writing experiment update (approx $2,000 this month)

OK,

So I thought I would update everyone with my writing experiment... and basically help you if you are doing the same thing/what I've learned from it, etc, etc...

So for this month (I am counting on work that has not yet been paid, but assuming it will be paid before the end of the month/providing it gets completed )... I will have made about $2,000 from 'writing' for people... (this is not article marketing, etc. Just basically sitting down, and writing)... I've probably spent about 100 hours doing so, so it works out to about $20/hour... (please note these are approximate 'guesses', because I didn't fully track it like I probably should have the $2,000 is a fairly accurate guess)... Also, for reference, the last two months were about $900/month, so basically I managed to pretty much double my income from this But anyways:

What I've learned:

1. You should avoid people that seem to be too "cheap". There is nothing wrong with wanting to get a good quality article written for say $5-$10 (which is about 500 words)... But some people try to chisel you down to say $1 (which I totally avoid) -- or -- they ask for a ridiculous amount of work. (I.e., "write the article" -- which is ok -- but then "Oh yes, put exactly 5 keywords at the start of the paragraph, one keyword in the 3rd paragraph from the top, make sure the first sentence is exactly 25 words, but bolded on the 3-5 words", etc, etc... Unless they are fairly clear instructions, this becomes quite confusing and wastes an incredible amount of time...

2. As a caveat to the last one... There *are* people who ask for say $0.50/$1 per article... Unless you live in a country where $1/hour is considered a pretty decent wage... I would recommend staying away from that. Why? Because not only is it usually a waste of time -- but sometimes these people also have ridiculous requests as well (as above).

3. Generally speaking, I don't recommend doing re-writes *totally* 'free' of charge, unless you have a good relationship with someone. Why? Because usually these people just simply aren't happy with your work ("new" providers that is), no matter what. The quality of my work is pretty much top notch, but one guy (for whatever reason), didn't seem happy with some of the articles. So -- I offered to redo them totally from scratch. I worked twice as hard to make sure they were top notch quality. His response? "Mm, I guess they are 'ok'". He didn't seem to appreciate the extra time put into them.

4. Always make sure you do top-notch quality. One really, really nice benefit that I've found -- is because of the fact that my articles are generally so well researched, and so well written -- is now I have people coming back to me asking for more. That is part of the reason my income is higher this month. Simply because, people were really, really happy with what I was able to give them, and wanted more. Most of the time, when I put together an article, it is not simply a 'regurgitated' version of what someone else wrote. Rather, I research the topic from a number of different sources, think about it, figure out how the article should be written (structure, etc), and then put it together.

5. Generally speaking, if you are a native english speaker, you are more likely to get a job than someone else. Why? Simply because -- the other guys don't know how to write correctly. They'll write something like "I likes very much the shoe peoples wears on there feets". So if you see anything wrong with that sentence, chances are you have an advantage

Anyways, hope that helps, and good luck writing!

Johnathan