On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Roxanne Darling <[email protected]> wrote: > Can you stay a little extra time there and book any other work or vacation?
That's the plan! Flights from Australia are expensive, so I'll make the most of it with an extended holiday. Doesn't cost them anything to book my flight two weeks earlier ;-) > That might influence things. I often try to get another client or two in > situations like this, and spread the travel costs among them. It certainly does. probably no chance of getting another paying client while there, but I might be able to get some blogging opportunities in at least. If I had done this sort of thing a hundred times before and it was real grind as a day-to-day job, there is no way I would travel 50 hours for 25 hours paid work, that would be crazy. But I know I'm getting a) a free trip to the US that don't come that often, and b) an awesome opportunity to further my blogging/industry profile. And it's all fresh and exciting of course, so I'm doing the gig whatever it takes. It's no charity case though, they are getting my industry profile, blog audience, and talent in exchange, so they need to pay for that of course. And they want to discuss further ongoing blogging work too that I can do from home. > It is not unusual for people to charge a percentage of their normal day rate > for long distance travel. So you could also ask for that directly. Yes you > are not working directly for them but you are giving up other work time for > them, them being the client. Yes, that's the thing, I am giving up my full time work and other private stuff to do this gig. So I'll at least mention it to them that the travel time will be almost double the actual work hours and try and work it out. It was supposed to be a much longer gig, so they have changed the job requirements somewhat. > Can I assume you are getting all travel costs reimbursed as well? Yes, airfare, plush accommodation, meals, and I'll ask for a car too. > Then I consider the client - their size and budget, how much I want the job, > how much will it help me and my portfolio, what can I get done on the plane, > etc. It may be that you can book some "storyboarding" type time and actually > do that on the plane to get compensated for your work and your time, without > having to bill directly for "travel time." I think it's probably a bit rich that I book them for travel time directly, so I might ask for some extra prep/editing/production time, as that seems to be a bit tight in those 25hours they have suggested. > Hope this helps - as you can see there are a lot of options therefore no > wrong answers. Just do what will make you feel good about going and do a > superb job for the client! It's in their best interest for you to be fresh, > happy, and inspired. Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I've gotten a few other responses from various people and it generally seems that travel time is just "part of doing business" and usually doesn't get charged for. Regards Dave.
