Hi, Robert ...

Most times you really do get what you pay for. And it is $185 for
each server installation, not per site. If you have a setup where
you are hosting multiple domains in a single account, you only need
one installation for that account and you can run multiple sites on it.

But as Miles said, $185 is about two hours billable time for him. He
charges more than I do, but even at my rates, I always spend a LOT
more time (that I can't bill for) messing around with an open source
CMS with nearly non-existent documentation. This one has
documentation, and the little bit I got around to reading today looks
very complete so far.

Besides, as I said, if I am going to build a CMS site for a client, I
would charge the client for it. I have charged clients thousands of
dollars for specialty software that I had to pay someone else to
program, and they didn't complain. $185 is almost nothing by comparison.

There are, of course, plenty of cheapskate clients out there. I used
to try to create sites for them, and every time lost money and
regretted the deal. I no longer want that kind of client. I would
rather make my money elsewhere, in a completely different business,
and I do. So I refer them to someone else who is willing to work
cheap. When a client recently asked me for the ftp login and
password so her brother in law could edit the site, I sighed to
myself but gave it to them. If he screws it up and they need to be
bailed out, I will inform them of my regular price (which is several
times what it was several years ago when I built the site) and that
is what they will have to pay or find someone else.

This might sound vindictive, but it isn't. It is a matter of
economics, and a point of survival. I can't afford to work cheap. I
used to think I could and tried it, and it was in large degree
responsible for my eventually having to file for bankruptcy. So I
resolved not to do that anymore. If I can't make a good rate as a
website designer, I will just have to make it doing something else.

There are too many other things I want to do that don't make money,
other than working for some moron who thinks the thing his son-in-law
did for him is a website. If I to not intend to make money at it, I
could be painting, or hiking in the mountains, which are growing a
little steeper and a little higher every year. Some of them are
already out of my reach.

I remember when I was just starting, being enraptured by William
Mortensen's work.<http://www.thescreamonline.com/photo/photo06-01/
mortensen/index.html> His photography was art, plain and simple, and
he wrote something in one of his books I later often wished I had
paid more attention to. It was that one should never discount one's
work, not even for a friend. One should always charge full price or
give it away free. Later on, I was working for a photographer, owner
of one of the best and most successful portrait studios in the
country, and President of The Professional Photographers of America.
One of his receptionists told him that Mr. So and So was on the phone
and said he was a personal friend of the owner's asking if he could
get a discount. The boss (his name was Ted) said "Tell him that Ted's
grandmother asked for a discount this morning, and he turned her down."

That was a lesson I learned much too late, but I finally figured it
out, and it is a policy that now serves me well.

I only wish I had believed it when I was young.

Doug


On Jul 28, 2008, at 2:33 PM, Robert Mitton wrote:

> I had to go back and look at that again!
>
> So $185.00 for each website created with it? Wow! That is pricey.
>
> Too pricey!
>
> Robert
>
>
> On Jul 28, 2008, at 2:38 PM, Snip(TM) wrote:
>
>> on 7/28/08 @880, Doug Fairchild wrote:
>>
>>> Now that is the kind of thing I want, if it's true. Think I'll check
>>> it out.
>>
>> Gonna have to be "all that" for $185 per install, tho. Dunno that
>> I'd
>> be at all interested at that pricepoint, given that all the 'best of
>> class' stuff is free ;-)
>>
>> --
>> John Snippedd

--
This list is a free service of LassoSoft: http://www.LassoSoft.com/
Search the list archives: http://www.ListSearch.com/GoLive/Browse/
Manage your subscription: http://www.ListSearch.com/GoLive/