Folks, Wouldn't running your own blog make you more money (espcially in the long run) than writing an article for some for $2? Am I missing something here?
Yes, but even pros don't do stuff like that. Why? Because what you're talking about takes marketing and business ability and 90% of writers (and I'm talking about the good ones) are weak in this department. It's a left side vs. right side of the brain thing. Actually, let me revise my answer. In theory, the answer is yes. However, as I've explained, for many the answer is no. It would be best to simply sell their work to others who know what to do with it.
I don't get the $2 per article thing... either but if you write articles and get paid more than that, you could make some money. And writing does not always mean you sell your articles. You might use them to submit to article sites or other websites to bring traffic back to what you are promoting. Maybe the $2 thing is to get experience? I hope thats all it is for!
Rightly said by GnomeyNewt, not this $2 thing but if you're getting paid well for articles, making money this way is not bad. As far as running your own blog is concerned, certainly that's more profitable idea. Probably, many people will disagree, but it's true that $2 article is not a quality article, and you cannot make your blog go great guns if it lacks qualitative aspect. This may be one of the reasons for giving preference to a $2 article on quality blog for some writers.
Actually, all the writers I know DO run a blog. Jhmattern, DeniseJ, me, etc etc. And they actually aren't that profitable for short-term. Most writers are looking for some quick and easy cash. Those who are looking for long-term solutions do have blogs. I think you are thinking of the cheaper content writers in smaller countries produce- they will go really low per article. The content is poor, but you get what you pay for. They don't do blogs because the content isn't good
I think what AlwaysThinking was really talking about was writing for yourself instead of someone else and not running a personal, part-time or whatever blog. And you're right. Most writers can't afford to do anything but write for others because they typically sell all of their "time" to clients. I can't tell you how many writers I know that have "I've been meaning to do X" projects that have been lingering on for weeks, months and years.
Hypothetical analysis : I write on avg 4 - 6 articles every day, 3 for my clients and the rest for myself. That makes it $20 / day immediate cash in hand and also means that I'm gradually building my online profile. The other articles go on my site, building my VRE and hence my residual income. Once I surpass the stage where my residual income (from the articles I've written for myself) crosses my article writing fee, I'll stop writing for others and write all the 6 or so articles for myself. Guess this is how every writer would/should think ~G
That's like asking if running your own business would enable you to make more money in the long run than working at someone else's business. Not very many people have what it takes to run their own business - blog, in this case - and be successful at it. Making money from a blog involves a lot more than creating a wordpress blog and blogging away. MarketJunction talked about what's necessary so I won't repeat that part
Becoz it takes time to generate revenue from blogs ... especially when you have only Google Adsense ... So someone looking for a regular stream of income .. goes for writing articles for cash ...
Blog revenue does take time, but not as much as some people think. Simply going for an immediate source of regular revenue is short-sighted. I'm a big advocate of "writing for yourself." Does that mean you need to develop other skills (like marketing) to be success? It sure does (that, or you need to pay to have someone else handle that). But it's certainly doable. I charge a lot of my articles. I wrote quite a bit more for clients last year, and I've been working on weeding out client articles completely in favor of my own blogs and sites. Even without aggressive marketing, I have one blog now making low $xxxx / month without a huge time committment, and about 4 or 5 more that I'll finally be pushing to monetize after the next PR update (next month I suppose). My own sites are definitely monetizing well enough to keep pushing that over client work now, but it did take several months. It's all about looking long-term. I'd definitely make more with my articles right now, but then in 5 years, I'd still be stuck writing on other people's schedules, and that's not what I prefer to do. If that's how you like working, then go for it. They're both viable business models. If you're only monetizing with Adsense, that would be the first mistake. As for writing $2 articles... people doing that generally don't have a heck of a lot of business sense and forethought as it is, so whether that group could potentially make more is actually kind of irrelevant. The real question is whether or not someone earning a significant income (that would be more difficult to give up) could actually earn more by writing for themselves. And if they market themselves well and diversify (blogging, sites, PLR, e-books, etc.), they certainly can.
If you have a new blog and you hire someone to write on your blog on a daily basis, you'll end up paying the writer more than you earn from your blog for about a couple or even several months despite agressive marketing. In the long run, it'll pay off - yes, but if you have nothing to eat within the time it takes before it takes off, you have a problem. If you have a new blog and you don't hire someone to write on your blog on a daily basis, you'll end up paying more for daily costs than you earn from your blog for about a couple or even several months despite agressive marketing. In the long run, it'll pay off - yes, but if you have nothing to eat within the time it takes before it takes off, you have a problem. Proposed solution: hire a multitude of writers, make them write on your blogs on a daily basis, and add to their daily quotas enough amount of work to offer content writing and sales copywriting services to other people. Pay them 60% of the revenues you get from providing content writing and sales copywriting services to people who need inexpensive yet quality writing services, and use the 10% of your own cut to pay for their blogging services. Anyway, daily blog posts range from 200 to 300 words, and this would be easy for professional writers that have been tasked to produce 2000+ words worth of original quality content on a daily basis, 5 days per week during the past couple of years. If you earn $x/month from a blog and you have 10 blogs, you have 10$x/month all to yourself even if you don't write even 50% of a word on the blogs. If you earn $y/day from each of your writers that populate your team of sales copywriters and content writers, you earn 30% of $y/day. If you have 38 writers, you earn 30% of 38$y/day. Get the Rubix thing going there, and you get 85% of everything that touches the palms of your hand every month - minimal writing work, but lots of marketing and managerial work. Come up with strategic marketing and managerial schemes that yield 10% growth percentages per week, train a few people, and hire them to strictly implement your business methods. Hire 10% more writers every week in order to satisfy the 10% growth rate of demand, add 10% more blogs every week, and you get a profitability growth rate of 40% every month. A man did more than this, and he in turn attained a 1200%profitability growth rate even without the blog thing going there during the last two months, which technically makes it a 600% profitability growth rate/month. He started out with €800/month as net profits, so do the math and you'll see.
I don't just have blogs, I am building a number of websites. I have www.funcrochet.com www.writerleads.com www.websitecontentplr.com http://homewithcharisse.blogspot.com http://charissewrites.blogspot.com and a ton more. I write, because it is my love, passion, and what I do best. However, I do have a problem, I am too busy writing to take care of my sites and blogs the way that I would like- Also, I don't think I earn more money with my sites and blogs versus writing- not at all. My writing site is here: http://www.primewriter.org (still working on www.primewriter.com; www.showmethepixel.com; www.writerway.com; and a few more, I can barely think of...lol.)
I like blogs and free webhosting too. As a writer, it is very easy to finish projects, then take some of the research that I've gained (I am becoming quite good at jeopardy, thanks to keyword writing) and throw up a free site. I have my hosted sites that I pay for, but the free ones aren't all that bad, as long as I can put google on them. I have had some of my older free sites do very well in the search engines, etc. Simply due to longevity...lol However, I make the most money writing Ebooks, and they are easier for me to write-they flow-etc. No way does a website or blog make as much as I can earn with Ebooks- so if anyone needs an Ebook, get in touch with me- let's talk! Charisse
This sounds like a formula for overworking and underpaying writers and is not a good business model. Professional writers typically don't work for those types of arrangements. Aspiring professional writers might accept your offer, but will end up quitting after a few weeks, leaving you to spend time hiring a replacement. Non-professional writers won't give you good enough content to keep your content/copywriting customers.
Sorry - I have my own network of writers - in-house and subcontractors, and I have just tapped a measly 2% of the skilled manpower resources of my country in this particular field of expertise! Thanks. By the way, did you know that jumping into conclusions burn at least 1000 calories ? Thanks again.
"...2% of the skilled manpower resources in your country..." So, there are only 1900 writers in your country? Please provide us with a link to this statistic. If we're discussing article writers writing for themselves on their own blogs, why would you even chime in with advice about hiring other writers? Based on information in your forum posts, you're only paying your writers around $.02/word. Ultimately, the advice you're trying to give only solidifies the original poster's point - in the long run, writing for yourself is more profitable than writing for an article miller like yourself.