Your Worst Experience Writing?

Ah, it's been a long day and I'm bored.

What's your worst experience writing? Could be starting out, or even recent idiotic jobs that you would laugh it if they didn't irritate you. I'm talking the $1.00 an article guys, the guys who want a 2000 college essay delivered in an hour for $20.00... you know the drill

Here's mine -

This was less than a week ago - I actually had a client (well, I'm calling him that, but he doesn't even deserve the term) who contacted me about writing 12 500 words articles a day for $10. Not $10 each (which is bad enough), but $10 total - the 'client' promised me that that would give me a rate of $300 a month, which was (according to him) absolutely amazing and that he already had '20 other writers' competing for the job, but wanted to offer it to me as he felt I was most capable.

I told him to buzz off in a slightly less polite way.

What are your writing nightmare stories?

 

My worst experience as a writer was working with content networks (both as a writer and editor actually). Long story short, they're never worth it in the end. With the last one I worked with, I really, really tried to believe they had the best interests of the writers at heart, and they talked a good game for a while, but ultimately they seriously disappointed. They're good for networking, but that's also something you can do independently. It's just not worth putting up with their crap, losing control, and still working under a risk model. If you're going to do that, do it for your own sites (you still have to write and market anyway, so you might as well).

 

Actually my story takes place today.

Guy wanted me to provide him samples of how I would write the 9600 words.

Then when I called him on it, he stated that he won't be contacting me, he has found others who would do the job even better than I would for less.

I said, fine; have a great time with them.

Nothing against people who are hiring but they seriously have to understand something here. Writers' time is so valuable, it's senseless to try to get a QUALITY writer at less than a penny, then insult them when they put their foot down. We understand that want the lowest investment into whatever project you are trying to crank out but in all honesty, you get what you pay for.

When sending samples, send three types of samples, creative, industrial and factual.

 

Mine takes place today too, coincidentally.

I submit assignment. Said "client" (for want of a better term) gets back to me with a "we are not going to use it" line. After about half a dozen emails back and forth (me mustering all my skills as a writer to send off the most ominous sounding threats, and him doing a whole lot of hand wringing) he finally comes up with a "Oh sorry, it wasn't you, I confused you with another writer" kind of crappy line. It's been a few hours since the last email, and I am still waiting on my payment.

Thanks Emirates Gallastico, I really needed to vent!

 

I don't even know.

But it will be fun to hear others talk about their misery.

 

Whats the going rate for articles? 2cents per word? More? Do "the", "and", "I", "a" count as words too?
Sorry for little hijack

 

My going rate is $0.10 per word, and when you get a project quote from a professional you don't have to worry about "fluff" being added to jack up the price.

As far as experiences go, mine was more amusing than irritating. I had a client commission work. I wrote some landing page content for him. He decided we should "partner up." I'd write the content and he would manage the site so wonderfully we would be rich in no time at all.

I said sure - just as soon as we have a nice, legally binding contract that states that all content is mine and if the site proves to be unsuccessful after X amount of time (there was a specific dollar amount mentioned) I take the content and walk. He would get to keep the site, of course. I also wanted to know details about how much the site has made previously and how his track record with site management and some other sites he's created profitably. After all, supposedly I was going to own the site 50/50.

Rather than seeing this as two professionals coming together with compatible skill sets and being forthcoming with information, he apparently decided I was a royal witch and that I was NOT the kind of person he was looking to work with. He told me so in not so many words. I'm sure he found a sucker somewhere to scam... The whole process took about two days worth of emails.

I also got mad at the same content network as Jenn, but I didn't have much invested when I walked. In fact they sent me a wire for $6 just the other day...

Not trying to scare any off partnerships; I'm now part of a terrific partnership with a nice, legally binding contract. Thanks to some link sales, I've actually made more out of the deal than my partner thus far (thousands more), but that's all included in the contract and the overall plan. Don't be scared of partnerships, but be VERY sure you're discussing (and documenting and protecting) a true partnership - not a means to give someone free content while they "let you have a portion of the profits, etc..."

Rebecca

 

Wow, these are some horror stories! I actually don't have a story that terrible to share (yet, gulp) but probably my most frustrating experience has been with sending off samples of my writing to clients along with how much I would charge to do their work only to get told that my rates were "too high". Believe me it wasn't high at all, I was starting out, and then I found out that there are people on here working for less than a penny a word...and I found out what he meant.

 

Internet Author- Yeah I have had those type of partnership requests. I just usually translate it into they dont want to lose out on any money if they don't have to.

WriteResults & Chant- I've been in that situation as well when writers think they are high and mighty telling me that they got someone who can do the work cheaper and FAR more experienced than I am. I just send them a note and wish them the best.

What ultimately frustrates me is that, no one really understands the dynamics that writers have to go through. Trust me when I say it can get tough out there. These idealist are looking for the lowest bid because then they will be able to get a higher return on their investment. I just know in the back of my head that the winners will always come out on top.

just my 2c

Jim

 

I buy content, usually through GetaFreelancer, etc. I've browsed other people's projects, and see many asking for $1/article. Even owing to "geoarbitrage," I don't get how webmasters think they can get great quality content for that price unless they're adding on to the article themselves. I'm fairly new to this field, so I've written my own content for a while to get a taste of the other side, so I know how long it takes to write a good, original, accurate article. I find a fair price to be $12-$25 for a great article ($8 to quickly add on to it myself), and I've had writers send me extremely interesting, high quality articles, sometimes way over the word count I asked for.

Surprisingly to me, when people bid on my projects, I always find that US-based writers will often bid the same or lower than other countries.

Just my two cents. I've had no bad experiences yet (knock on silicon), and I believe it's because I treat my writers with the respect they deserve. Or maybe I'm just in the newbie idealistic phase

 

My worst writing experience involved getting paid less $.01/word to mass produce keyword articles. The keywords were phrased in the most ignorant ways - "wedding planning California" and "carpet cleaning professional rate." I'd spend 10-15 hours writing 20-30 articles, stuffing in keyword phrases that made absolutely no sense, and end up getting paid a little more than $100/week. Not enough!

 

I think we've written for the same agency - I remember doing stuff like that too .

"snow planner ski" , "boat planning trips" - stuff like that

 

That's your typical SEO-writing life. I was once contracted by a successful SEO company to write like that.

Of course, I got paid more, but it was the same stuff.

It's what they wanted and they paid my rate, so "making sense" wasn't part of the equation.

What you just described--10-15 hours and $100 weekly--makes me cringe. No thanks.

 

I don’t have any horror stories yet, and so far I’ve only had to write one SEO piece.

“vacation rental home” “construction industry” “building materials”

Whatever the client wants, and no, it didn't flow the way I wanted, but it paid.

 

Unfortunately, mine was so bad I've decided to forget it a long time ago. And hence, I did.

 

I talk about these "experiences" on my blog all the time. I just did a post on one of my first jobs; writing 500 word keyword articles for $1 each! As you can imagine it took a lot of time and effort to get paid pennies...

 

25 different articles about 'facial peel' the most painful thing I ever agreed to do, in fact more painful than a facial peel

 

My worse was a set of 30 lawyer articles. They all had a city name and some legal term like "defense attorney" as the key phrase. You can't even begin to make these interesting. It was painfully boring.

 

In my case, what happened was that I asked for a 'raise' from the guy I was writing for since I thought he liked how I wrote and I was writing for him for some time already. He gave me a raise but not in the rates but in the work load, telling me that I would earn more in the process. Yeah right.