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mikebudler05
Community Member

What would you charge for a 100 page biography to be written?

 
4 REPLIES 4
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Michael,

 

I moved your post to "Writers and Translators" section of the Community. You can browse threads (like this one for example) where other freelancers discussed similar topics here.

~ Valeria
Upwork
colettelewis
Community Member

If you are an experienced writer, you shouldn't have to ask this question. You charge what you normally charge + any potential extras on the said biography such as research etc.

tlbp
Community Member

First, instead of page count, consider the word count. Get an agreement as to estimated words per page. Then, consider the time you'll need to expend speaking with the client, researching his or her background and performing the actual writing. Will you be responsible for editing as well? In the end, the decision comes down to your personal rates for hourly or per word work. 

 

You might browse the profiles of other freelancers on Upwork and view their rates to give you a better idea of the range of possibilities. 

tlsanders
Community Member

First, I'd nail down a word count. Depending on formatting, 100 pages could be anywhere from about 15,000 words to 40,000--those are very different books.

 

Then, I'd make an assessment to see whether or not the length seemed realistic in view of the story the person wanted told. 100 pages isn't much for a biography, unless it's heavily focused on one area of life.

 

Assuming something in the 25,000 word range, the answer would still depend entirely on the process. I've written books entirely from existing articles, videos, etc. that were quite efficient (say, 30,000 words in about 100 hours, including a revision draft) and others that required extensive interviewing and took three times as long.

 

When you're writing a biography and working with the subject, you should build in time for a lot of aimless storytelling--that's how you'll get to your best material, but it's rarely an efficient process. 

 

If none of these issues occurred to you, you may seriously want to question whether you are prepared to plan and project manage a book.