Asking "how much should I expect to pay for editing, design, and layout" is like asking, "How much should I expect to pay for a software developer?" It depends on the expertise and experience of the person you're apt to hire, the size of the project, and a number of other factors. Not the least of which is "How awful is the text to begin with?" and "How much formatting is necessary?" and "How much of a PITA will this client be?"
That said, I'm a professional editor (as well as writer) who has bid $4,000 or so for a project that sounds similar to what you describe (though that was a full-length book). I'm an eensy bit well-known ::cough:: so I expect you can pay less; depending on the expertise of the book editor, you might need to pay more. (And I'm too busy right now, so that's not an offer of assistance -- just a ballpark number.)
I wrote an article last year about the "how to" of making a living writing open source: http://www.itworld.com/open-source/80180/building-your-caree... ...or, actually, a series of articles. Maybe it'll help. (Because it's not just "who's doing it" under consideration, but "how.")
The article isn't trying to argue the causes of the low female:male ratio. It's just setting a context for why it's necessary for there to be organizations to address the problem.
There are LOTS of articles that try to figure out the cause. This isn't one of them. It's a useful list, instead.
These days, it's a little bit of a turnoff. At a minimum a job ad including "ninja" or "rock star" communicates to me that you can't otherwise quantify what you want, so you use a vague description that doesn't help a prospective candidate judge whether she's suited for your company.
I'd rather see a job ad that's much more explicit in what the company wants, whether that's technically ("5 years of Python"), attitude ("We want someone so passionate about chocolate websites that she'll jump up and down on the conference room table... but please, don't, it cost us a lot of money for that table"), or in visibility ("We expect to recognize your name; this is a job for someone who probably needs no introduction").
The demo was very good at giving me an immediate experience. Except I never could figure out how to move items around.
I wonder if you might want to include some "below the fold" stuff in the demo, or maybe as its wrapup, that gives me a hint of what else I could do, even if it's not in the demo. I.e. "we won't show you here, but you can also create fancy reports..."?
There's also an online survey -- THAT we had no trouble filling. You can collect facts in an online survey when you know all reasonable/possible multiple-choice answers ("Which IDE do you use?") but they are useless for asking, "Why?" or "What would make you change your mind?" Those do need a conversation.
I do try to avoid pestering communities, truly I do. Mostly I'm an ordinary participant!
I, for one, miss the social contract. But then I was a CompuServe sysop by 1990, and ran several types of online discussion groups (including ZDNet/AT&T's InterChange, which nobody else remembers). There was incredible value in the people who owned a stake in the forum's success (particularly anything vendor- or company-related) in choosing moderators who knew how to create a balance between being <a href="http://advice.cio.com/esther_schindler/6_stupid_mistakes_com...">both barkeep and bouncer</a>--not the least of which was a sincere welcome to the community.
Even when I haven't been involved in running an online community, I've always been a participant in several of them. And yes, some women need to feel "safe" before they will come out of lurkerMode. (Obviously I am not in that set, but I expect the woman who wrote the blog post to which I linked does count herself among them.) For instance, I'm a member of two women-in-IT tech groups (a general one and one specifically for web designers/developers, and believe me, you can't shut them up). The whole notion of women-in-IT and its reflection in online communities isn't going to go away just because some guys (and some women, too) say, "But really, you don't need a separate space."
(As you can probably tell, this is a topic very close to my heart.)
Interesting... but it's not all that different from indeed.com, is it? Indeed does include jobs from job boards (including relatively obscure ones) but treats them equally to company websites. (They also have some waycool comparison and salary data that's fun to play with.)
Part of what can be annoying about the "rock star" label -- other than that it's a buzzword -- is that it's now a buzzword without a standard definition. At one point it clearly meant "you, o techie, are a recognizable name and thus a brand unto yourself." But in the last few years it's come to mean "miracle worker."
Incidentally, while the earlier link to the "what do I charge" is a good one, most of the computer consultants' discussion has moved to http://openitforum.yuku.com/ -- nice folks, too.
You can also find more data at Janet Ruhl's realrates.com. It is a database where people share how much they're getting for what kind of work. The home page is no longer updated but the database is live with people adding info.