Why is it always "CHEAP ARTICLE WRITER"

I'd like to see you earn a living from forum posting -- that is, help you pay your rent and feed you, at the least.

 

Exactly right! That's why it generally pays to be a specialist--you earn significantly more because your expertise in the subject area is worth more, and you never have to worry about competing with generic low-rate content writers on forums or anywhere else. It's probably the best move any freelance writer could make for their career.

 

1 quality article at x amount is far better than 4 crappy articles at the same price.

Absolutely! The value of the article should not decrease just because the writer is knowledgable about the subject! In fact it should be the opposite.

 

I don't see cheap as necessarily being low quality. I see cheap as being lower effort. There are simply some people who think that content writing is a great way to make a living while not putting forth a lot of effort and, if you can get enough of the low paying/low effort jobs, it can certainly pay the rent--especially if you can write well enough to be understood. Personally I would rather take a lot more time and put in a lot more effort and energy into a single piece that I can proudly point to and say "look at what I wrote!"

The writers who are willing to spend all day churning out 500 word pieces for $3? I view a lot of them as the "I want to make a lot of money for putting forth very little effort" people and they are not my competition, so I don't worry about them. In fact, I'm glad that those guys are around to take those jobs because that leaves the people who actually want quality work from dedicated writers for the rest of us. And those buyers? Aren't going to be advertising on the BST forum simply because they don't have the time to sift through all of the "I rite gud 4 u" responses that they will get.

Just my two pennies.

PS. Would you really want to work for someone who doesn't care about the content of the article as much as they care about the uniqueness percentage it gives them on dupecop?

 

Do you seriously consider yourself in the same league as jhmattern and some of the other native English writers who have posted thus far? This excerpt alone immediately turned me off to your entire message. I literally said in my mind "Argh, scroll down fast before your brain explodes".

Is this the quality of work you provide in the form of a professional English article? If so, you should take the advice provided in this article, and improve your English writing skills.

As the old saying goes, "If you can't roll with the big dogs, get under the porch".

 

I would go with quality and that is why I have not advertised my service on DP. I have used cheap writers, and they mix up the English language and the article is worthless.

 

I guess that is why I don't do things like that for money I have done it once for a few people for free because of boredom. I guess I am too fussy + if I wanted to make a living off forum posting- I would have started a proper business doing so, not just do it myself. It's easier to leverage a person's time recruiting others to do the same thing. Then try and do it on your own which would take longer.

 

Its all about competition Dude. You have to price less even if you are a good writer at DP. There is so much of competition. There are a few ppl who get good reviews and do not demand much. Neoloves is one such writer as its seems from his/her thread.

I also write pretty well. Never had any problem with getting articles approved at Ezine. But I am not a native english speaker. Infact many English speakers write crap english. But I have to admit that I have seen some really broken English by some members on DP.

Regards
BUBAIPAL

 

It has nothing to do with competition--it has to do with marketing ability. Either you're smart enough about the business side of writing to market your services on something other than price, or you're not. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the rest of us I suppose), many writers here are clueless about marketing. They mistakenly assume value is all about price, and then they pay for it later by never earning up to their potential (although for some, perhaps $3 - 5 is their potential--I won't begin to guess).

 

Jen,

Can't we do something about the crap load of competition from so called cheap writers driving the market downwards...????? If we keep getting all the junk writers or writers who don't know to write well here, we (dp forums and its writers) won't grow so quickly.. in fact most people think hiring cheap writers can make them money, it's not so..

The only way out is help writers with credible guidelines who have no confidence to charge a decent price for writing a quality article and make clients aware of the benefits of hiring a quality writer! Naturally the prices will increase and the quality of work will rise thus giving leverage to the forum writers and clients.

Hiring a quality writer who can bring traffic quickly and repeatedly to a site is what makes him/her far better than any other writer! It's true that marketing your services well make a lot of opportunities available.. but how to do just that is what makes it a mystery often than not.. I know that there are a bunch of clients who think hiring quality writers makes sense but there are butt loads of crap writers who work for clients looking for cheap work just for a short pull out from adsense / affiliate marketing!

It's imperative that we as writers here give guidelines to those who wish to hire writers from the forums, don't we? We command the web, not the webmasters correct? Which is why it's said "content is king"!!!!!! Ain't that true?

And we must give them some food for thought to hire people who will profitably increase not only their revenue long term but also the forums revenue as a whole.

There has a to be a real upgrade in the quality of services provided here and we could do a lot! I wish I was the mod of the content creation section! Since you are the mod here why don't we just pull our sleeves up and start working on new policies and regulations here! don't you think there has to be change that matches the changing taking place from time to time?

I would have made things much better for people who wish to write for clients and for clients who wish to hire writers.. if I would have been appointed as the mod here.. giving confidence to writers and clients alike to help each other qualitatively.. There would had been a system in place here which would regulate the trade better than not which is the case in reality here within the content creation section.

The saddest part is writers are competing on price rather than quality.. eek

I was shocked to know that a writer starting with name "clashctyror" or something was willing to accept him/her self as a cheap writer! He fought with me over the cheap writer vs. quality writer thingy... Now the absurd change will make things worse in the coming years here if you, me and all of us just keep smiling - looking at each other with a grin with hands folded and doing nothing

As bubaipal quoted:

Now that's shocking to know that a fellow writer does not know that he must be paid fairly and has the right to command his/her own price! I think the whole content creation section will go burst one day with all the cheap gigs if we sit and do nothing! simply

There has a to be a content review section within the content creation section which will improve the quality of work offered to clients thus working out a win-win situation to clients and writers both according to clear written guidelines for delivering work and this is impeccably possible with your support.

Ron

 

I don't see any issues of throwing cheap services here. I myself will be interested to try some of the so call "good quality writing service" but I just can't find any.

 

Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn but, DP is a forum. It is not a writing service with any kind of responsibility to monitor the work, improve working standards, or in any way involve itself or its mods in the private dealings of the members. If anything, I would imagine that inferred 'control' would give DP some kind of liability, which it currently does not have. Not to mention the fact that the mods are not paid to make sure your lives work out easier. They aren't paid at all. So, lets all be the smart, adult business people that we want to pretend we are and stop complaining and whining.

Writers are not helpless fawns. If the 'cheap' writers who no longer want to be cheap read the posts in this forum, read the blogs of various writers, buy ebooks, and do something proactive to change their market they will (if they have the skill) stop being cheap writers. I have hired some of the cheap writers here, most of them suck and are charging appropriate rates. Period.

Are there some good writers who haven't figured out how to market themselves stuck in that loop--of course. If they have any sense and want this to be a long term career, they'll smarten up. If not, well, survival of the fittest.

As Jenn says, like 800 bazillion times a day on this ridiculous forum (and how she manages to not want to freak out on people I have no idea) DP IS NOT THE ONLY MARKETPLACE. If you don't like the work offered in 'cheap writer' threads, don't apply. If you want to teach the buyers something, apply for the cheap writers jobs and do 1 quality job for them and let them know what it would have cost them at your normal rates. They will either have an epiphany and realize their flawed thinking has hurt their website (that is, if you CAN write. Otherwise you do nothing but enforce their view that writers on DP suck and don't deserve more than .005 per word) or they will not care and will look for more cheap writers.

In the end WHO CARES??? I am more than sick of seeing these threads. When I first started freelancing, I wasn't used to looking for work. I was used to being paid by a company to write. I came to DP just as many others and thought, "Wow, I guess this is the market on DP." I complained, and then realized that everyone else here wasn't the problem--I was the problem. I then moved on to other markets.

So, lets all get to our business and marketing plans and if you can't figure out how to utilize DP to get the business that you want, move on to plan B. If you don't have any plans for your business, stop crying to everyone else about how unfair the world is and take control of your career for goodness' sake.

This post is not going to win me any friends, is it

 

I think people here are looking for "cheap AND quality"

 

Yes, you are absolutely right but that's a RARE combination..
Quality and that too Intellectual Quality definitely comes at a price..
Most people working at lower than the bare standard prices give even more substandard stuff which is near useless.

 

As Y.L. Prinzel noted, DP is a forum--a platform where sales are allowed to take place. It is a free market, and it is not our responsibility or desire to monitor or create guidelines for content quality.

It is the responsibility of every individual writer to refuse to accept low paying gigs if they don't want to, and to understand that those writers are not their competition, and working with a completely different target market.

Smart writers will spend their time improving their own targeting to find clients that meet their needs rather than trying to convince another market to change - it rarely works that way, if ever. If you want to explain the benefits of purchasing professional, quality content over "cheap" content, then do it in your marketing materials--include your value proposition in your ads, write a white paper, etc. Most importantly, if you haven't been able to break into the higher paying markets available on DP, then the best thing to do is look elsewhere.

As for those writers who don't know they could be earning more, that's really not our problem. They chose to enter the business world irresponsibly without fully researching the freelance writing field. It's their own fault, and they'll either learn the hard way and change, or they'll ultimately fail. That's the reality of it. There are plenty of us out there with resources to help them improve their careers. When they're ready, they'll find them.

 

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I just think if any of you won't take responsibility for the trade happening within the forum, it will be full of cheap writing.

Now if you want the cheap writing business to happen all the time, then it's because the moderator of the forum allowing it. If you want quality business to happen, then that too is in your hands. It's you who's already allowing it to happen and then too you say it's not under your control. It's sad to read (sorry )

Look, if quality business takes place here, it benefits not only the forum's users but the forum as a whole.

I think once the guidelines are mentioned, you might think that you have to monitor each and every trade which is not the case if you have setup a system here which automatically does that. You don't even need to monitor each trade once you setup the system. The system does it automatically. I think you are not ready to make things better which is why you aren't willing to take any responsibility. Sorry if that feels rude but it's sad to see people running away from making the forum the best place to be. And when things get better, who wins? everyone.

Otherwise, everyone here would keep wasting their time and space on reading all the "cheap gigs" day in day out and it will keep on increasing. One fine day, you are going to get terrified of all the cheap business because it does affect writers who work for quality more/less. 90% of the content creation section talks about cheap business already and no one is really concerned other than some very good quality writers who wish the place would had been rocking not just for their personal/professional life but for every writer and client who uses the forum for their business. Now ain't that the purpose of the forum? to support every person in their endeavor to be successful in IM!

If thinking positive for the forum is a crime, I'd rather not do it because I'm not a criminal. But yeah I'd say this is not the first time a writer is coming out and saying "Hey, Hello! I am sick of being cheap here, why don't we do something about it?" Long way to go.... Dpiers! Really long way to go!

Check so many threads here and you will find so many writers talking the same thing every now and then. If you as a writer don't want to help other writers here that is your prerogative but I think I'd rather help them out because it's frustrating to be labeled cheap and work like someone's machine, okay? and It's a waste of our lives just keep looking for clients all the time.. why don't we just set it straight and simple..? for our lives here.. make it damn simple for everyone.. if that is crime, I think then it's not worth being a dpier.. because the dp forum wants people to contribute their best to the forums benefit and when a person like me wants tp, you are discouraging me to come out and setup something great for everyone here.. I am so annoyed with the system here because of which this thread was written..

And there are so many threads like these before who talk the same thing all the time..

Asking for the best is no crime and I feel I am doing the best I can to make sure this forum remains a great forum all the time. However the cold response has sent a thunder down my spine thinking how backward the forum has turned into, no offense really but my 2 cents. Hope you realize what I mean: the best.

 

The writers on DP are more than helpful and supportive of other writers. Jenn never stops offering advice and guidance, Webgal, Onlinewriter and many others do the same.

Personally, I get IMs almost daily to review the work of writers and help them get better and I do so--for nothing. I do it, as do Jenn, Webgal and others to help writers get a step up, because we care and--at least for me--because I've been there. I have invested my own money into a blog where I hire many writers to write posts that help newbies find work, charge the right rates, deal with being a freelancer, create business plans, etc. All to help newbies who want to help themselves.

That you don't want to help yourself and instead want a policed forum that allows you to be lazy is your problem. I'm not trying to be rude (although I'm sure I am succeeding), but you really need to wake up and take responsibility for your own career. To write your treatise under the guise that it somehow hurts DP to have 'cheap writer' threads is ridiculous.

 

The point is, as I already mentioned, DP is not responsible for the quality of trades. It is just a platform - not a freelancing service. No one is responsible for quality other than the buyers and providers. That's the way a free market operates, and DP is a free market--that won't likely change. The free market atmosphere is precisely what made DP one of the most popular forums out there in the first place. It certainly isn't hurting the forum itself. Remember, DP wasn't designed as a forum trying to attract professional writers--it is a webmaster forum first and foremost, and if webmasters continue to want cheap content, they will continue to advertise for cheap content. We already make any offer under $5 go in freebies so iTrader can't be exchanged to discourage it. Beyond that, it's really not our concern how people choose to conduct their businesses as long as they abide by the basic rules here.

And cheap content will never affect professional writers charging professional rates, because they're smart enough to know those writers are in a different target market altogether. They don't have to compete with them, so they don't worry about it. That's the bottom line here. If someone doesn't like the content creation gig ads, they shouldn't spend time in the content creation forum - it simply isn't for them. I sure as hell don't go trolling that section for work, and I know most other writers here charging higher rates don't either. We build a reputation--a platform of our own. We blog, we post on this and other forums, we publish reports and e-books, etc. We build a reputation and we build visibility. When you take the time to invest in your own career like that, the higher paying gigs come to you, and you don't spend time looking around forums for work. It doesn't take as long as you'd think either. DP is not meant to be an ideal market for every person or every service provider, and it's not our role to determine what counts as a decent price for quality work (hell, if I based it on my rates ads wouldn't be allowed for anything lower than low $xxx for basic Web content - others might say $20 is acceptable even though I find that insanely low). There are reasons we don't police these things - no matter what we chose, someone would be unhappy and saying we should change it.

 

Because people are cheap. Half of the so-called writers are hacks and they never write anything original anyway. That is what creates the diluted prospects for real talent. Same in all businesses, writing is no exception.

It's like people who use samples and call themselves "musicians". They aren't musicians, they are hacks. Not to say that there are not good hacks and bad hacks. There are great copy cats in every walk of life. But they make real creators of quality appear the same as they are when they hack their work and sell it for pennies on the dollar. Who can tell?

A hack is a hack. If you can't tell the difference just read their threads. Most hacks have no grammar capabilities, they can't spell, and their threads are junk. i wil rite for yuo for cheep and it will bee costing no thin for you. I mean come on! If their threads are garbage and they don't communicate thoughts clearly, then why pay anything at all? People apparently do, so there is your answer.