Podcast Episode 11: How to Price Your Personal History Project

Tips on How to Price Your Personal History Project   I was recently asked by a few listeners what boils down to the same question: how do you price your projects? It’s no surprise that this is on people’s minds. It’s a common question, one that gets batted around a lot. I remember a conference I went to where they had a panel discussion on this very topic, and the crowd was huge. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got your own way of doing it, it seems like we’re all curious about how other people are doing it. I’ve got to admit, pricing has never been easy for me. I’m not talking about earning money, or even collecting it. I’m talking about the psychological stumbling blocks. I hope you don’t have them. My guess is that people who come to personal history from a business background may have an easier time with it. But I didn’t. I've been a teacher, a social worker, a travel director. And mostly a stay at home mom. My business skills weren’t rusty as much as, umm, non-existent. Know the value of your work Not only that, I’ve never had a comfortable relationship with money. I can’t remember now if it was my dad or Miss Campbell, one of my high school teachers, who first taught me the old saying, "Money is power, and power corrupts." Whoever it was, I took it to heart. It’s not that I dislike money as much as I fear its corrupting influence. And then there’s the whole issue of putting a monetary value on something I create. And not in any abstract way. Of saying to a client, yes, I’m bringing these skills to the table, and I’m providing you with a service that equals x number of dollars. I find the whole thing difficult. My dream is to hire someone to take care of all that so I can focus on what I’m good at, and what I like doing: interviewing and writing. But until then, I have to put on my big girl pants and figure out the best way of tackling the pricing stuff. And invoicing. And bookkeeping. And I’m telling you, if I can learn it, anybody can. Let's get to it. How does one price a personal history project? Okay, now that you know I’m no expert, I’m going to walk through my process. Just keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules. Take whatever sounds good to you and adapt it any way that makes sense. Roughly speaking, we all fall into one of two categories: those who price by the hour, and those who price by the project. And then, of course, the people who use a hybrid model. I charge by the hour. And I tell every potential client in our initial sales consultation: That’s not going to mean anything to you. Because they have no idea what goes on when I’m not with them. They don’t know how long it takes to transcribe an interview, or how many hours go into shuffling the material into roughly the correct spots, or how much time is spent writing and rewriting, and entering corrections once the client goes through the draft, and then more rounds of edits. And if you’re just starting out, you’re not going to know this either. And that’s one more reason it’s so valuable to have a sample project, a book you do for someone for free or low cost, your guinea pig. You’ll go through all the stages of the creating a life story book and be able to work out the kinks as you do. Track your time I highly recommend that you keep really good records of the time you spend on each main category of task. That would be interviewing---not just the number of interviews, but how long each lasted, whether it’s 90 minutes or 120 or 45--; the time you spend either transcribing, or the total cost to have it transcribed; the time you spend editing; the time spent scanning photos and, if necessary, doing some photoshopping to clean off the noise and speckles. One thing I’ve tried to track separately is research, but it doesn’t work for me. There’s too much going back and forth between the draft and checking things on the internet; the processes are too intertwined. The only exception is if I’m going to a research facility to spec...