Episode 194: #PutAPriceOnIt

Struggling to put a price on your time? Jess and Sarina (an economist and former trader on Wall Street) help your find that elusive number.

A listener asked Jess for advice on consulting fees, so in order to find an answer more satisfying than, “It depends,” Jess and Sarina get down to economic brass tacks. Sarina explains how publishers or anyone else who wants to hire you for your writing value your time, and how you can propose a figure that takes everything from opportunity costs to fungibles into account. In an attempt to make pricing your time less complicated and emotionally fraught, Jess offers a simple formula to nail down a number that represents your hourly worth.

Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, January 20, 2020 is ONE OF THE BEST YET: Top 5 Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines. So sign up, support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. (If you’re on KJ’s mailing list and have been impressed by her style lately—she read this early and took it to heart.)

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LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

Jess: MasterClass and The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang (and her Twitter feed)

Sarina: The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, where January is Become a Book Coach Month. Sign up for mighty and wondrous Business of Book Coaching Summit here—or visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

NEWS ABOUT US

Watch KJ’s latest in the #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series on Instagram HERE.

Find more about Jess here and Sarina here.

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

The image in our podcast illustration is by TK

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

KJ: 00:01 Hey writers, it's KJ this week. Jess and Sarina recorded without me, but you'll barely even have a chance to miss me because I'm both right here and back next week. While they recorded I was off to a hockey tournament in Ottawa, but it didn't mean I wasn't writing. You have heard me talk about Jennie Nash's Inside Outline before and this was the tool that's really pushed me through a tough novel writing spot and has me feeling like I'm able to move forward, even if the muse is not present and mine definitely doesn't do Canada. Even if the hotel is depressing, and the weather is dreary, and I'm really not feeling it. Because I know where this book and I are going, I can still sit down and at least nudge us both in the direction of getting there. And if things change along the way, as they do, and have, and will, I can see where those changes fit in and what will happen when I make them. In fact, for this book (at least as it stands now) I've written about 17 outlines, which is a whole lot better than 17 books. So, if you're feeling the least bit stuck on your project, try applying the inside outline to what you've already written and to the scenes to come. It just might be exactly what you need to get over the finish line. #AmWriting listeners have exclusive access to a free download that describes what the outline is, why it works, and how to do it. You can find it at authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is it recording?

Jess: 01:36 Now it's recording. Go ahead.

KJ: 01:37 This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess: 01:41 Alright, let's start over.

KJ: 01:43 Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Now one, two, three.

Jess: 01:54 Hey, I'm Jess Lahey and this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing, about querying, about pitching, about what else? What else do we write here?

Sarina: 02:05 Finishing.

Jess: 02:06 Finishing things. That seems like such a long way off. Finishing things, but essentially really this is just the podcast about sitting down and getting the work done.

Sarina: