Hello. I'm pretty new to this whole deal... Been surfing since '95 or so (my goodness! it's more than a decade!) but it was only for leisure 'till now. As was writing. I've been writing stuff, online and offline, for the best part of my life, and I've never really been paid anything for it... Unless you count what I write for my parents' work - my father runs a construction company and my mother is head of the English department for the school I went to and directs children's theatre as a hobby - which technically pays all my bills up to now. I've spent the last 5-and-a-half years studying, Biochemistry first, now Film Studies and Scriptwriting, and both have required a good deal of writing-on-demand up to now. And I have spent the last 3 or 4 years writing hideously long posts on forums and recently started a blog too... At some point I realised that people can get paid for doing what I do for leisure. And I want in!!! I have no idea where to start though, I don't know how to find work - anything that pays me to write is a dream, especially if it's related to any of my interests (check my profile, there's quite a few). Content writing, reviews and abstracts, anything that would get me started. And I really have no idea how much to charge anyway... Work is work, if it's something I wouldn't do "for fun" I'm bound to need some reinbursement, but then again I wouldn't want to overcharge and I do want to be kind of competitive (but not underpaid... oh, it's an odd balance, I know...). If anyone has any hints, tips or pointers, I'd be more than grateful. Thanks again, and happy to be part of this community
Work out what you charge, get a couple of samples ready, pm me (so that im first ) then post a public thread in the buy/ sell section offering your services. Thats as good a way as any to start.
Thanks for your tips I'll be sure to let you know when I do actually get started, but it's the "working out what I charge" part that has me a bit confused at the moment. I wouldn't want to overcharge - I need to remain competitive obviously - but it's still work, things I wouldn't be doing for myself, so I would need some kind of reimbursement If you do have any "legitimate" suggestions, please let me know. Also, if you're offering work, you're my friend Also, any idea what samples I would need to gather? I think I've written anything and everything imaginable, both for myself and for others... What do people want to see? Would an opinionated series of blogposts (which are already online at http://bunnydee.blogspot.com ) be of any use or should I raid my hard drive for different kinds of stuff? Thanks again
Ok 1. Do some reading on SEO copywriting 2. Expect to produce cheap and quick articles on the whole, usually between 350 and 700 words on all different topics 3. Look in the buy/ sell section here and see what other charge. Depending on your country and quality the rates vary. - The less you charge/ quality the more work you will get. - There are people here that charge as low as $3-4 an article - but usually quality is sacrificed. I remember being told by a friend that 0.7c a word is the industry standard. - Look up old threads and see what people offered/ provided etc. 4. Try other copywriting sites/ forums etc.http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=copywriting&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 5. Improve your typing speed - the faster you can type the bigger your profits. 6. Build your own site, so that you can come across more professional and overtime rise your prices. 7. Checkout article depot and you will see all kinds of article samples that people are using for SEO purposes and these will often be similar to the kinds of things required.
Design Agent > Whoah, that's so much help!!! I think about 0.7 cents a word sounds brilliant, if it's the standard then it does sound like a good place to start, and I can raise and lower it accordingly. I can't live with myself if I compromise the quality of what I write too much, but I have developed a few ways to work quite fast & efficiently over the years. And yes, typing fast is one of them The website sounds like a brilliant idea, I'll set one up tomorrow probably, just a quickie to hold an "online portfolio" of sorts. Great, I never had an excuse for one of those up to now... I'll do some reading up on SEO copywriting, I'm sure I can find quite a bit on that online. Once again, thank you so much, you've been great help Keep me posted for anything you need, now or in the future... cvpr> thanks, glad to be here
this might be useful for you too http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=48857 http://www.constant-content.com
Oooh, that's pretty useful indeed, thanks You probably already know, but you're an instant-response lifesaver
It might be worth putting a regular adsense banner up on your blog. There is a lot of content there. Submit it to some directories and add it to your sig in article directories. When you start your new site link to it from your blog. By the way the right nav is sent to the bottom in my explorer, but not in firefox. If you need help editing your blog template there is plenty of help here.
Hmmm thanks for the tip, I'll seriously consider that. It was a big step for me actually adding that "simple" adsense banner there in the first place. Not sure what you mean by the "right nav" though... I use firefox and everything kinda seems "as it should be"...
The right side bar is shifted down. Viewing with explorer here is a screenshot of the top. And if you scroll to the bottom you see this. Likely there is something you did when adding the adsense that did that. I notice also on the blog your image isn't working. I might have read further in your blog if I hadn't been under the false impression you were a man. I'm not terribly homophobic but your seemingly gay references to men I browsed across left me uninterested.
LOL. Well, most people who have been reading my blog up to now actually know me... Good point I'd think the nickname "bunnydee" would be enough to at least hint to the possibility of me being female tho I'm pretty sure you didn't mind the "seemingly gay" references to girls tho, right? Oh well... I'll try to find out what's wrong with the image anyway And thanks for the rest of the tips, really detailed
Oh, and I thought the way it shows in firefox was the way it was supposed to be, hmmm... Do you think I should actually change that? It's been that way all along, and both versions seem OK to me... Although the firefox version does seem more practical...
I'm not sure we're on the same page about this. The images I linked to are the way my explorer browser displayed them. I would consider "incorrect". As far as "versions" ...I'm fairly sure you are sending the same html regardless of the browser being used. But explorer and firefox will interpret things differently. A lot of people use Firefox, but the majority are still on explorer, so it's important for the page to show properly on explorer. You may have others look at it. But using explorer on the 2 computers here it's messed up.