How Much Would You Charge?

[bdgbill]

A friend of mine who is not very computer savvy has asked me if I would be interested in digitizing his collection of aprox 3000 CD's.

He wants everything setup to import cleanly into ITunes. He also wants the cover art to be available. Since most of the CD's are obscure jazz and classical albums I'm thinking I'm going to have to scan the covers rather than try to download the art.

I have already told him the project will take me at least three months to get done. I have also told him that he will have a lot of work to do himself once he gets the data to classify all the music.

If I was interested in the music I may have done it for free just so I could make my own copies of everything.

I'm not trying to make a big profit from the guy. I just want to cover myself in case the project somehow turns into a giant p.i.t.a. What would you charge?

[tkgafs]

Enough to to ensure I didn't end up doing the job

It sounds like a dreadful task to take on

I'd also be worried that if he listens to jazz and classical music then he may be very disappointed with the quality of the output from ipods / mp3 players in general.

I think I'd spend a couple of evenings with him teaching him how to do it and then suggest he did himself

Even if you could rip a cd in 10 mins you are still talking about 500 or so hours just to rip the cds to harddisc, let alone make sure the titles are correct , scan the sleeves then load up to the ipod, no its not a job I would take on

Tkgafs

[nia]

I would teach the man to fish - i.e. setup the necessary software to rip on his computer, then teach him how to scan the art that doesn't download. Maybe charge a couple of good Malt Whiskies or whatever you fancy.

If it's more about him not wanting/being too lazy/busy to spend the time than being unable to do it due to lack of knowledge, either suggest a suitable hourly pay or suggest getting a student to do it on the setup you provided above.

Otherwise, it WILL most probably be a pita-project possibly denting or costing the friendship...

Just my 5c/IMHO/YMMV

/Niels

[nia]

tkgafs types faster - i concur.

[ACTCMS]

Sounds like for a large proportion of the CDs you would need to rip, type the title info, scan and embed the album art - you have to be talking minmum 15-20 mins per CD - say 4 per hour - that's about 750 hours - say 3 hours per day - that's 250 days - say 5 days a week - that's a year...

Multiply the 750 hours by even 10$ per hour - I doubt if your friend would go for it.

nai said:

I would teach the man to fish - i.e. setup the necessary software to rip on his computer, then teach him how to scan the art that doesn't download. Maybe charge a couple of good Mat whiskies or whatever you fancy.

That's the way I'd go...

[K.S.]

what nia said
power to the people!

[dgeezer]

I'd look at it this way:

1 cd worth of tracks purchased on itunes 13 x $0.99 = 12.87

This gives you a top figure for what this job is worth. Forget the fact that some of his tracks aren't available anywhere and that it would still take a significant amount of time just to buy that many tracks on itunes.

You could probably do 4 to 5 per hour based on what other people here are saying. Say you value your time hanging out at home at $20.00 per hour this gives you a bottom figure of $4.00 per CD.
Somewhere in between would be a fair price, allowing a little profit for you and a reasonably good deal for him. I could see you setting up a simple batch file to make this mostly automatic esp. after the first 300 or so:eek: After all, it's not like you have to sit there for the entire time the cd is ripped. Or with the extra cash you could buy about 5 usb cd drives and do about 20 cd's per hour.

This gives him a way to evaluate whether it would be worth doing it himself, or paying you to do it.

[McBainUK]

I think I'd spend a couple of evenings with him teaching him how to do it and then suggest he did it himself

Agree with this as it's a huge task. Perhaps if you start him off with a 10 or so of his favourites and then leave a walkthrough of how to do the rest.

[bdgbill]

Wow...100% negative. This is what I was afraid of.

I saw myself doing it as I sit at my desk doing my normal job all day, with most of the work being placing and removing the cd's. I have two PC's on my desk so thought it would go fast.

I sure do not need another "must finish" project in my life.

I like the idea of just setting him up with a system but he is an Apple guy. Anyone ever tried getting a scanner to work with a Mac? I have never laid my fingers on any Apple product (I don't even own an Ipod).

[K.S.]

I like the idea of just setting him up with a system but he is an Apple guy. Anyone ever tried getting a scanner to work with a Mac? I have never laid my fingers on any Apple product (I don't even own an Ipod).

why would he need any help? i tought macs are so easy to operate
seriously: if possible, help him (show him how to do it with itunes, should be the same way as with itunes on windows) to do it on his own, if he's not willing to do it (to much hassle / work) it's no longer your problem, it's his collection... i would just hate it to do the dirty laundry of somebody else, no matter the money involved