Posted on behalf of a good real-life friend whom has done over a thousand dollars worth of article work for me over the last year. He isn't familiar with Digitalpoint so here's his offer for writing services - only contact him in regards to work via his e-mail address (englishwriter@hotmail.co.uk) as I don't wish to receive any communications or questions: Pete
An English writer using American spelling and currency mind! Good article though, looks to be good value for money. Best of luck, I'll be sure to throw any extra work I cannot handle in his direction.
Hi Cobalt, Aye.. with it being generally the American audience webmasters are targetting (being the largest demographic) most writing he does is using American spellings and naturally it's easier dealing with dollars with all of these Americans about the place. Pete
I'm an English writer, myself, but I think in dollars and usually write in 'American' for content and copywriting. Most of my money comes from the US market, so us Brits have to adapt to the buyer. The English Writer's rates aren't that high considering that he's a born-and-bred Brit. Too many buyers these days seem to think they can get away with paying pennies for quality content. It's a pleasure to see another British writer bucking the trend and charging reasonable rates for a job well done (almost as high as my own!). You get what you pay for - never a truer phrase spoken. Good luck, mate. Just don't steal any clients from me, or I'll sick Ian Brown on ya.
Don't knock the American spelling There is such a demand for it that I've gone my word processor on one computer set up for American English and the word processor on the other one set up for English English. Sadly many Americans will reject articles that are not written in American English - I've even had knock-backs from article sites because of what they considered to be incorrect spelling.
It's one of those niggling problems we Brit writers always have - even when we're writing in American English there will always be differences in word usage that a spellcheck set to American English can't possibly pick up. The old chestnut, of course, is this example: if I was attempting to convey indifference I'd write, as a Brit, 'I couldn't care less', as is logical. However, Americans have developed the phrase as 'I could care less' (I've always wondered why that is. Anyone know?). Obviously no spelling or grammar check program would pick that up and so I'd look, to an American editor, a little on the dim side. It means that I have to either be intimately familiar with all the differences between the Queen's English and American English (and there are hundreds - it isn't just a matter of dropping the 'u' from colour and replacing a lot of 's's with 'z's) or say bugger the whole thing and just write naturally. Tough choice.
Those Americans egh.. yeah I've heard tons of them on here say 'I could care less' and it's really quite silly when compared to the British 'I couldn't care less'. I believe a long time ago they decided they needed to change the english language to make it their own and began making little changes. I'm sure this is fact and it's on Wiki somewhere but I can't be arsed looking and frankly "I could care less" if it's true! Actually I do care and here's this little torag that started the spelling off and I was right! That's the bastard. Pete
Actually a lot of Americans don't like that phrase either and make a point of using the variation that does make sense.