What can I expect from a $30 article (1500 words)?

Demand high quality for that price .. It would depend alot on what you are using the article for ...Is it a pre sales if it is a well written sales article or pre sales article ( which means that you ultimately end up making a sale ) then you will probably make your money back several times over... So if you make more than $30 then I would say its worth it however I say use articlez.com can't go wrong thats far and away the best article marketing service

You can definitely get very high quality work for $30, you just gotta be careful about choosing a good writer. I always ask for a short custom sample (less than 100 words - something I can use for other things so the writer doesn't balk or think I'm trying to screw them over) to get a better idea of their skills. There are plenty of sketchy writers out there who steal samples. Or teams with only one talented writer and 5 crappy ones. lol

I'm lucky that at this point I have a few talented writers who I trust. And I definitely think you get what you pay for.

Where are you looking for a writer?

I agree, but if you find a talented writer then they won't need a lot of time. The couple of writers I use can get me a great 1500 word article in less than 24 hours for that price. Of course it depends on what the subject is and what you're using it for. I've also paid 3X that for work.

Gotta love IM.

It's for a Solar Energy blog.
Have been trying to get writers from Scriptlance, but you can't expect to receive articles matching the examples they send you. Guess that's a never-ending problem.

Maybe I should try to make a topic in the "Wanted - Members Looking To Hire You" forum instead.

Some people suggest that I am an excellent writer, and I would not touch your job for less than $150...

I guess that means that at the rates you are willing to pay, you will find a lesser writer than myself. :p

But the more important question is, "How do YOU define quality?"

A longer word count is no guarantee of better quality content.

It is like a SEO writer who says 15 times in an article, "the right product for you".

I asked you to write an article, not a damn sales pitch. I will do my own selling, thank you very much.

Quality is something that the reader can identify, without thinking about it... But it is hard to teach that to people you hire to write for you.

Either the person writing for you creates good quality content before you hire them, OR you are doomed to get junk.

More money does not equal better quality content in the writing industry -- sad to say... The only way to ensure better quality content is to hire better quality writers...

And most of those folks know what to charge you for their time -- even if you don't know what you should pay them.

My advice is to find a good writer first, then negotiate a price that both of you consider to be fair.

This.

It depends what you're trying to buy.

The word "article" means very different things to different people.

If you want something that's likely to turn out to be a chunk of basically readable text about the subject, with the right keywords in it, with which you can fill a good space on your site (to "get some content up") and which you can also submit to various other places where the quality of the content isn't too closely examined, and get some low-grade backlinks but little if any traffic out of it, it may do the job.

If you want high quality content to which others (with relevant publications/sites/ezines) will voluntarily link so that you can get some targeted traffic (and/or relevant backlinks) out of it, I suppose it's just about conceivable that you might get super-lucky, but you'd need to, and the deck is well and truly stacked against you.

Please excuse the observation that if you want only the former (and your price is arguably a little below the norm even for that), 1,500 words is a funny length of article to be buying. The length is what I could easily use, myself, for a syndicable article, but that would be far more plausible from a writer who knows how to write for syndication, and you'd be looking at a minimum of $0.05 per word for that ($75+ for your article), and you'd typically need a lot of luck, trial and error, experience and reliable recommendations to find that, too - it's not a "trivial outsourcing job".

(I was typing while Bill posted, above, but I was about to suggest that writers like Anne Pottinger or Bill would probably be looking at a minimum of $150 - $200 for what you've described. And they're the ones whose clients return for more, all the time. Just a thought.)

I hope this was intended as an ironic comment ... but I'm genuinely not sure.

There are a few quality writers running around the forum.

Look at sigs to see if they offer ghost writing. Then look at their posts in the forum to get a feel for their writing capabilities.

I prefer to hire writers who know how to tell stories, because even in non-fiction writing, stories capture the attention of the reader.

Once you find someone who interests you, ask for samples of articles they have written before.

The freelance sites are such a crap shoot. There are good writers there, but they are outnumbered by bad writers, by at least 10-to-1.

I have been hiring writers for decade, and all I can tell you is that it is always a crap shoot...

I have had the most success hiring writers out of the forum. Just Google:
site:warriorforum.com "ghost writing"

or any variation of ghost writing related word combos.

That will help you find the people advertising ghost writing services.

The writers I am currently employing from the forum might be unhappy with me for doing this, but when I find a good writer who reliably delivers good quality work, I like to keep those people in my private Rolodex.

If I shared them, they might not have time to write for me when I want them to write for me.

The easy answer is twice the quality of what you get for $15. The smarter answer is twice the results of what you get for $15. What are those $15 articles doing for your business? A $30 article could increase it two-fold, or accomplish it in half the time. It all depends on what you want from it.

Hopefully you've been tracking the results of previously purchased materials... That's the only way to form a real value of literary worth.

Really the question, what kind of quality can I expect for a $30 1500 word article? Is the same thing as asking what can I expect for a $5000 car. If you’d ask this question to a mechanic he would tell you, “it depends” on the car.

Well to answer your question about your article I would say, it depends on the writer. There is no specific rules here!

However, I as a writer I can tell you that I wouldn’t write a 1500 word article for $15. However, $30 is a bit more reasonable. Really, no one should be that desperate to write for such a low price. Thankfully for you guys, some people are.

Sorry for telling the truth here

Everyone will approach an article and subject differently, as they all have their own flavor. Plus, there are other things that can play a factor, too (i.e. general article requiring minimal research on a broad topic or a specific article on a specific topic requiring deeper and more intricate research).

However, as a majority of people here have already mentioned, it will truly depend on the writer.

To find writers that would fit your style and budget, try asking around for any recommendations. As TPW mentioned, there are some excellent writers lurking around here as well - you'll just have to do your research.

The quality depends on the person for example someone could do better for $5 and someone less for $100

I just love threads about articles with people having different opinions about them (some of them completely wrong)

It all depends on how much effort it is for the writer to write the article. I don't know much about solar energy and (importantly) I don't want to know that much about solar energy. For this reason $50 isn't much motivation to write 1500 on the subject. I wouldn't do it for less than $150.

However if someone wanted an article on a subject I know very well, that I'm an expert in, $50 for a 1500 web article would probably be OK.

You might try Unique content - Textbroker.com.

You can order articles from different levels of writers - I've been very pleased with the quality of the 4 star writers (that will cost you .022 a word which would be $33 for a 1500 word article though).

I've ordered several 700 word articles from that level and never once been disappointed, in fact, several of the articles were incredibly good.

I like using that site because you just put in your request and a writer picks it up, writes the article, you review and if you like it you pay if not you can reject it. You don't have to go through any process of interviewing and hiring writers.

They also have a higher level (.067 a word) that I bet is killer stuff and a couple of lower levels. I have not tried the lower levels so cannot vouch for the quality there.

Lee

P.S. I'm pretty picky about articles as I fancy myself to be a writer, I just don't have enough time to do all the writing for my business myself so sometimes I hire it out.

If I may suggest, don't start with the price in mind, start with the quality in mind. As others have said, there is no guarantee that twice the money will bring twice the quality. Sometime you will get a better quality for a lower price, not because of the price, but just because it so happens. It's like going grocery shopping, just because something is more expensive does not necessarily mean it's better.

Minimum wage content.

A whole lot of fluff and filler at that price point.

-Chris

spot on TSX, if you pay more, it does not mean the quality will be better.

Well Wide, its not about how long the article is, its about the quality of the article and how viral you can get your link to become. Here's the scoop there were test studies done to see what kinds of articles get the most views.

The results were that shorter articles that were around 300-500 words converted better than the longer ones. Also another point I want to get at is that when you are an article marketer, the only way to really start to see the sales start rolling in is to create and submit many different articles containing the same website link. A great service I advise you to use is articlesubmitauto.com. Its a numbers game whoever has the most of them wins!