How much should I charge?

[sabinespoems]

Currently I'm having a conversation with someone who wants me to ghost write their poetry book. And basically, I have no idea what to charge so I figured I'd ask this lovely community with more experience to help me estimate this 😅

The buyer estimated the book will be about 45-50 pages with around 70 to 100 poems (both short and longer). Normally I charge per line, but with something like this time is also included to come to a price. And as a 'freelancer' I have a difficult time with estimating and including this 'time I'm working' into a price. 

I understand this might be a bit too specific of a case, but any insights on how to determine a price would be much appreciated! 

Edited May 29, 2022 by sabinespoems

[smashradio]

13 minutes ago, sabinespoems said:

Currently I'm having a conversation with someone who wants me to ghost write their poetry book. And basically, I have no idea what to charge so I figured I'd ask this lovely community with more experience to help me estimate this 😅

The buyer estimated the book will be about 45-50 pages with around 70 to 100 poems (both short and longer). Normally I charge per line, but with something like this time is also included to come to a price. And as a 'freelancer' I have a difficult time with estimating and including this 'time I'm working' into a price. 

I understand this might be a bit too specific of a case, but any insights on how to determine a price would be much appreciated! 

This might help: 

https://blog.reedsy.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-hire-a-ghostwriter/

I'm not a ghost writer, but generally, I tend to price myself below the going market rate for services here on Fiverr. Not too much, though. I'm sure you have more insight into the time this will take, so if you do this simple calculation, it could help you figure out the time aspect: 

Figure out your expenses including taxes. 

Figure out how much profit you want to make.

Then the number of billable hours you work per year. 

Expenses + profit margin ÷ number of billable hours = hourly salary. 

I suck at math, so don't fault me if I'm wrong here but that's how I do it when I try to figure out if a project is interesting or not. It should always land at or above my idea of an hourly rate. 

[sabinespoems]

7 hours ago, smashradio said:

I suck at math, so don't fault me if I'm wrong here but that's how I do it when I try to figure out if a project is interesting or not. It should always land at or above my idea of an hourly rate. 

I suck at math too haha, but breaking it down like this does help! I'm not a fulltime freelancer and I always find this estimation process the most difficult for larger projects. 

So thank you so much for giving your insights into your process 😄