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It's unusual to be paid to give a talk, unless it's a keynote or the organisers know that your name (or your organisation's name) will sell more tickets. Keynot

by amouat 9y ago

It's unusual to be paid to give a talk, unless it's a keynote or the organisers know that your name (or your organisation's name) will sell more tickets. Keynote speakers with a big reputation can get paid a lot of money for ~ 1 hours work. It's fairly common for airfare and accommodation to be paid. If you're talking about something work related, your company will likely be happy for you to do it on work time because of the exposure (and may well be willing to cover airfare/accommodation if the conference doesn't)

chimeracoder 9y ago
> Keynote speakers with a big reputation can get paid a lot of money for ~ 1 hours work. They might only be speaking for an hour, but I can assure you that giving a talk worthy of that slot and money takes a lot more than a single hour to prepare, even for the most experienced public speakers. You may be able to get away with that once or twice, but it's unlikely you'd be invited back to speak for any paying slot after that. By itself, conference speaking is not going to be a good source of income for anyone at any level of experience. When you factor in the preparation time, it's always going to come out to far less than you'd be able to charge for hourly contracting (or even salaried work). The value in speaking at conferences comes from the ability to use the platform to deliver a message and to build your reputation (yours and your company's).
- amouat 9y ago
  I agree it can take a long time to prepare a keynote worthy talk. However, it certainly can be lucrative, take a look at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167682/Blair-worlds-best-paid-speaker-pocketing-364-000-just-hours-work.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167682/Blair-worlds... (apologies for linking a Daily Hate article). Note that a lot of keynote speakers will be asked to talk because of something they've done (e.g. NASA astronauts) and will be able to reuse at the same talk multiple times (or at least part of it). Having said all that, I never meant to imply it was unfair that keynote speakers are paid or that they shouldn't be.

by amouat 9y ago

chimeracoder 9y ago

> Keynote speakers with a big reputation can get paid a lot of money for ~ 1 hours work. They might only be speaking for an hour, but I can assure you that giving a talk worthy of that slot and money takes a lot more than a single hour to prepare, even for the most experienced public speakers. You may be able to get away with that once or twice, but it's unlikely you'd be invited back to speak for any paying slot after that. By itself, conference speaking is not going to be a good source of income for anyone at any level of experience. When you factor in the preparation time, it's always going to come out to far less than you'd be able to charge for hourly contracting (or even salaried work). The value in speaking at conferences comes from the ability to use the platform to deliver a message and to build your reputation (yours and your company's).

amouat 9y ago
I agree it can take a long time to prepare a keynote worthy talk. However, it certainly can be lucrative, take a look at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167682/Blair-worlds-best-paid-speaker-pocketing-364-000-just-hours-work.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167682/Blair-worlds... (apologies for linking a Daily Hate article). Note that a lot of keynote speakers will be asked to talk because of something they've done (e.g. NASA astronauts) and will be able to reuse at the same talk multiple times (or at least part of it). Having said all that, I never meant to imply it was unfair that keynote speakers are paid or that they shouldn't be.