iwriter -v- ineedarticles

iWriter seems to be the dominating service in this thread, with not much being said about the iNeedArticles service.

TBH, I never even knew Jon Leger was working on something like this. Most his emails I delete now, without opening them, as it got bizarrely promotional for the ArticleBuilder.Net service.

Giving that he's a software developer, mainly The Best Spinner and then there was the Instant Article Wizard software...what concerns me is the clients he'll have.

Jon's mailing list, as big as it'll be, I suspect is going to consist of clients who like automation. Using The Best Spinner to churn out tons of articles, off the one page of content. To me that's people looking for quantity and not quality. Whether it's the case is yet to be seen.

To find out more about the service, I've created the account and submitted a test article. One which I will say, although allocated 30 minutes, I was sure not to spend too much time on the creation, and rather just pull up a few pages for research, then churn out basic sentences, and submitted it for review.

The content put in for the application process, which all in, took a total of 25 minutes (including account creation, reading the terms, and style guidelines) and yes...that was unpaid, so if it's rejected...no sweat. I'll carry on with my own clients, but for downtime, the service would be neat to fill in a half hour here and there. IMO, provided the quality isn't needing to be top notch.

I mention this as I feel it's pertinent to clients to know the details writers will put into creating the content. With low pays, it's speed that counts. $10 may buy you an hour for a writer to create your content. If it's lowered to $2 - $5, the time spent on content creation is lowered, resulting in lower research time. Might be helpful to consider that when using writing services.

Going by the style guidelines, writers are advised not to be nit picky about the content they produce. It's asked that you understand what the content will be used for, and I assume from the description, it's for marketing purposes, rather than web copy.

There is a structure to the articles and a method that Jon advises to remember.

G.A.S.S

Grammar
Accuracy
Spelling
Speed

The grammar is probably why I'll get rejected. I use commas "a lot." Paragraphs should be no longer than 4 sentences, which is my style anyway, so no issues there.

Accuracy and Spelling I'd say go hand in hand - I use MS Word and you can paste directly in, so the spell check is MS Word ensures the spelling's correct. Grammar wise, I'm just used to the green lines under things like....

You'll
Wouldn't
Couldn't
I'll

Any words that's abbreviated and then the sentence structure. Mine is always getting, "shorten your sentence stuff" in the grammar help box.

Like I say, I use commas a lot, but clients don't have an issue with it and it's often why they come back for more. Uniqueness, quality and writing that flows from one paragraph to the next. Readable, and understandable.

The speed aspect. It's going to have to be fast with I.N.A, and given that there's nothing in the G.A.S.S formula to cover the topic of quality, I reckon it's only words clients want, and not website copy, optimized, keyword density, killer content and all the rest of the stuff.

That's my expectations from originally looking into the service. What it's like writing for them I can't say, as I'm not approved as of yet, so I'll need to wait and see what happens there.

I have to say though, for something that's currently closed to new clients, I do feel it was a relatively quiet service launch, so how it got so busy, so fast, has me intrigued.

If it does turn out to be similar to iWriter, perhaps it's for the best. It'll give pros more leeway to work with appreciative clients, willing to pay for quality, and the low-ballers will have another place to go get cheap content.

Another reason I don't like to take on rewrites, and when I do, it's subject to a decent informational page, with no research req'd. Otherwise, it's the rates for an original article.

Back to the article writing service:

Here's why I'm interested in it, and perhaps other writers can relate.

When you're working with a handful of clients. (I'm currently 6 clients, full-time) working on the same, or close topics, for me it gets tedious from time to time.

I switch between them, so I can continue writing with a fresh perspective, rather than edit when I see I've repeated some information. I need a switch every now and then, so I'll move onto another topic, or take a break.

Breaks cost money, and if I'm on downtime of a couple of hours a day, I'm down about 20 bucks.

While services like the 2 mentioned I don't expect to be able to recuperate the cost of downtime, it will certainly help towards covering the cost, while sharpening speed writing skills, and improving research speed, as well.

Sometimes, it isn't all about the money. Quality takes time to produce, and when you have rates that doesn't equate to a decent hourly, there's skills still need sharpened.

For me that's speeding up research, proofing and editing.

As those improve, content I expect will naturally progress much faster, therefore increasing the hourly rates.

Anything that can help do that, I'm willing to give it a try. I did it with iWriter, and that was a waste of time, so only time will tell.

As for iNeedArticles Vs iWriter. I'm not too bothered about the services. I'm more interested to know what's going on behind the service. What the owners are like with their writers.

A bit of respect goes a long way with me, so rather than a service comparison, I'd be more inclined towards a comparison of Jon Leger Vs Brad Callen and see who has the most respect for their team of writers.

Time will tell
Robbie

Edit: Recieved a reply back from INA. Application declined. No reason as to why, just an automated response saying...

Dear Robbie,

We regret to inform you that your writing test was not approved.

Thank you for taking the time to apply.

The INA Team

Lots of useful information in that response. :rolleyes:

iNeedArticles.com is back open to new clients now. We got a bunch of new writers tested and on board over the weekend so we can accept more work.