Billable hours in a freelancer's life
On the the blog Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style, there is an interesting item showing the likely impact of "billable hours" on the lifestyles of young lawyers.
We thought it would be interesting to do a variant of this for magazine freelancers. We have assumed a 5- day work week, 8 hours sleep a night and two weeks vacation.
Waking hours per day 16
Waking hours per work week (5 days) 80
Days per work year 250
Waking hours per work year 4,000
Preparing, eating meals (1.5 hr/day) (375)
Hygiene (1 hr/day) (250)
Exercise (1 hr/day) (250)
Household chores (1.5 hr/day) (375)
Watching TV (1 hr/day) (250)
Work avoidance (1 hr/day) (250)
Phone/e-mail (1 hr/day) (250)
Sex (1 hr/week) (50)
Socializing (3 hr/wk) (150)
Total non-freelance time use 1,950
Total time left* for freelance work 2,050
Average full-time freelance pre-tax income (PWAC study) $29,235
Hourly wage $14.26
*Of course this assumes that every hour is used productively.
We thought it would be interesting to do a variant of this for magazine freelancers. We have assumed a 5- day work week, 8 hours sleep a night and two weeks vacation.
Waking hours per day 16
Waking hours per work week (5 days) 80
Days per work year 250
Waking hours per work year 4,000
Preparing, eating meals (1.5 hr/day) (375)
Hygiene (1 hr/day) (250)
Exercise (1 hr/day) (250)
Household chores (1.5 hr/day) (375)
Watching TV (1 hr/day) (250)
Work avoidance (1 hr/day) (250)
Phone/e-mail (1 hr/day) (250)
Sex (1 hr/week) (50)
Socializing (3 hr/wk) (150)
Total non-freelance time use 1,950
Total time left* for freelance work 2,050
Average full-time freelance pre-tax income (PWAC study) $29,235
Hourly wage $14.26
*Of course this assumes that every hour is used productively.
Labels: freelancers
posted by D. B. Scott at
11:02 am
1 Comments:
"...and it could take 10 to 20 hours (or more) to write a 1,000-word article... I know writers who would spend 25, 30 or more hours on such an article. They don’t dare do the math to calculate their hourly wages."
This is the key point. But I'd reslant it slightly: they don't dare log their hours to find out how long it really takes, and/or they're very forgiving about what activities "count." I am constantly running up against writers (competitors in my local market) who insist it takes them 4-5 hours to "write" a 1000-word, 3-source article. I track my time electronically. Knowing exactly how much time goes into tracking down sources and reading backgrounders makes it awfully hard to write it off--or "gift" it to the client. Trouble is, when the client, who insists on paying an hourly rate, gets one estimate of, say, 4 hours for a 1000 word piece, and another of 8-12 hours, it's not hard to figure out which one he/she will go for. And not hard to see how that drives rates down.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home