Rob Bignell's Blog, page 216

What rates should coaches/consultants charge?

Coaches and consultants can earn a lot of money based on their experience and their reputation. The more you have of both, the higher the price you can set.

Unfortunately, many authors going into the coaching/consulting business, being unfamiliar with this line of work, never earn their true potential ��� or even get off the ground ��� because they set the wrong price.

Before establishing your rates, review what other consultants in your profession charge. Compare their skill set and experience to yours and charge accordingly. As demand for your services grows, you can raise your price.

Don���t undercut the competition in pricing that the point that you run yourself out of business, though. Estimate what your expenses will be and make sure your price is above that number. Such expenses would include not just the cost you charge per hour for actual coaching/consulting but also gas/vehicle maintenance, hotels, meals, and office supplies.

There are several ways you can set your rates:
��� Hourly fees ��� You determine an hourly rate, and the client pays you for the number of hours you needed to coach/consult. The challenge here is finding a balance between being unaffordable (not too high) and not being taken seriously (not too low).
��� Project fees ��� You are paid a fixed amount for a predetermined period of work time. If you go this route, you���ll probably bill your client on a monthly basis; because many companies will pay late, always require the first month���s and the last month���s payment up front to ensure you aren���t left wondering how to pay for groceries and make a mortgage payment.
��� Retainer ��� You agree to work for a company for a set number of hours per month. If it doesn���t pay up front to retain your services, than you don���t work for them. Be forewarned that some companies don���t want you to work for competitors, so this can limit the number of retainers you can accept.

Lastly, be aware that the more you charge, the more clients will expect from you. The advantage of undercutting your competitors��� prices are that you not only bring more business but your client can���t honestly complain that others did more for them for the same amount of money.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Gross vs. Net ��� What���s the Difference?

Do you remember getting your first paycheck? You were excited, but when you looked at it were surprised because you thought you were going to get a lot more pay for your hard work. You were confused ��� like some writers get ��� by the difference between gross and net pay.

Gross pay or gross income is the sum total before expenses, taxes and deductions. Employers often quote prospective employees the gross pay as an enticement, when the reality is that several subtractions will be made from it before a paycheck is cut. If you are told you will earn $40,000 a year, that���s before federal and state income taxes as well as social security, Medicare, health and dental insurance, and possibly union dues are taken out. The government cares most about your gross pay.

Net pay or net income is the actual total of what you���re paid after expenses, taxes and deductions. It���s your take-home pay. It���s what you care most about. And it���s always lower than your gross pay.

So, while you still may feel ripped off when you get that first paycheck, at least grammatically speaking, you���re a much richer person with this knowledge.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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CQI Magazines publishes my article on editing

The writers magazine CQI today published my article about how to hire an editor if you���re self-publishing a book. The article specifically covers deciding when you need an editor, determining the kind of edit your manuscript requires, selecting the best editor for you, and some common cons that people pretending to be book editors try to pull. CQI is read in 90 countries and reaches 50,000 readers quarterly. You can read the magazine article online; see pp. 56-59.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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How to Write a Bestselling Novel: In 7 Minutes a Day to Your Bestseller, writers receive expert advice on topics like motivating yourself to write, starting your story with exciting opening lines, creating intriguing characters, mastering the craft of writing to elevate your style, and pitching your story to potential publishers.

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5 Great Quotations about Words

���Language is the light of the mind.��� - John Stuart Mill

���Words, whether weaved as poetry or prose, can always find space to survive and thrive.��� - Harriet Anena

���Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.��� - Orson Scott Card

���A word is dead when it���s been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.��� - Emily Dickinson

���I never met a word I didn���t love.��� - Gail Carson Levine

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Every success story begins with a dream. If you dream of being a professional, published author, that success story requires believing in yourself and in knowing that your efforts will lead to triumph. Read the motivational blog entry this quotation came from by clicking on the quote card.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Editing client publishes his first crime novel

A recent editing client has published his first crime novel. Seamus Heffernan���s ���Napalm Hearts��� tells the story of Thaddeus Grayle, a successful but bored American private investigator who has grown weary of snooping after the cheating spouses of his adopted city of London, England. Recently divorced and even more recently sober, he fills what little free time he has with movies, baseball and his own torrid affairs. He wants a change, and it finally arrives thanks to a wealthy businessman desperate to find his hard-partying wife ��� a young woman who might be in the biggest trouble of her life. Capably aided by his associates ��� the whip-smart Charlotte ���Charlie��� Colbourne, and ex-copper Francis Ruddick ��� Grayle goes all in on the case he���s always wanted, taking him deep into the city's seedy underbelly and face-to-face with an upper class at war with its own vices. ���Napalm Hearts��� is available online in paperback and ebook.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Should indie authors set up an office at home?

As an indie author running a business stemming from your books, your home is the perfect place to set up office.

Working out of your home offers a number of benefits. First, it helps you maintain a low capital investment up front. You have no rent and no utilities that you aren���t already paying. In fact, you probably can save on taxes, as a home office often is tax deductible. In addition, working from home means no morning or evening commute, increasing the amount of time you have available to work. Further, you have the flexibility of setting your own hours, as you���re not keeping a storefront of sorts (though at times you will have to work when others are available to discuss business with you). Lastly, working from home allows you to maintain a healthier lifestyle. You can better control your diet when not confronted with birthday cakes for coworkers and donut Fridays, and you also can get up and stretch and even hit the treadmill for short spurts throughout the day, something that would be frowned upon at most workplaces.

As great as working out of your home sounds, before converting your den or that extra bedroom into an office explore if you actually will be able to do so. Local zoning laws often prohibit certain kinds of businesses, especially those that generate a lot of vehicle traffic, from operating out of a home. There also may be deed or rental agreement restrictions. For most authors turned coach/consultant, neither probably will be an obstacle to running your business out of your home, though.

In truth, the real obstacle may be you ��� you may not be able to personally handle working from home where chores and a hundred other activities can divert you from your business, where the neighbor���s dog barks throughout the day, where on a perfect warm blue sky day you can���t resist the temptation to chuck it all and head to the beach. When working from home, you always must maintain a line between personal and work lives rather than allow them to blur. The solution is to still set up a home office but work in public at coffeeshops, cafes and libraries.

If you decide to work out of your home, the next step is setting up the office space for yourself. We���ll discuss that in an upcoming entry.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Get a grip: A hold vs. ahold

Do you find yourself going crazy over these two spellings? Well, get ahold of yourself and read on.

A hold as two words typically is a phrase in which hold means something is being held. For example, you might write She���s really got a hold on me or Jerry has put a hold on any more shipments of that defective product.

Ahold as one word usually is accompanied by the verb get and the preposition of; to wit, Darling, get ahold of yourself! It also can mean ���grasp��� as in He grabbed ahold of my wrist.

And with that explanation, you now should have a hold on the distinction between these two spellings.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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5 Science Fiction Writing Prompts: Future Tech

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a ���reality��� in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as ���The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning of life��� or ���The government outlaws books.��� The author then asks ���What if?��� exploring how the world with this novum is different than ours.

Among the problems of many novice science fiction writers is instead of introducing a new novum they rely on used furniture ��� that is, they borrow novums from popular SF series. After all, how many novels have you read that use starships exploring the galaxy for the Earth-based Federation? Barely changing names to appear as if you are not appropriating ��� a starcraft seeking M-class worlds for the Earth-centered Alliance ��� still doesn���t cut it as original or fully using the potential that science fiction offers to examine our culture or humanity.

To help SF writers, here are some novums of potential near-future inventions from which stories could be built:

Facial recognition app
What if smart contact lenses we wore include a facial recognition app that instantly told you the name of any person before you as well as provided a profile about them? How does this change our greeting customs?

Garden sensors
What if sensors beneath your lawn or in your garden could measure the amount of moisture in the soil and detect bug infestations then deliver targeted sprays of water, pesticides or fertilizer to those spots? How does this change the appearance of our lawns and neighborhoods?

GJ 338 AB colonization
What if future space explorers decided to settle a habitable planet orbited the second star in this binary? Such a planet probably would orbit the K-type star in just 34.5 days.

Living perfumes
What if people could download and apply bioengineered bacteria that when applied to the skin would emit a pleasant scent? The body���s epidermal area would become a living ecosystem of perfume.

Upcycling
What if products and their packaging were designed so that when recycled they retained 100% of their original integrity? This will be necessary in a resource-stretched world. How does this change the way we package, use and discard consumer goods?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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