How much would you charge?

[Sean416]

I have a friend who has two really nice pay sites. He's a photographer and he takes top quality pictures (nude & babe). He has a regular job, monday to friday, shoots his pics on the weekends (12 hour days), stays up till 4am retouching the pictures, and basically has no time to do any real promotion other then exchanging links with other sites like his.

He has a web designer to all of his sites, so he doesnt have any html skill and he's kind of hit a flat line with sales. He wants to do an affiliate program sometime in the future, but right now he only has Verotel and iBill as processors so it would be hard to convince people that dont know him to promote his site.

So here's the question, I told him I would make a free site everyday and submit them to 70+ LL's. However this would take atleast 3-4 hours day because he only has one banner, so I'd have to make graphics, make the sites, pick out the pictures, etc. I dont want to charge him more then he'd make back, but on the flip side.. it is a lot of work. I quoted him $1500 CDN(about $1250 USD) for the month (30 free sites), but I was wondering how much you guys would charge assuming this was your friend and you had the free time to do it?

[Greenguy]

If you're gonna do that much work, ask for a % of the site & get a contract drawn up.

Otherwise, in 3 weeks he may think he no longer needs you & now has all kinds for promo material & templates for the affiliate program.

[Sean416]

I understand what you're saying, but when I said he's a friend I meant it. I trust him. I did mention that it would have to be money up front. The reason I am willing to do this, is that I have been working on my LL since april, pretty much full time and my savings I've been living off of are kinda low. lol. So the lump sum would be more appealing in this situation then the percentage, knowing that sales could still come after months of me being done.

[Jaden]

Hmmmmm...Really think about what Greenguy said. Trust is a good thing to have in a friendship, contracts are good to have in a business. "But we were friends and I trusted him" has financed a lot of lawyers BMW's and summer homes. Not that it always happens with friendship and business, but its definitely NOT a pretty thing when it does. Would seem best to avoid any problems at all from the beginning with a contract, to avoid taking the chance on losing a great friend AND your money.

[Sean416]

I really do understand what you guys are saying, and I appreciate the advice. But here's the real problem with splitting a percentage... he already has about 110 members from the link exchanging, his sites have been online for 1yr+, so me coming in, doing one months work and taking a % of the profit isn't feasable. Without the proper tracking software to find out what sales I send, etc. It's not really possible to do a percentage.

But just to further my confidence, I am being paid upfront. So it's not like if he changes his mind mid stream I'll be screwed. I'll still have the money, and if he takes the graphics or whatever and does something else, that would be fine by me.

So even if you do highly discourage working without contracts, etc. Just for entertainments purpose, what do you think is a reasonable amount? Am I in the right ball park? Have I over quoted him? Am I selling myself way too short?

Thanks!

[JoeBlack]

I think that the amount you asked for is well worth it because he will continue to make money well after the months work from the 70 link list that he has 30 promoting sites in. Then about 2 or 3 months later SE traffic will kick in which means more conversions for him. Also some link list like Greenguy rotates there free sites and have search features so there still a nice peace of traffic coming from the LLs even then. If those 30 sites make only 1 sale a peace a month which they most likely will make more then that is 900 dollars in his pocket for the first month, which is almost his money back. He will make more money than he paid you for the work in the first month for your free site campaign if his sites are worth it. This is why I think Greenguy was telling you to try and get a % because you would come out better that way. If your in need of money right now and he is a good friend of yours then thats a good amount as far as a friends discount goes. Hope this helps a little

[RockDaddy]

When all else fails, break it down with math.
What is your time worth per hour?

Basically 4 hrs per day for
30 days is you making about $10.41 (US)

[Sean416]

Thanks JoeBlack,
One of the few things I did learn in high school is compounding future value and present value. So money in pocket now rather then in three months, is another thing I tried to factor in. My thinking was a lot like yours well trying to come up with a fair amount.

Thanks RockDaddy,
Yeah, I did break it down in several ways. I tried to guesstimate how much he would make with different variables (conversion ratios, different possibilities of how much traffic it would send to him, etc) What it really came to was the hourly wage I would be getting. $13(CDN) I beleive was what I thought was fair. It is a friendly rate, if I didnt know him I would probably want more. I guess the real reason im iffy about it, is because I don know what the going hourly rate would be for a free site submitter. I saw in the other thread that reviewers get $20 an hour, so it made me think twice... thats one of the reasons I thought I would ask you guys. With my reasoning free sites are harder then reviewing, so I thought maybe I was selling myself short.

Thanks for both of your replies! I appreciate it.

[Alphawolf]

Sean,

Bottom line is if you are happy and he is happy with the arrangement- it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Even if you dont' have a contract I'd suggest a written proposal detailing exactly what you will do for him and what is expected.

If you don't want to post the site here, PM me.

If the guy has quality content that is a huge plus. I like nude/babe and tommy has traffic for that.

Does he sell any content?

Yeah- iBill is stupid, but in certain cases I wouldn't mind it.

Thanks.

PS- Found this thread thanks to the Newsletter.