Quote:
Originally Posted by testpie
I hear so many stories like this on GFY, so much so that I'm considering becoming a full-time designer and coder, but the thing that is holding me back is that too many people (msyelf included) in this industry seem to be tight with money, so I'd have to compete against Russian and Chinese coders who seem to be able to knock up a forum, CMS and YouTube clone for less than a dollar.
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I do mostly layout and valid (re-)coding, rather than Photoshop-based design, but it's the same basic market. Unreliable people drive me nuts, so I set out to provide a service I would be happy with myself. Mostly I have succeeded, but it is extremely difficult in adult especially.
If you are going to price yourself properly, you allow time for revisions, ongoing support, the bits of "dead" time you will not be able to fill, talking to clients, etc, etc. Mainstream prices allow you to do all that as well as to take much more time over the job itself, even to hire people for some of the bells and whistles which might not be your own strength.
It's less that the market puts you in competition with east European or Asian, than that despite the regular stream of complaints, adult webmasters invariably go for cheap, even if it means dubious skills, lack of organization, etc.
So with all the safety valves screwed shut to compete, you regularly get a situation like I had in March when I agreed schedules with four clients who then all vanished. One guy, the very next day after agreeing a schedule, went off on a 5-day trip without giving me any instructions! Murphy's Law: they all show up again at once, wanting you to catch up on
your promised schedule. But they weren't originally scheduled together, you lost time when they went AWOL, they didn't give you a new start date, and so you are in the middle of someone else's work.
I'm sure every designer and coder could write a book of similar stories, so it wouldn't hurt to bear in mind that the faults are not all on one side.