What is the standard of content writer? How can we rate them?

Again lies.

All your doing by posting stuff like this is clouding peoples minds.

Most of the work on big sites is voluntary.

How about you show us proof of you gettting paid thousands of dollars per article.

Please dont quote figures on here, unless you can back them up.

 

I never said I personally make over $1000 per article. I do make several hundred, usually mid-level and sometimes high (never take less than $200 per article, and that's not usually for exclusive rights unless I want the company in my portfolio for some reason - such as recently doing a set of ten at $200 each for Business.com, which I allowed on an exclusive basis), and I also am heavily networked with professionals who regularly make FAR more than I do (I never claim to be the best, and articles are far from my primary income, even with my writing... but I do go out of my way to help newer and underpaid writers learn how to earn significantly more, whether you like that or not). My own standard rate for articles is a flat $1 per word for exclusive content, and I offer discounts for more limited rights (like $.50 / word for exclusive Web-only articles, and $.35 / word for non-exclusive Web-only articles). Finding people to pay those rates, especially non-exclusively and exclusive Web-only hasn't been an issue, and I don't make $1000 or more for them, b/c I rarely write articles reaching 1000 words.

Don't make libelous public comments accusing people of "lying" just because you're not well-versed enough in a subject to know what the truth of the matter is. As I've already said in this thread, I DO post specific markets that pay hundreds or even several thousand per article to a variety of writing sites I run and a group of us participate in, which have been mentioned time and time again in this forum. Just because you can't be bothered to find the markets and pursue them doesn't mean anyone's going to simply hand them to you, and certainly doesn't mean others aren't doing it. It's just not for the lazy ones who expect to simply pop onto a forum or two and have a significant income fall onto their lap for little work. It takes effort, but even with that, you can make so much more per piece that you still end up with an enormously better ROI for your time. The only reason I don't actively pursue more article writing work personally is because I make significantly more with copywriting and other business writing, and am focusing my non-PR work this quarter on completing a marketing book proposal to send off to a few contacts this Spring and overhauling two of my primary websites content- and design-wise. Not everyone specializes where I do, nor do they have to... the point is that these opportunities DO exist, there are PLENTY of them if you take the time to look and network, and they're achievable, no matter what kind of writing you specialize in.

Oh, and no, most major sites don't have their content written by volunteers... they're very often paid writers. Every time you see a corporate site, someone was paid to write it. Every time there's a white paper or report online, someone was very likely paid to write it (often ghostwritten). Every manufacturer has writers working for them full-time or part-time or on a freelance basis dealing with everything from product descriptions to press releases. Content sites owned by major publishers (tons of them) are most often paid pieces, and not volunteer work (and some pay just as much as their print counterparts).

But since you obviously can't be bothered to look for yourself, and just want to assume you know what is and isn't available, here are just a very few samples of recent markets I'd posted paying several hundred to over a thousand per piece (all rates and guidelines are on their sites, but like I said, I'm not completely handing anything to you, so you can find them yourself):

Workforce.com - Their online publication pays $.75 - 1.50 / word (features being 900-1500 words)
TechLearning.com - Pays $400+ / feature
CertCities.com - Pays $200-300 / feature
IntelligentEnterprise.com - Pays $500 / feature usually for first time authors

Those are just a couple of the more recent postings (with new ones due up today or tomorrow), and not including any of the several $1000 + postings in our archives from print publications, which are a competitive reality for those looking to hire serious professionals, as they tend to write in both areas.

The next time you want to accuse someone of not being able to back something up, at least take the time to familiarize yourself with the posters and past threads, b/c this is all old news that's been covered time and time again here already. It's amazing what reading can do.

 

Lee Rees, jhmattern is right about the whole picture. There are a lot of big sites with decent budget for writing, seo, design, programming , etc. But 90% of them will never search providers of services on DP or bidding sites, lol. Let's be clear here, there are lot of people (on DP) who don't have good jobs (no more than $25 per hour, usually much lower) and are seeking for lot of indian workers they can hire for peanuts and demand everything from them cause they think they at last become big bosses or at least in dreams of that future when they will be next internet rich jerks

So can't see the point why complain about this ? What charges content writer in your town in England ? If you are not happy with quality you can sue him or chargeback or whatever, but I highly doubt you can do something with it. I am from 3rd world country and even if I'll write sometimes it will be for good money or for free but not for $5 and I really don't care if it will be good money in my country (or like lot of people say "living like a king", lol, to start live something like a "king" you will need at least $5-6k per month here in my town and I am just lowballing), I know it costs more and I always find clients who want to pay my rates so I will charge as much as I can or soon I will be out of the business because of wrong strategy (for SEO/SEM services for example). Demanding quality from $5 article is useless practice (by the way I don't know any English writer in my country who will work for such rates in case if you are curious).

Free your mind! DP is not everything on the internet. And in terms of buy/sell/trade it becomes worse each year because of kids with their scripts, spam generators, content rewriting tools, seo "software", ready web templates and so on. Lower entrance - messy marketplace. And webmasters believe that whole planet work for this rates

 

Lee, how about you get off your high horse and actually familiarize yourself with the writing industry before you start accusing people of lying?

Jenn doesn't need anyone to back her up - but when I see a colleague of mine trashed by someone who obviously don't know what they're talking about, that's upsetting to me. I'm all for friendly debates, but you can't come into this thread spouting nonsense and expect people to take you seriously. Check out Jenn's information, get your facts straight, and then come back and tell us that you've never heard of a professional writer earning anywhere close to the figures Jenn mentioned.

 

Here's are the things that I see. I see two different types of writers. I see writers that most websites that use digital point need and then I see writers that websites like business.com and money.com and all these big sites need. Let me explain...

I'm eighteen years old, I am a college student, I have near perfect grammar (though I am sure that there are errors in this post), yet I don't go out looking for thousand dollar an article jobs. Why? Because I don't have the time. I'm a pre-med student, not a journalism major, so naturally, I don't have the time to go out. That's not to say I am a crappy writer. That's not to sane I am insane (which I am, since I chose biology/pre-med as a major. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!). When I first started out on this site, I sold my articles for $5.00 for a 500 word article. Does that mean I sucked? No. Could I write just as well as someone else? Yes. However, I was younger and for me, writing a 500 word article took me no time at all. It got what the client wanted done and that was what they were paying me for.

Now, most of the people that are on these sites are people that run dozens and dozens of sites. They never even look at the websites they run once they are up because they just expect them to earn as time goes on. They hire someone to come in, write ten or twenty articles, pay them two hundred bucks and call it a day. They get their site up and after a few months, they're making about $5.00 a day on their site. As time goes on, they've made their money, they've earned a return on their investment and they can go on to something else, still making that $5.00 a day.

Now, if you asked one of them if they could afford to populate their site with articles that cost $500.00 a piece and get twenty on the site, they'd look at you as if you were crazy. That's not the business they are in. They're in the business to get numerous sites up. Personally, I run one site that earns for me and I write most of the content myself. However, I would have no problem hiring someone that makes a $6.00 an article because the way the content is written is what I need.

For Digital Point to exist, we will always need writers that write for inexpensive prices. Without the army of content writers available on this site, I'm sure many of the large earners would not have made that money. Me? I'm too stingy to hire writers that often. I'd rather suck it up and write it myself. If I did pay for it, I'd have more sites. But, for this site to really exist with such a large volume of members, there will always need to be the writers that 'get the job done.' It may not be the best writing, it may not be the most eloquent writing, but it is the writing that makes the money for the site owner. That's my piece.

 

The big problem isn't so much that there are different levels of writers, both in quality and in price, but when people paying those very low rates issue an extreme set of demands (often rivaling those of professional publications) for that low amount. If they want a $5 article just for something on the site, that's one thing. Demanding full copyright, demanding it be done within a ridiculous deadline (like hours from accepting the project), etc. is where the real problem comes in, especially when there's no other real benefit for the writer.

Not every low-paying gig is a bad thing. For example, I don't see any problem with writers joining content networks that pay based on ads or pageviews. They won't likely make much at first, but there's growth potential, and they're repeatedly paid for the same pieces. The biggest difference with this example imo though is the added set of benefits for the writer... they get to network with other niche writers, editors, etc. It's easy to make industry contacts when backed with a network, and that often leads to better gigs (working for About briefly as my first Web writing gig after focusing on academic and scientific writing led me immediately into gigs paying several hundred per article, simply because of the people it enabled me to meet). Right now for example, I'm the Music Editor with Suite101.com. I get contacted pretty regularly by major labels wanting their artists covered or interviewed, and I'm able to connect writers to those influential people when necessary. A few nice interviews like that instantly gives them clout where writing a review of the same artist for a $5 gig won't. And with networks, you don't always have to give up all of your rights (the two largest I've worked with for instance allow you to use your content or sell it to print publications, and Suite even allows you to use it elsewhere online after a year - great for evergreen content). The benefits more than account for the lack of immediate pay if the writer takes advantage of them.

I think DP would survive with or without $5 writers... might be a few less MFA sites though. What needs to change is that writers who are able to go above and beyond need to learn how to earn enough to justify that time and effort (and high paying gigs don't take more time always... I rarely spend more than an hour on a piece, b/c I specialize on areas within my expertise, meaning not much outside research is needed). At the same time, webmasters offering low rates need to stop expecting the world in return, b/c eventually the good writers always wise up. No matter what level you're working at, there needs to be a fair balance between the compensation and the quality.

 

Yes, I think it's big diffrence when you write for some big boy or for another Adsense king, lol. In first case even if it's free or voluntary it's a great asset in writers portfolio which will bring more leads, etc. In second case only thing you may say about your work is "well I wrote 20 $5 articles and my client website now grows from $1-$3 a day to $5 a day", lol. In this case it's better to write them for OWN site.

 

I agree with you that it's better to write them for their own site, but then you have to remember that some people are impatient. For me, I am willing to wait for that great day when my science blog is making tons of money from all my articles. But for others, they don't want to wait. They want to get the immediate money; the immediate gratification. That's what differentiates content writers from website owners.

 

The advantages of writing for even the lowest rate jobs here are, I think:

The work is easy to find.

The work is generally very easy, and you can ignore the demanding ones.

Pay is very fast. I've been paid within an hour.

Research is not required.

Big blocks of uninterrupted time are not required.

Instant gratification is always kind of nice.


Some people aren't impatient, some of them actually need that money, and need it fast. Some people like to write but don't like the whole query, networking, selling yourself and your skills thing, or don't do it well. So they do what they can on sites like this.

 

So is higher paying work. You just have to know where to look. Even if not hundreds per article, it's not difficult in the slightest to find things paying at least more than $5 or so per article. Plenty of us here do it without a problem.

One of the biggest problems is that the low-paying gigs often have the most demands placed on the writers. (I actually saw a really amusing one yesterday... should have posted it for laughs.)

While pay for larger projects can vary depending on the type of publication, I don't know about you, but I'd rather wait a few weeks for a $2000 check for 10 articles than take them at $5-10 / piece and only make $50-100. That's just a matter of having good business sense. But not all well-paying work is slow. I finished up a very short copywriting project recently, and had $800 in my account by the next day, and that's pretty normal for copywriting work. I write a lot of press releases at $99 each, and they're also almost always paid same day or next day. So even if pay is quick, that's not a good enough reason to make those gigs worthwhile.

Yes it is. Most of these gigs are looking for generic writers, meaning no experience in the niche. In that case, there are no ifs, ands, or buts, about it... you have to do research to be able to write. Of course it's not often good research, and the article becomes regurgitated garbage from some other website, although frankly I can't blame the writer for not doing a better job at that rate.

And where is that required? If you're writing a really long feature or an interview, it might be time-consuming, but not all highly paid work is. I knock out a marketing, PR, or small business article rather quickly, and with as quickly as I do it (because I don't need to research much in my specialty areas), it often means I'm being paid at a rate equivalent to several hundred dollars per hour. I'd happily set aside a few hours of uninterrupted time for that, although it's rarely necessary. You also tend to have longer deadlines for higher-paying work, so you don't need to do it all in one sitting, or plow through articles to get bulk orders done.

Still not seeing how this is a benefit of low-paying gigs. Instant gratification of writing, and getting paid a good deal for it, with your byline guaranteed to be displayed... now that's nice. Instant gratification of finishing a quick project, giving up all or most of your rights to it, having it published on a site that won't do much to help your portfolio, and getting paid a miniscule amount for it... I'm not seeing a benefit there.

If you have these misconceptions about it being somehow difficult or whatever to network and find better gigs, then you just need to spend a bit of time learning, b/c it's simply not the case. Any writer that's going to truly "make it" in the field has to be able to network and market their work. If a hobby writer is what you want to be, then low-paying gigs might be an OK long-term option. But for making a solid career out of it, and earning as much as you can from it (anyone with an ounce of business sense is going to have that goal in some way or another - and that's not only with webmasters trying to save a buck, but writers who need to earn it). But the point is that it's not hard to do better, and it's not even hard to find gigs. Sure, you'll probably get rejected periodically. So what? We all do. But it's about quality of life... you can earn a real income writing a few articles, copy, or whatever you write, and still have time left over to improve your skills, find other high-paying work, and just flat out enjoy life a bit more with more free time, as opposed to spending all of your time working as a article mill, churning out article after article that you lose full control over for pennies or less per word. You just have to decide how you'd rather live and work, and then make an effort to improve if you know you can do better. And if you don't know you can do better, then hopefully writing's just a hobby, b/c writing probably isn't the best career choice long-term if you don't understand your worth, and aren't prepared to charge for it.

 

You know SXPERM,

The best and the first you should do is to test their ability as a writer. Writers are example of variable people; there are those who can satisfy you; there are those that can`t. Sometimes they have a good job, but there is also a time that you can`t even get the idea of his article. Be sure to have a sample articles first for your reference.

There are so many excellent writers out there. . ..
Better select the best to pay for the best.

 

Asking for "samples" as in past pieces from their portfolio is a good idea. Asking for custom samples first (which a lot of webmasters do) will instantly turn away anyone even remotely professional, b/c their time is simply too valuable. You should be able to tell very easily from their past client work though whether or not they'll be a decent fit.

 

But again, if you insist on getting custom samples written for you, pay the writer his usual price for writing the article.

You shouldn't bargain for discounts saying that it is just a sample article.

 

To be honest, it is still very hard for me to believe that any opinions like this one may pretend to be written by civilized and, what is more, by mature and thinking people.

In fact, Lee Rees, posting such a senseless word consequence is working against you. Your offensive statements come to say enough and I am not very certain you have a clear vision of what is going on in the (copy)writing world.

Again, I'll stand by you, Jenn.

There are few activities I hate with a passion when applying for a writing position. One of them, definitely, is writing samples, when I have a very strong and impressive portfolio in store. I still believe competent employers do perfectly know (are supposed to, indeed) who they are looking for.

 

Portfolio's and sample work could be false as well, but its a good start. I would never hire a writer based on these two things alone, but a portfolio of published material would be preferred. You also have services that allow you to read before you buy.

 

Any quality writer should have something published in their portfolio. Trying before you buy isn't an option for people who want something entirely customized for their needs, although it might be an option for a lot of cases. Frankly, if a buyer can't enter into a professional relationship with a certain level of trust, then they'd better be able to either simply deal with it or set aside a bigger budget to work with more professional writers.

 

Going back to the original question (three pages of "discussion" ago ), yes, there should probably be a difference between a $5 and a $30 article. Likewise there will probably be a difference between the $30 article and a $300 article. This may not always be the case due to different writing styles and the various reasons writers take on projects.

I like and agree with all of the following suggestions to differentiate levels of quality:

- Check out the post history to see how well-versed an individual is.

- Check out a writer's website or portfolio to see the style and quality of work for yourself.

- Take a glance at iTrader, but you can get iTrader points for just about anything, so use it only as guide to professional behavior, not quality.

- Contact a few writers directly who might be a good match and ask to see additional samples or purchase a short blurb or article you can use. A sample doesn't have to be 500-words. (The email messages alone may be a good indicator of quality.)

- Ask for recommendations from other webmasters, but again take this input carefully. There are many different businesses being run by these individuals and what may be good for an Adsense site may not be right for a consumer driven website.

- Take a look at sites or article directories which use a byline. Some websites offer articles by certain authors and if you like a piece you can purchase it or contact the writer directly for a more specific article. Other submission or directory sites have featured writers (or featured webmasters who've hired decent writers.)

Another related suggestion: Most writers advertise their services in their signature or in another thread. You can very discreetly check out their websites and samples through these links without ever contacting the writer directly. Many also list rates on a website which may help in the decision making process.

Thanks!
Rebecca

 

I would add: "check out their forum contributions." Judging by the "performance" of some writers here, there can be no doubt as to their ability to produce high volumes of good quality copy at the drop of a hat

 

somewhat related:

here is a project on GAF, the buyer wants FORTY 800-word articles, all copyright belongs to buyer, original, must pass copyscape, etc etc.

the price? $2/article.

 

Ahha-ha-ha-ha..!! Good luck to them! Actually, no, bad luck to them! I would think twice about doing ONE article for $80. Problem is, this demeans real writers who actually offer quality, and negatively affects pricing. I have this same problem in the translation industry, whereby all kinds of unqualified people offer translation at knock-down prices, and knock-off quality and I have to persuade customers why my translation services cost 3 or 4 times more.

Come to think of it, you have cowboys in every industry, as long as there are people (un)willing to pay. You can get a plumber to fix your kitchen sink for a few bucks, but it'll be dripping again within the week, or maybe he'll even make it worse...