My first paying project - compensation guidance requested!

Hey Folks,

John here, IM newbie, and it looks like i'm gonna get a paycheck for the first time in a VERY long time, if you know what i mean...! Whew... Anyways, many thanks in advance for your advice on this topic. I am green as a entrepreneur too.

I have managed to get the interest of a particular product distributor and expect i will be doing his online marketing campaign. While treating this as a portfolio builder, I still wish to protect myself and gain fair compensation for my ideas and effort. I have secured 3 of the 4 top domains that the distributor overlooked (there is no US trademark on file - German company).

My thought is since I have no major credibility yet, that i simply keep track of my hours, and if he is happy with the site's performance and he sees an ROI, then maybe we can arrange a monthly payment until my hours are paid for and sign the code over to him, maybe ask for a small premium for the domain, then bill hourly for added work afterward.

Another question i have is what the hell do i ask per hour? Does $40/hr seem out of line if say i get his site traffic to double and he sees a significant boost in sales? His renenues will be approaching the $1M mark soon, despite the fact that his web visibility is very poor. I don't want to sell myself short if by chance my campaign and domain are winners.

Many thanks!

John