Custom Code & Consulting

Everything you need to know about hiring us for Custom templates or CSS, personalized blog consulting and training is on this page. Use the email form further down this page to tell us about your project.

Please: read everything between here and the contact form before requesting a bid.

I promise: I'd never waste your time asking you to read unimportant stuff. Save yourself time, money & frustration by avoiding common mistakes.

What we do:

What we DON'T do:

Advanced template code modification Custom CSS (for basic or advanced templates) SEO Optimization Personalized blog consulting and training Develop strategic blogging plans Help you integrate other services with your blog including: widgets, eCommerce, stats, email forms, FeedBurner and more. We specialize in creating blogs for published authors promoting their books, speaking engagements and brand.

Graphic design* Adobe Flash *There is an element of functional and layout design to what we do, and we are especially interested in designing the layout of your site to load quickly and get the results you need. But if you want banners, buttons or graphics you're best off hiring an artist who specializes in that area of design. We have a great network of people we can refer you to for these

We tailor your project to meet your specific needs and goals. For this reason, we find that a blog package design is not that useful… it is guaranteed to contain some things you have already, some things you want and some things that are useless or even harmful to your purpose. In the same way, although TypePad has many great themes for personal blogs, we believe that if you want to use blogging successfully for business, you will probably want a custom design and template. That's where we come in.

That said, there are a few things we regard as crucial to the success of almost any blog (such as having your own domain name). We will suggest these items to you when we prepare your bid and may also suggest other items we think you may have overlooked or been unaware of. It is totally up to you whether you choose to implement these suggestions. We're not trying to up-sell you, but we would be remiss if we didn't suggest strategic ideas that apply to your specific project. Part of our job is to be aware of the most recent developments in TypePad and also in 3rd party solutions to extend TypePad.

What you need to know before you hire us:
Free Estimate:	We provide one free initial consultation via phone or email to determine the scope of your project and prepare a bid. All time spent on your project after the bid is approved is billable. Bids are provided as line item estimates with pricing for each item. You may select as many or as few of the items for any given project.
Rates:	Our rates are $100/hr USD. We're very fast and very good and very busy.1 We charge a 1 hour minimum, (except some items from the Hacks a la Carte Menu). After the first hour, jobs are billed in 15 minute increments.
Billable Hours:	Billable hours include time spent discussing your project via phone or email.2 Research authorized by the client for developing new hacks may also be billable if agreed in advance.
Billing:	Once you sign off on a bid, I will bill a deposit via PayPal, Google Checkout or credit card over the phone (your preference). For jobs under $500, we bill the total budget in advance. For larger jobs, we bill half the estimated time up front and the remainder (actual hours) upon completion. If we expect a job to go over the agreed budget, we will contact you to explain why and ask your approval before continuing. If we establish an ongoing relationship in which we continue to code or consult over a period of months or years, we will bill at the end of each month for hours worked that month.
Timeframe:	We highly recommend you schedule your project at least a month before you need it. We are typically booked 1-3 weeks in advance. This schedule allows us a small buffer of time for quick a la carte jobs on the fly, but major projects are done in the order payments or deposits are received. If your deadline is immediate, we can can sometimes (but not always) expedite work for a rush fee of $150/hr.
Agreements:	Organization on your part saves you substantial time and money…If we have to guess what you want, it takes longer to make it happen. Some of the work we provide requires files, art or input from the client. Providing those at the outset brings the cost down.3 If your communications are clear and concise, we spend less time and you spend less money. The best way to tell us what you need done is with a bulleted or numbered list. Web design by trial and error is prohibitively (and preventably) expensive. It is important to know what you want to achieve and how you want it to look and function. We can help you with that, if needed. Some apparently simple changes require a return to basic templates for proper functionality. When a client decides to start a design over from scratch, it gets expensive.4 If you (or your former web designer) have done extensive customization in the past, it may take longer to do the job. This will be reflected in the bill. To make sure your estimate is as accurate as possible, we prefer to access your account and view the code before providing an estimate. We reserve the right to revise our estimate if we discover that your existing code is not standard. Long term, it is often less expensive to start from scratch than make adjustments to outdated code. TypePad templates periodically change to include new features… we find that the most efficient way to work is to begin with a current basic template and then convert to advanced. It adds a couple hours, but wil likely save you ten hours down the road. If you have a graphic designer working on a design you want us to implement, it is a good idea to have them get in touch with us as early in the process as possible to insure their design can be adapted to TypePad. It is vital that your layout and design be finalized before we begin template upgrades… if you make drastic changes to the design after we have begun working, we may have to begin from scratch. When working on a blog that is already live, we will do our work on a test blog within your account. The new design will go live only when you have approved it.
Disclaimers:	Upon completion of work, the client assumes all responsibility for their files and templates. While we do our best to try to keep a back up copy of your files, it is your responsibility to backup your files and templates in case of emergency. If our code is broken by modifications made by a client after the project is finished, we will track down and repair the problem at our normal hourly rate of $100/hour. If our code is broken because Six Apart has made updates to the TypePad application we will attempt to repair the problem at our normal hourly rate of $100/hour. We will create a back-up copy of your template design, labeled as such in your list of templates. Please do not ever modify the code in the back-up. It is there in case you need it at a later date. In all cases we reserve the right to use any code we have developed on any of our future projects. This is non-negotiable. We provide code to you as a good faith loan which you may use for as long as you like, but may not resell and which you do not "own" outright.
Footnotes:	We never offer discounts or deals because: A) It's not fair to other clients. B) It's not fair to us. C) We are not starving college kids, we're pros. We think we're worth (at least) the price we ask. We have found in the past that clients who dicker on price are more likely to be difficult in other ways and we avoid them. (back) We end up becoming good friends with many of our clients, so of couse we won't bill you for phone time spent chatting socially. But if it takes 20 emails back and forth to discuss a one hour job (and this has happened) we'd go broke if we didn't charge for the time we put into it. It's okay to ask us to explain things, or to pick our brains, or brainstorm… but it's also important to respect the fact that our time is valuable to us and our other clients. (back) ie: If you hire us to add author photos to posts, you will have to provide the photos. If you want a flash banner installed you must provide the flash file (what we do is create the template modifications required to embed the file properly on your blog. Flash is not the same as .jpg or other graphic formats and so a flash banner actually requires 45 minutes worth of template modification). (back) Some seemingly simple changes actually require starting from scratch (such as the number and placement of columns). One client went from a two column left design, to a two column right design, to a three column right design… each time we changed the layout, we had to go back to advanced templates then modify the advanced template code (which had been finished) and reinstall it. This took a $1000 job into a budget of well over $2500. Don't let that happen to you. (back)

 

Okay, sorry you had to wade through all that but now, if you're ready to start a project, use the form below:

 

Fields in red are required for the form to function. You must provide a valid email address or phone number if you desire a reply (unless you provide that info, we have no way to contact you). Click the "submit form" button at the bottom to send your message.
Name:	Phone:
Email Address:	Your Skype Handle
Your blog's URL	Best Time to call:
Is your current blog using basic templates or advanced templates? Basic Advanced	Interested in: Custom Templates Custom CSS Consulting Training other
Does your blog currently use custom CSS or advanced template modifications? Yes No
Is this a personal or professional site? personal professional	UserName/Password
Describe your project: Please use a list format when possible
If your project is to create a new blog, please send the URLs of 2-4 sites you really like and tell us why. Note: these examples are for reference only. Copyright law forbids making exact copies of other people's designs.
File Upload:
You can also reach us by phone or snail mail:
Snail Mail	Phone Support
TypePad Hacks 3014 S. M 66 Hwy, Mancelona, MI 49659	231.584.2710

Extra Credit: Become one of our favorite clients with some bonus reading (not required).

The following linked articles might give you a good idea of the best way to approach a project together so that you and I are on the same (web) page. Sorry, couldn't resist that awful pun. But I do hope you continue reading and check out the three articles below.

How to live happily with a great designer from Seth Godin

Why do some organizations look great... and get great results from their design efforts and ads... while others languish in mediocrity? I think it has little to do with who they hire and a lot to do with how they work with their agencies and designers.

Here are the things your design team wishes you would know

Click the link for 13 very good tips on how to get the best work from us! Seth is right on the money with all of them: reading and acting on his tips will help us give you the best results.

How Much Should a Web Design Cost? (from Chris Pearson)

Every week, I get emails from potential clients who all want to know one thing: How much for a design?

Nine times out of ten, my answer causes them to run for the hills. Scary thing is, based on industry buzz, my prices could actually be considered totally reasonable by comparison. Don’t believe me? Well, today you get the whole scoop - my prices, their prices, and my always-priceless editorial commentary on the subject.

Chris concludes, after examining a few case studies, that "professional designs are really only open to the following people: Those with a plan or Those with a lot of money."

We would suggest that this is only partially true… There are a lot of things we can do to improve your blog at a reasonable cost. But, in the end, he's correct: if you want to hire the best to do their best work to get you the best results when you're showing off why you are the best, then yeah, it's going to cost some time and money. You should be prepared for that and you should have a plan to recoup your investment. Read his full article here. Note: The comments are extremely interesting as well!

Picasso, Paula Scher, and the lifetime behind every second (from 43 Signals)

A machine in a factory has malfunctioned, and the engineers on site can’t find the source of the problem.

So they call on a retired worker who had spent a long time working with the machine. He comes in, walks up to the machine, looks at it for a minute, pulls out a piece of chalk and draws a circle around the screw that needs to be tightened.

He then writes them a bill for $5’000.

“$5,000, that’s ridiculous, all you did was draw a circle around a screw!”

So he writes them a new bill:
- drawing a circle around a screw: $1.
- knowing where to draw it: $4999.

In this case, I've pulled the quote from the comments on the post… but the post is well worth reading. And the Paula Scher video interview linked to is also just great.

Please give some thought to this story… Remember that when you hire us (or any other professional), you're not just hiring us to wave a magic wand and "do a little typing."

You are, in fact, hiring us for the specialized knowledge that comes from years and years of 18 hour days spent learning how and why things work as they do; how they can be tweaked to do things no one thought they could; inventing new ways to use code; combining alien technologies, etc.

You're hiring us because not just because we know where to get the answers, but we often know the people who wrote them. You're hiring us because of the way our brains work, which is a fluke of chemistry and biology that gives us a rare and useful approach to problem solving. We won't charge you $5000 for a minute's work, but we also don't need to charge you for the 40 hours of learning curve that you might pay a cheaper coder who's new to the web. We already know how the last 30 minutes of that 40 hour research project ends (with actually getting something done in 30 minutes). In other words, every $100 you pay us for an hour of our time, you're getting approximately 40,000 hours of experience for free (a four million dollar value!). That's assuming I only worked 10 hours a day for the last decade, when actually it was more like 18 hours a day, 365 days a year for well over two decades in related fields.

Our rates are based on the fact that we have sacrificed half our lives to learning mumbo jumbo and arcana so that you don't have to. Trust me, although I was raised by lawyers, if I get in a jam I won't be representing myself… I'll get a lawyer. And although I could fix my own plumbing, it's worth it to me to pay someone else $100/hr to go into the scary crawlspace with the spiders and dust and dirt to fix the water. You should be running your online empire while we shore up the batlements and make sure they stay in place.