I'm not sure about a number of things you said but I'll just comment on this one. I don't see writers charging less just to compete during these hard times. If you have reasonable rates in the first place, then looking for other clients willing to pay the kind of money for your expertise won't be hard to come by. It's not like we're asking for a million dollars for every article we write. We also take into consideration how much the actual going rates are, so we're pretty sure how much our clients are willing to pay us.
Copy writing is important for each and every site. However it tells about the quality of your product and services. It should be informative and worthy which helps you in increasing your traffic. ______________ Maria0809
It's not about having our heads in the clouds. It's about knowing our business and our markets, and how to market ourselves effectively at the pay levels we set for ourselves. I gave a few examples in another thread here recently where even top writers were sharing their many years' experiences - essentially that business often improves for freelancers who are good at the business side of things, rather than them having to lower rates. Smart freelancers are some of the least likely people to suffer during a recession - they often get more business as opposed to less. The ones who risk suffering are the ones who undervalue themselves to begin with or who made the mistake of choosing to market on price (any good marketer will tell you it's not smart to do this in a service-oriented field - something else that's already been discussed pretty extensively here as well). Higher paid writers are already more established, generally have better connections that they've built up over the years, and have plenty of references to get them their next gig (they're not the type of writer answering a lot of ads to land them, competing with other applicants - they often get the unadvertised gigs based solely on referrals, which matter far more than price to a lot of clients). Remember - those higher paying markets are a completely different ballgame than the cheap Web content markets you see advertised on freelance sites and DP.
I think that quality articles are at least 2 cents a word. That's the minimum that I charge for all of my articles, but it may be more depending on the type of article.
It all depends upon what it is that you want I suppose. If you want a general purpose article for general readers then looking to someone with a PhD in Physics is not the right choice. But if you are writing for an educated and interested audience for a niche industry then you would be far better to have a PhD in Physics write even if they can hardly form proper sentences. Those interested in Physics would rather know what the PhD thinks than what a 17 year read and repurposed. It is all about knowing the market you want to reach. -Gene
Same go's for anything really, you are worth whatever you want to charge but if you expect a lot then you better be writing some damn good articles.