How should I calculate the rate for a book I am writing as a co-author?
I work full time as a writer and a friend and long time collaborator of mine has asked whether I can help co author their book.
This job would entail two or three evenings a week on top of my job. I forsee that I would spend around 3-4 hours each evening on the task which would see me produce upwards of 2000 words.
I also need to consider how much to charge for a speech/blog post written that came to over 3000 words.
Considering that it's a friend and that I will be a listed author, I am imagining that I should and will offer a lower rate than if those two facts weren't the case.
How much would be appropriate to charge in this instance, preferably as an evening / hourly rate?
It would be good to consider both scenarios, one if it were not a friend and I were not a co author and the other as I have described.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/39875. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
I've faced this issue from both sides (as a writer and co-writer/editor) so hopefully I can offer some useful advice.
First off, be clear as to what your role/status is: to be blunt, is it a partnership or are you more like an employee? If you're effectively working for your friend, then an hourly rate (as others have suggested). The upside: you definitely get paid; the downside: it's unlikely to be a lot. In the UK, a typical advance for fiction from an unknown author will be £5,000-£10,000, so your friend won't have a lot of money to play with.
If it's more collaborative, then you need to agree on what percentage contribution you're making to the book, and write that into a contract. So if you decide on one-third, you get 33% of the advance and 33% of future royalties.
It's not clear how much work you're doing - do you mean 2,000 words in total? If so, then that's a tiny proportion of the total, and the 'collaborator' aspect isn't appropriate.
Hope this helps.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39921. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Something in the range of $50/hour (assuming US dollars within the US or the equivalent in industrial countries) is reasonable for professionals. It's about what artists charge to do illustrations and the like. Some charge more, some charge less. My guess is anything from $20-70/hour is what people might charge, but it really depends. I have not seen polls or all that many rates, so it's completely a guess, just to give you a ballpark.
It is also reasonable to charge less per hour when you have a longer assignment. If it's a 1-2 hour job you should charge more than if it's a 10 hour job, since the parts you don't charge for (negotiating, setup, etc) will be proportionately less as you do more work.
If you give your friend a discount, put the full price in the contract then state the discount, so it's on the record.
If you decide to trade some of your fee in exchange for a byline or royalties, put that in the contract too.
If you weren't thinking about a contract, I urge you to rethink it. Don't do this verbally. Even if you're best friends, it's still easy to misremember a detail (which can turn out to be vital) or have a misunderstanding. Make it super clear. Especially in regards to royalties, credit, and reprint rights.
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I think this is VERY opinion based due to the situation, so here are my opinions.
First, I agree with @Cyn, put the deal in writing and in detail and signed and dated. Contracts are simple, and if either the best or worst happens, you will want to refer to what you agreed upon to start, before the work went to hell or broke records.
Personally, I would not do this without some share of the income; and my rate would vary from "minimal" at a 50/50 split, to "no thanks" if there is no split.
I would insist on co-authorship (second name is fine).
My personality is my own, but if I wrote half of a best-seller and my friend got $1,000,000 dollars and I got $50,000: I would resent that scenario. Fair is fair, and I don't think either "hours" or "words finished" are a good measure of creative contribution. They simply do not capture the difference between 300 pages of crap and 300 pages readers cannot put down.
For that reason, I would not go in as less than a 40% partner, and even then I'd have to truly love their plot or universe or characters or something about what they have already accomplished. Don't forget your opportunity cost, in those evenings you could be writing your own stuff, or hanging with people you love, or reading books (or books on writing), or watching TV.
And I can make exceptions to that rule if the expenses of marketing or selling the work are being shouldered by my friend; any significant financial risk is worth some % too.
Doing contracts for some company, I typically get 2.5x my "daily job" rate to give up that idle time, and I never take on the role of employee with a friend. With friends, it's a joint venture or nothing. If they want anything else, then I assume they don't think my contribution is really necessary to the success of their project, in which case I am not interested in the participation.
In short, working on this project will almost certainly change your relationship with your friend (same goes for working with family), and you need to engineer things so whether the project succeeds or fails miserably, you have not created resentment by either of you. So you won't resent your share if there is great success, and your friend won't resent what they paid you if the result is a terrible failure.
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