mark down that you
participated in a 15 minute meeting.  If you type for 30 minutes, mark that
down.  If you use the application to see how things run, then this
translates to "functional analysis".  Mark it down.  Once you can verify
that you worked a total of three hours on the project, you're set.