| RATES: Sub-editing Editing and production |
||
|---|---|---|
| Sub-editing with HTML coding: per day |  |
240.00 |
| Sub-editing/day | |
160.00 |
Notes:
- Allegedly simple sub-editing for the web and other database-like media is almost always more demanding than for print media. Whether the freelance is striving to write headlines of precisely 48 characters for old-skool Teletext, or is dealing with tagging articles with keywords selected from a “controlled vocabulary”, they’re doing things that sub-editors of normal language do not have to do.
- If the work involves markup – whether the
<em>simple codes</em>that determine the appearance of the run of text or<div class="abstract">structural markup</div>– it should attract a higher fee.
Notes:
- The fees quoted for design of small sites – such as local businesses’ brochure sites – assume the freelance is starting from scratch and will take around a day to produce a basic original home page and a template for further pages. Working from an existing template, it may be possible to do four or five pages a day – or more. The more complex the site, the more the freelance should charge.
- The fees assume the freelance is working with supplied content. Creating words, and finding pictures and sounds will add to the amount charged – as will any necessary copyright clearance.
- The work to be done on larger sites varies enormously. Some clients may already have templates. Others may want something which looks original but in some way fits within a house style – for example a “micro-site” for one of a broadcaster’s programmes. Or they may have a blank screen and a need for what is in effect business consultancy… in which case they should be prepared to pay business consultancy rates
- If the client wants a site whose words and images are stored in a custom database, the job becomes a database analyst’s and appropriate rates apply. Many “content management systems” are available but none actually work “out of the box” in the real world: in order to tailor them to any sane client’s requirements, they require almost enough understanding of the programming to be able to write them from scratch.
- Doing database coding and writing user content at the same time is not a good idea – as with any conversation held in three languages at once, the quality of all will suffer. As, you may conclude, you see here.
