pricing assistance on e-learning course

Mari Guseman

This client wants a quote per hour of time invested in recording a 350,000 word script for an e-learning course. I have no clue, can anyone give suggestions????

Amy Snively · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007, 16:37 (GMT) Post subject:

Sure!

1-2000 words .30 a word
2000-4000 words .25 a word
4000-10,000 words .20 a word
10,000-40,000 words .15 a word
40,000 words + .10 a word

150-160 words = 1 finished hour.

Hope that helps!

Todd Ellis · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007, 16:57 (GMT) Post subject:

Mari - I'm no expert on manuscripts, having done a grand total of - wait for it - one - but - and help me out if I did the math wrong - 350,000 words @ 200 words/minute - you're looking at, conservatively, 30 hours of finished audio here. - which is probably going to take you 50-70 hours to do. And you can't just read 8 hours a day straight through. You have to rest your voice often so that there is continuity throughout the book. You can't sound like Katie Couric and the beginning and Martha Raye at the end. This is going to take a good portion of your life for the better part of a month. Personally, I hate to provide an hourly rate for this kind of thing because there are so many variables. I'd rather quote a project price (no less than $4,000). If you want to quote an hourly rate you have to determine what an hour of your time is worth. In other words, if you were not doing this project - what would you be doing? Recording a :30 sec. tv spot for $300? Doing IVR prompts for $100? Or you could look here http://voice123.com/blog/B1530.html for more. I hope I haven't confused the issue more. Just mho.

ps ... Amy said that a hullava lot better (and quicker) than I did!

back to work ...

Amy Snively · Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007, 17:09 (GMT) Post subject:

Todd makes extremely good points!

I'll add that for every hour of finished audio, you're looking at about 3-4 hours of actual work, so be sure to take that into consideration when quoting.

Noel Gibilaro · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007, 04:44 (GMT) Post subject:

Robert Jadah · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007, 05:17 (GMT) Post subject: Money Moans

But Noel, there isn't a celebrity in the world who's going to read that tome. You're just looking at the money...but imagine the toil going into that puppy.
Pages of script piled up like a phone book....5 hours of reading a day...client interference.....editing....transmittals....redos.
Not for a penny less than $10,000, thank you.
And a rock star wouldn't read anything longer than a nursery rhyme for $35,000.

J.S. Gilbert

Is this a Spanish job and if so, do you also need to do any translations?
I produce eduicational material mostly in English but also do some localization (mostly Asian languages) The other question is, where is the client. Generally many of the Spanish language projects that are handled on the West Coast usually get farmed out to either Miami or Texas. (Miami and Texas have the lowest prices nationally for Spanish language production)

I am currrently doing a project that is about 100,000 words in English. The project has several delivery dates and it is such that I can do the work evenings and weekends, leaving time free for making paper airplanes. It is my voice and I'm recording it at my studio. I anticipate recording and editing to take 60 hours, but the client is giving me quite a long while to record and I have provided a discount becuase of the size of the project and the nature of the work.

Thus a 300,000 word project in either English or Spanish could be 160 - 200 hours total time. Depending upon what your deadlines are and the age range of the material (pre-school and elementary is usually easier than high school or college), you can anticipate competitive rates are $25 to $100 per hour. $4,000 - $18,000 price range and yes it can and does vary this much. Of course, if the client is willing to edit, then your fee would be much less.

I know it's not much help, but you might want to try and geet an agent or personal manager to negotiate your fees if you're uncomfortable.

Amy Snively · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007, 08:29 (GMT) Post subject:

350,000 words from me would cost about $15,000.