What's stopping you from writing articles?

by RebeccaL

Posted: 15 years ago 27 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

I used to hate writing articles. I would dread the thought of writing just one or two articles per day.

Then I started offering my services to clients for cash and experience. That was about 1.5 years ago.

Since then, I've 'trained' myself to write up to 20 articles per day.

If I write 10 articles in a day, I consider that to be a slow day. A failure even.

Today I've written 15 and I feel that I took it easy. I really should have done 25.
But I dont spend all day writing. I set up Wordpress blogs, I edit my own sites, I research new techniques and products and I read forums.

What brought about this change was a necessity to write. I had/have so many orders coming in that I simply have to keep up this volume (yet I still often fall behind). When you have people counting on you, you simply have to do it. When you are doing something for yourself you tend to allow yourself to slack off, but you can't do that if someone has paid you.

Now I am looking beyond. I have once again started writing articles for myself as part of my daily routine.

Soon I will be undertaking a challenge to write and submit 50 articles per week, for one month. These articles will go on my own site plus half will be submitted to Ezinearticles. That is 200 articles in a month - 100 at EZA.

I have to stress that I'm not writing junk articles. They are well researched and informative. I've never had a complaint about article quality and my EZA submissions usually get a good number of views. I don't recommend churning out rubbish articles for the sake of quantity.

So what is stopping you from writing 5, 10, 15 or more articles per day?

If you can write 1 article in 30 minutes, can you not make it to 5 in a day?

If you are a faster writer/typer like me and take around 10 minutes per article then you only need to dedicate 100 minutes per day to complete 10 articles. That's less than 2 hours of your day.

If you averaged 10 articles per day, everyday excluding weekends, that would be over 2500 articles in a year. Think of those possiblities

#articles #stopping #writing

highrider21 15 years ago

That's a good question! So far I have written only 1 article and it took me about 30 minutes. I also re-wrote 1 article awhile ago which took me about an hour. I hate writing, I failed Eng1A 2 times because of my resistance to writing. I don't know what it is I just don't know how to write articles, so much so that I completely avoid writing. I've been wanting to do article marketing for a while because It's so low cost and low risk to start but I can't get myself to write. I just have this mental resistance when it comes to writing. I can do keyword research, but then when I do research for the actual article I get lost in all of the info and don't know how to put it all together into one article. I feel like the only way I could write about something is if it's something I'm really interested in and have a full understanding and knowledge of and know what I am talking about. Do you have any suggestions to get over this fear of writing? I don't want to tell someone I'm going to write articles for them just to force myself to write because I'm pretty sure I will just back out and give them their money back.
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- rafaelapolinario 15 years ago
  
  It wont be that hard for you if you are used to writing on a daily basis. You get to learn how to best produce a good quality one as you go with it. Its the only way to best drive traffic to your site, readers want to get new information, that's why they go to sites. By posting regularly, you get to build trust with them. And when they trust you enough because of your postings, they'll soon buy your products. You can start posting 2-3 times a week. And writing articles at a starting volume, say 3 -5 article per day. Then try to increase it as you develop your writing skills.
  
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  cashcow 15 years ago
  
  When you have people counting on you, you simply have to do it.
  
  I think you have actually hit the nail on the head as to why a lot of people don't take action - not just writing articles but any type of action for their business.
  
  There is no boss and no one is "making" them.
  
  When I was still working a job and doing IM part time, one of my co-workers who knew about my part time activites said that she could never work for herself like that because she knew that she lacked the drive and discipline to MAKE herself do the work.
  
  Article writing can be a chore, but just like anything in life, it is all in your attitude. If you think of it as a chore, then it will be. If you think of it as something that will get you that much closer to the lifestyle you desire than it might not seem so bad!
  
  The funny thing is that you actually get better at it the more you do it. So if some of you are taking 30 minutes or an hour to write articles today, the more you practice it the faster you will get. Not only that but your article quality will improve as well.
  
  Writing articles is good exercise for your brain!
  
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ekamala Banned 15 years ago

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- my_addict_mind 15 years ago
  
  I don't have any problem writing articles. All my eza submissions get accepted. My usual quota is 1 to 2 articles a day. But beyond that, I get the writer's block. No more juice flowing from my brain. I just want to know from you guys how do you cope with this? How do you force your brain to continue when the natural inclination of the brain is to stop thinking after 1 to 2 hours of writing.
  
  That is my major stumbling block in doing bum marketing. How can I produce 5 to 10 articles everyday consistently.
  
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  YseUp 15 years ago
  
  I can just about write one article a week, I just don't know what to write about. This is also an issue I have with outsourcing article marketing.
  
  Although I will write the occasional article I don't think it's going to be the main route I'll take for traffic generation.
  
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DominicTFY

15 years ago

Originally Posted by RebeccaL

...Since then, I've 'trained' myself to write up to 20 articles per day...

If you are a faster writer/typer like me and take around 10 minutes per article then you only need to dedicate 100 minutes per day to complete 10 articles. That's less than 2 hours of your day.

Hey RebeccaL,

How did you manage to pull off this feat of 10 minutes/article?

Regards,
Dominic Tay

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RebeccaL 15 years ago

Originally Posted by DominicTFY

Hey RebeccaL,

How did you manage to pull off this feat of 10 minutes/article?

Regards,
Dominic Tay

Practice.. like I said, I used to struggle with writing just one or two articles per day. Over time my writing has improved, so have my research skills.

My point is that if you practice, practice, practice you WILL get better at it!

my_addict_mind - writers block happens to everyone, so does motivation loss. What I tend to do is write in blocks. I will sit and write 2 or 3 articles at once, then walk away for half an hour until I am refreshed.

sree94 - I thought that was going to be a smart comment until I saw your final words :p Was that just one month of writing 200 articles to get that residual income? Good stuff

John (Zeus66) - I can see your point there. I actually didn't really include research time there. That is a whole other topic. With research, my entire article writing time is probably 15-20 minutes. The catch is that I do research prior to writing any articles on a topic and the research that I do will apply to 10, 20 or more articles. I will do quite a bit of reading and take notes. Then I use that research as the basis for all my articles. Remember, you don't need to be an absolute expert to write well; by researching from the right sources you will gain more knowledge than most people who are interested in the subject.

sashas - If it is client work, they give me the topics.
For my own articles I do thorough keyword research before writing. Currently I have a new site I am working on and I have a list of 900 keywords, each one listed with search volume and competing pages (and that was all done manually in Excel as I find software to be inaccurate).
I will be writing 2 articles for every single one of these keywords - one for my site, one for directories. It will take me a while but it will be worth it.
So to answer your question, your keywords should dictate the topic of your article, but you can always create your own spin and use the keyword in creative ways.
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Franck Silvestre 15 years ago

This is not really hard after you wrote 50 articles in the same niche. It becomes very easy.

A good way to save time is to outsource your article writing.

Nice post Rebecca.

Franck

Originally Posted by DominicTFY

Hey RebeccaL,

How did you manage to pull off this feat of 10 minutes/article?

Regards,
Dominic Tay
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vbm08 Banned 15 years ago

Rebecca Its a very good motivation. I am also facing the same problem of writing consistent articles every day. I think Article Writing should be like "Do or Die" attitude in your daily life if you are totally dependent on the income from article marketing activities.

If Writing Articles is Bread & Butter for you then you have to have that type of killer attitude so that you can get the required motivation and inspiration to write articles every day.

But writing 15-20 articles is really uphill task for many of the marketers here. So Rebecca , congrats for your abilities of writing consistent articles which many people can not simply even think of.

I am also trying to improve my article writing skills. The most number of articles I have ever written is 7 a day till this time. But I am really trying my best to improve upon this number. And the posts like yours gives me that much required inspiration to boost my article writing speed.

So thanks again Rebecca.
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sree94

15 years ago

What's stopping me from writing articles?

Oh maybe the fact that I am making residual income now and don't need to write anymore!

Oh... but wait... the reason I am making that residual income is BECAUSE I wrote 200 articles in a month

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Munna_Bhai

Banned 15 years ago

Originally Posted by sree94

Wow..200 articles in a month? Now thats is really something. I used to dread writing articles as well. Nowadays, afters weeks of practise, it just becomes a breeze. Just write on topics that your are passionate about, and it will not become so much of a chore anymore..

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sree94 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Munna_Bhai

Just write on topics that your are passionate about, and it will not become so much of a chore anymore..

Can't say I agree with you on this. There are a lot of things I am interested in that are not going to make me any money at all
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Zeus66 15 years ago

Forgive my pessimism, but I have a really hard time believing anyone who isn't truly gifted (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.) could crank out 10 articles at 10 minutes apiece and not have them be junk. I realize a word like "junk" is subjective. I suppose if you're already an expert on a subject, you could quickly string together a coherent, knowledgeable series of articles on that subject that would not be junk. But if you're a writer for hire, you're going to have to factor in plenty of research time - even if you're brilliant and have an incredibly broad spectrum of knowledge floating around in your noggin.

So, again, forgive me for raining on your parade, but I simply don't believe anyone can take a subject a client provides and immediately proceed to crank out articles at 10 minutes apiece. They will be generic boilerplate stuff with the only difference between them being the language, not the gist. I don't have a problem with someone being skilled enough to write that fast, but that's after how much time spent doing the necessary research on a subject about which they most likely are not very knowledgeable at the start?

I'm all for setting high goals. But when article writing becomes all about quantity, quality always suffers - unless you're already an expert on the topic and can simply pull from a ready database of knowledge in your brain. That's my take as an online writer for the past 12 years or so.

John
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Peggy Baron 15 years ago

That's pretty impressive Rebecca!

I do agree that when I'm writing for someone else, I will get the job done quicker. Nothing helps as much as a looming deadline.

Prioritizing right away in the morning helps too. If I set a goal to get xx articles done that day and then reward afterwards, I'm good to go. If I don't plan out my day, I end up doing a little of this and a little of that.

Peggy
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seobro 15 years ago

A good article takes my five hours to write. Much of this time is spent doing the research. Also, it might be rejected.

The biggest reason to not write has to be what I call the "STAR" syndrome. One article gets millions of hits and the others get like ten hits. You see the same phenomenon taking place on Youtube. Where one movie is 200,000 views and all the other are less than 1,000.

This means it is far more profitable to generate one very good article that is a STAR, than thousands of doggy articles that are going to get buried.
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- Zeus66 15 years ago
  
  One article gets millions of hits and the others get like ten hits.
  
  Very true. The popularity of the niche matters a lot, too. But within the same niche over time, a thorough, truly informative and well written article will far outshine the combined benefits of a bunch of run-of-the-mill articles. I say this from experience and doing things the wrong way for way too long. When I "got religion" on this fact, it made all the difference. Quality over quantity wins the long haul every time.
  
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bettersocial 15 years ago

I have one question: how do you find so many topics to write on if you write 10 articles a day?

I can churn out good articles in 15-30 minutes, but eventually I find myself running out of subjects to write on. There is, after all, a limit to what all you can write about...

So where do you find your topics?

Enlighten me, please!
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justthinking 15 years ago

I also hate writing articles, but since I need them, I guess it is a necessary evil. But I do try to outsource as much of the work as I can. I usually buy in large bundles so I can get a deal.
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RebeccaL 15 years ago

It's certainly not for everyone so if you can successfully outsource that's great
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WealthBluePrint 15 years ago

Very well put. I totally know what you mean about working for yourself as compared to writting them for someone. If you don't have a deadline and someone counting on you, sometimes you go on a several day brain fart!
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queenbuzzy 15 years ago

Wow...that's awesome that you can write so many so quickly!

I personally, have a list, generally from questions asked by my ezine subscribers, and once every month or so I just set aside a writing day to crank them out. They're pretty quick: Q&A format.

In terms of longer articles that I would actually submit to article farms, (or whatever you want to call them) that takes me much longer, and yeah, it is a mental block. What i have started doing is just taking some of the Q&A's and expanding them, or taking sections of my ebook to formulate an article.

But, consistency isn't something I'm good at. I sit at a computer all day at work...the last thing I want to do when I come home is sit and write some more!

Haven't really considered outsourcing them though...I'd rather remain the authority in my niche.
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RebeccaL

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ProductCreator

I agree with Zeus. A "well researched article" should take at least an hour. I write such articles for my own sites and they are amazing, real gold, no they are latinum

Plus I enjoy writing them but I cannot crank out many of these every day, perhaps two at most.

I am capable of cranking out 5 every hour though. I have even done 50 in one day. These are not well researched at all. They are "conversational" - the words come straight out of my brain. Minimal editing. Readable, good English. But just intended to presell and get visitors to my site. They are incredibly boring to write and this is why most people hate writing articles.

Thats the goal - to get visitors.
These are traffic generating articles, I'm not writing masterpieces

I could certainly spend an hour on an article, and have done before but those articles would always remain on my own site.

Originally Posted by ProductCreator

In terms of quality they are not particularly high. Why would I sweat blood and tears for ezinearticles? They already make a ton of money from Adsense.

There are great benefits for US to submit to EZA - I dont care what they earn as long as they send me traffic

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lavaleekathy 15 years ago

Agreed Rebecca, I think a good article takes me at least an hour to write. Much of this time is spent doing the research and finding quality sources of information to incorporate into the article. There's always the possiblity that one article out of possibly a thousand will get more views (in the hundreds or thousands) and generate more traffic than another. That's why I think it's important to generate one very good article with quality content, than writing hundreds of articles that are useless and will never be seen by web searchers. Thank you for your post!
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- affilcrazy 15 years ago
  
  I think you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to writing for other people in terms of motivation, etc.
  
  I know i should be more motivated when it comes to writing my own articles that form part of my own business, but i think my problem is i'm not good at "being my own boss".
  
  I have recently written 11 articles in a week pointing to a blog of mine and have submitted these to EZA and have been overwhelmed by the amount of views they have got (over 1500 in a week). It is one of the hottest niches out there and a lot of my articles have been picked up and added to many of the top sites in that niche (which gives me a real confidence boost too an kinda tells me that at least i'm not writing junk!!).
  
  However, i have done a few writing jobs for others and have always been complimented on the quality, quantity and punctuality of my work. I see myself cranking out 5-10 articles a day on a consistent basis for others, yet i struggle to write more than 2 artilces a day for myself..i guess it's all about the mindset!
  
  My problem is i keep finding unrealiable people to work for or those who want to pay peanuts! My whole point in writing for others was actually to get myself into the habit of writing lots and lots of articles on a regular basis and then carry this "new found hunger" over to my own articles and sites!
  
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  Sonni 15 years ago
  
  I notice that when I write the articles and submit a lot of times I get traffic but other times not depending on how good or bad the article is. I used to only be able to write a couple a day now I can do 6 or 7 but not two days in a row it burns me out and my mind goes to mush and I can't think straight.
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twannahiga 15 years ago

Great post! I'd agree that article writing isn't hard if you are used to writing on a daily basis. I think you need to learn how to consistently generate good quality articles as you go, I think a lot of that comes from experience. Not only is article writing the best way to drive traffic to your site, it also gives your readers new information and entices them to find out more at your site. You can build rapport with your visitors by posting regularly and get a reliable source of targeted traffic. And trust leads to the buying of your product! I think anyone can start by posting 2-3 times a week, and then slowly increase to 3 -5 articles per day, further refining their knowledge and skill. Thanks!
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What's stopping you from writing articles?

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