Reasons Writers Aren't Marketing Themselves?

I've been creating web content and information products since 2006, primarily on the WF and for local brick and mortar clients. If things are slower, I fill in free time at content mills. So, reliably, fourth quarter of the year, these mills try to slash expenses and lower the flow of content that is ordered. Panic ensues, and writers freak out en masse. Forums fill up (individual site forums, WAHM, Workplacelikehome) with conspiracy theories and arguments, and it seriously looks like a lot of these writer are dropping 500-1,000 words on some of their posts.

And I sit here and scratch my head, and wonder, why aren't they even ATTEMPTING to market themselves? Setting up a blog? Selling PLR content? Coming here and setting up an account, building a reputation, and then posting an ad? (in the interest of full disclosure, that may or may not be why <---- this chica is here) Instead, they're at each others throats, expecting the magic internetz to give them a living, and then freaking out when it doesn't happen. Color me confused....

Am I just missing something? I took about a year off from forum marketing, as workflow's been pretty steady -- did the Google algo updates change things so dramatically that webmasters and marketers aren't buying content any longer?

Or is this just an example of individuals not knowing where/how to market, in your opinion? If so, I may be pondering some Kindle publishing in the "How to Market Your Content" arena.

Thanks for info/comments - I may sound snarky, but I'm also genuinely confused.

 

I would guess that the majority of writers that are 'freaking out' are those that produce run of the mill SEO content, especially if they're writing for content mills. Since the Google updates this year, many webmasters have realised that quality content is a must if their sites are to remain penalty free. Writers who write well (in my opinion) haven't lost business, and are still as busy as ever, whilst those who churn out the poorly written, keyword stuffed crap are suffering. I don't wish a loss of income on anyone, but I'm glad that people are finally starting to see the importance of high quality content and the importance of writing for readers in place of search engines.

 

Maybe that's it. It just seems odd...like people who have the ability to save themselves are instead rushing around screaming about the sky falling.

I guess if they're mostly SEO writers producing low-ish quality content, maybe there's less of a market for it and that's part of the concern. Or if it's not what they do full time and they're looking to do easy-ish work without putting in a ton of time marketing/applying for jobs/etc.

I usually spend the end of the year working on blog posts, editorial calendar for next year, pondering PLR content ideas. But I try to do my budgeting on an 11 month year to make up for the lull I often see in December, as well, so there's that.

 

I have always found the run up to Christmas to be extremely busy. It's usually July and August that are the quiet months for me, and I always have to put aside some cash to ensure I can pay the bills and the rent during the summer.

Freelancing is not a stable career and unless you have contracts which agree to provide you with a set amount of work each month, anything can happen. I know a lot of writers struggled at the beginning of the year after the Panda update as large companies suddenly stopped needing masses of content to use for guest posts.

I guess the key is to just pick yourself up and start applying for new jobs and sending pitches to new potential clients. Writers who are good at marketing themselves are likely to be the best paid and those that are dealing with a constant overflow of work.

 

People who focus on doing quality work like good writers usually (most) suck at marketing. Allot of bad quality work people often are fantastic at marketing. Often the guy who is great at doing the work is broke lives in a horrible place drives a beat up car compared to the one who has no skill but can market. That's the world we live in.

 

People freak out because content mills and marketing forums like this are the only place they know to get work.

It's understandable to freak out if the only place you visit for work is a place like here or Textbroker. Hell, I'd be freaking out constantly if I relied on Textbroker. All it takes over there is one comma that an editor doesn't like and they'll demote you to Level 3. That's an utterly ridiculous rule for the pay scale they offer might I add.

I think a fear of rejection and fear of failure also play a role. I was pretty nervous talking to an actual board the first time I pitched a website to a medium sized company. I was used to pitching websites to small business owners who'd invite you over for a beer to discuss their site. Now, you have an entire board of people in nice apparel who want to know how much money it will make them.

A lot of people know that writing for $1 per 100 words is pathetic and no way to earn a living but at the same time, they don't know where else to go. I think some people have gotten into the mindset that writing for the prices you see commonly used around here is just the way things are.

I think another thing that scares people is how subjective writing is. One person might think it's a brilliant work of art and another might think it's trash that can't be salvaged. They might believe in their own work but will others feel the same way if they try to reach out and market themselves?

Hell, there's a thread made by someone recently asking for .50c writers. On his website, one of the featured articles is a bland and misogynist article about how fat women are disgusting slobs. Most people look at it, cringe and shake their heads but he thinks he's getting genuinely quality content. Just for conversation sake, I'll find the thread and the article.

Thread:
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/write-content-and-earn-money-rewards.2733719/
I'm sorry I lied.. it was .60c..

And here's the article
http://opinionpost.com/health/obesity/9/24/2014/Are-Fat-Chicks-a-Disgrace.html

So, I think there's a lot of reasons why people don't or are just simply too scared to market themselves.

 

Oh and this a million.

We have people like Iggy Azalea and Nicki Minaj who are worshiped as brilliant musical artists simply because they had an amazing marketing team behind them.

 

Don't forget One Direction

 

One Direction. Point taken.

Fear of rejection and lack of marketing knowledge make sense, I suppose

 

I believe it is the competition that they are facing as against marketing their skills. Everyday I hear or read content writers asking for paid reviews on forums, which saddens me. The point is that customers like to buy content only from writers who have several online reviews, who have shown that they can be trusted and who definitely write quality content. Basically ones who have proven themselves.

Who doesn't want to succeed and earn money? I think they are just losing out on competition.

Being in this field from past 10+ years I know so many native writers who are working at $1/100 words. How will non-native writers compete with that? In such a scenario, you can't even think of marketing yourself.

 

Having gone through all this recently, it's very hard to know where or how to market yourself unless you know someone who is an established freelancer who can mentor you. Staring from zero and searching for information on your own most likely leads you to the content mills and forums where "cheap" is the word most commonly used in want ads for writers. Like Khovai pointed out, it's easy to get the impression from there that 2 cents per word is simply the market standard. Combine that with the often capricious, questionably competent and writer-abusive editing at content mills and I'd guess a lot of people just give up on the idea of freelancing full-time and just do easy mill jobs here and there for a little side income.

Might have happened to me too but I got lucky establishing outside direct relationships with a couple of clients who liked my content mill work a lot. Working directly with people willing to pay you a reasonable wage is such a night-and-day difference from the mill/cheapo SEO hustler forum experience. From there you can start to put together a "real" freelancing career but the path to that isn't readily apparent at first.

 

The writers are usually fixed in so much of researching before writing a single unique copy that it is so exhaustive to invest in other activities so it is best advised that a writer can go in for a dedicated source that can be used just for spreading the article to wide corners as unless the content reaches the audience well, it is of no use writing so much and then spending so much of efforts into it.

 

I don't think there is a single explanation as to why content creators are not marketing themselves.

1. Content creators and buyers alike are wary of scammers. I have seen a lot of reports over the last year of customers requesting content and then balking on payment, and so-called writers not delivering too, or delivering stolen/rehashed content. I think a lot of these people are choosing to wait for the right opportunities rather than place themselves at risk.

2. Some in the business are just too busy with work from recommendations. I don't mean to brag, but we have never paid for advertising or promotion of our services, we have a website and social media profiles, and we engage on some forums, but that's all we need to do. Others might not even need that if they have a good client base and real-world networking, where one company immediately recommends them to someone else when they know they're looking.

3. Many only do this part-time, but there is quite a lot of work out there for us when we look in the right places. I am personally very busy right now, without ever really marketing or promoting myself. We still have the capacity to take on a lot more and spread it out through the team, but my own working day is full and has been for the last four years. If you're working alone and you already have ten clients requiring daily content, marketing your services is a little pointless if all you're doing is turning people away because you don't have the time.

4. And, of course, there are some people out there who really do need to market and promote themselves to get started, but they just don't have the time, money or knowledge. As you rightly say, there are probably some who thought it was a good opportunity, then discovered that it actually takes more work than they expected.

Some have managed to build trust and a name for themselves and no longer need to promote their services, others don't have the resources or motivation to make that first move. I think the secret to all this is being able to get into the right circle and give an excellent service, then you'll likely never need to market yourself again. Cultivating friendships and partnerships is key to this business; delivering a great product or service gets you the support of your customers, they will then recommend you to everyone they know. It's making that first move that seems to be the most problematic.

 

This right here. It's a shift in the market that all of the shitty writers weren't prepared for. People expect quality content now. It becomes pretty hard to mask bad writing by saying that this way the text is better for your SEO.

I've seen some F-level writing from "freelance writers"...and they always had something to say about why the quality turned out to be really bad. Excuses and accusations were in their arsenal all the time. These people were always advised to advance their language skills, vocabulary to make their work more acceptable. But no. They were fine with how things turned out for them, at that time. "Hey, why should I care, change or try to make myself better, when I'm doing pretty good right now?" They never listened. /rant

Sorry, I've dealt with some pretty nasty narcissistic writers over the years. And they suddenly can't handle the pressure now.

 

Write for people. Write for your audience, help them solve their problems.
Then, your content gets passed around naturally, organically, on social media.
THEN - the search engines will rank you.

 

You're not missing anything. And this isn't a new problem. It stems from a variety of things depending on the writer.

1. Some are scared. Many writers are terrified of marketing because they don't understand it. They think marketing equals pushy sales tactics, and they don't want to be seen as "selling themselves." Sales is only one small part of the overall marketing picture, and writers can market themselves effectively without any pushy sales tactics. But many don't know that. So they avoid marketing as much as they can.

2. Some are naive. They don't research the freelance market before jumping in. Then they get advice in terrible places from people who are either ignorant or out to get their money without caring about helping them. It's common in the freelance writing world. And if you learn from the wrong people early on, you fall into traps like obsessing over job boards, bidding sites, CraigsList, and even forums. That's not how you get the best gigs, but it's the only thing some writers know, because it's all they can see or all they were told to try.

3. Frankly, some are lazy or they feel entitled. They don't have any interest in building a real business. They feel like they deserve to be given "jobs" instead, more like a contract employee (completely different thing). They don't spend their time building a platform because they don't feel like they should have to, or it seems too much like work. Some go onto job boards assuming they're better than everyone else there and that they should easily land all the gigs they want. So it's all they attempt. And others see it as the path of least resistance (meaning the least amount of work).

It's the same reason so many writers used to rely too heavily on content mills despite all the warnings the rest of us gave. We knew they'd cut back, sell, completely change their payment models, or go out of business in time because we've watched many others do the same before them (before they were called "content mills"). There was no mystery there, except to the writers who relied on them completely and got screwed when assignments suddenly dried up (though, in the long run, that's probably best for everyone).

Too many writers are stuck on this "now, now, now" mentality. They need money now, so they make bad business decisions out of desperation. Instead of starting their business part-time while they take a temporary part-time job for the more stable income they need, they start cramming their schedules with garbage gigs that do little or nothing to help them build their businesses. That, in turn, gets them stuck in a lower-paid rut where they often don't even have time to market themselves to better clients because they're stuck turning around so many low-priced articles each day. It's sad to watch, especially because it doesn't have to take that long to land much better-paying gigs as long as they work hard for it. I've seen far more writers burn out than pull themselves out of that situation. But it's another part of the problem of freelancers not marketing themselves. Sometimes they simply don't leave themselves the time.

 

Honestly, I think one of the biggest problems is that writers just don't know how to market themselves.

Especially online. Many think internet marketing is so easy, but it's a large area of expertise to learn and the material to learn it is hard to find.

not that there isn't an abundance of IM material - but most of it is rehashed stuff that doesn't really help. You really have to dig deep to find what works, and spend a little money besides.

Also, and I hate to say this - but the truth is that a good portion of writers are probably just not very good. They create clumsy articles and such that are grammatically poor and turn off a reader.

it's possible to charge hundreds of dollars per hour, or thousands for a single writing project - but you have to build up to that. In my opinion, copywriting is the best way to earn as a writer.

By and large, people don't put a lot of value on a blog entry or an article. Some smart business people will pay $25 for a blog post, but most want to pay $5, if you're lucky.

A writer has to learn to sell. Once you can sell, you can make a living, both by helping your clients' sell and by being able to sell yourself at wages that pay the bills.

 

Plenty of buyers value blog posts and articles. It's not uncommon for pro-level markets to pay hundreds of dollars per post (sometimes more for feature-style posts . I routinely earn as much hourly in business blogging as I do with copywriting projects that pay much more per-project (white papers and case studies for example). There's nothing unusual about that. The problem is that most beginners don't know how to look beyond publicly-advertised gigs, thinking they represent the larger market for bloggers. They don't. The best gigs are almost never advertised.

 

........ and here is me searching all gigs under the sun for the best ones!

Is it because the advertisers fear that they will get bombarded with tons of emails and requests from people who claim to be 'writers' who are attracted to the high pay ( …..... I assume here that by 'best' you mean high-paying) while they're actually not?
How do you, ultimately, come to know about such gigs? Through references? Through a strong network or social media presence?

 

That's a large part of it, yes. The moment clients post public ads offering pro-level rates, they can be swarmed with hundreds of applications from people who don't come close to meeting their criteria. Some of my own clients have tried it in the past, and they found the process rather terrifying. It's a huge time drain, and most writers at the level they need don't use job boards anyway. So they're advertising to the wrong people to begin with. Other options save them time.

And yes again. You find those gigs through references and a strong platform (which a strong social media presence is a part of). It's largely about who you know. Once you're writing for high-level markets, it's easier to stay there because the referrals you get are more valuable. Clients paying hundreds of dollars per post for professional bloggers aren't going to refer you to gigs that pay $25 a post for example. And sometimes your point person with a company will leave and go elsewhere, getting their new employer to hire you while you continue to work with a new point person at the old company. But it's equally important to build visibility and a solid reputation in your specialty area (and most of the time a specialist will earn more than a generalist -- the expertise you bring to the table is worth significantly more than basic writing skills).

There are three typical ways highly-paid gigs are awarded -- referrals from people the client trusts (their colleagues and employees for example), by searching for a writer who meets their needs (you must rank highly in search results for key terms to get these gigs), and by receiving direct pitches (traditional query-based marketing). When it comes to blogging specifically, you also have to be willing to work without a byline a lot of the time.

While there are some niche blogs that pay well and will give you a byline, many of the top gigs are for private companies, such as small business owners and corporate clients. These aren't blogs run to make ad revenue. And that's why they often value their bloggers much more. They understand other value points that come with hiring pros -- building or maintaining a reputation that can affect other sales channels, using "content" to drive conversions for other things, etc. They also often hire ghostbloggers, crediting the post generically to the company or staff, or crediting it to the owner or a key employee. The point is that they're very busy and don't have time to blog on their own. And some are brilliant business minds, but not great writers. That's where freelancers come in. To pull off these gigs you have to be able to adapt to another person's "voice" and know how to ferret out decent stories or angles -- you'll often handle more of their content strategy than simply drafting posts.