I need a bit of advice... I've just started doing a few smalltime professional gigs and I keep running into the same problem: I don't know what to charge. I've picked essentially random amounts and I feel like I'm short changing myself. The gigs have been comic books with about 20 pages each. Frankly I'm not sure if I should charge by hour or page and everywhere else I've gone to has given me pretty random answers. Any advice you can give me would be a huge help.
Well, for any business you should consider how much time you put into the project, cost of your tools/resources, and of course how much your product can be sold for (in this case the finished books) Are you doing the art, writing, or both?
what you need to do is check the going rate [googling is easy!] and then charge a bit less, since you're a beginner and need to show you're worth what the competition's charging, plus need to build up a client base and paid credits to attract higher-paying ones...
But be careful not to undercut yourself too much. I wouldn't actually do this - you should charge according to how good you are. This requires a brutally honest style of self evaluation. Charge to cover your costs and then charge to what ever your work is worth.
