Is $0.02c per word too high, or am I doing something wrong?

Some of you may be a little frustrated with me, as I've offered articles on DP for $0.02 per word. This was my tactic to "crack into the industry" and prove myself as a worthwhile writer. I believe that jhmattern is telling the truth in saying that there are higher paying jobs, but I need to charge a little lower to begin.

I'm discouraged, though. I've seen people charge the equivalent and find success. I tried the same, but had absolutely no luck. What did I do wrong / differently?

I've also tried writing articles and selling them: with almost no luck, even in the health niche.

The links above mostly lead to my threads. What am I doing wrong?

 

Yes, some people can successfully transition from low-paying gigs to much higher-paying ones. However, most don't. There are a few reasons for that:

1. It's not as easy as saying you're raising your rates (at least not if you're looking to make a significant jump - obviously there's a difference if you want to go from $.01 / word to $.02 / word compared to if you started at $.05 / word and wanted to increase your rates to $.10 / word). It's possible that you'll have to start targeting an entirely different market of clients.

2. If you've built your professional image around low rates, that's extremely difficult to scratch to start over. That's why marketing based on rates is never a good idea for service-oriented professionals. You need to start by re-working your professional identity and how you project yourself to prospective clients. Get higher-quality pieces in your portfolio that would convince a new client base that you're worth the difference in rates.

3. Never expect prospective clients to automatically know why you're worth the rates you're charging now. You have to come right out and tell them. Your website and portfolio pieces should help you do that. Remember, the client's objective will always be to get more and pay less. Your objective will always be to make more for doing less. That's just the economics of it, and again why you shouldn't be marketing on price when it comes to services versus a market in tangible goods or something. You need to be able to take things above that by having a strong selling proposition that shows benefits to the client that prove your work's value to them. A lot of freelancers struggle when trying to move away from a price-based marketing strategy to actually having to talk about benefits, because frankly they don't have any. If all you can write is what millions of similar low-cost writers can write, there's no benefit in paying you more, so you have no added value. That's why I constantly am telling new writers to specialize and focus on building credentials within those specialties.

4. And of course it comes down to networking. Writers are constantly referring clients around to other writers, whether we can't work a project into our schedules or it's just not our cup of tea. If we don't know what you specialize in, and we aren't familiar enough with you and your basic writing style, we aren't going to refer you. Why? Because our referrals say something about us. I often refer people to other writers and then have them come back to me later when they want a press release or something, because they remember the favor and remember that I knew what quality writing was if I was able to refer them to it. Who you refer is as important as being referred.

 

I think I must stress the third point that jhmattern just made. If you haven't got a decent portfolio, clients aren't going to accept your rates. I'm very new to this site, but I've already scored a few jobs at $0.02 per word, simply because I have a decent portfolio.

Also, make sure your charing in respect to the task. Its alright to charge $0.02 if the client is looking for some good quality articles, but if its just rewrites or something similar, then they're going to choose someone who's offered a lot less than you as its just monkey work.

 

Wow! Thanks for such detailed advice! However, I didn't consider $0.02 very high. I haven't even tried to raise my rates, and I can't seem to sell anything. Even at such a low rate, why aren't people buying? Am I picking a bad market? Or is it simply flooded by pseudo English speaking hacks & nobody cares about quality anymore?

 

@ThatLeeroyGuy, thanks for the tip. May I see your portfolio, just so I get an idea of how you are going?

It sounds like $0.02 is what someone established here charges, but how much lower do we need to go to compete with the low rates that outsourced writers are charging?

 

www.tkddesigns.co.uk/writingPortfolio - Its nothing special, has a couple of decentish articles and I've made most of them pdf files. The main idea for a writing portfolio is so the client can get a sense of how you write.

Oh, also another little tip. Don't throw about lots of fancy words when you're contacting the client. I keep seeing a lot of people here showing off and if you look at it from the clients point of view, yes you can throw about fancy words, but if you write like that for their article (which they may assume), then you're going to confuse most of the people who read it and the article becomes useless to them.

 

I would recommend do research a lot

 

Useful post

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Look at others threads.

See what they offer and compare it to your own and adapt.

 

This is so true, most of my assignments come exclusively from networking and clients are often willing to pay your rates if you were referred by someone with credibility within your network

 

Where have you been my whole career, oh sound advice?

Mmm sarcasm

Trusted, at some point you would have begun forming a client base by charging rates lower than you currently do now & advertising your services. I guess that's what I'm aiming at now

 

I would have to agree with all of the advice you've been given. I started out charging low and I'm getting myself higher rates based on how I sell myself to clients and the referrals I've gotten.

I also think it's important to find your strengths and market them - I thought I would be a parenting writer but I'm a better parenting blogger than I am a writer (there is a difference believe it or not). However, I find I am more attracted to writing on personal finance, careers, working at home, business, women's issues and product reviews. I didn't plan for it to happen that way - it just sort of worked out that way. I still write on parenting but not as much as I'd hoped to.

 

@Writingcreations, your rates are quite high! I'm impressed!

If I could sum up this thread, the keyword would be referrals!

 

dcoops Thank you! I will take that as a compliment because I've seen higher rates than mine.

I think one thing that I've been successful in is explaining to my clients that the rates are almost always negotiable. What I charge will depend on many things, how much I know the topic, how much research is put into it and whether or not the project will secure more work from them. Plus, I fully explain what these rates will get them and I get pretty detailed. People like to know what they are getting for their money.

Most of my work now comes from networking and referrals as I mentioned before so I am pretty comfortable stating why my rates are worth it.

 

Quality articles, good networking and sound referrals are what you need to transition to a higher-paying market. Also, you could consider taking a little time off DP, and then return after a short while with revised rates, and a new image.

 

Part of commanding good rates is knowing your target market. I have discovered that I can make anywhere from $.01 per word to $.10 per word depending on what type of client I target. Writing content for startups and sole proprietors almost always nets me the low end of that range. Then I started writing content for an attorney and I reached the upper end of the range. You need to have a niche and make sure clients in your niche are willing to pay your rates. In this case, I got more money because I had specific legal experience (I worked as a paralegal at one time) and because I was able to do legal research and write well on a specialized topic.

 

$0.02 (£0.01) means $10 for a 500 word article. You would have to be a good writer and delivering perfect quality before ppl wanting to pay that rate.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=877831
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=530254

The rate that is going there is $2 - $5 for a 500 word article. Yes it might be written by someone that doesn't live in the US or GB but it doesn't look that bad seeing the comments.

My 2 cents...either get a unique selling point fi articles ready to spin (include variations of the paragraphs/sentences/words), build your portofolio or lower your price and hope to get it back up after some good reviews.

 

I started from the ground up on Elance and slowly raised my rates as I gained my feedback. The good thing about the auction sites is that the buyer can take it or leave it. You set your rate and there's no real marker of past fees. The clients are likely to keep you in their contact lists if they see you doing a good job as well.

These days, my personal rate is $25 for 500 words. But I take on a lot of bulk articles at $12 per 500 words. I re-distribute them to my other writers who complete the work to a good standard for $5. Then I just tidy up where necessary and take the margin.

It's quite a cool position once you're established, but you've gotta do some slave labour to get the reputation for good quality output.

 

We don't accept projects for $.02/word anymore. Yes, there are clients who will pay more than that, no, they won't be hiring based on price. Do not attempt to compete on price. That's a game you can't win.

When busy clients know that by paying a reasonable rate (the lowest we'll go is $.03) they receive well-written, intelligent articles, which exceed expectations each time, they don't balk at invoices.

My suggestion...bill by the word, but don't charge by the word.

What on Earth do I mean?

When advertising for a job, don't look for 200, 500 word projects. We no longer take such short assignments even at $.03 word, unless the topic is really interesting. Writing one article for someone is kind of a waste of time.

Show that you can write all the text for a website, and instead of being a prostitute they visit for an hour, you become the wife they keep for life. (Sorry about the analogy, couldn't resist.)

For example, yesterday we shipped off a complete 5-page HTML information site for $87. As a bonus, we rewrote the sales page for a PLR e-book pack and arranged a piece of the pie, which is great because the client is covering the ads.

These days, every e-mail from that client means $75-150 dollars of work, usually a pack of articles for a new domain. And we barely need to communicate.

My advice to you is to forget about those who won't pay $.02/word. Real clients value the services of a writer and pay accordingly.

Put up some killer sample sites, and if you are worth your rate, work will flood in. Yes, even on DP.

That's where we find all our clients.

Amana Mission Publishing Ink

 

continue trying and try charging similar prices with your competitors.

 

Well, my copywriter makes 500 word articles at $3 each, and quite frankly, she rocks!