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> How do I handle the bid and billing? Is it customary to go on a per page
> basis, or estimate the hourly requirement? Or something else?
The way I work: I assess the proj and estimate the hrs it will require,
and give the client a formal "Estimate and Specifications" form that identi-
fies specific tasks, deliverables, quantities and a timetable, in addition
to the hours estimate. Then I give the client a choice: Either we agree
on a fixed project fee in advance (est hrs x my hourly rate, and the fee
holds firm regardless of actual hrs required), or I bill by the hour (for
actual hrs) with a guarantee to not exceed the est by more than 10%. My
own preference--and I tell 'em this--is for a fixed fee, simply to avoid
the hassle of hours accounting. (I'd rather eat a few hrs within an other-
wise big contract than have to document all of my odd hours over a period
of weeks, or months.)
I'm sure you've already thought of this, but just in case: Your hrs for
this particular job will depend a lot on whether your client can provide
the 350 pgs of content on disk (vs your having to re-key it). It should
be pretty simple to just export the text to an ASCII file (or even to strip
it down manually--i.e., removing whatever word-processing format/attrib
codes may accompany the text in its native file format), and then just
insert the HTML codes.
With respect to your indexing Q -- sorry, not my table.
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