Greetings all,
I have had limited but similar situations to most those described. I agree that pre-production may be a semantic misnomer, but prefer to seperate the time in my mind, if not in fact, when not working at studio rates. Depending on the budget a project may have, the amount of demoing already done on selections, and the preferences of the artists, pre-pro time may be anywhere from 4-5 days to 4-5 weeks.
I realize as Jules points out that many artists would not like this, but that may be the nature of your clientele. If I am working as producer for a project, it may be a group, or a signer/songwriter thing, they often will not have a record deal yet, or a very small one only. They are pretty much looking to me to tell them what they need and how much it will cost.
Perhaps this would better be characterized as artist development and spec work, but it is done with the end goal of a completed CD or EP (seems to be the preferred shopping format lately) in mind.
Even if the project is being funded by a small label, most of them are being made with shopping to larger distributers in mind. I think having several days or more to work with arrangements is very helpful, and is to me critical for doing a good job. I applaud any of you who are more advanced that are able to do these tasks while paying the studio rates. As mentioned by most other respondants, having some kind of DAW to drag to rehersals seems to be the trend.
As far as charging, I believe it should be negotiated into the overall fee for production, and one would want a per diem if you have to go out of town and live where the band reherses--this would also include travel and lodging.
Cheers,
KT [here's hoping my sig works...has been broken so far]