I am new to freelance work, but I just got hired for a writing job. I'm getting paid an hourly wage, and I was wondering, is it normal for writers to charge for the hours used on research?
Terumoto - You should definitely charge for time that it takes to research. After all, that is part of the writing process. Did you consider charging a set price for the entire project? Or did you want to work on an hourly basis?
It depends who you're writing for. Take a look at the Buy, Sell & Trade section here and you'll find that writers are charging incredibly low amounts per word, regardless of the amount of research required to write the article. 300-400 word articles go for as little as $3-$4!
It is almost odd that you are being paid by the hour. Usually freelance writers are paid by the word or per project. As pony said, it really depends on who you are writing for. Did you offer some type of quote or did they say what their budget was?
OK, thanks. Yeah, the hourly pay rate is odd for a freelancer... I'm working through a website that caters for it. Basically there's buyers and providers, buyers post jobs they need done, providers apply, somebody gets chosen. It's a lot like all the other sites with a similar business model, they take a percentage of the amount paid from the buyers to the providers. This one is really great though, you get a profile which is essentially a resume, and you put all your skills, education, employment history details etc. into it. You can also take tests to show, for example, your proficiency at using Photoshop CS3, and display the results on your profile. The way the hourly pay works is you have a program running on your desktop as you work and it logs activity over 10 minute intervals and takes screenshots. It seems like a very secure system. Once the job is complete, the buyer is automatically sent an invoice for the amount of hours logged into the system. The buyer can view all the information and screenshots from a control panel on the site. So that explains how I get paid an hourly rate for freelance work. I'd post a link to the site, but I don't want to look like I'm promoting it. Just google "oDesk."