Writing is a Joke

Some webmasters don't realize the Content Creation section of DP isn't 'normal' for content worthy of professional sites. You don't see many writers advertising rates for $50 articles amongst the $5 ones, so they may not know the difference.

Others have been spoiled by writers not charging what their work it worthy, but these writers often burn out when they realize their income doesn't justify the time they spend and don't know how to raise their rates.

If you are receiving requests for rates and companies are knocking at your door, provide the information they seek, and if you aren't a good fit for what they are seeking move on. There are clients out there for every caliber of writer - you just have to know where to find the ones that are the right fit for what you are offering.

Rebecca

 

Obviously not. Many of us here started out as, well, sort of apprentices, and naturally the rates we charged were around $1-2. It is only with the passage of time that you realize that however good you are at writing, you need to be good at business to command a better rate.

 

Quite right. Just today I go an offer from a law firm. How crazy is that?~

 

Amen. You didn't take that $1 a pop gig right? If so, move on. Find your target customers. If you're going to vent spleen every time you're sent an offer for a $1 or $2 a pop gig, it's never going to end.

 

^
I didn't although it irritated the hell out of me

 

lol on the $1 article. As for myself, I accept low rates because I could afford to. Also, I'm just starting my business here and will have to prove my mettle first before asking for the real rates. As far as quality goes, I don't send out crap since I'd be insulting myself first of all when I do that.

 

Ok, that said, I think it is also important for some of the writers to see what a 'high priced' article would look like. I have started off from $1-2 for 250 words and now way too above that figure. But browsing through some of the threads here, it feels like looking at other peoples' work that commands higher rate, say $15 or more for a 500 word piece, maybe of help to rationalize.

Not all of my clients are alike when it comes to accepting the rates which makes me think that the rest are simply accepting me for they are used to my quality and the convenience as they are used to me for about a couple of years. However, the other side of this is also true that reluctance of the rest (that don't want to pay more) may not be based on the issue of quality. So, as a matter of speaking, I am in transition, and this is why a sample 'pricey' article may help.

 

I can see the frustration in this discussion. I am quite new this forum and, like many, I wish I'd discovered ages ago. I used to be a technical writer with one of the largest tech writing outfits in the UK. I've seen what's charged for good quality writing, albeit technical writing, and it's far above the rates that many have mentioned here. If you were to buy technical writing services from a specialist company in say, the aero or engineering sectors, you'll pay anywhere from £30 (~$60) per hour to £60 (~$120) per hour. None of this pay per word nonsense - in inexperienced writers that can drive poor quality and word stuffing.
Skilled writers, able to write on specialist subjects are a scarce commodity. Lots of people pretending they can, but when it comes to it...

I think many webmasters are not appreciative of the true value of high quality, unique content and so are caught in the 'let's pay as little as possible' trap. Competition between the west and the indian subcontinent is also driving prices down. More and more tech writing providers are outsourcing to India these days. the arguement has to be about quality and value for money, not just cheap and voluminous content.

Best of luck to everyone here chasing the quality dollar.

 

In my opinion, there's no "standard rate" for written material because its all contextual. If you're ok with total garbage you just want to use for SEO purposes, you'd pay less than $0.01 a word; if you're after well-writ, informative stuff stuff, you'd pay up to $0.03/word or more depending on the writer; and if it's print-quality articles you want, you're probably going to have to pay >$1 per word.

 

You are describing "services," which are heterogeneous, personal and intangible.

And there's another problem. Many think of their service (and market it) as they would goods, but goods and services are two different arenas and have different approaches.

From what I see, most of the people here who charge 1-2 cents (or less) per word of content, but want more, are committing two major services marketing errors :

1. Competing on price. Always a services marketing loser.

2. Targeting the wrong customer group. They are attracting the "value is the lowest price" segment. These are possibly satisfied, but never loyal, customers who feed off of discounts and almost always purchase services from the lowest-priced service provider.

In the end, your service will have the following characteristics:

1. Always seeking new clients as a major source of income.

2. Current customers are easily picked off by other service providers.

3. Current customers hold the service hostage as you become aware of their intent to flee at the slightest sign of a price increase.


And so on. I've said too much.

Happy holidays.

 

Those rates are actually quite good if you live in India.
You guys need to learn how to outsource.

 

That's a pretty good point you said there. Makes me think.

And one thing I realized about the price is that, granted that all writers are created equal it can be very unfair to those who NEED to sell articles at a higher price (probably because of the cost of living in his/her area) to compete with other good writers who can afford to charge way lower rates than the former.

Maybe it would be good to have a change in the system of how articles are priced so that not only the ones with the lowest price wins the bidding wars.

 

I faced this problem in the past receiving $5 per 500-words article working as regular within a writing team.

Overtime wages were lower and lower until reach $2 per 650+ words after the "saturated" freelance writers market. Later I found that those articles I wrote were sold at $15 each and the "author" is the owner of the writers team, not me so I quit.

 

To be honest I don't like writing teams, although they do help a lot of people in the third-world countries. In the Philippines $20 a day would be great, better than most rates in other jobs. These people need to sit in front of the PC the whole day just to produce quality works

 

I was actually planning to put up a writing team too composed of close friends (all writers) and former colleagues, but had to back out because of the very low rates. Can't afford a business that earns so little while shortchanging my friends.

 

Spot on. I think, even jhmattern has a similar point of view. If you took a deeper look at it, the spot light falls evenly on the customer as well as the writer. Markets always thrive on the strength of demands and not on that of supply. However this is not a simple case of 'you get what you pay for', but a much deeper one of market dynamics.

So, it is given that both the types are going to co-exist but the lower segment of the market always struggles as you said.

 

In relation to writing costs, this is a valid point.

In some countries, $2 for 500 words is viewed as cheap, while other countries it is viewed as a market rate.

Quality of work aside, it is the cost of living in the home country of the writer that will invariably enable them to write for their 'market price'.

In high cost of living areas, $2 for 500 words is excessively cheap and in order to sustain a decent standard of living the quality of the work will suffer greatly. It will become quantity and not quality.

In low cost of living areas, $2 for 500 words may well mean only 2 or 3 pieces of work maximum per day to be able to enjoy an above average standard of living. In some cases, it will be greed that drives quality to suffer while in other cases, quality could be maintained if that person is happy making their 3 pieces of writing per day, 7 days a week (monthly income circa $180 - this would more than likely be topped up with other sources of income from websites in adsense etc).

Overall, the price should not be a view of quality of the writer, but it will definately make the buyer question the quality. If the price is much higher, then quality becomes much more important to the buyer... all buyers have a different perspective of what constitutes quality.

 

^ Very much agree. The thing is if your rate is that low, chances are you are living in a country which is underdeveloped and not many people speak English as their first language.
But to say that human life is cheap in some parts of the world is too much I think

 

You are right, lynder. As far as quality is concerned, I don't think a writer's home country or his native tongue should be a cause of concern as long as articles pass the threshold of expectation.

Elsewhere in the forum, I am seeing too much being made out about these aspects needlessly. This is a market, as long as you can sell, you are within your freedom to ask a price you want. I don't want to believe that quality must command high prices always. In a way, making things out of trivial issues such as that makes no sense.

Let's let the market dynamics play.

 

There are a few things people using the global market argument in pricing tend to forget:

1. The bulk of writers who don't speak English as their native language don't write well in the language conversationally, which to a degree is what most people are looking for on the Web. Many simply have poor English language skills, or are too technical. There are, of course, some exceptions.

2. Those exceptions who can write in nearly flawless conversational English (the type who couldn't be separated from native speakers from their writing), usually don't charge those low rates. They charge as much as, or just enough less than their native speaking competitors to put themselves on the same playing field while remaining competitive (which makes sense - if they can earn much more than they need in their home country, it wouldn't make sense in business not to do that).

3. The huge issue that everyone seems to forget when they're touting outsourcing is the legal side of things. A buyer in the US for example, may not have a legal means of pursuing a writer for things like copyright infringement if they're overseas (depending on the country). Therefore, if that writer simply rewrites someone else's article (a violation of copyright law in the US), and that US buyer publishes it, they could be sued by the real copyright holder. By hiring a writer in their own country, they know they have the ability to turn around and sue the writer if needs be, and not take on all legal risk on their own. Remember, things like Copyscape don't prove unique articles. Rewriting something to pass Copyscape is still illegal if you don't have the original copyright holder's permission to rewrite the piece. If they don't want to hire writers in their own country, at a bare minimum they should do the research to find out what legal rights they'll have if the writer provides stolen content that they're then held accountable for.