Pricing creative work when you have no comparables

Independent work rewards the people who write things down. This is the version of my process I wish someone had handed me three years ago — no growth hacks, no vague advice, just the decisions that moved money and attention.

Start with the artefact. Before audience, before pricing, before promotion, there has to be one finished piece of work you can point at without apologising for it. Everything downstream is distribution.

Then price from capacity, not from confidence. Count the days you can actually deliver in a quarter, subtract the ones you'll lose to admin and travel, and divide the income you need by what remains. That's your floor.

Finally, make the terms boring. Escrow, milestones, written rights, a named deliverable and an approval window. Boring terms are what let interesting work happen on time.