DP not a Writers Heaven!!!!!

I agree with you there. I know quite a few published authors (and a handful of freelancers with decent magazine credentials), and I can't think of a single one that doesn't also write for the Web in some way (whether that be e-books, their own blogs, or for Web-based clients). As a matter of fact, I know writers who only got their magazine gigs or book deals because of their exposure on the Web. Smart writers simply know how to make it work for them, whether for additional income, a marketing outlet, or a combination of the two.

 

So true, Jenn.

 

Please let's not even call them writers - a good/experience writer must be expensive, not overprises though. Like there is a saying "we are not expensive, we are very expensive"

 

As a former book publisher (er, yes, another thing I've done) I would also note that any writer who has a web site with decent targeted traffic should be very attractive to book publishers.

I mean, most publishers expend serious effort on behalf of a few frontlist titles to get those books publicized places where 50K or 100K potential readers learn about the book. If you've got a web site with 500 or 1000 unique daily visitors, wow, you should be golden.


Example: Adam Engst, who publishes or used to publish the Apple computer email newsletter TidBits, was really popular with computer book publishers because he could promote every book he wrote to his 100,000 or whatever newsletter subscribers. (FYI, Adam was the guy who wrote the original Internet Starter Kit way back when...)

 

I agree with Jenn. It's all about marketing yourself.
I, myself, would want to hire top tier writers here If my budget for that particular month allows and Jenn is one person i'ld like to contact first.

 

I never use writer service but i always look for cheap price here as well. If you wanna good money from writing i dont think DP is the place.

 

Hi all,

i've been hiring article writters in DP, so far 2 of them, and i gotta tell you that i really like their works:

Unique, copyscape passed, fluent english... Just as i expected to my sites. I pay $40 for 6 x 400 words article.

And i'm willing to pay more if the content in unique, written by UK, US, AUS born writters, that can prove they deserve to get the job.

Overall, i get what i want.

 

I've personally found thle best money in becoming 'the best' as well as being known for being the best..

I focus primarily on one industry. Just like in affiliate marketing, find a niche, and master it

 

I think the range of what people make here is vast.

 

I've hired writers over the past 5 years, and from my experience, you get what you pay for.

If you pay $.01 per word, then you'll get poorly-written articles. If you pay $.05 + per word, you'll get quality articles.

However, its a 2-way street. Some writers are worthy of higher pay, while some produce crappy articles for a quick buck. So, even as employers, we have to be selective of who we hire.

 

If you're paying one penny a word, you might get junk, or you might get .. a diamond in the rough?

I've been on both sides of the table, I was probably overpaid when I started writing for the web, had no real idea what the heck I was doing. I'm a chatty girl, so I pretty much just wrote what came to mind, looked at a lot of examples, and over-edited. I always felt I didn't know what I was doing though, so I studied big time.. I read and read and read and absorbed.

I've since been published in paper magazines, I make more writing online, but ... I get to take those home to dad! YAY ME! I'd have worked for less when I first started out, I'd have worked for pennies a page, really, the opportunity to work from home is the average work away from home moms dream.. the problem is.. we don't come trained as Seach engine optimizing web copywriters .

On the same token, I've hired expensive and gotten excuse after freakin' excuse..

I've hired cheap and thought 'OMG this girl could take all my clients in one clean swoop'...

(I was going to insert the url of an amazing content writer here, but... she seems to be having SQL troubles.. can't be perfect at everything )

vise versa as well... Great spendy writers, crappy cheap ones.

I've also hired from DP and gotten copied (stolen) work, had to email clients, delete pages.. you learn reaaaaaaaaal fast. . .

 

I agree. I think pay should be decided reasonably and honestly after looking at the article, not before it is written. [But that's impractical for most purposes].

 

Who would want to hire a novelist or an author for writing content for a simple website, makes no sense giving 5 c a word. Any one with reasonable experience in the field working for 1 cent is enough. DP rules!

 

I laugh at you. Ha ha ha!

Charging based on quality is of course the best way to go about it. I'm not up there with the .25 per word folk yet, but I hope to be eventually as I work on writing and increase my range and my abilities as a writer.

For someone to even live off of 1 cent a word they would need to write 19,800 words a day. Now, I can churn out about 2-3 thousand words per hour, as my WPM is about 48. I would have to write for 8 hours, non stop, and without research. Add in research and it becomes a full 24 hour day. That, is just... stupid.

I'm at .02 right now, and I will be moving up to .025, then .03, .04, .05 etc gradually until I become self-sustaining. If it had not been for a bank error basically causing me to need more customers, I would have maintained my 025 rate. I know, I'm a scab, but right now I gotta get cash before the bank comes down on me and goes "I KEEL JOO!". By building up a reliable base of customers, hopefully I can sustain enough business to make 500 a week. I am very far from that goal at this point, but I hope to reach it soon. Gradually I want to up that past 500 into the 750 and finally 1k range. Right now I am at about 100-200 depending on if I get the order that I wish to have.

In other words, anything below a cent is just stupid. Hell, .02 is stupid. As I increase my typing I also increase my skill, and my education through the hardest part - research. It's easier for me to write than it is to research a kabiliadiliaquadritrillion things and then put it all down. I'd rather do opinion honestly, as I can pump that out quickly. The same with creative writing - which comes naturally and easily to me rather than... an article about toilet plungers from the 1800s.

 

A friend told me a story about a guy that had a website that had 50K daily unique visitors and he was having trouble getting Manhattan-based book publishers to bite on his book. The book was in the same field as the fellow's website. I guess your experience has been different but in my circle of writers having a successful blog or website isn't a guarantee at getting a book deal.

 

i think this is the good amount per word .......

if you take a chance to make more amount per word then go to that side.....

in market price 0.01 to 0.05 is good...

 

There aren't any guarantees. You're right. Traffic to a website alone won't get you a book deal. Frankly, most bloggers probably couldn't write a decent book, and many published authors still can't blog well. Some can do both. To get a book deal, you'd need to have a quality idea in a niche that isn't already over-saturated or so timely that it would be out of date by the time it's printed - just like any other author. And of course the editors have to like the style. The strong traffic is just icing on the cake and an additional selling point. Also, big publishers are far harder to please than smaller ones, and you often need to have an agent to get them to look at your proposal - so it would be important that the blogger find an agent who actually understands blogging and stats. If they don't get it, they can't help sell the book based on it.

I hope you're joking. At least you admitted that it's impractical. There's no chance that most serious writers would write material all on spec. Service providers set their prices; not the clients. The clients simply decide if they have the budget to afford the writers they want. Do you negotiate a price with your doctor after the work is done, depending on how you feel? No. How about with your plumber? Nope. If you need something that you can't provide yourself, you pay the set rate of the provider you want to work with, or you can try to negotiate up front. And in most cases in any service industry, you do get what you pay for.

At the same time, quality isn't (and shouldn't be) the only metric in pricing. Those who are saying that apparently don't know that much about the overall content publishing industry - they're more than likely the ones looking for cheap ghostwritten content with the same rehashed material as any other site in their niche just for search engine rankings. If that's what you want, then the higher-priced writers may very well not be in your price range. Well guess what... you're also not in their target market. Therefore it's no loss to them, and you should just look elsewhere.

Serious publishers know that a writer's background can be as important, if not more, than the simple article quality. For example, if a new writer without much publishing experience or credit can write a decent piece on breast cancer from basic research, should they be paid more than an oncologist specializing in treating breast cancer, even if their article may need more editing? Not a chance... that's not the way it works.

The most serious publishers (usually) credit their writers with a byline instead of only using ghostwritten material, because they understand that the authority of the writer directly reflects on the authority of the website (which over time often leads to higher traffic, higher backlinks, better natural rankings without obsessing over SEO, exposure from related outlets and the media who want to get quotes from the expert authors, and more money coming in from having the ability to negotiate higher private ad deals).

Professional writers often specialize for good reason, and they know how that market works. They spend a lot of time building a reputation around their name (many of them "bring readers with them" to the client, as they're already trusted and known - could be b/c they're a recognized author in the niche, regular columnist, etc.). They charge a premium for that built in trust that they've invested in, and there's no reason they should lower their own rates to that of someone newer who hasn't invested in building a reputation, just because they can put some decent words on paper. Like I've said here repeatedly, being a professional writer isn't about being able to write so much as it's about being able to network effectively and market yourself. Those two things will influence your rates infinitely more than just being able to write a decent article.

 

What Jackuul said.

That being said, I have found a few good clients here on DP and I'm still pretty new here. While I will admit that the pay, for the most part, has not been large, I have gained some regular clients and I enjoy working with them a lot. I like that DP allows me to get to know clients and other writers as people--reading past posts, etc. While I have learned my lesson in being "friends" with a client, it helps me to see clients as potential partners instead of employers and other writers as people I can hopefully learn from (looking at you jhmattern ) instead of the competition.

 

What the hell was i thinking
I meant that somewhat in the context of bad writers being paid high and classy writers paid low.

 

many low-labour-cost english-speaking-country members, that's why