Basically, I'd like to tell my PM that I understand why he asked for this, but I think it is rather unusual (unfair?) to ask for this information on a fixed-bid project and we might get more useful information if we instead asked about tightening up turnaround times or stacking assignments.
I should note that he is under the gun re the schedule, not me. My job as lead editor is not on the spreadsheet, and, while, I suppose he expects me to fill out the part for my DE tasks I'm not really concerned about that for myself.
Mostly, my gut instinct is: You want my hours? Then pay me hourly. Except not really because hourly pay in publishing sucks.
I say go with your gut on this one; it's not an hourly project.
How specific is the answer? I mean, do you have to put numbers in a spreadsheet and send it back, right now, or can you reply with things like "Generally a book takes me between 30 and 120 hours, spread over two weeks" or something?
I assume you are getting paid on a 1099 on these projects. If that is the case then the person contracting you can be dancing in some difficult waters regarding keeping you as in IC as opposed to an employee. Basically if you are an IC then the person hiring you is restricted in defining your work hours, providing equipment, things like that otherwise they risk having you reclassified as an employee.
Can you give a range?
Nope. It lists out tasks and asks for hours.
So, for the writers, it's 1) how many hours does it take to write the first draft of a chapter and 2) how many hours to revise? Which is really total bullshit because they are already on a 12-day turnover schedule, which is crazy short for a textbook chapter.
For the development editors, he wants hours for each DE pass (there are three, one big one, and then two smaller ones after review/revision rounds).
"Generally a book takes me between 30 and 120 hours, spread over two weeks" or something?
Essentially that is what we are asking because we have set scheduling times for tasks, which, except for editors, were wildly underestimated at the beginning of this project (I was not lead editor at the time). I think this may be the problem he's getting at since more than one content leads hasn't been able to meet their schedule at all.
ND, do you mean that in the sense I should bring it up? Because I don't think that is a real concern on either side here.
OK, since I know my PM is new at this, I've basically decided to go with something to the effect of "I wish you had asked me about this before you sent it to the team... I think it's disingenuous to ask this of fixed-bid hires... " and telling him that I'm simply providing estimates for my stuff based on my hourly base because I don't track this (which is true).
I know he's under the gun and is just trying to put together a plan for a Monday meeting where he will be raked over the coals, but I will be very annoyed if he has pissed off my editors.
Working backwards to come up with the hours based on the fixed bid makes a lot of sense.
