Greetings all! I'm new here, and thought I'd introduce myself. For the past four years I've worked in a tech support call center, and well, the economy being what it is, I've recently been hit with a 35% reduction in pay. I've always liked writing, but never considered actually getting paid for it up until about a month ago when I asked on a money board for extra sources of income and someone mentioned textbroker. So I did my time in the digital sweatshops and wrote a few articles there, before I asked myself whether it really was worth it to make $7 for a 700 word article that took three hours of research. I've set myself up on Constant Content, but haven't actually sold any articles there yet. I'm not looking to go totally freelance, but I definitely am looking to supplant my income and maybe make an actual job out of it instead of going cold turkey. So I've been poking around all kinds of online freelance and writing boards and stumbled across this one linked from the comments in one of the writers' blogs. Lack of a degree isn't making my job search any easier. Is it really that big of a deal to have a degree to be a writer on the web? Most of the places where I'm seeing freelance writers offered jobs either offer dirt cheap slave wages or want some kind of degree in anything. I had hoped to go back to school after I got some debt paid off, but with my current financial situation that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. I'm hoping to learn a lot from the people on this board.
Web writing does not require a college education. It requires an ability to express an idea well, with adherence to grammatical and spelling conventions, research skills, and ability to work within a client's deadlines. Your fee of $7.00 for a 700 word article is ridiculously low. For quality work, we have paid $30-40 for an article that long that was keyword rich. You might want to grab some keywords out of the air and write an article or two that focuses on each to use as examples of the kind of work that you do. Be sure to distribute those articles on the 'net with your byline so that others don't get credit for them--and you aren't accused of plagiarism. Good luck.
Thanks. I see the going prices for articles here on DP and it makes me a sad panda. Nice to know that others will pay more for quality stuff. I do have articles for sale on Constant Content that I'm asking higher rates for, just no sales yet.