What to charge?

[Lucke]

I am currently doing product descriptions for a website and the contact person has told me that when our initial project ends (an elance bid I won), he has other work for me on the same site (he is a web consultant/designer who is working for the sporting goods company). Anyway, this is the first job of this type I have done. He would like a quote from me for the following types of work that we will move forward on after our initial product description work is over: industry trends articles, interviews with riders, How-to articles, product reviews, etc. So, do I charge by the word? By the piece? By the hour? I'm inclined to go with "by the word," because it seems manageable. He is bringing on another client soon and wants me to do the work for that site also. To be clear, he has funded escrow for our initial elance project and I have had no "red flags." I simply need help as a business person trying to figure out what to charge. Up until now, I've done magazine articles and radio ad copy that I've received flat fees for. Help! Thanks very much.
Lisa

[etali]

I hate working out what to charge too! If you were to charge a similar rate to what the word rate works out at for the existing project, how would that work out for you?

Has he given any indication of budget? Can you see any similar projects on the go at eLance / Get a Freelancer, or any other sites? What's the 'sensible' rate on those?

In my experience people who recruit on sites like eLance are usually looking for cheap labour - very few of them are willing to pay sensible rates. Whatever you decide to charge, make sure that it reflects the effort you're putting into producing the pieces. I still have some long term clients that I started working with through online bidding places, and it's hard to feel motivated to write good quality, well researched articles, in the quantities they want them, for prices like $0.02 / word.

[acousticgroupie]

This may help: http://www.writersmarket.com/assets/pdf/How_Much_Should_I_Charge.pdf