Monday, 6 October 2008 03:56 pm
(no subject)
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deckardcanineFor those who saw the "Downscale" hiatus notice and wondered what sort of freelancing I did:
It was interview transcription. My mom forwarded me the request from a neighborhood listserv. I never transcribed an entire recording more than an hour long before, but I have edited transcriptions to conform to recordings, a task that requires similar skills. The requester had been expecting a high school or college student, but I wouldn't entrust the task to a teen myself.
I decided that the fairest system to charge for the service would be by the length of the recording, rather than the time taken to complete the assignment or the length of the resulting document. I checked a professional transcription service for some idea of a reasonable price. They said $1 to $1.50 per recorded minute, depending on difficulty. As an amateur, I decided to charge half the low end. Now that I have experience and know how long it takes, I won't be content to charge that little again.
Fortunately, what the job lacked in pay, it made up for in fun. Only after accepting did I find out the nature of the interview. It's with the mother of a boy with quadriparetal cerebral palsy, focusing on how the school system has dealt with him, especially with regard to speech assistance technology. (The client told me not to divulge any identifying information, but I doubt I learned enough to pinpoint the family myself.) While vaguely relevant to parts of my day job, the matter is far more interesting to me than that of any audioconference. I only wish the interviewer sat closer to the mike.
I expect one more interview to transcribe, this one also pertaining to speech assistance technology but with different people. After that, the interviewer is heading to another state with plans to hire a local there. (She can't email the big audio files and would rather not FedEx the CDs.)
It was interview transcription. My mom forwarded me the request from a neighborhood listserv. I never transcribed an entire recording more than an hour long before, but I have edited transcriptions to conform to recordings, a task that requires similar skills. The requester had been expecting a high school or college student, but I wouldn't entrust the task to a teen myself.
I decided that the fairest system to charge for the service would be by the length of the recording, rather than the time taken to complete the assignment or the length of the resulting document. I checked a professional transcription service for some idea of a reasonable price. They said $1 to $1.50 per recorded minute, depending on difficulty. As an amateur, I decided to charge half the low end. Now that I have experience and know how long it takes, I won't be content to charge that little again.
Fortunately, what the job lacked in pay, it made up for in fun. Only after accepting did I find out the nature of the interview. It's with the mother of a boy with quadriparetal cerebral palsy, focusing on how the school system has dealt with him, especially with regard to speech assistance technology. (The client told me not to divulge any identifying information, but I doubt I learned enough to pinpoint the family myself.) While vaguely relevant to parts of my day job, the matter is far more interesting to me than that of any audioconference. I only wish the interviewer sat closer to the mike.
I expect one more interview to transcribe, this one also pertaining to speech assistance technology but with different people. After that, the interviewer is heading to another state with plans to hire a local there. (She can't email the big audio files and would rather not FedEx the CDs.)