What is going on with all these insane offers on the Content Creation forum?

Seriously.

The people who request 'professional grade' writing, along with a whole laundry list of other requests that must be met in order to 'qualify' - and yet want to pay $.01 (in many cases - a whole lot less) per word, really - what the hell are they thinking?

Further, the number of writers (if you can call some of them that) who go along with these asinine offers are the reason they continue.

It's mind boggling to me that they have the nerve to get pissy with you when you call them on what they're doing. "Well, if you don't like the terms, don't bid."

WHO in their right mind (operative words here) would LIKE the terms?

Lawd have mercy.

I can't be the only one around here who thinks like this.

I hope?

Eh.

 

What do you think is a fair price to write content? Per word/article?

Ok just visited your site from the signature. I totally agree with you if the quality is good.

 

I think the fair price is determined by the word count and the amount of effort put into the article. It is also greatly influenced by the performance, track record, and credentials of the writer doing the job.

There will always be people who are willing to do a job at any price - regardless of whether it's writing or digging ditches. So the fact that someone agrees to these asinine prices is not really my gripe. I find issue with buyers who post their list of demands - which include 'professional grade writing' - and end their ad with something to the effect of, "I'm going with the lowest price, so keep that in mind" or "I am only going to pay $1 for 500 words".

"Fair price" is subjective. Even though $.01/word may be agreeable to some, agreeable doesn't make it fair.

 

I definitely agree with you there. I sometimes glance through the content creation part of the forum just to cluck over what people are asking for. Buyers want native English speakers with that 'professional grade' spelling and grammar, and then want to pay the writer less per hour than said writer would be making wearing a paper hat and handing french fries out of a glass window to people in cars.

It reminds me of a comic that appeared on Freelance Switch not too long ago:

http://www2.freelanceswitch.com/freelance-freedom/freelance-freedom-97/

 

I agree. I might not have many posts here on this forum or anything but I can write better than the majority of my college campus whose majors are not called Writing & Literature :] I browse the Content Creation forums a bit and am quite appalled at the asking prices sometimes. It really discourages people like myself who want to try a hand at the whole freelance writing gig from doing so.

 

That's why it's a good idea not to waste time in the content creation section.

Remember though that everyone looks at rates differently. I'd consider anything under $.10 per word to be insanely low from any "professional" writer. Even $.25 per word is relatively low in the professional writing world. Coming from a strong PR background, I find it a complete joke when I see $50 or less "press release writers" offering services where they have no obvious credentials beyond being able to throw some words on a page.

The point is that what seems low to you might work for someone else, and what seems "professional" to you might be just as insulting (and bad for the writing profession) to others. While I despise the type of "client" you're talking about--the ones who want the world for a few grains of rice--I look at it a little differently now. Those writers who make stupid business decisions will eventually find themselves out of business. Either they up their game, or they'll be gone and therefore not my concern. They're also not in my market.

In other words, it doesn't really matter if they keep accepting those gigs. They're replaceable anyway, so when they go belly up there are going to be dozens to take their place. Those buyers won't go away. It's the job of those "professional" writers to know those people simply aren't their target market and to stop thinking those other writers are going to impact them. They won't.

Serious buyers will never settle for penny-per-word writers. They understand writing is about more than words, and they're willing to pay for what they get--sales, other conversions, prestige and authority status, regular readerships or subscribers, etc. Those who "get it" will continue to long into the future, and those who don't likely never will. So just forget about them.

Those absurd offers are really good for nothing more than amusement. I find that sharing the particularly pathetic ads for writers on my blog has a positive affect for many--they serve as reminders that we have to respect ourselves and our work in order to get others to do the same.

 

That's a good topic, i was also concerned about that. A person ensures you professional writing or rewriting and does his work for peanuts. He either doesn't have any respect for himself and his work or does it with lightning speed. To my mind, the quality is out of the question.

 

You got to love the people at content creation. I admit I started there but it came to a point where I realized that I can't go on forever working at those low rates if I really wanted to make a living out of writing. Besides, I bet I'm way more qualified than at least 95% of the folks getting work there.

So what to do? Find work somewhere else.

By the way, I love the way you use asinine. Used to be my favorite word in high school. lol

 

Well, I'm not the best writer (yet) and I charge $0.01/word. Obviously because I don't know any other sites except rentacoder/getafreelancer - the best offers there are even lower (SLAVERY, LADS! IT'S SLAVERY!), with very few exceptions. It's kinda frustrating.

I know that it's really low even for me ($0.015 would be more like it for now), but it's OK, since I'm underage and still live with my parents. I'll spare some money and take a proper English course, after that I'll probably go on freelancing a bit and send in samples of my work to a ton of magazines. Maybe I'll qualify to some

I feel sorry for all the writers here that have families to feed, I really do. I imagine how frustrating could it get when you do the math. You'd probably have to write for 16 hours a day to make a living if writing at the "rates" offered here.

 

There are so many threads on this topic - it's the difference between going to the dollar store and a designer boutique. There are always cheap goods and expensive ones. As a buyer, I accept that I generally get what I pay for, and as a professional writer (if you indeed have the credentials) simply ask for what you feel you are worth!

Just last week, I had someone e-mail me to do a full website (consultation, market research, implementation & SEO) for a budget of $300 - $400. HA! I don't come on the board though and lament that people want something for nothing. Everyone wants something for as cheap as they can get it.

So, the moral of the story: Don't fret about those threads here at DP. Advertise your services elsewhere. I frequently pick up good authors at Elance myself, and there are many other legitimate venues for getting paid what you think you are worth.

~tasty

 

Agreed.

And I hope that this thread will do the same.

The moral of the story, to quote your analogy, is that you shouldn't go into the Dollar Store and demand a Prada bag made of buttery soft leather, trimmed in 18kt gold accents......at a Dollar Store price.

I think it's called the "Content Creation Forum", not the "I'm Willing To Work My Ass Of For Nothing Forum". I may be wrong. You might wanna check.

It's the closest thing to asshole that I can repeatedly use without being banned.

But thank you..for your asinine comment just the same.

Ahem.

It's not just here. It's everywhere. Elance is the common site that people want to refer you to, but the offers there are just the same. There's no site that is truly the Be All End All of getting freelance jobs. It's best to strike out on your own, via a personal website, to conduct things under your own terms.

Even then, you'll still get inquiries from people who will get all pissed off that you won't agree to 'their' terms and who will turn around and bad mouth you to the masses.

Eh.

I'm frankly tired of hearing 'go elsewhere' and that we should take our 'demands' with us. I'm ready to hear 'quit with the BS offers already'. I think it's time somebody said it.

And I don't mind saying it.

Quit with the BS offers already.

 

You're right, this IS the dollar store. That's the point. YOU shouldn't be looking for great jobs here.

Well, no. At Elance, I am paying someone right now (I just added a note to the PMB before I came back here and read your comments btw) $3000 to write 80 pages of content (750 words per piece).

That's 20 cents a word. Is that an unreasonable sum?

I really empathize with you, I hear your frustration, but you need to stop looking at DP as the problem. You should be looking for people like me, who pay for quality work.

 

There is no site full of quality offers. If that's how you expect to get decent-paying writing gigs, you need to re-think your approach. That just isn't how things work in the writing world.

And it has been said. I, and plenty of others, have been saying it for years. It doesn't matter. Eventually you learn that and find more productive ways to spend your time (for many of us that means helping those lower-rate writers improve or learn how to more effectively market themselves to get out of those rate levels).

The best gigs aren't generally publicly advertised. That's just the way it is, and that's unlikely to change. When they are, the hiring party often gets bombarded with offers from unqualified people looking for their "break" into higher paying markets. You get those gigs by networking and marketing yourself effectively - they're not just handed to writers on job boards. You make your own opportunities, and you attract buyers by building your own visibility. Low-paying clients and low-rate writers have absolutely nothing to do with it. So if you're not finding what you want, it's because you shouldn't be "looking" for it as you would for those penny-per-word gigs. More than likely, the problem is your approach in finding writing gigs - not that they're not out there.

 

Allow me to repeat what I had previously said. "I believe it's called Content Creation Forum, not the "I"ll Work My Ass Off For Free Forum."

If the buyers are allowed to have a long list of demands to be met, regardless of whether or not they are, in fact met - we writers are entitled to have a list just as long. Again, if they're not met - big deal. But don't tell us we don't have the right to our own expectations, regardless of the forum(s) we choose to frequent.

If this thread has, as a buyer, hit a little too close to home for you, perhaps you're contributing to the problem with the offers you're making here. I don't know..could be. I haven't read your posts. I'm just saying...you're a little quick on the draw for someone whom this doesn't apply to.

 

Let the buyers learn the hard way. They pay nothing for the content and get monkeys writing it for them. They will be back paying more to get human written well researched content.

 

I think that's exactly what I just said, in my "Be All End All" reference above.

This is refreshing. It's often been my experience that established writers don't help newly starting ones at all. Instead, they remind them of what they can and can't do, in regards to their experience, credentials, or lack thereof. Many, many of these established writers behave like they were born with a portfolio, not knowing how to type one keystroke for less than $2 per, and an endless supply of feedback from Fortune 500 companies. They refuse to admit that they had to start some where. And that some where is a far cry from where they are now.

I'm glad this isn't your approach. I wish you would encourage others with what you're doing.

Which I think I also just said in my "it's best to strike out on your own" reference in the above thread.

They have everything to do with it. If nobody was accepting these offers, nobody would be making these offers. They are inextricably intertwined.

The original idea behind this thread was not about the lack of better paying jobs being 'out there'. My gripe was about the poorly paying jobs being everywhere - and the causes and effects behind them. I used the CC forum here on DP as an example because, oddly enough, that's where I started this thread.

 

This whole thread is getting a bit unnecessarily heated and repetitive (as it's been discussed already in this forum dozens of times). I'm closing it as I often do with these rates-oriented debates. Anyone interested in discussing the topic further is welcome to do so in one of the existing threads, so everyone else doesn't have to repeat themselves and see the same things in thread after thread. This also lets people who were already discussing the rates debate know what's being said, as they're often subscribed to those threads. Here are a few of the more recent ones. If anyone has anything valuable to add to the discussion, those are the places to do it.

Standard Rates?
Venting on Advertising Yourself as a "Cheap" Writer
What Price is the Right Price for Articles?