Hello, I am taking into consideration the possibility of developing a gaming website focusing on iOS games, with a focus on Indie games. I saw many discussions in this forum about fair rates for an article author, and I see some crazy stuff going on, like people offering $65 to write 100 articles. That is completely insane and unacceptable, of course. Thus, I would like to ask you article writers what, in your experience and opinion, would be a fair price to have a person write 7-10 reviews of iOS games every month. I would eventually get 3 or 4 different writers to cover the whole month. But I do not know if we can afford this for the time being, so this thread is just to gather information and I will then eventually post a Job Request thread later. So, I would like to ask native English writers/speakers what would be a fair rate for such a work, keeping in mind that we do not need articles written for SEO ranking or rewrites of existing articles, but true reviews (not too long, something close to what you see on TouchArcade.com) that follow the standards at http://www.gotoats.org/. I hope this is the right forum to ask this. Thanks, Harry
I don't have a specific answer for you but some ideas to perhaps help you get closer to a dollar figure. Is it a correct assumption that "Indie Games", by their nature would mean that the reviewer would have to learn how to play each game before reviewing it? Seems like a basic thing but it's time that the writer will have to spend on your project. Are they games that are free or would normally have to be purchased? If you could provide the writers the games for free, it might allow you to not pay for their "learning time". If the games are already free, you might have to allow some extra paid time for each writer to become familiar enough with each game to talk about it without simply rewriting what others have already said about it. You probably won't find many takers if they have to purchase the game out of their own money in order to write the reviews. Depending upon how limited the access to the games is, perhaps you could get a reduced rate in exchange for the reviewer being "The first to play the latest game by XYZ Gaming Company". Are you planning on building a community around the games? You might be able to develop a following of sorts where the reviewers become semi-famous within the gaming world or your site and that some reviewers might write for less or even free to gain exposure. I'm not saying to scam or cheat them, just that the little I know about gamers is that reputation/street-cred matters to them. Good luck in your new project.
Thanks for the detailed reply, I appreciate it! The website will have a community and we will encourage people to contribute, but I would like to keep the "official" writers a bit separate on the frontend. I understand what you are saying about the games. That is why I would not like to hire "generic" writers but people that are already playing these games and that would like to write reviews for a fee. Of course, writing for a website would have benefits like publicity and access to free review codes, but I still would like to pay them a fair amount for each article. We ran a popular gaming website with professional writers in 2000-2004, and there all contributors worked for free: but that is because the website was not making any money; whereas I would like to offer advertising spots on this website.
One approach might be to consider the number of hours it would take to test the game and add at least an hour or two to write the review. For professional rates assume a per hour rate of at least minimum wage and you'll have a minimal starting point. Perhaps contact your old writers and see what they tell you they would need to come back.
Have you thought about going to game boards and asking the members there what they think? I would guess that the fee should be under $20 a review. We are talking under 500 words. Look at some of the posts on game boards. They are not that long, and they give a pretty god review. After all, if you ask one of your friends what he thought of the new game that just came out, he would not go on and on and on, right? heh then again.... I would be willing to bet that many of the members of such game boards (and blogs) would like to review the games for free..just to be heard. He can post his picture, perhaps a link to his site(s), his hobbies...
It depends. You said that the previous reviewers did it for free. Yeah, there are people that will do it for free whether you are charging advertisers or not. They love games and they like writing about it. However, find them and precisely the right one might be a little bit challenging. Another point is a reason for them to choose your website over a competitor one. My suggestion would be to start off with someone that already has an experience and starting putting the first articles even by yourself. Mention in the blog that you are looking for guess writers and game reviewers and see what kind of audience you'll get from that little message.