Freelance Services & Fees

I have been forced to admit that progression in the deterioration of my spine has slowly halted my ability to work. I can now longer claim to deliver timely content creation/editing or training/speaking assignments. There is currently no treatment to halt or reverse this progression. I solicit your prayers and hope for the development of spine rebuilding and regeneration techniques, so this page remains. But I must admit my limitations and no longer solicit assignments.

Experience-informed Writing & Technical Expertise:

I will be happy to edit for both content and mechanics.  As to content, see my bio and slide show for life experiences that can lent credibility to your writing projects. Consider my help with Fiction, dramatic nonfiction, business, theology and more!

Creative and stylistic advice

Editing

Content editing includes a limited amount of new material, informed by my life experiences at editing rates. Extensive new material requires a higher rate, as with advertising copy, white papers, original memorials, etc.:

Biographies, memorial or exceptional employee stories, etc.

Humor

Business-to-business or consumer materials

Pre-approach letters & promotional materials

Web site content & articles (not coding or programming)

All Financial Planning related topics

Primarily promotion materials, training materials and articles

Customized technical, data gathering, consulting and sales training classes

I am happy to coordinate with compliance departments

No work requiring licensure; neither review of other Planner’s work done for clients

Business Brokerage, Commercial and Residential Realty

Primarily promotion materials, training materials and articles

No work requiring licensure; neither review of other professional’s work

No CMAs, appraisals or valuations

Apologetics

Catholic

Comparative Religion

Research

Hobby & Special Interest

Woodcarving and turning

Nature, archaeology, paleontology

Outdoors & hunting

Pricing Factors for Content Creation & Editing

Commercial consulting assignments are priced for the nature of the work, generally ranging from $59/hour to $200/hour.

Voice Over work (specialty persona voice, dialect, dramatic reading) by Dan and/or sons Joe or Matt is available at $25 hourly, unless the assignment utilizes my financial/business expertise.

Please contact Dan with details of your project; those details almost always affect the fee.

The fee for some assignments can be negotiated: The longer the assignment, the more a discount may be offered. A new client who has long-term potential may also qualify for an initial or trial discount.

Finally, if your assignment is already contracted through GLG Consulting or The Expert Institute, please contact Dan only through those firms.

Click here for testimonials.

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Click here for Speaking & Training Services & Rates.

I decline to work on certain genres, such as Romance, Anime, Manga, poetry, and picture books.  I also decline material that is sexually explicit, socially erosive, gratuitously violent, etc.  I will not accept academic assignments at the high school level or below; however, college, graduate & professional level works for editing only (not original material creation) are accepted.

Please note that interviews and/or research are usually essential to identify themes, lessons, purpose, directions etc., so as to effectively edify and delight readers.  I enhance reader emotional experience, utilizing all appropriate elements of fiction and nonfiction, especially characterization, and pay close attention to structure, thereby enhancing story line.

Estimates and Invoicing

Assignments in manuscript form – not marketing campaign materials, white papers, corporate/family stories or media content – are charged as follows:

There is no fee for an initial evaluation of client content and materials for the purpose of providing an estimate. The initial deposit is the greater of $300 or 10% of the estimate.

Fees are based upon an evaluation of what the client supplies for the assignment compared to what must be done (the extent of rewording, revision or even creation of new content) to return a quality finished product. The rate in cents per word is applied to the greater of client-supplied content or my finished product to obtain an estimate. The Hourly rate is charged in quarter-hour increments, or any part thereof and a log is kept for inspection.

The final invoice is the lesser of

the Per-word estimate plus the initial reading/note-taking hourly fee or

the total of Tiered Hourly Work categories’ hourly rate,

except that additional hourly rate items or extraordinary costs are added if justified to the client and mutually agreed.

Per-word Rates (counted as the longer of the client’s work or my product):

  • Client-provided content is well written & organized, requiring modest correction: 3¢
  • Client-provided content is well organized and written but requires tightening (to make concise, faster paced) and modest correction: 4¢
  • Client-provided content is poorly organized or poorly written (requires strengthening of style, pace, emotion/impact): 5¢
  • Client-provided content needs extensive revision or original re-writing from client-provided material: 6¢
  • Client has scant content, assignment requires research or extensive evaluation of client materials/sources followed by near-total to total creation of content: 7¢ to 12¢

Tiered Hourly Work rates by Category:

  • Digesting instructions, correspondence and initial, cursory scan of notes: complimentary
  • Digesting / analyzing notes you supply, enabling synthesis into prose, hourly: $65 individual, $89 commercial
  • Travel, research (phone, reading, internet, etc.), also
    Revisions/changes required or guided by client hourly: $45 individual, $69 commercial
  • Expenses, mileage @ $0.30/mile, incidentals: pass-through at cost
  • Counseling, consulting (verbal or written) on content / approach, hourly: $65 individual, $89 commercial
  • For large or specially negotiated commercial assignments that are discounted from the above, no tiers are available except for travel; the rate is the same for all hours worked. Flat rate commercial writing/editing assignments also may have different terms than above.

Work Procedure:

Client and I set forth a logical procedure and agree by email, which will reproduce most of the wording herein.  An affirmative email reply forms the Agreement.

Generally, work begins with interview/research/surveying to identify scope, themes, lessons, directions, etc., so that I may substantially perform the assignment, wow the client and edify and delight readers. The typical editing assignment, when a client has scant or no material or needs a total re-work of his/her own material, requires a questionnaire.  Questionnaires and related research enable me to construct an original outline for my original work or for the client’s.  If the client creates and I edit, the resulting outline guides and prompts client writing, which I then edit into a superior product.  Work for editing that is near professional quality requires no or only a brief questionnaire.

Businesses typically provide assignments that specify requirements in some form of a Request for Bid.  Note, however, that fees are not negotiable except as explicitly stated herein.

I complete work in three to ten hour segments (weekly for longer projects) that are then sent to the client with guidance for possible further work by client (subsequently, client may require re-edits by me).  A line-item invoice accompanies each work segment and shows billing totals up to its date.

MS Word and its “Track Changes” function should be used if possible.

Terms:

Client may cancel or suspend at any time, but completed work up to the time of notice will be delivered and payment due. Initial deposit is non-refundable.

Each work segment is payable within 7 days of that segment’s work delivery to the client. However, travel items are payable in advance.

Client and I agree to arbitration as the only remedy for disputes that cannot be amicably resolved; also that an attorney, who has no past or prospective relationship with either of us, shall be selected and arbitration expenses split per the decision of that arbiter.

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