20 replies
Hi Warriors,

Yes, I am really tired writing articles for cheap. I have been writing articles for a long time and some people who saw my articles really liked its quality and asked why don't i demand more money. I even offered my services in the Warrior For Hire section but hardly got any clients who would pay me according to my work. I guess people are happy with those $5 articles.

You Warriors say that you shouldn't write articles for cheap if you are a quality article writer. I am not saying I am really exceptional but yes i am good at my work. But where in the world do I find clients who will pay me whatever i really deserve?

Thanks..
#article #tired #writing
  • Profile picture of the author KarlWarren
    Hi Bruce,

    I'm going to ask you a question - not to patronise, but to help out.

    You've stated what you DON'T want, but what DO you want?
    i.e. how much do YOU think you are worth?

    There are ways of finding clients who will pay a lot for writers, but, you might have to work hard to find them (at first), and then work to keep them.

    But, first of all, think about the questions I asked above. It would be interesting to know.
    Signature
    eCoverNinja - Sales Page Graphics & Layout Specialist
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1483540].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author MoneyRaker
    First of all - If you can write well, compelling articles. STOP SELLING THEM. People make money online by providing information - and often they hire people like you. So why not eliminate these middlemen and start supplying information directly to the people and make alot of money yourself.

    This is a friendly advice.....

    1. Start a Blog about something you really love and can write days without a break
    2. Regularly publish articles ....
    3. Promote them
    4. Build an audience over time.
    5. Earn lots of money

    The only trick it takes is PATIENCE. You may not get beyond a few visitors in the first month and just a couple of hundred the month next.... but if you can stick in there for a while ..... You'd eventually become an article Buyer ........

    Hope this helps....
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1483550].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
    @KarlWarren : Yeah i DONT want to write articles for cheap..But i would like to work for atleast $20 for a start..Then would love to scale it up from there..But there are so many writers who work in the range of $5-$15 for a 400-500 word article that it becomes difficult to find clients who pay for quality.
    Signature


    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1485968].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author RMC
      Okay folks welcome to economics 101 with a bonus lesson in marketing 101...and then a little business 101 to round things off.

      There is a supply and demand curve for every market and some markets are elastic, some are inelastic

      Price elasticity of demand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

      With inelastic markets, there exists lots of points where people will pay more than others for reasons like ignorance of pricing differences, convenience, familiarity..etc. This is why convenience store prices are always more than grocery stores.

      Now, some of those things are sort of hard to manufacture in some markets. Convenience and familiarity are certainly aspects you can use (past clients)

      You can also decrease supply, by pre-enrolling among your client list and having slightly variable pricing, therefore adding real scarcity and playing on the convenience and familiarity. They don't really want to go looking for new clients when they really need work done. You can slowly increase your prices and with aggressive new client acquisition you essentially filter out the low end clients not willing to pay the price, and lock in the best clients that ARE willing to pay a little more for the above factors.

      Conversely when you have them, offer loyalty discounts on every third or fourth order and do the math so that even with a discount the average per customer value is higher than if you had three seperate customers at your old prices, but they end up spending more to get the discount or staying with you.

      Okay, but that's a lot of work and complicated right?

      So here's one of the most powerful marketing lessons out there...

      If your market will not bear the prices you want:

      Operate on a different curve.

      In other words, make your offering unique, and add in value added activites to build competitive advantage (also known as strategic management).

      From our friend wikipedia linked above....
      "Goods and services for which no substitutes exist are generally inelastic"

      As someone in the market serving clients you're positioned best to learn what other needs they have. Combine products, and services, and find other ways to make their life easier, better, etc.

      So just off the top of my head...

      Setup an outsourcing team, that will not only take the content, it will install it, format it, turn it into video, make graphics.. i dunno that's what makes some people succeed where others fail. You'll need to really understand your client and interact to be able to find, learn, and always be on the lookout for ways to be different and unique.

      Yeah, that about wraps it up. Good luck.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486074].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author danalingga
      Originally Posted by Bruce_Richards View Post

      @KarlWarren : Yeah i DONT want to write articles for cheap..But i would like to work for atleast $20 for a start..Then would love to scale it up from there..But there are so many writers who work in the range of $5-$15 for a 400-500 word article that it becomes difficult to find clients who pay for quality.
      I think you can try be a writer in certain web site for that much paid. You will hard to get that price from forum in my opinion.
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486102].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author JRG
    Well, in many cases article writing is considered the grunt work. And with so many people willing to do it so cheap you really have to work hard at separating yourself as something better.

    My suggestions would be to either start using that talent to market your own stuff which if done correctly, should make you more money than just writing articles.

    Or, use a different approach don't sell the articles sell the results. Instead of telling someone you will write them a 400 word article, inform them that you will bring them traffic and highly targeted traffic etc...

    Then of course there is always the option of creating a product that teaches how to write great articles.

    Hope some of that helps. With so many people making so many promises these days it is tough to stand out and show you are worth more.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1485985].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
      Originally Posted by JR Griggs View Post

      With so many people making so many promises these days it is tough to stand out and show you are worth more.
      I completely agree with that statement.

      The same goes for me. My main problem is that i dont know how to market myself. I know I am worth more but how do i project it?
      Signature


      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486008].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
    If you write articles and feel those articles are worth $10, $20, $100 or whatever then charge that. If people are not willing to pay that kind of money then use the articles for yourself and generate the money from your own work.

    It's really that simple.. I have been a website developer for over 15 years and within the last year or so it got to where buyers wanted to be cheap and wanted a $5,000 for $50. Well.. I am not cheap and I only build custom sites (no open source code) and as such my work is worth decent money and not pennies.

    I refused to work or even sell a custom built site for $50 so I decided to change my business model and everything I build now is for myself and my business. I no longer take on clients. I have been a great deal happier since I changed my business model.

    Bottom line if people are not willing to pay what you charge then it is their loss not yours...

    James
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486089].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
    @RMC : Great post. My mind is brimming with a lot of ideas!
    Signature


    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486092].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Sandeep Shah
    To determine the worth of your articles I strongly recommend you to start article marketing. Perhaps you would stop selling your time for money down the road!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486106].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
    Any more suggestions on how to earn more as a writer will be highly appreciated..
    Can packs of PLR articles be sold as WSO's and do they sell well??
    Signature


    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486255].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Bruce_Richards View Post

      Any more suggestions on how to earn more as a writer will be highly appreciated..
      Can packs of PLR articles be sold as WSO's and do they sell well??
      Here's a suggestion....stop limiting your customer base. There's more to the world than the Warrior Forum. If you insist on selling in a flea market, don't be surprised if the people insist on paying flea market prices.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1490288].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Tinkerbell
    Bruce,

    You could do what I am working on doing right now...

    First - write extremely high quality articles (magazine/print quality)

    Next - set up a membership type site (I plan to use a static site with a PayPal recurring payments button and Aweber) where members pay you a monthly fee to receive your very high quality articles (they won't be able to get articles this good anywhere else, see?)

    Then - create a sales page that lets potential members know what you're offering (four magazine quality moneymaking articles per month) and how becoming a member benefits them over buying $5 articles.

    Finally - LIMIT the number of members you'll accept to about 15-25, and set membership at $97 a month.

    You'll be selling "Private Label Rights" to your articles, but you get to sell each one X number of times (however many members you accept) which equals out to a lot more than $20 an article.

    For example - if you accept (and get) 20 members, 20 times $97 is $1,940 per month. Divide that by the number of articles (4) offered, that comes out to $485 per article for you.

    Sound like something you'd be interested in? If you write well, I'm sure you can do it. The toughest part will be "selling" the members on buying into the membership. That's where copywriting and a great sales letter outlining the benefits of having great articles vs. okay articles comes in.

    Hope this helps....

    Tina
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486359].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author aakayb
      You need to get your work in front of as many people as possible. Why don't you try contacting the owners of blogs and offer to write an article for them and send them a sample of your work so they can see the quality of your work. If they like it, you can write a guest blog post for them and put a link in the post to using your services. Its a numbers game, so you will probably have to write to quite a few people, but if your work is good, am sure someone will be interested.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486408].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
    Hi Bruce,

    I recommend you read the post by Bev Clement in this thread:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ite-wahhh.html

    She offers a course that may be a solution for you. Might want to
    check it out.

    Best regards...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486421].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
    Can PLR articles be sold as WSO's and do they sell well?
    Signature


    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486636].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    Look here in the Warrior for Hire section and see how MANY people offer in about that range $1/100wds...some even cheaper!

    It would be extremely difficult to compete unless your articles have something the others don't have.

    I also read those "profi writer's" advice here on the forum how they change $50-$100 per article...but reality looks totally different. You can try upping to $10 if you do really excellent quality articles and have some rep as a good writer, but it might be tough.
    Signature
    *** Affiliate Site Quick --> The Fastest & Easiest Way to Make Affiliate Sites!<--
    -> VISIT www.1UP-SEO.com *** <- Internet Marketing, SEO Tips, Reviews & More!! ***
    *** HIGH QUALITY CONTENT CREATION +++ Manual Article Spinning (Thread Here) ***
    Content Creation, Blogging, Articles, Converting Sales Copy, Reviews, Ebooks, Rewrites
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486662].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SparowHawk
    Bruce, Do you have Elance account? If not you should have one and start there and after people can see your feedback so you can scale up your prices after you wrote some good articles!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486718].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author alwiser
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1486780].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Mo Faisal
      Originally Posted by alwiser View Post

      We don't need good content, we need "good-enough" content, heck, even $5 per 500 word article is expensive to me.

      I usually pay $4. Have been paying people $3 for them but the quality sucks too much, lol so I'm back up to $4-$4.5.

      That is really less for article writers who can write "good-enough" content!!
      Signature


      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1490245].message }}

Trending Topics