How low can the DP forums go?

Ever since I registered at Digital Point I have noticed that it is a buyer's market for selling writing services, but over the course of the past 12 months I have seen nearly all decent paying freelance writing jobs vanish. And as bad as the trend was getting I think it has gotten even worse since the start of 2008. When I look at the job postings I see many jobs offered for a penny a word or sometimes even less than that. Still, there is a never ending stream of lowly paid writers that are applying for these jobs.

The point that I am getting at is that I think that all of the decent paying writing jobs here have disappeared, perhaps for good. It may be the free market system at work or a lot of people who think that they can write because they own a computer but regardless of whether you believe that it is bad for the industry or not, I think the day is done on trying to find a decent paying (not rich) writing job on DP. The fire sale prices and cheap rates have won.

 

You're probably right.

I don't use DP as a way to get writing/editing business though.

This place is flooded with people who are just starting out in business or who are still on "level 1," so it's only natural that requests/offers are of that variety. Nothing wrong with it---it is what it is.

DP isn't a place the "industry" even knows about, so I wouldn't use it as a gauge for how things are going for pro writer/editors.

 

I joined DP past April 15 so I can't make an overall judgment on this subject, but from my own experience I have seen cheap rates are "trendy" at this place.

People who offer their services are competing like if they were betting at the poker table and sellers are just doing the same.

There is a laughable offer posted my someone who wants "college-degree writing quality" offering $0.001 per word though.

I got a decently paid article from a buyer who "loved" my writing quality and promised new assignments that were empty promises because I have seen this person taking the lowest-poor-quality offers posted at the B/S/T area.

It's not rocket science figure out those are poorly written articles just by analyzing the penny-writers wording on their threads or answers.

 

I have no problem getting writing gigs here varying from $.20 to $.80 or so per word. If you're looking at the ads, there's your problem. That's not how you get decent gigs on forums like this. And you're probably seeing less "decent" gigs advertised to begin with because we have far more good writers hanging around here than a year ago (and I don't mean most of them over in the BST area), meaning the gigs are probably getting filled through increased referrals privately.

 

There are some good writers and there are some cheap writers.

For writing 10 articles on a mini niche site for getting a few cents to dollars a day by doing some SEO, people here aren't looking for quality content that people will like to come back to. Here they want quick articles which visitors will just glance about before clicking away at the adsense unit. These are articles that only passes copyscape.

So on that logic, If I am willing to pay 4-5 dollars for a poorly written 500 word niche article, I would certainly be willing to pay 10-20 dollar for a high quality article that is readable to a Human and not just google. And it the article makes it to digg, then I would happily pay more...

 

The downward trend is caused by the crappy writers that were and maybe still are on DP asking for .20/word or more but either the article would just be terrible grammer/spelling or it would be taken from somewhere.. so people that had the budgets for these types of things said basically DP is a scam factory (which it is.. this year has been the worst and its only getting worse day by day)

So if your an honest writer your not going to find any good work here for the most part.

 

I used to purchase writers all the time, but most of the content just wasn't converting. I was spending more on writers then I was making. You bundle that with the fact that ad revenue has dropped across pretty much all major ad networks and there you have it. It's hard to pay your employees when you're not getting paid.

 

It's the concept of demand and supply at play. With more people offering their service for peanuts, it's not surprising to see the paying rate drop tremendously.

 

this is nothing else but natural market evolution. Once you're up, once you're down. And it's not only writing services, it's everything else too. The house you have bought for $400k two years ago could only be worth $200k now. So don't blame DP for having writers offering their services at a lower rate. It's a simple game of adapt or be gone. That's the way it works in free market society.

Imagine a car repair shop in small town Mississippi has been making a decent living for 10 years. Then all of a sudden their business stopped and they can't make the ends meet. They learn that at the opposite end of town, somebody else opened a car shop and is charging half of what these guys do. So they can either adapt and remain competitive or they can start complaining about how low can source of their business go? It's a clear case of "adapt or STFU?

 

I echo with what you say muncle! Not to sound harsh but are we not enjoying fruits of free market? Cellphone which had been a richman's gadget is everyone's must. A laptop costing $4000 few years back comes at $1k. When we can accept these generously we need to welcome competition from cheap writers too!

Its true there has been a drop in rates paid to writers, still there are buyers that pay well. In my case, I had some DPers paying me 5 cents a word and I pitched for less than 1-cent-a-word work to be in the race, lest I am handsfree and jobless.

 

Not true. As I already detailed, honest writers can get plenty of good work here if they bother learning how (something I've told them how to do for well over a year now, but most still don't "get it"). And if anything, the higher paying clients have been on an increase, not a decrease - they're just not stupid enough to post an ad publicly where they know they'll be bombarded by pitches from garbage writers. The decent-paying market is almost entirely "underground" here - but it's definitely here.

 

It is also 2 different types of writing.. I buy cheap for some things and quality of other things. Right now there is pretty much cheap being made

T

 

Apparently it seems true that DP has fallen in to the cheap-hands(both writers and buyers).I have been also observing since the time I joined here(August last year). I was ready to take a couple of assignments as well when I was not busy with other tasks. It was difficult to get a higher payment.I was fortunate enough to meet few good webmasters here who cared for quality in true spirit.It was not common to see someone paying $10 or more for a 500 word article.But I got much more than that.
After a considerable break when I returned last month, I found that the things were changed. I could observe people(you may call them writers) ready to do words in almost nothing.Globalization(perestroika) and liberalization (glasnost) have started showing their impacts here as well.But very surprisingly, I found several taskmasters ready to pay more.Although, I hardly tried to write for them as I was busy already but it was no less happier scene to see this market grow.
My experience leads me to say that against all odds DP is growing and it is growing with quality and cost both. In this sense Jenn is right when she says that all those "High" one are working underground.If someone wishes to find a quality writer several options are always open including requesting the esteemed ones to recommend a most suitable writer.
When you think of having a holistic picture ,the market will take you to a long rollercoaster ride and there would be lot ups and downs. At the end you will certainly say that it is growing, and revlutionizing at a very fast pace.

 

Totally true ofcourse
And most are scammers
Hosting for 1$ with like 1 terabyte bandwidth etc :s
Translaters that are doing 100 words for only 0.01$
You can't imagine :s

I totally agree mate, but it is impossible to stop it...

 

You didn't understand what I wrote. I'm not talking about the so-called underground for hiring private writers on DP nor am I talking about referrals. I am speaking about the publically posted writing jobs being increasingly low. You went straight over the point that I was making -- that the bar for publically posted writing jobs is getting lower -- and went straight to a different point.

Jenn, I know that you make it a point to keep encouraging writers to find higher paying jobs and you point out that such jobs exist because of your own revenue, but if the public standard for what rate commonly accepted for a writing job continues to go lower, and the quality of writers also decreases, it isn't a good thing for the overall marketplace no matter how you want to spin the story. When I first started here I found work with three employers that paid decent rates from jobs posted right on the content creation section. Those kind of jobs have gone and have been replaced by 1 cent and under rates and employers demanding increasingly obnoxious qualifications. That is what I wish to talk about, not how to better increase my skills or visibility or finding work in some underground referral system. Frankly, my opinion is such that the publically posted jobs reflect on the quality of the overall work pool associated with a site. If there is nothing but bargain basement job postings and writers willing to accept those rates of pay (and employers willing to accept the low quality), then the amount of time that a writer will have to spend to find a nugget of gold amongst a river full of rocks just isn't worth it.

Also, it isn't fair for you to say that only "honest writers" will find these sorts of high paying jobs work "if they bother learning how". Your personal experience as well as your individual strengths as a writer will factor in on what sort of road you travel seeking freelance work, not just referrals or marketing. I don't think that selecting the word "honest" was really the best choice of wording.

I have seen the same sort of argument weighed against the buying websites component of DP. Prospective site buyers have consistently mentioned of the generally low quality of websites offered for sale on DP whereas a higher level of sites seem to be offered on other competing webmaster sites. Like it or not, a perception is often just as important, if not moreso, than having experience and talent to back up one's reputation. Is DP's reputation really that sterling when compared to other networking / content providing / webmaster sites out there? In my opinion, not in the content / copywriting employment department.

 

If that's all you meant, then that's fine. But beyond mentioning what you've seen posted, you said "I think that all of the decent paying writing jobs here have disappeared, perhaps for good.... I think the day is done on trying to find a decent paying (not rich) writing job on DP. The fire sale prices and cheap rates have won."

My point is that it's simply not true that cheap rates have "won" as you said there, or that there are no decent paying writing jobs here. There are a LOT. There are simply different ways of going about getting them.

Instead of trying to blame the market, look at your marketing tactics. If the good jobs aren't advertised, but that's how you expect to find them, it's not that you can't - it's that you have to alter your strategy for reaching your target market. That's true in any line or work - not just freelance writing, and not just through forums.

This isn't a DP thing. This is life if you want to work as an independent contractor in pretty much any field. There are advertised gigs, and there are unadvertised gigs. The bulk of highly-paid gigs generally come through referrals. Not wanting to build that network will do nothing but hurt yourself. And it certainly doesn't reflect the overall talent pool here - if anything, we have far more professional copywriters around DP than we did a year ago. You either learn to network, or you lose gigs. That's just life.

And for the record, you spend less time finding those "nuggets" when you have a strong network. As a matter of fact, the clients come to you - that's the whole point. Building a strong network of colleagues, past clients, and prospective clients is always "worth it."

Look again, and you'll see that I didn't "select the word." I was responding to someone saying "honest writers" couldn't find work here. I was saying that, yes, honest writers can. Nowhere did I say that only "honest writers" will do anything. And like it or not, referrals and marketing are how prospective clients find out about those individual strengths as a writer.

I never said DP's reputation was sterling. In fact, despite the increase in top notch writers showing up here, there's still less competition than in other places, which is precisely why it's been such an effective place to network and exchange referrals. Webmasters keep an eye on the decent writers in different specialty areas and refer them to others they know who don't want to post publicly precisely because they know there are a lot of writers who won't fit their needs (and they don't want to be bothered with their pitches). Keep in mind - this isn't a writer's forum. It's a webmaster forum, and it's simply fortunate for those of us targeting that client group that so many are assembled in one place. You either learn how to navigate the system (and adapt to its changes) in order to effectively reach your target market, or you don't.

 

I agree with that. You will get jobs from your permanent clients who are willing to pay according to your rate. I get clients referred from my permanent clients here.

 

At dp, there are still many "standard" and some good and some great jobs.
[The great jobs are Mostly "underground" only, NOT the underground forum before someone rushes there and starts offering services ]

Don't let the number of unbearably cheap writing offers and the number of people shopping there pull you down.

 

This is somewhat encouraging news for me an artist and designer.
My reason for selling cheap craigslist ad work is to gain testimonials from people that have paid something, even if it is a little amount. From here I am in the proccess of putting together a website that will charge a decent price.
I assume there are those here that are willing to pay a descent rate for writing and/or design but I don't expect it. So, my plan is to use the cheapos while they think they are using me. I get to build my portfolio, receive testiomonials and have them pay for it.

I also think of this as a lossleader. Give something at a cheaper rate and gain a customer that will pay more in the long run because they like and trust you.

 

these customers are out there.