Is this worth 6k??

[jayocal]

Wow, I'm in absolute awe of the response to this subject! Thank you very much for your attention.

My stepfather, Daniel, is VERY new to the internet, computers and all the jazz that goes along. Basically, he met a guy who showed extreme enthusiasm towards his book and expressed great interest in "putting it out there". Due to the extreme interest that this guy appeared to have, naturally Daniel trusted (albeit blindly) his knowledge and quotes.

Daniel has been reading these posts for the last couple of days and he's astonished that so many strangers expressed so much interest and opinions! Also, he has been offered some help/advice from fellow CP members.

FYI, Daniel has not received and has not been offered an invoice. Obviously, this will be his first order of business! I just regret that I (and all of you) were not more involved with this project before the big bucks were spent.

Thanks again people

[calflamses1]

Please note the $6K was not only for a web site. It also included:

a. Strategy
b. Research and connections with book reviewers such as the New York Post
c. Design and development of a Printed Flyer
d. Copywriting and Distribution of a Press Release
e. Redesign of Indesign Publication (Book X85 Pages)
f. Video Production work (which was canceled by client)
g. Successful relationship and world-wide distribution deal with Ingrams Book Publisher.
h. Successful relationship and distribution through Chapters and Indigo!

*The $99 charge for Premium hosting and domain name registration was through a 3rd party Fat Cow Hosting. Client paid and invoiced directly.

The client has changed administration rights to the web site, so no edits could be made.

I believe the client received fair value and once we know all the facts than it is much easier to see how.

FlamesFan1

[Madman]

Originally Posted by calflamses1

Please note the $6K was not only for a web site. It also included:

a. Strategy
b. Research and connections with book reviewers such as the New York Post
c. Design and development of a Printed Flyer
d. Copywriting and Distribution of a Press Release
e. Redesign of Indesign Publication (Book X85 Pages)
f. Video Production work (which was canceled by client)
g. Successful relationship and world-wide distribution deal with Ingrams Book Publisher.
h. Successful relationship and distribution through Chapters and Indigo!

*The $99 charge for Premium hosting and domain name registration was through a 3rd party Fat Cow Hosting. Client paid and invoiced directly.

The client has changed administration rights to the web site, so no edits could be made.

I believe the client received fair value and once we know all the facts than it is much easier to see how.

FlamesFan1

So, how are things over at Solaris Marketing?

[csnarpy]

Originally Posted by calflamses1

Please note the $6K was not only for a web site. It also included:

a. Strategy
b. Research and connections with book reviewers such as the New York Post
c. Design and development of a Printed Flyer
d. Copywriting and Distribution of a Press Release
e. Redesign of Indesign Publication (Book X85 Pages)
f. Video Production work (which was canceled by client)
g. Successful relationship and world-wide distribution deal with Ingrams Book Publisher.
h. Successful relationship and distribution through Chapters and Indigo!

*The $99 charge for Premium hosting and domain name registration was through a 3rd party Fat Cow Hosting. Client paid and invoiced directly.

The client has changed administration rights to the web site, so no edits could be made.

I believe the client received fair value and once we know all the facts than it is much easier to see how.

FlamesFan1

I guess you are the designer of the sight.

If you give the client a detailed invoice then these matters wouldn't come up and your rep wouldn't be tarnished. When i develop a sight, all my extras come into play BUT everything is always detailed and communicated to the client. Seriously, why wouldn't you do this?

(imo, that cost is still to high for that "template" sight)

[calflamses1]

Busy time of year with Annual Reports. Way too much turmoil in the oilpatch.

Missing all the games

[FurnaceFace]

At least a template would spell site correctly. ;-)

Given all of the above listed, there is a lot more than just knocking up a basic site, there is a bunch of other work done behind the scenes which would add up quickly. With the additional information, 6k sounds reasonable to me.

[csnarpy]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

At least a template would spell site correctly. ;-)

Well, since most templates are filled with latin jibberish then....

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by csnarpy

Well, since most templates are filled with lain jibberish then....

not that this is at all important, but templates are generally filled with lorem ipsum. its not really a language, but apparently does have some roots in real language. it was developed by typesetters as it does mimic real typeset pretty well. it made a comeback as web template filler.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by calflamses1

Please note the $6K was not only for a web site. It also included:

a. Strategy
b. Research and connections with book reviewers such as the New York Post
c. Design and development of a Printed Flyer
d. Copywriting and Distribution of a Press Release
e. Redesign of Indesign Publication (Book X85 Pages)
f. Video Production work (which was canceled by client)
g. Successful relationship and world-wide distribution deal with Ingrams Book Publisher.
h. Successful relationship and distribution through Chapters and Indigo!

*The $99 charge for Premium hosting and domain name registration was through a 3rd party Fat Cow Hosting. Client paid and invoiced directly.

The client has changed administration rights to the web site, so no edits could be made.

I believe the client received fair value and once we know all the facts than it is much easier to see how.

FlamesFan1

Sorry, I don't get it.

This thread is filled with posts from Web Designers and Programmers who claim that one cannot be a jack-of-all-trades and hope to produce any kind of quality product.

Can you explain how you are:

- A Web Designer
- A Programmer
- A Buisness Strategy Consultant
- A Publisher
- A Copywriter
- A Videographer
- A Video Post-Production Tech
- And a Literature Agent with book distribution contacts?

Seems kind of left field for someone who specializes in Web Design.

Sorry man, in my opinion you totally took someone who didn't know better for a total ride. Thats called "taking advantage" of someone.

[llama64]

Trad...

I don't see where he claims he did everything himself. The Solaris Marketing site has a number of different employees listed.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by llama64

Trad...

I don't see where he claims he did everything himself. The Solaris Marketing site has a number of different employees listed.

So this was a decision made by a firm?

As in, a collective of people came together and convinced themselves this project was an honest thing to do?

Industry people in this thread have mentioned how a project needs to be of a certain size for it to be worth doing.

I'm sure a $500 donantion to a local high-school's Communication Technology program would have gotten equal (if not better) results.

Solaris ought to be ashamed.

Sorry for misunderstanding.

[HOOT]

The hotmail.com email is the best part.

Did he already pay them? Why not work with them to give them an idea of his vision of the website?

$6,000 does seem high, but not knowing what other background work they had to do besides the website makes it tough. I'm curious why didn't he shop around?

[old-fart]

I have to say, the number one red flag for me is the hotmail contact address. Screams "Mom's basement".

IF, and I'd say that's a fairly decent sized "IF", Solaris Marketing is a professional company run by professional people, they need someone with a brain to realize that publishing a hotmail contact address on your homepage is going to turn off any knowledgable consumer. Meaning, you aren't looking for the "knowledgable" consumer. Meaning, unfortunately, that you are looking for those that are not knowledgable - for what ends we can only assume.

$6K might be reasonable for the effort put in by Solaris, but it isn't reasonable based on the final product.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by old-fart

I have to say, the number one red flag for me is the hotmail contact address. Screams "Mom's basement".

IF, and I'd say that's a fairly decent sized "IF", Solaris Marketing is a professional company run by professional people, they need someone with a brain to realize that publishing a hotmail contact address on your homepage is going to turn off any knowledgable consumer. Meaning, you aren't looking for the "knowledgable" consumer. Meaning, unfortunately, that you are looking for those that are not knowledgable - for what ends we can only assume.

$6K might be reasonable for the effort put in by Solaris, but it isn't reasonable based on the final product.

Agreed.

To get anything resembling the final product here would cost, on average, $2-3k. No clue how much the rest of the services should cost since I'm not a marketer, but based on what I've seen around the industry I'd say it's about average.

Probably could have done better (got the C+ in the web development market), but to expect to pay less overall is highly unlikely. $500 would buy you a 2 page flash piece of crud designed by a high school student who taught themselves action script.

And yes, seriously, get a valid email if you're a public facing business. I see this type of phenomenon far too often. Business cards with hotmail/gmail addresses on them... Yeah, like I'm going to trust any tech descision to a person who doesn't know how to get their own email address.

[HOOT]

The thing I don't get is they have a .com, don't you usually get free email address with that?

[(J)ust(I)n(T)ime]

FYI > The 6K was initial just for the web work. 3K was to be added for business stuff. Solaris Marketing is a one man operation. It states on the their website they have a team of expert web developers, which is a load of crap. The truth is it's a mom's basement operation and he was trying to take the client. Marketers are always so nice until they get their hand caught in the cookie jar. Looks like a can of worms opened up. This is not good business practice and I would be surprised if Solaris Marketing even has a business license.

[(J)ust(I)n(T)ime]

It doesn't take months to make a site like this. Maybe a week at the most.

[(J)ust(I)n(T)ime]

I just finished a corporate website that had 700,000 pages and it took three months.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Oh boy, this thread is going be to exciting.

[HOOT]

I'm going to stay close to this one, I don't want to miss any Mexican jokes again.