How do I set a price?

I'm moving this to Freelance; it's not a BWQ.

Here's a good resource for figuring out rates. The most important thing to do first is to try to give yourself a realistic estimate about how much time it's going to take so that the flat rate or per word rate you agree on will come out to a decent hourly rate for you (keep in mind that freelancers are responsible for 100% of social security and medicare taxes which is approximately 15% of your fee.) If there's research involved you need to factor that time into your quote. From my experiencing freelancing it often ends up being more work and/or taking more time than I initially think it will often because. employers want more revisions than initially agreed upon or expand the scope of the work without re-negotiating the fee - So I strongly suggest you either negotiate for an hourly rate or pad your quote.

https://www.the-efa.org/rates/

I've worked for a penny a word and I've worked for a buck a word. Same work for me, some markets just pay better. But for this type of work I'd usually negotiate a flat fee for a specific job. 8,000 words would probably take me 80 hours to write and format properly, with minor edits included. That's two weeks salary, even though I'd likely do it in 7-10 days, so I'd be looking at $2,500 to $3,000 for the job. But that's me, what I want/need to earn and has no concern about what the client might be expecting.

I come to the price by taking my desired annual gross, $70,000 a year and dividing by 50 (weeks in a working year, two weeks vacation) then multiplying by two. Your needed/desired gross income may be higher or lower, so do your own math. This is also why I usually get beat out on quotes by a guy working in Elbonia who bids $31 for both 8,000 word jobs combined.

Jeff

I agree with DevelopmentExec in regards to first figuring out how much per hour you want to make at writing, then estimating how much time it will take to complete the project and turning that into a per word amount. Here's what I will add:

1) Take your time estimate and multiply it by 1.5. If you think it will take 80 hours, then make your estimates around 120 hours. This is what I used to do for programming. Projects usually take longer than you think because there is always something that comes up, and until you've done this over and over again, you probably won't nail the time estimate.
2) Be very clear in what you will be providing. For example: 1 creative pass with content writing and 1 editing pass with $x extra for each additional editing pass. (Or however you want to break down the work -- just be clear on what your responsibilities are going to be.)
3) Get some money up front. This is a different sort of freelancing than taking a contract from a publisher. I either like to break down a project with 1/2 to start and 1/2 at finish for smaller projects or 1/3 at start 1/3 at middle and 1/3 at end for larger projects. This makes sure if the person gets into it then decides its more work than they imagined they won't completely stiff you.