Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But I think it has mostly to do with the economy. I don't think so. The majority of my freelance work is web development, and I bill at least double that - $100 to as much as $300/hr if I can get away with it, and only web development, because I know nothing about design and other things and will freely admit to it. I don't really do anything specialized, I just have a list of former and current clients from the pa…
Interesting, I actually live in LA as well. Here's the thing with project rates - I'm obsessive with clocking time. I clock everything, every second. Sometimes you bid on a project where you say to yourself "oh yea! I'm getting $300/hr for this" but what happens is as it drags on you try to clock less time to justify the rate and just start guesstimating. In reality if you clock meetings, calls, time responding to em…
> Here's the thing with project rates - I'm obsessive with clocking time. I clock everything, every second.
I am too ;) I use Billings or Harvest (depending on where I'm working) to time everything obsessively. I don't actually bill anyone based on purely the time, but it gives me a sense of how much time it took me to do certain things because if I end up spending way too much time hand-holding a client then something needs to change. DO NOT get into the habit of not clocking things like responding to client emails (other than like short one liner type things) and whatever, because you are right...it can be a huge time suck, and it's hard to estimate how much time that will end up taking. Whoever originally came up with the idea of quoting in excess of what you really think it is time and money wise was smart ;)
> But having Java and Perl skills are definitely more valuable than just PHP... And yes, having established, stable and valuable clients with big $$ over the long term certainly helps.
I don't even really know that much Perl...Java I learned in school, I'm trying to do more Cocoa/Mac/iPhone/(iPad?) stuff now that the iPhone has really kicked that off because I wasn't really doing anything with it since I had first played with cocoa/objc in like 2005-6...I know bits and pieces. I usually won't take on a job involving something I don't know much about, but my scattered knowledge does come in handy as I can be extremely flexible in getting things done the way people want them. So yeah, if PHP is your only skill, you should branch out if at least to be qualified for more jobs out there.
Established clients are far more important, and I'm sorry to hear that :( I'm trying to work on a startup right now, but it's hard because I have to pay my own bills, cofounder can't quit her job yet, and other such little things... But keeping up relationships, if only to have lunch and say hi, is a good thing to do with your best clients. It's a tough time for everyone right now and has been for a while, don't worry :)