Bidding a book project?

[Chris Morton]

Hi All,

I may be called in to provide freelance authorship of a 450-page technical
book for a Web 2.0 company. The book will ultimately be published by a
technical publishing house, where it'll be available both on their website
and on Amazon. I'll need to visit the company outpost at least once,
interview SMEs and other staff, learn the subject matter as best I can,
digest their raw input, then write something worthy between now and late
autumn. They're wanting a bid. While I want to be fair to myself, I also
know that wrangling usable information from SMEs can be quite a challenge in
and of itself. Since this would be my first foray with said technical
publishing house, I'm also wanting to complete this work in such a way that
I'm thrown more bones. Once again, though, I don't want to create my own
sweat shop situation where I'm not properly remunerated.

I have a top-notch track record: in the past I've provided tech edits for
Microsoft OS user guides and a Que book. My original editorial content has
also appeared in numerous technical periodicals, both newsstand and
subscription-only.

How would you proceed to come up with a number? I'm also interesting in a
share of the royalties. A shared byline on the cover would be nice, too,
although I'd settle for an indicia listing.

Thanks

> Jagdriver