Way OT RE: Rate Survey

["Art Campbell" <art.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

According to the STC's annual salary surveys, there's quite a bit of
regional variation, with Silicon Valley and the Boston area at the top
of the heap. But because STC is basically the only game in town, I'd
defer to them for a definitive answer to your question.

To convert the STC salary info to hourly contract rates I've always used 
a rule of thumb of 2x or 3x (salary hourly rate), depending on specialty 
skills. In my neck of the woods (Boston area), a good sr-principal 
contract writer with a specialty skill such as routers/switches or chips 
gets $75-90 or so per hour. ('Twas topping $100 a couple years ago....) 
Note that a specialty skill can also include FM guru status, or being able 
to produce really beautiful and useful (Shlomo Perets quality) help or 
.pdf sets.

Generalists pull maybe $50-$65 per.

Discounts? If you don't want to charge the going rate, lower your rate, 
but don't depend on blue-light special marketing to get you gigs....

A.


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