Article writing & Content Outsourcing What's your Experience?

Most difficult = getting articles back on time. 2nd place = poor quality (spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation).

The writers I've stuck with produced good, error-free content ON TIME consistently.

Price is NOT the #1 consideration. If you go cheap, you'll most often GET cheap. You'll end up spending valuable time fixing what you paid for. What's the point? And that goes for writers providing their services. Don't undercut yourself. There is a big demand for competent, professional (ie, on time consistently) writers. Charge accordingly, if that's you. Don't be afraid to ask for $10 or more for quality 400-500 word articles. Even $25+ is regularly paid for articles that short if you are exceptionally talented and professional about your services.

John

You will get all types of replies to this. From my experience I have found some really good people here on the forum who offered low prices, I suspect to get customers but got swamped and delayed delivery. Others who simply didn't do the work and vanished.
I have since decided to hire my own staff mainly for this work as I got fed up chasing people for delivery dates etc.
There are many people offering writing services and if you provide a good service and keep to the agreed delivery times with a competitive price you could have many customers.
The problem is there are many people using outsourcing companies abroad who do good quality work for low prices so there is a lot of competition.

Good Luck

John

I personally use Textbroker.com. Its great because I can literally ask for 10 articles on the same topic and I will get 10 unique articles back very quickly all from different writers with different opinions etc. One writer would take a long time, and they would tend to sound the same.

However, I have outsourced a number of places and the #1 concern I have is quality. I don't considered myself a great writer, but I have RARELY been given back an article that I couldn't have done better myself. Also, many authors just don't have specific enough knowledge about certain niches. So, it tends to be difficult to find someone knowledgeable about a particular subject AND happens to be a good writer.

Finding reliable writers who can produce quality content within agreed time.

I stuck with a couple of writers 'cause they are professional, product nearly flawless content and are reliable.

Price, for me, is not a major factor. In the long run, it's about quality and professionalism.

Hope that helps!

It's the million dollar question - How can you find really good articles for a good price?

I am looking for someone to write quality articles and then get 25 backlinks to them. I'm still lookning

Hi guys

i think its very difficult to find good writers as it is all about a good skill. With general outsourcing like bookmarking its never a problem as a basic data entry person does the trick. But article writing is so much harder.

It took me two years to find a decent one ( a fellow warrior) then he disappeared on me about a month or so ago without a word. so im getting to the point were i need to find another one and start the process again. By the time i find one i could have done the work myself.

kind regards


sam
X

Spikey -- one bit of advice for your wife. Many people recommend starting with a low price to "build up your clientele". But a lot of writers have found that it then becomes hard to break out of that price. The customers that are the ones that will pay $5 for an article aren't always the ones that pay $15.

As for CDarklock and Kevin -- I find that one of the best ways to always get things done on time is to give yourself longer that it would really take. Don't promise a 24 hour turnaround. Tell the person that it will take 3-7 days (or whatever). That way, if you can get it in earlier, they're delighted, but if you get stuck or something comes up, you don't disappoint.

Love,
Shannon

Shannon Tani, dsmpublishing, Swastik, John Sullivan, Zeus66 thank you for your input and feedback on your experiences. What I'm hearing is that.

Sticking to Delivery Times and Writing quality (spelling, grammar etc.) seem to be the most important or frustrating things when dealing with outsourcing writing projects.

Price, while important isn't the main thing and it's important not to price to cheaply off the bat as it's difficult to raise your pricing later.

While only one of you mentioned the basic understanding of the subject, I know a basic knowledge is required so the article makes sense.

I thank each of you for this feed back.


Kevin Regier, CDarklock thank you for your insight on the actual process of writing for others.

The Redfox, I have used TextBroker and I found it was taking me more time to send content back to the writers as they weren't following some of the most simple instructions. I've since stopped using them all together.

Any one else have any feedback on their writing experiences?

What they find most frustrating about outsourcing content creation?

Why you've continued to order from a particular service provider?

Cheers,

Spikey

For those who have a problem with their deadlines

Managing your Project

This is a major problem that writers face, because many of them are not used to managing a project.

Even worse, you have to calculate how long a project will take, and how much that project will cost.

I worked in a profession where every job was given a time budget. I also had to write the budgets for many staff members, and then review them when they went over budget.

How do you calculate a time budget?

How much would you charge for a service?

Ask 100 people and you are likely to come up with 100 answers.

Now, the question can be worth asking especially if you take a note of all the answers. It could give you a good price range to work on. But, the reality is only you as the service provider can say what the value of your service is.

I've had a lot of people asking me, how much do you think I should charge and how long do you think I will take. Again, it is impossible to answer, because everybody is different.

Here is my standard answer to each of the questions, and yes they are both linked together.

To see how to apply this, we will take a client who wants 100 x 500 word articles written.

Each day is seen as the number of hours you can work on the service.

1. Decide how long an article of 500 words will take you to research and write. You might need to write a test article to see the results. For this purpose we are going to say it will take 30 mins to research and write.


2. If 1 article takes 30 mins then 100 articles will take 50 hours. Multiply the number of articles by the time taken per article.


3. Decide how many hours a day you have available to write. Maybe, you can write for 5 hours a day. Divide the total number of day by the number of hours available. 50 hours divided by 5 = 10 days.


4. Remember, not all days are created as equal. Do you want to write 7 days a week, or is one day not available. Take the number of days, and add an additional day for each one you can't work. 10 days + 1 day = 11 days


5. Check the diary to see if there are any special days, which will mean another loss of day, maybe a birthday or anniversary. 11 days + 1 day = 12 days


6. What if you find that the research will take longer to do than expected, then budget for it. Add in an additional day for research. 12 days + 1 day = 13 days


7. Add an extra day in for proof reading and corrections. 13 days + 1 day = 14 days


8. Add an extra day, because you might be wrong with your calculations. 14 days + 1 day = 15 days

You now have your time calculated to tell the client when they can receive the service promised.

The problem is people think they have 15 days, and don't start until day 6 or even later, and then wonder why they have run out of time. It is simply because they failed to budget their time.

WOW bev, thanks for the great reply. This is fabulous info. that will greatly help as this venture lifts off.

Most experienced marketers who outsource writing understand that they get what they pay for.

I'm not worried about the price. I'm worried about the quality. I know if I'm paying $5 per article the quality isn't going to be up to par.

At the same time I know if I'm paying $12 or more the quality is going to be good in most cases.

In one word: Quality - That's what's important!

I hired a writer who works for me part-time. She completes about 15 articles a week in about 20 hours. The quality is good and because we work together all the time she consistently delivers articles with a voice "consistent" with mine.

Right now you can hire surprisingly skilled writers for $10/hour.

There's definitely some great advice on this thread. As a content writer that started a few months back, I would say to stick with it even if it's tough at first! I dealt with lots of people telling me my prices were too high even though they are lower than a lot of others I've seen.
Eventually you will be paired with people that appreciate well researched, good quality articles. Now my schedule is full most of the time without even needing to advertise.