I have to say that this is the BEST response yet, DP is a webmasters forum, WHICH means most webmasters want the "wholesale" webmaster price, Its just like when people ask for domain appraisals , you have the webmaster price and then the "end user" price, 95% of people on this forum are looking for wholesale rates. I also agree that many writers here are worth more then a penny a word, but dp is not really the place for that type of writing, Long ago there was more of a market for high priced content, but now with so many highly educated students that are jumping into this game, Its going to be real hard to get top dollar here... I mean some of these 14 - 18 year old students can type way faster then us baby boomers and are still in school , so they are used to preforming at there best , And $10 bucks an hour for a student is worth it, In fact My wife writes well , and ONLY for 1 cent per word, Could she make more, Probably , BUT , making $8 an hour from home and being able to be home with the kids all day is way worth it, So for all the 5 cents per word writers there are many places that will pay you that , But dp will be tough Just my thoughts ....
I hadn't considered the wholesale angle, and that's a valid point. Most buyers are business people, they want the best price to maximise profits, I understand this and if I were in their shoes I'd want the same thing, however, the practical effect of paying low prices over a sustained period of time is that the churn rate for writers will always be high, and the quality of writing will always vary considerably. As for the statement that 95% of buyers are looking for wholesale prices, this may well be true, but buyers who think this way need then to accept that they will inevitably have to keep replacing good writers as those same writers graduate to higher paying work. The more experience a writer has, the better quality will be their keyword density and SEObility (is that a word?), so buyers who are prepared to develop relationships with their writers will benefit from this, and the incremental cost to them won't necessarily be any greater given the extra profit to be earned, which after a period of time becomes largely passive. On the other hand, not paying more for their articles will mean they need to continue editing articles for their own personal needs (read SEO), which of course reduces their profitability and increases their expenses, and given that most think their time is valuable, could mean that their actual expenses remain quite high, probably higher than just increasing the pay of the writers they've developed a relationship with.
Welcome to one of your first lessons in Economics, Supply and Demand. As long as there is an abundant supply of people who can write passably (to web standards) in English, the price is going to go down. It is very interesting that someone brought up Wal-Mart and the "mom and pop" stores. Wal-Mart shut down a lot of "mom and pop" type stores, but this is mostly because of the stores' inability to distinguish itself when faced with a discounter like Wal-Mart. As a "professional" writer, one whose product is far superior to that produced by the collective "Wal-Mart" of DP's Content Creation community, you have to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd. The problem is, I would estimate that the people who are shopping for content in this forum are looking more for quantity than quality. Personally, I like the funny sentence structure and improperly conjugated verbs. After about 5 minutes of editing for proper keyword density, I've got some original, search engine friendly content, that grammatically isn't too much worse than the average blogger's rambling. Honestly, I feel that you may be in the wrong place. In a forum full of people looking for hot dogs, you are selling prime rib. If you want to keep with it, figure out a way to sell your prime rib to the hot dog crowd. It's innovation in business that makes the mom and pop kick the crap out of the Wal-Mart. Remember, if price was the only thing that motivated people, everyone would drive a Kia! Feel free to drop me a line to discuss business innovation! I love it!
This is called competition. Just because someone is doing the same thing you do cheaper, doesn't mean it's bad work. Plus, no one else's prices should worry you as it's all up to them to set their prices.
I also agree with this, People are way to fast to judge the "penny a word" writers But the funny thing is we write for half of the more expensive people They just farm it to us......
I found it interesting for someone to mention that walmart manages to sell "leading brands" despite being cheap. But, does that mean they go about looking for the cheapest CEO or that they come to DP when looking for who can write them the cheapest press release? Of course not. Why? Because when someone has a serious audience, and business, they don't skimp on things like that. The fact is that the internet has created an entirely new market for writing services, and one which we shouldn't confuse with the writing profession. I very much doubt that journalists at the New York Times and copywriters at top marketing agencies shit their pants about the rates that writers charge in emerging economies.
The problem is that everyone now thinks that they are a writer because they own a computer and a keyboard. Just because you can peck away at it doesn't mean that you know the proper way to capitalize, format sentences, quote individuals, do proper SEO, research articles or any of the other tasks that a properly trained writer (like myself) have paid the education system to learn, let alone turn all of that into content that reads well for the end user. I see many DP writers on here with stellar iTrader history but their messages are filled with capitalization and punctuation errors, misuse of commas, fragmented sentences, misuse of personal pronouns and so on. I also see writers that take assignments for X cents a word and then farm it out to other DP writers at a lesser rate, effectively playing the role of a manager. Nevertheless there is a market for that kind of content creation and they fill a need: cheap content but almost always at the expense of quality and experience. The years of experience that I have don't really pay off for me trying to find jobs on DP (although I have found two amazing gigs with fantastic and wonderful employers.) When I look for higher paying jobs that is when my experience and education level pays off in dividends. Any editor that works for a high-end publication knows how frustrating it is working with a writer that needs to have their work constantly rewritten or assignments completed inadequately. I've heard it repeated time and time again and it will continue to be the case because writing is a hard job to do and if you have any hope of being successful at it you need to have your work and your reputation be as professional as possible.
And the expensive writers make just as much as the cheaper writers except they do it in half the time or less. It all depends upon how you look at it, doesn't it?
Well I guess that would depend on how long or how much effort they put into getting the jobs,...... For us they just send it , we write it and send it back.
It all depends on the kind of writing service that you are performing but generally speaking article writing does involve some research and preparation. After all no one has all the information in the world in their brain. Or are you saying that all of the jobs that you are commissioned for require no research at all?
No, I am just saying that we do it for 1 cent per word, Of course there is some research involved, I guess My wife just has a natural talent and is not greedy...what else can I say......
Whoa, wait a second! Are you saying that the rest of us that charge more than 1 cent a word are somehow "greedy"? Now that's not a very nice thing to accuse other people who are trying to earn a living, feed their families and pay their bills! "Greedy" isn't the word that I would use to label any other DP writer trying to look for work on here that charges more than what your wife charges!
professional writing and spitting-out SEO articles are not the same thing - not even remotely similar. Just like sundaybrew's wife doesn't try to secure the New York Times among her client list, self-professed professional writers shouldn't expect webmasters to up their rates when they don't have to.
To be honest, I do not think that charging more than 1 cent per word is greedy at all. The people that charge more than 1 cent per word generally write at a higher quality than Joey's wife. Most of the articles that I ordered from Joey did not even pass Microsoft Word's Grammar checker, nor were they completely on topic. Also, in regards to the last email that I received from Joey, it is impossible to "fire a customer". I have experienced much higher quality when I order bulk services with more expensive writers. Promotional offers always seem to pull me into the trap of paying more, for example: if Jyoti were to close here "order 10, get 1 free" promotion, I would happily still place orders. I feel that people that ask for a higher rate are most certainly not greedy. They deserve the extra cash, but they will not necessarily receive the same volume of orders as cheaper writers do. I frequently order from cheaper writers, but most of the time I find that the articles are not of a very high quality standard.
Sundaybrew, please check your PM in regards to this thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=343016
Yea - I fired you all right, Have a look at my feedback pal..... OH WAIT IS THIS YOU ?, Umm,...Oh look it is.... and can be verified here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/itrader.php?u=21475&v=1&pp=40&page=2 WHICH IS IT Charles........ This is like the third time you are trying to trash me because I fired you, This just proves you are harassing me ...... It is possible to fire a customer, As for Trashing my wifes writing again, YOUR just pissed because we stopped writing for you at 0.7 per word..... Lets be for real...... Please send me an email, I must have missed your pm
That was before they were all rejected from the company that I work for. Also, I was not paying you 0.7 cents per word, I was paying you a penny. Even if you were, it is not much of a big deal, as your work was worth far less. Please do not trash my reputation for an act that should not have been made. Thank you. Also, I am near-positive that your wife would make a lot of edits to the work had the work be published on her own website.
Trash you>? All you do is follow me around trashing me,..... My Itrader is PROOF , that your work was 100% So what your saying is that you leave POSITIVE I traders for everyone right? Once again Have a look at my feedback pal..... OH WAIT IS THIS YOU ?, Umm,...Oh look it is.... and can be verified here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/itrader.php?u=21475&v=1&pp=40&page=2