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An Open Letter To Freelance Writers Worried About Low Prices...

by Scott Murdaugh
7 replies
Hey guys,

I don't market article writing or ghost writing services anymore, but I used to.

And the least amount of money I EVER worked for, this was a couple of years ago, was about .03 per word.

I would NEVER write that cheap again. But I see these "$1 to rewrite" posts and it makes me laugh.

Those guys have been around forever, that segment of writers who will happily write that cheap.

Guess what? They aren't your competition.

I charge sometimes $1 plus per word to "write", although I don't quote that as the fee, and clients happily pay.

The REAL question is what do you bring to the table? Can you write high quality blog posts that drive traffic and links?

Can you write articles for ezine that get tons of views and clickthroughs?

Can you write copy that convinces people to take action? (That's where the money is).

Press releases? Resumes?

There are a million different markets out there, and even if you want to compete in the "webmaster article" niche there's still plenty of money to be made.

These guys aren't your competition.

-Scott
#freelance #letter #low #open #prices #worried #writers
  • Profile picture of the author Taylor French
    Yes, but sadly the people who will pay the higher fees are few and far between. And there is also a ton of competition at every price point these days. It's why I got out of freelancing and moved on to other things.

    I did freelance writing for many years. But even with a huge list of former clients who were extremely happy with my service, I started having trouble making ends meet. They found cheaper writers, and most of them wanted me to lower my rates to match the others.

    Rather than drop my rates, I just got out of freelancing. If people won't pay what I'm worth, they can go elsewhere.

    I'm making a lot more money, now. I'm happier, too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
    I couldn't agree more.

    If you specialize your article writing outside of the general review type article, you will make WAY more.

    Press release/copywriting is one way to do it.

    The way I see it, there are a few different specifications of articles.

    Search engine fodder - those crappy $2-$3 per 400 words article.
    Average - this is a price range between $6-15/article per 400
    Higher end - this is what I am trying to migrate all my affiliate sites to. Looking at $20+ per 400 words.

    If you can add in some sweet copywriting into your articles, I would definitely be willing to pay WAY more for it.
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    • Profile picture of the author GT
      Hi, Scott:

      Thanks for the encouraging post. I agree; there's money to be made in writing -- a serious writer doesn't have to give it away.

      I say determine what you want to be paid, identify a market you want to write for, target the clients within that market who appreciate quality and are willing to pay for it, then do your absolute best to provide them with the highest quality.

      If a writer does this right, he or she won't have to chase customers -- they will track the writer down!

      GT
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  • Profile picture of the author Bev Clement
    Scott, your correct. We offer our clients over 40 different services.

    Recently we were paid $3 a word, and the client had no problem paying that rate.

    Also, many of the cheaper writers have no idea what a quality article is. I have seen people saying "top quality ... the best ever" and it is the worse article around. If they say it is good, or even the best, and they claim to be writers themselves, you have to wonder what type of work you would receive from them.

    There are a lot of people desperate for good quality writers, but [gasp, dare I say it] they are mainly outside Internet Marketing forums.

    Bev
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    That other thread was blown over proportions anyway, since $1 are NOT the norm, even if you go on a marketing forum in the "buy/sell" section (for example DP) you will NOT see any writers (even from 3rd world countries) which will write for $1/pop.

    Even your friendly "neighborhood writer" from india will charge more.

    But then i also think that all the $3/word talk is unconstructive - its just the other end of that spectrum. Both are extremes. Go on any forum and check the rates there and we wouldn't even have that discussion. Although of course i understand that someone gets angry being offered $1/article...i would get angry too and tell the offering person to **** it. There are PLENTY which will happily pay more, so there's not even a reason to write at such a low rate.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ralf Skirr

      You can get ANY price if you position yourself and if you go for the right clients.

      The warrior forum is the last place where a writer looking for decent money should look for clients.

      • Get clients with real, profitable businesses.
      • Get offline clients.
      • Get big clients.

      Why don't you guys do it?

      Because you want to get clients the easy way, by posting to forums, craigslist and freelance web sites.

      The moment you go out there to the offline world you will make very good money. Problem: you will have to learn how to MARKET your service first.

      The offline clients don't even know that people writing for 0.03 per word exist, and if they knew they wouldn't dream of hiring them, regarding the quality that you get.

      Caution: with offline clients I do NOT mean the other 1-Person small business operation, but real companies with employees, offices etc.

      Position yourself in marketing, you can get huge prices. The high end of marketing is copy writing, but there's also lots of money in writing press releases, company brochures, web site copy etc. etc.

      The only reason writers are whining is that they look for clients in the wrong places.

      Ralf
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  • Profile picture of the author YanKirby
    Id have to completely agree with you scott. I have been offering writing services to select clients but I always make sure my services really affect their bottom line.

    If you want to find a gem of a writer, freelance sites are the last sites you wanna go to. I say that based from experience and I have seen a number of people (most are good friends of mine) who dramatically increased sales when they opted to go for a real article writer.

    So here's some tips I would want to share:

    1.) Try to ask those who have a system going and just outsource everything. They have it all figured out. All too often, they have specs on how they would want writers to write there articles. If you can have access to their writer/s, that's a real gem. The problem with this is if they are EVER willing to share it with you.

    2.) FaceBook - You've heard a lot of people say outsourcing to the philippines is the best. Well, that would be true in my honest opinion. What better way to have it than social media. When I started delegating my articles few months ago, I met Patricia, former editor in chief in high school and is idle waiting for her licensure in nursing. Of course, I kept her after she had my specs like it was in her genes. She's not as cheap but definitely worth keeping.

    I still keep her now to write for me. And am enjoying the outcome.

    I guess the bottomline of this is this: Real writers that comes up with the best articles (conversions-wise) are not cheap and you need to go the extra mile to get hold of them.

    Happy Hunting!
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