7 ms·

I want to work full-time on this book for 3 months. $20,000 covers my cost of living for that long. Is the cost of living really that high in Austin, TX?

dovdov 11y ago
It's high everywhere when you are a Starbucks tenant. ;)
melling 11y ago
Is an $80,000/year salary "that high"?
- odonnellryan 11y ago
  6k+ a month is a pretty high cost of living. It is a good salary for Texas, but if that's your cost of living that's pretty insane.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    Personally, I think it's a reasonable amount given that you have to pay taxes on it, you have to get health insurance for the 3 months that you are working on it (not cheap), and the position is not extendible after 3 months. In other words, you have to consider this as a 3 month contract as an independent contractor with no chance of extension. Personally, that would be pretty far into my discounted rate ;-) Still, if successful, it has the upside of giving the author chances at a good reputation and follow on contracts. I'm very interested to see how successful this is. I'm sceptical that it can be completed in 3 months, but wish the author the very best of luck!
    - odonnellryan 11y ago
      I think it is very fair PAY, but they specifically said cost of living.
- lucozade 11y ago
  For someone with 1 year's experience in the subject? Seems a little steep. And I know this isn't indicative of her skill or anything but surely, if you're going to add 10 or so lines of code to a pitch, you'd check it wasn't buggy. Or is that just me?
- gopowerranger 11y ago
  In Podunk Hollow, Iowa, where $300/month gets you a 3-bedroom house, you're a millionaire. In New York City, you work at Starbucks at night to get by.
- nilved 11y ago
  That's not "cost of living" salary, it's "cost of living nicely" salary.
hardlianotion 11y ago
Proposal is for a Haskell resource that I would find interesting/useful, maintained as a freely accessible resource. Should the person making this possible charge reasonably for their time? Yes, in my opinion.
- lamby 11y ago
  I can see the reason for adding some kind of anchor to the figure being raised but the value I would extract from this resource is completely orthogonal to whether it was written whilst living in Monaco or Mumbai. Putting it another way, for almost any other product on HN we would point out that one should price based on perceived value, so I find it curious that we are so happy with some kind of "labour theory" here. (Of course, there are other side-benefits to simply being an author of a book, so it might be worth discounting)
- amelius 11y ago
  > Should the person making this possible charge reasonably for their time? Yes, in my opinion. But why should it even matter? When you buy a car, do you also ask if the engineers received a fair salary?
  - hardlianotion 11y ago
    Well said. That was what was gong through my mind as I wrote, but it came out wrong. If it is useful, you can ask for money for it and folk can pay if they like it.
morgante 11y ago
I assume that's meant to cover taxes as well.
- kxyvr 11y ago
  To expand on this for people who don't freelance or consult, technically the brackets are graduated, but figure on 25% for federal income tax and 15.3% for FICA. Texas does not charge state income tax, so the total is about 40% gone off the top. In addition, you have no benefits, so health insurance comes out of pocket. For a 35 year old female in Travis county on a PPO with no subsidy will run $352/month. Long story short, over 3 months after taxes and health insurance, with no other benefits like retirement nor any other business expenses like a computer and internet, that $20,000 becomes $10,884 or $3,628/month.
dudul 11y ago
The thing is the cost of living in X should have nothing to do with the demanded funds to complete the project. It should be only based on the value delivered by the project. Maybe people will think that $20,000 for a Haskell Web Dev book is justified, personally I don't. Even professional authors working with legitimate publishers rarely make $20,000 from a book. I do hope she can write this book cause I would really like to read it, but I also think she's a bit delusional regarding what authors in tech niches actually make for a book.
- raphaelss 11y ago
  The thing is that what professional authors working with legitimate publishers make from a book has nothing to do with the demanded funds to complete the project. It should be only based on the value delivered by the project.
  - dudul 11y ago
    Not really sure what this comment is trying to demonstrate. Using what actual published authors make on book deals is a good way to estimate what the value of such an initiative should be. Maybe a lot of people will be interested in the project and fund it, then great. But publishers investigate the market thoroughly before signing a deal with an author, and they offer advances and royalties based on what they think the book will make. When an author received a $7,500 royalties advance on a book it's because the publisher thinks this is a good indicator of what the book will generate in royalties.

dovdov 11y ago

It's high everywhere when you are a Starbucks tenant. ;)

melling 11y ago

Is an $80,000/year salary "that high"?

odonnellryan 11y ago
6k+ a month is a pretty high cost of living. It is a good salary for Texas, but if that's your cost of living that's pretty insane.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  Personally, I think it's a reasonable amount given that you have to pay taxes on it, you have to get health insurance for the 3 months that you are working on it (not cheap), and the position is not extendible after 3 months. In other words, you have to consider this as a 3 month contract as an independent contractor with no chance of extension. Personally, that would be pretty far into my discounted rate ;-) Still, if successful, it has the upside of giving the author chances at a good reputation and follow on contracts. I'm very interested to see how successful this is. I'm sceptical that it can be completed in 3 months, but wish the author the very best of luck!
  - odonnellryan 11y ago
    I think it is very fair PAY, but they specifically said cost of living.
lucozade 11y ago
For someone with 1 year's experience in the subject? Seems a little steep. And I know this isn't indicative of her skill or anything but surely, if you're going to add 10 or so lines of code to a pitch, you'd check it wasn't buggy. Or is that just me?
gopowerranger 11y ago
In Podunk Hollow, Iowa, where $300/month gets you a 3-bedroom house, you're a millionaire. In New York City, you work at Starbucks at night to get by.
nilved 11y ago
That's not "cost of living" salary, it's "cost of living nicely" salary.

hardlianotion 11y ago

Proposal is for a Haskell resource that I would find interesting/useful, maintained as a freely accessible resource. Should the person making this possible charge reasonably for their time? Yes, in my opinion.

lamby 11y ago
I can see the reason for adding some kind of anchor to the figure being raised but the value I would extract from this resource is completely orthogonal to whether it was written whilst living in Monaco or Mumbai. Putting it another way, for almost any other product on HN we would point out that one should price based on perceived value, so I find it curious that we are so happy with some kind of "labour theory" here. (Of course, there are other side-benefits to simply being an author of a book, so it might be worth discounting)
amelius 11y ago
> Should the person making this possible charge reasonably for their time? Yes, in my opinion. But why should it even matter? When you buy a car, do you also ask if the engineers received a fair salary?
- hardlianotion 11y ago
  Well said. That was what was gong through my mind as I wrote, but it came out wrong. If it is useful, you can ask for money for it and folk can pay if they like it.

morgante 11y ago

I assume that's meant to cover taxes as well.

kxyvr 11y ago
To expand on this for people who don't freelance or consult, technically the brackets are graduated, but figure on 25% for federal income tax and 15.3% for FICA. Texas does not charge state income tax, so the total is about 40% gone off the top. In addition, you have no benefits, so health insurance comes out of pocket. For a 35 year old female in Travis county on a PPO with no subsidy will run $352/month. Long story short, over 3 months after taxes and health insurance, with no other benefits like retirement nor any other business expenses like a computer and internet, that $20,000 becomes $10,884 or $3,628/month.

dudul 11y ago

The thing is the cost of living in X should have nothing to do with the demanded funds to complete the project. It should be only based on the value delivered by the project. Maybe people will think that $20,000 for a Haskell Web Dev book is justified, personally I don't. Even professional authors working with legitimate publishers rarely make $20,000 from a book. I do hope she can write this book cause I would really like to read it, but I also think she's a bit delusional regarding what authors in tech niches actually make for a book.

raphaelss 11y ago
The thing is that what professional authors working with legitimate publishers make from a book has nothing to do with the demanded funds to complete the project. It should be only based on the value delivered by the project.
- dudul 11y ago
  Not really sure what this comment is trying to demonstrate. Using what actual published authors make on book deals is a good way to estimate what the value of such an initiative should be. Maybe a lot of people will be interested in the project and fund it, then great. But publishers investigate the market thoroughly before signing a deal with an author, and they offer advances and royalties based on what they think the book will make. When an author received a $7,500 royalties advance on a book it's because the publisher thinks this is a good indicator of what the book will generate in royalties.