Are Any Writers Ready to Give up on DP?

You don't care to start a dispute? Are you kidding me? You have been nothing but rude to me. I don't know what your issue is, but I am not going to sit here and try to convince you what I do for a living.

Go google my name and my articles and read them if you want to find out what I do. I'm a writer, or better yet browse through my ITrader and see what topic they're for, good grief.

Take a chill pill, really.

Charisse

 

SunHunter, she has just said that she specialises in writing and only does web design every now again, and I think we should get back on topic rather than picking at the business life of the OP. Also, writing is a real job. Freelancing online is no different to freelancing in real life. You talk about being lazy if you don't have a labouring job, but trust me, content writing online can be a lot tougher than labouring. You need to work your brain and think rather than just using brute force. Writing can be very stressful, and I completely respect anyone who relies on it for a living.

Anyway, back on topic, and yes, I agree, rates on DP are poor, but you can find clients who ae willing to pay the extra bit for quality content. In my opinion there are three types of writers on DP:

Firstly, those who accept the crap rates. This is the sort of person that is usually a less quality writer than the other two types, and will mainly come from poorer (not always, but usually) countries, where you don't need as much to live, so they can get away with earning, and living from, these awful rates.

Secondly, there's the group of writers that's in the middle, who work for the crap rates, but complain about the rates being so poor. No offence to her, but it would appear that the OP was one of these writers, and she (and anyone else who wants to make decent money from writing) needs to make the jump into the next level and ask for higher rates. If you don't ask, you don't get, and, although you may lose some clients from making the jump, if you network yourself well, then you will not only get higher rates (which will cover the loss in clients), but could also gain new clients who are also making a jump (from cheaper writers to more expensive ones).

The third type of writer, and usually the most professional and wealthy, is the type that has already made the jump, and knows their quality of writing is worth more than the awful rates that are often seeked here on DP. These writers will usually have a big range of clients who are all looking for quality. The sort of writer in this group will not even associate themselves with the lower rate writers, as they're targeting a different audience and therefore have no need to think about the other rates. For example, the manager of Ferrari doesn't need to worry about what Volswagen are doing: they're totally different and probably couldn't care less about one another.

Personally, I think this thread should stay exactly where it is. A lot of the writers on DP will only ever visit the Content Creation section, and therefore wouldn't see this thread if it was in the Copywriting section. It is important that writers in the first two groups see this thread so they can hopefully think to themselves that they won't accept poor rates, and then hopefully they will ask for higher rates, pretty much bumping up the pay for writers everywhere (if not-so-good writers are charging $0.03 per word, doesn't that mean that the better writers can charge double, maybe triple, maybe more, than that?!)

Anyway, good luck to all writers in group two who are ready to make the jump to the third group, and, I hope that those in group one are happy doing what they do: it's not easy writing for pennies, so, although we may look down on these guys, they deserve a lot of respect.

EDIT: Wow, that post went a lot longer than expected, hope you didn't get bored.

 

Do you mean to say that hard labor or blue collar jobs are the only "real life jobs" and freelance writers like us are lazy workers?

 

No offense taken, and thank you for your post.

I readily admit that I am, and have been since I began freelance writing, in the second category. It might be a mental thing, I'm not sure, but there are huge obstacles trying to bridge that gap. The highest paying gig I've had was $50.00 for a 400 word article, but the client treated me as if I were at his beckon call and expected me to track down the BBC and other major news corporations for resources. My "dream gig" quickly turned into a two week long nightmare for one 400 word, $50.00 article. Needless to say, the dream wore thin quickly.

I've also written a grant for a non-profit, the first grant I ever attempted that was awarded. Nearly 50,000 for the ministry, and I reaped a total of $300.00 half a year later- the prospect of jumping into the lucrative field of grant writing wore off quickly as well.

So, I do feel that these experiences have created a sort of mental block in my pursuit for higher paying gigs. There are many aspects of freelance writing and working with clients one on one that I feel far outweigh many other gigs.

When working with a client you can communicate with him or her directly, get a sense for what they need, and tailor your writing to their specifications. Many of my "online writing jobs" that have editors negotiating between me and the client, become time wasters. I spend a great deal of time asking the "editor" to explain to me what the client is looking for (knowing that the go between person gets a percentage of the writing); honestly, I get resentful if asked to rewrite or edit something because it wasn't what the client wanted. These types of jobs can be regular sources of work, but I find they slow me down, and I simply prefer working with clients one on one due to the fact I can communicate with them best.

I have raised my rates many times, but then the work dries up. I do agree that it's in the networking. But to bridge that gap and target the higher paying clients means networking, working, advertising, applying, and that takes time. For me, I would prefer a two week paid vacation that I could spend reaching out to higher paying clients. It takes time to reinvent, or market yourself, and during that time, the bills have to be paid.

It is ironic, that I'm the one who first set these rates and now it is as if I'm bound to them. But I don't take offense to your accurate observation. Most of the writers I know are in the same situation. Our rates put the food on the table and though we dream of higher rates, taking the time needed to go after those rates can interfere with the already scheduled workload.

But then, that's the beauty of freelancing. As soon as you set your mind to it, you can market yourself.

I'd love to hear stories of other women like me who made that leap from category 2-3. Because as it is now, I have been contemplating going to school for technical writing in order to make that transition.

 

Charisse, the thing is, if you don't make that jump (and struggle financially for a month or so), then you will never find the higher paying rates. Like you say, it's definately a mental block, and I hope you don't mind doing a quick analogy, which I think could be relevant?

Well, I will

When you run a marathon, you will quite often get about two thirds of the way to the finish, and then hit what runners call the "wall". The wall is obviously not real, but from exhaustion it feels like it is. You just feel so bad when you hit it, like all your muscles are dying, and, to be honest, you just want to turn around and walk off, but you have to push harder than ever to get passed the wall, take a deep breath and carry on running, and I think this is comparable to making the jump from group two to group three. Yes, you may lose a few seconds, maybe minutes, off your overall time getting passed the wall, but once you're on the other side the race becomes a lot easier to complete.

I think that the time you take getting over the wall is much like the time it takes you to market yourself properly, as the minutes you lose off your time will, in this case, relate to the financial loss you may experience in the time that you spend marketing yourself, but once you get passed this wall, you'll never look back.

Either way, I hope this has made sense, it's the only thing I could think of o), and I wish you the best of luck in getting passed the wall and crossing the line

 

Oh my gosh,
You made me cry-

Thank you,

Charisse

 

Well, for me at least...I am lazy

No, actually I don't mean to say that at all, there was a bit of sarcasm in that statement, but what I was trying to get across to the OP is that most of us are capable of working in the real world (this is a virtual world, virtual content, etc - but it makes real money); you can't work at McDonald's online, or even a higher level job (doesn't have to be entry level).

I have met a few people, and a few of my friends consider working online as a lazy person job, and one guy called it "free money" and the funny thing is...the guy that called it free money is on Ontario Works (welfare) because he is too lazy to work.

I am now taking myself out of this thread -- I try to stick to just doing business on this forum, but this thread got posted in the Buy/Sell/Trade section so I figured I'd make an input.

On topic: I do agree about how hideous the rates are, and I try not to subject myself to them, but even the best of us need to make money - with that said, if I have to work for minimum wage because the economy has changed, so be it. I really find no help in complaining in a section where webmasters will see it, and then they will post that they want content writers for even lower rates, and push the rates down even more on here!

 

Hi Sunhunter,

I think you missed the meaning or intention of my post. I never once believed that webmasters are driving the low rates on DP. It is the writers who set out to undercut other writers- though maybe I'm wrong, and maybe you are bringing up another valid point, or question.

Who is responsible for the pitifully low rates that are taking over DP?

 

It's a combination if you think about it.

1. Economy is falling, more writers are depending on DP to make it check to check, with less work (because of economy), they are forced to lower their rates to get more work.

2. Webmasters see the rates have recently decreased, and instead of paying those rates, they look for a price a little bit under (Heck I see people wanting 500 words for $.50-1.00 each a lot in the last few weeks) but that's just my opinion I guess.

Anyways, best of luck.

 

Best of luck to you as well,

 

Okay, we all know that the rates keep falling, which, is very, very sad. But, look, the only thing we can do about it is keep our rates stable, and continue to show off our quality. The business will begin to start crawling back to us after they realize that these undercutters just can't hack it compared to us.

 

I have a question?

Say i wanted to have an Ebook written on a specific topic, Would i supply all the information to be included in this or would the writer supply it with the information on the topic and do the research on it? And how much would that cost? Sorry I have never hired anyone to write so I'm not to knowlegable on this subject.

 

Hi,

When I write E-books, I typically receive just a topic and proposed word count. I perform all of the research myself. I generally just need a basic idea of what the main purpose of the book is about, such as "Internet Marketing Tip"
"How to Make Money Blogging" "How to Begin Working from Home" etc. and I can handle the rest.

I charge $10.00 per page and average between 20-30 pages per E-book. I prefer writing E-books to other content and can generally complete a book that size within several days.

Hope this helps,

Charisse

 

Thank you for the information Charisse.

I never knew there was so much involved in writing especially with being charged per word, My first lesson today-)

 

welcome to the new borderless global economy - powered by the internet and payment gateways like paypal. projects go the those who can provide at the lowest cost. too bad you are living in a high cost country and facing competition from those from low cost countries.

same complaints coming from us industries who are outsourcing to india and china...