Beware of dodgy 'Native English' writers

@Thales

I couldn't agree more - I am part of a small group of copywriters in the UK, we have just started a new content service focussed on delivering quality. The biggest problem for us is the huge amount of ads and posts promising "quality" and delivered in the equivalent of native English.

Your rates make sense based on the amount of research and work that goes into the process and the final product, the writers that work for our site are all working in Publishing or Advertising - and when you compare the rates that companies spend on decent copywriting $200 an article even looks cheap!

We have only just launched our new site (thecontentshop.co.uk), but it is our hope that enough people will realise that site visitors value quality content and this way can potentially become repeat visitors as well as feeling confident enough to engage with a brand or buy a product.

Out of interest, do you do article re-writing too?

 

@thecontentshop

Aye fella. There is indeed a prevalent misconception among the masses on what constitutes the term 'writer', similar to how a traditional practitioner of medicine equates their service to a professional doctor.

I applaud you guys for the effort and intent behind thecontentshop dot co dot uk and I wish you the best of luck. If I may contribute an analogy here: An individual of means never visit a run-of-the-mill car dealership in search of a new Bugatti. Instead, the salesman attend events and locales frequented by these individuals to indirectly introduce and speak about his Bugatti in an informal setting, generating questions and interests, which eventually will lead to a sale. In addition, at the risk of overstepping my bounds, perhaps you may want to include a premium rate category in your rates schedule, which is an attractive and reassuring feature for clients in search of quality.

Wrt re-writings, not really, unless a request is made by an existing client to improve on an article from another provider - which is a very rare occurrence, tbf.

 

@Thales

Thanks for the feedback (certainly not overstepping the mark at all), really helpful to hear from another of our kind! And useful to get your feedback on rewrites - its obviously something we have experience of but it just seems strange that people would get articles written and then pay for rewrites - seems to make a great case for just buying quality content in the first place!

 

@thecontentshop

Please don't mention it. It works both ways. There may come a time when I will be the one asking. And you are absolutely right on the re-writes.

 

Although I agree with most of what you write - $200 an article?! I believe that if this were what you are getting for an article, you would not be here writing about it. You would be using that time to write another $200 an article.

Sorry but some things are just too ridiculous to say the least!

 

Well, in all fariness, REAL writers do get a hefty fee.

Carol Tice, for example, gets up to and over $100 per piece.

Her blog: http://www.makealivingwriting.com/

One of her posts on how she makes so much: http://www.makealivingwriting.com/2010/11/05/how-i-make-5k-blogging/


Many corporations pay up to and over $1 a word for bloggers.

Magazines pay up to and over $1 a word.

And writers (including copywriters) have plenty of play time inbetween jobs, so (though I do too much damn playing!)....

 

"You get what you pay for".

/thread

 

Nice, now shall we look at what drove them to do this? You(Not personally but as a part of the "market") have only yourself to blame for this development.

You know what they say: Pay peanuts, get monkeys, and when you expect western folks to be the monkeys the cheap non-native writers will "innovate"

 

If the writers are from India or Pakistan that’s not harm as long you will get quality article as per your requirement. So I don’t think it’s issue and people know very well when they place order US/UK person cannot write 300 words Article for $3 or $2. I only look quality not people if the people deliver quality content as per my need I’m always happy with.

 

Hi there we are looking for a good writter for our web pages, with hooks and catches to draw the customers in. We are also requiring good blog writters and as this is a massive mine field we don`t want to make any mistakes.

Thanks in advance

 

I wonder what you'd say if you see my thousand odd posts in another forum I frequent to. What a waste of time, eh?
Seriously though, some downtime between writing is good for a writer. All work and all that jazz about Jack...

 

A mate of mine recently got paid $1,200 for a 1,000 word piece for Kerrang. Now quit with all your damn playing, dude, and start typing

 

Ouch... if you want someone to provide original content that hasn't been done already, then this is the wrong forum for you to be honest. You will have better luck hiring an actual freelance journalist/writer for say £16,000 a year starting salary? That sounds good to me.

What you don't realise is that since you were born, you have learned how to copy other people. You were taught to walk, and talk. That is copying sounds and movement. Original content in the context of an article that touch base on a topic/subject that has never been mentioned in the past... well you will pay dearly for that- and I mean a hell of a lot. 99.8% of content writers are not experts. They merely have the ability to research a subject and write about it based on their own assumptions. They would still have to research it though.

Unless they are experts. But then again experts would not frequent a forum like this or bother arguing with others about 'how much their services are worth.'