This week is “Mailbag Week” where I answer some of the questions recently asked by my beloved readers, customers, and colleagues.

Q. I am having difficulty with coming up with rates for my writing projects. I write articles, newsletters, and web content and provide proofreading work. Are there guidelines to help me set rates?

A. That’s a very good question — I have been wrestling with this problem for several years as rates for various levels of writing work can vary widely. Some customers seem to understand what the going rates are while others are completely clueless.

Thankfully, two members of the writing community have created their own guide sheets to help writers determine prices. Their prices and breakdowns are different, but you should be able to come up with a satisfactory bid for future projects based on this information:

Paul Lima blogged about this topic this past April in an article titled, “How Much Should I Charge For Work?” Of special interest to me were the rates he had for four different types of article writing projects. He also included information about writing scripts, online writing, advertorials, and much more.

Lynn Wasnak created a *pdf titled, “How Much Should I Charge?” which is a very detailed report worth printing out. I first mentioned Lynn’s report in July and have been referencing it ever since. Lynn has mentioned to me that work on an updated report should be out in 2009.

Rate setting is not a perfect science and many customers are very price conscious. Don’t sell yourself cheaply and make certain that your proposal letter spells out details of the project otherwise you may end up doing a lot of work for a little bit of money.

Been there, done that!