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How much does it cost to have a document written?

Having lured you to this page, I’m not actually going to tell you any hard and fast costs. I work on the principle of finding out what the job will entail before quoting a price or estimating a time to finish. I believe that my rates are competitive, but as with most things, you get what you pay for (remember, peanuts and monkeys). To put it in perspective, you almost certainly pay your vet or main dealer motor mechanic a lot more per hour than I would charge you.

I operate a sliding scale of charges, so if you are a one-man/woman business or a non-profit organisation, I will not charge you as much as if you work for a multinational corporation. I think this is fair, though the multinationals may disagree.

Hourly rates

My hourly rates are based on those recommended by the SfEP (Society for Editors and Proofreaders) and the NUJ (National Union of Journalists). For more information, please see the relevant websites: www.sfep.org.uk/society/faq.html#pay and www.nujbook.org/freelance/freeln05.shtml.

If you regularly employ freelance staff, and have your own pay scales, then I will work for your usual rates.

Cost reduction: benefits of professional documentation

Using a good author to write your technical documents will cost you money to start with, but has intangible benefits in promoting a professional image to your clients. After all, if you buy a new video recorder, would you rather have an illustrated instruction booklet that you can follow, or a piece of typewritten A4 paper with incomprehensible instructions written in pidgin English?

Which brings me neatly on to the next point. Excellent documentation will reduce your support costs. Every answer that someone finds in the user guide or the help system means one less call or email to your support line. The support team can concentrate on finding answers to real problems, rather than explaining to a customer how to switch an appliance on, or how to install a computer program.