Brennon Bortz wrote:
I am slowly but surely building my own base of clients and have come across
this same question, but with more emphasis on just how much should be
charged. I have found that I have made some irresponsible business
decisions in agreeing to a preset budget that turns out to be quite a bit
less than if I were to charge an hourly rate. Would everyone agree that
$40/hour is reasonable/standard?
Going further, would anyone suggest a "per frame" rate that might be
acceptable? I understand that some frames are much more complicated than
others, and I've even heard of some people charging a per/frame/layer rate.
How about a per item rate based on the Count Items plugin? Any other
methods of pricing that people have found most useful?
As a note, I realize that some of these methods are much more easily
calculable AFTER the music has been entered in Finale. What would people
suggest is the best way to make these pricing decisions when glancing at a
MS? I work mostly with handwritten manuscripts...
I feel $40/hour is a reasonable rate, but that depends on where you live
-- $40/hour in NYC is probably not a livable wage, while $40/hour in
rural South Carolina may allow you to live in luxury.
The nature of the music, not whether it's
manuscript/previously-engraved, is what I find to be most important.
Longer note values with very little articulations and expressions can be
brought to a professional engraving appearance with far less effort than
music with at least one articulation per note, lots of expressions,
lyrics, tempo changes, meter changes, etc.
What I do is ask for 3 sample pages, the first, the last and one random
page from the middle of the work, then I enter them (I realize that's my
own time, but it is also a head-start, should the client accept my
terms) and calculate the per-page time spent. Then I multiply that by
the total number of pages of the original and factor in extracted parts,
etc. and present the client with what ends up being a fairly accurate
quote. I also leave myself an out that before I will sign the contract,
I need to see the entire manuscript so that I will feel comfortable that
the pages sent to me are truly representative of the entire project.
I don't think it matters if you're doing it on a per-frame basis (that's
certainly easy enough to calculate even before you enter it into Finale)
makes a difference on the final quote, just make sure you've looked at
all the frames so that you're acquainted with the most comlex of them.
Pricing on a per-item basis seems too nit-picky for me, and were I a
client I wouldn't hire someone who charges using that method.
I'm sure others will chime in with their thoughts on this issue.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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