You are correct you need to quantify the rate for yourself and need to write it in the board so your clients will live up to their expectations. Nowadays it is hard to trust someone and gain trust from everyone else.
I like your post and totally agree - a writing business is just that, a business. There is much more to setting rates even than basic income less expenses. You have to account for taxes as well, which is (unfortunately) usually overlooked until April 15. The posting rate debate is definitely an active one, and I can see the benefit either way, but I choose to post my rates. Of course, the rates on my website are much higher than the ones advertised here, so that might be part of my comfort level. I'm not trying to scrape together every penny I can. But as far as raising your rates, you can post your rates and then raise them again later - that's part of a business plan and it works easily enough. You can also post them at your highest level and then offer discounts if you'd like. A lot of writers are against that, too, but a limited time offer helps people try your service for less than they might pay otherwise. I post my rates and my content packages because they serve as a screening process. A potential client visits my site and realizes that he's not ready to commit to a certain level and leaves me alone. Less work for me since I don't have to play email games when I should be actually working. Or the client decides that he's ready to get started and saves me the hassle of debate over something that's not especially debatable for me. Having the rates posted also gives me a clear indication of whether a client has actually visited my site. Having rates posted also gives the buyer a better sense of what he can expect from me. I know that (as a buyer) when prices aren't listed I tend to click away from a site because I don't want to haggle over price - I just want to know what the price is or at least a general idea of what the price will be. My advice for those who are trying to establish a business would be to start with the amount you want to make per year. Take that amount and divide it by the number of weeks you plan to work. No vacation? Really? days you plan to work during the year - 7 days a week? Not very sustainable - more like 4 or 5. Then take that daily amount and divide it by the number of hours you actually WRITE during the day. Guess what - it's not 8! It's roughly half of your "working time" since you spend time marketing, fact gathering and sorting through materials. [$50,000 / 50 weeks / 4 days / 4 hours = $62.50/hr] This leaves you with an hourly rate. Base all of your work around that minimum hourly rate and publicize the rate if you want to - no harm there, you can change it down the road if you'd like as you grow or change your business. Having multiple websites for different niches or specialties can reflect different rates as well. If your minimum rate isn't something realistic for you right now, simply discount your rate and work up to it over time. Perhaps offer a limited discount here and on another forum. As your workload grows, lessen the discounted rate until you're up to your goal. The only trick here is to be sure that you can write at the level that supports your ultimate goal. A rough indicator for those who don't know - a truly professional rate usually starts around $0.10 per word for content and can reach up to $1-2+ per word. To earn that, though, you'll need to do more than write a sentence without grammatical mistakes. You'll need to specialize in a niche or style of writing. You'll need to bring new ideas to the table and be considered an expert (or pretty damn close to it) in a particular area.