I'm relatively new to client work, but I've been messing around with coding for year and year, and I went to school for graphic design. My latest client would like to have an event calendar page which she can easily add events to. She would also like to have a page where she can post a 'feature of the month' with the previous features archived. The rest of the site will basically be static. A links page, an about page, a contact page, an index page with a summary of their business and perhaps an exert from the feature of the month. I have used e-zekiel.com's CMS, and I have used WordPress 1.2 which I stripped down for the news page and right column of http://www.ucantbeatkids.org. I am clearly more comfortable using notepad to code the html and CSS, but I believe I am tech savvy enough to learn a new CMS. And the kicker, a free CMS would clearly be best. So I'm think WordPress may be my best option, but there are so many blogging type features that I really don't need, and I'd have to use a plugin for the event calendar.

Any suggestions? Any resources out there for someone in my position, or someone who would like to learn how to start using CMS with custom CSS designs? Thanks for your help.

Expression Engine is excellent, and much less clunkier, more flexible than joomla— although Joomla! is a good system but can be a task if you want table free designs.

http://expressionengine.com/

You should be able to do all you mentioned with the free core version.

@Darren Hoyt:
I do know about the standard switches in the cms, but for the components such as the calendar, etc. It can be a real mess to sort through the code and pull out the tables. Have you had issues with that?

The roadmap to the next version looks great, and it will definately make Joomla! very nice. Joomla is worth considering as a cms for sure.

It can be a real mess to sort through the code and pull out the tables.

I think for JEvents it took about 2-3 hours to rip out the offending code and replace it with something cleaner, plus create my own calendar.css document. Now that the groundwork is done, I can snap it into place easily for future projects and clients will be receiving a very useful tool with little work necessary (aside from hex value editing) on my end.

Same goes with the basic building/configuration of a bare bones Joomla installation -- it takes a few hours to whip it into whatever shape you like, but when it's done it can be ported elsewhere for other projects. From what I've experienced, Expression Engine (a really cool and useful app) has proven much more valuable to geeks and developers as a News/Blog tool, while Joomla has proven much easier for lay clients to manage News and static pages via WYSIWYG. It's hard to say which has more traction, but I appreciate that pMachine was smart enough to build something not limited by clunky tables. Hopefully the next generation of ALL cms's will be smarter about separating data from presentation.

Bliot - I assure you that the $250 you spend on an EE license (that's dirt cheap for what you're getting) is money well spent. Consider the amount of time you'll be $pending to tweak Joomla; even if you charge very little it will probably amount to the licensing fee.

As far as the back-end of EE goes. It's also very customizable, and my client has had no issues using the admin tool.

$400 for that Web site. You're doing a disservice to the industry, my friend.

If you want free, easy, and tableless, go with Drupal at http://www.drupal.org.

Ok, change of topic. What steps, advice do you have to offer in order for me to be able to market myself at a wage that you feel is decent?

Since this was made personal and I feel I need to defend myself, how should I go about getting into 'the industry'? I have a degree in graphic design and a small portfolio of webwork. That last job I applied for asked for my hourly rate, and I said $15-20 and they told me they offered $10 and hour for entry level (plus, they never even offered me the job). I have only had 2 paying customers before this job, and both jobs were even less money than this. I could easily tell this client to take her $400 bucks and go to a big company that offers template webpages, but then I'd be out of $400 (which I need bigtime because my roommate moved out and that's basically her share of the rent).

So what should a person in my situation do? I've been unable to get a job with a firm in my area, moving is out of the question, I really don't have much client experience, but I have a skill set that some people are willing to pay money for (and its enough money to me that makes it more than chump change, even if it is just chump change to you)

Thanks!

Ah ok, that makes sense. I understand your comment more now. Yeah, I think I got myself in a situation of offering more than I could handle. But at least it will force me to learn a new CMS. Thanks for your comments. I sent the client a mockup I did in photoshop/illustrator. If they don't like it, I don't think I want to put the energy into another design and might back out of the project.

The client has already bought a domain name, but they want me to take care of the hosting and bill them for it. I told them at the very least I'd need their login information for the domain name. Is there anything I need to consider that I'm forgetting? I figure I'll just sign them up for 2 years with iPower web, transfer the domain name and be through with it. I've never bought hosting space for a client before. So any advice would be helpful. Thanks for everything.

...they want me to take care of the hosting and bill them for it.

Just an FYI - this means that you'll be fielding calls/emails from this client every time the server is down or a page doesn't load correctly. And they'll want you to fix it--fast. Because, after all, you are the hosting company in their eyes. In order to make the most of your time, and recoup some of your overages incurred from doing their website for a measly $400, charge a nice monthly hosting and maintenance premium. I think that $200/month sounds fair.

Just have to say that I'm new to the site, new to cms, new to css...and this thread rocks! I've recently been discussing the "business" end of things with a friend who does it for a living, and this thread is right on. He has told me the same things, "don't charge nothing" being the thing that perked my ears up the most.

Thanks for the honest answers, guys; this is just more confirmation for me!

I'm going to ask another question in a new thread, but I just had to post here first...this thread rocks! :-)

Like wilddoktor I'm new to this site and this thread is great!

The only thing I would add is if your rates are too low you'll also have
difficulty in finding work:

"if it is not expensive enough it can't possibly be good enough" seems to
be very true in all web-related work.

My first freelance gig I charged £x per hour, then spoke to a friend who
was in the industry too and knew my work - he told me to double my rates
if I wanted to break into "interesting" work... so I did and it worked :)