How much to charge to build, run, and continually blog for a company?

What I've found is that "hourly" rates for mental work are difficult to approach. If I am paying you to fasten material together with bolts, you stop work at the end of the day and go home. If I pay you to write a story or a computer program, you are thinking about it even when you are asleep. (And then while at work you may be thinking about it while you are doing welding or while staring out the window looking idle.)

Talk to him about the value he expects to gain from your work. If the writing will result in another $250,000 of yearly revenue for him then your work would be of quite different value than it would if it produced only another $150 per year. Ask how he expects to measure the value of your work.

When he exhibits reulctance to think about the question, ask how he evaluates something easier, like welding. "Each frammis uses $2 of iron and sells for $18. If doing the welding costs more than twice as much as the iron I'm losing money. You weld four of them in an hour. The cost to me of a welded frammis is thus $5.50."

Wanting to pay a little as possible is natural, but if he hired a welder for $7 and the fellow ruined stock, set the shop on fire, or simply couldn't make a straight bead, the money would be wasted or worse. If a welder wanted $21 but could build jigs and fabricate tools that doubled production, the extra money would be worth it.

building a website costs at least $30/hr and if they are actually paying you $14/hr for the time you spend blogging in addition to paying you for welding, then that might be a good deal or by the word