Paid Consultant

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Colonist17

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Today, I had a different writing offer than I'm used to and I was wondering if anyone could offer a little advice.

Normally my writing that I do is either in fiction writing for novels/novellas/short stories or in a local news media website covering topics such as city council meetings, crime, local high school/college sports, etc.

Recently I did an article for my local news media site about a Congressman visiting a local high school. The school district staff liked my story and style so much that they offered a position to me as a consultant. What they're looking for is someone to blog about their S.T.E.M. program and technology (they have such a great program beyond many other schools). Everything from origin stories about how they were able to budget for such stuff on a public school budget, to human interests stories about teachers/students/faculty success stories and how their education has changed their life.

They want quick blog posts on a semi-regular basis and asked me to come up with an amount for pay. They said the position would be under an independent consultant contract, but they were not sure if I should be paid per hour, per week, per story, or per word, nor were they sure how much would be a fair pay rate.

Being a local public school, I don't want to rip them off, but at the same time, I want to be paid fairly compared to market standard. It's basically a paid blogger position, but I'm not sure what that fair market standard would be. Any advice or anyone every do this for a school district before? I would appreciate any help that can be offered.
 

atthebeach

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Hmm since no one has replied yet, I will say I know the public school side of things. Ours has a great Tech department that are creating their own digital blog updates (although this is new for them as well).

So, I think it is great that this district is doing this. And, if this does work out, PM me if you want or if you need any ideas- I am one of our main Tech teachers and have a good handle on what teachers know and don't know, and want to see (and admin too), at least where I live in the USA.

As far as money, I can't help you there (*ETA I did make a suggestion below). But I would say to look at what typical rates are for blog posts (problogger used to list some of these I believe, and I am sure some posts here discuss them, but you have probably already read them) and then raise that. I would charge a bit more based on how often you will post and if they want you to travel and meet the teachers or video examples of tech being used in a classroom, or take pictures, etc.

And ask for author byline or link if possible- though it may not be.

if they make you quote a figure, quote a bit higher than your minimum, so you can suggest you might lower the fee due to them being a public school, etc. (or wait until they react negatively to suggest it, but that might not work then). In other words, it sounds like they already want you, but if they do not suggest an amount, I would think they should not be too surprised at a quote for typical paid writing (with you indicating that you are very interested and willing to discuss their rate options).

But, hey, while I know school districts, I don't know everything about paid blogging, so hopefully others will come along soon...and if they tell you to bid low, then listen to them- I am just thinking if it were myself looking for someone, I would respect a quote that was high with a note to discuss rate adjustments based on budget, vs a very low rate that would make me wonder...

My 2 cents worth :)

ETA: when I read your post again mentioning STEM, district progress, etc, I think as a consultant title they could allocate more funds, especially if you join what I think is their motivation- to get more community support for future grant or bond money, and student /parent support as well. I think you already showed them you can help with this, so you could be paid well.

Maybe agree to 4 short news briefs a week (250 words example) and 1 larger article per month spotlighting something with photos and info from specific places in the district you visit (classroom, interview with xyz about exciting use of Apps or whatever, etc) and set up $700 a month? $50 for each short piece then 500 for the long one?

I think that may be low for some short pieces, but I am thinking of many short blurbs I could do in 5 minutes (write all 4 polished in one hour and spread them out during the month, such as

"#1-free App of the month" - with brief info on why it helps, then

"#2-Quick and easy way to use tech to your advantage", etc

(eg,#1- explain the PicCollage App, or PicPlayPost, or any of the other 40 my kids used this week that most teachers have never seen;

then for #2-highlight any teacher tools such as Kahoot! etc, all in a short almost twitter blog post).

Then save the longer article for whatever time you need/want to do...

Anyway, now I wish my district wanted me to do this for extra money :)
Congrats on this opportunity!
 
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gettingby

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Before you agree to this you should have a talk with your editor at the local news source you write for. As a former journalist and editor, I see a big conflict of interest in you doing this. You might have to pick one or the other. Since you will be on the public school system's payroll, I don't think your reporting on anything school or government related could be as unbiassed.
 

Once!

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After 28 years as a salary man, I've spent the last year as an independent consultant. I'm still very much learning the ropes, so take what I am about to say with a very large pinch of salt ...

Before I started out as a consultant I spoke to a number of friends who had been doing it for years. In particular I wanted to know how to set a price for my time.

One of my friends told me that there are three ways to price a job.

1. Work out how much you need to earn and then express that as a per hour or per day figure.

2. Look at the market to see what others are charging. Pitch your rates accordingly.

3. Negotiate with your client over what they are prepared to pay. In some instances you may want to pitch lower than your ideal rate if you want to break into a new market.

Most of my current work is charged on a daily basis. My main client pays me a daily rate with a contractual agreement that I will work roughly ten days per calendar month. I don't charge mileage for journeys to the client's office, but I do claim all other expenses.

In the past I have done paid writing work for a magazine which charged by the column. You could argue that was equivalent to a daily rate, because I knew roughly how long it took me to write each article.

The $64,000 question is exactly how much to charge. Here, I can't help you I'm afraid. My consultancy work is not blogging. It's a professional service based on nearly 30 years experience.

It would be great if someone could give you a typical rate for this sort of work. Can you find this out from the internet? I googled "Paid blogger" which returned lots of interesting sites. A couple of hours research ought to give you a good handle on typical rates.

If not and if your client can't help you, you may need to take a punt. You might opt for something like $80 per blog for three blogs each month. Or $200 per day for four days a month. You could offer a limited trial period to see if it works for both of you, say 6 months.

I made these numbers up, BTW!
 

Colonist17

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So here's the details of what happened...

In my research, I found pay ranges to be in between $15 an hour to $85 an hour. I wrote the assistant superintendent that while I thought $85 would probably be out of the school district's pay range, that anything between the halfway mark and lower that pay range would no be enough for me to survive on. She replied that $85 an hour would be fine and I was floored. The stipulations are that they have a $6000 cap on this and that I would be hired as a writing consultant for up to 3 months.

Gettingby: As far as my position with my news media company, I am the editor. I told the news media company's owner (who is also a friend of mine) about the situation and he's fine with it. What I would be writing about for the school district isn't news or anything that we would be considered potentially news worthy. It would be more of an origins story of their successes and failures of setting up a top of the line STEM building/department.

I want to thank everyone for their input. As for a point of reference, this was the article I wrote that sparked the school district's interest in me.

http://www.menifee247.com/2014/12/congressman-takano-visits-heritages.html
 

gettingby

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So here's the details of what happened...

In my research, I found pay ranges to be in between $15 an hour to $85 an hour. I wrote the assistant superintendent that while I thought $85 would probably be out of the school district's pay range, that anything between the halfway mark and lower that pay range would no be enough for me to survive on. She replied that $85 an hour would be fine and I was floored. The stipulations are that they have a $6000 cap on this and that I would be hired as a writing consultant for up to 3 months.

Gettingby: As far as my position with my news media company, I am the editor. I told the news media company's owner (who is also a friend of mine) about the situation and he's fine with it. What I would be writing about for the school district isn't news or anything that we would be considered potentially news worthy. It would be more of an origins story of their successes and failures of setting up a top of the line STEM building/department.

I want to thank everyone for their input. As for a point of reference, this was the article I wrote that sparked the school district's interest in me.

http://www.menifee247.com/2014/12/congressman-takano-visits-heritages.html

It's not that you will be writing news stories for the school district. I see the problem with you being on the payroll. Most likely your news publication covers the city's budget. Schools are always trying to get more money. I just see it as a convict of interest from that point of view.
 
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