I'm SICK of writers

yes its VERY hard to find good ones...you need to try 10 to get 1 which does a halfway good job ;/

You're not expecting too much. You might try Work From Home - Online Magazine for Work At Home Moms - WAHM.com - there's a whole forum for work at home moms who write.

If you're supplying that much information, along with keywords, there's no reason you shouldn't be getting a high quality article back in return.

You can try my services. Haven't had any disappointments that I know of.
www.hire-a-ghostwriter.com

Just ask people to showcase what they have written so far for you to get a better idea of what their style is. I believe some basic communication could help too. Also, make sure you spell out what you think the article should look like. Provide deadlines. Ask questions.

Concerning payment: decent work calls for decent payment. IMHO.

Jenn Dize

For low cost but good articles, I'd recommend Jeewant Singh Gupta. He's right here on this very forum. You can check him out in the Hire section.

Tiffany Dow is wonderful

Let me guess: these people charge $5 or $10 an article, paid in advance, and you order in packs of ten. Right?

You pay for what you get.

I charge five cents a word, paid on delivery. Order just a couple articles, and you can see exactly what I deliver before you commit a lot of money to it. There's zero risk to you.

There are a lot of people out there who are pricing their services very, very cheaply... and there's a reason. Check my home page if you want to see the whole sales pitch.

I personally charge $30 per article because my articles are pretty good and I do write them myself. Takes me an hour or so to write and edit an article.

I know of some writers who take one of their articles and change the sentences all around and send their buyers junk articles.

I would love to help you out Dean.

Tal

What I feel is that you should try out by yourself first. Write an article of good reading according to targeted keywords. If you can't get any result, then you could consider hiring a writer.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, the writer sometimes just need a reference of what you really want. Show your failed article, and ask how it can be improved and rewritten.

Here's my experience.

Many writers can write good article. But they fail to write it for search engines. It's rare to find writers that qualify your needs. No, you're not asking too much from writers. Frankly, you may be asking too much to get SERPS. And that's why great writers who know SEO well say this -- "Write articles for readers, not search engines". Now, am I right or wrong?


Hardi

I have this same problem...

And it becomes a much bigger problem the more articles you pump out. Finding a good writer to write 50 articles per month is a whole lot easier that finding good writer(s) to write 500 articles per month.

I hear people say that it's easy to find quality article writers. Just go here or there and post an ad and presto, you don't need to worry about it again. Not true.

Someone said 1 in 10 product quality. If that's for writers doing work for $10 an article or less, I agree, but even at that there are varying levels of quality.

It's true, the $30+ per article writers are *usually* the best. But not all methods of making money allow you to throw that kind of money at content creation.

I feel your pain...

Good luck!

Mike

It seems this is a common topic on the forum these days. I'm one of those writers who started off with a WSO at a $5 introductory price. Sure, I had lots of work, but with the research required it took me forever. I was praised for the quality of the articles and saw at least one reach number one on Google for a very competitive keyword. But when I said that my regular rates were twice that, I never heard from them again.

Now I either write for offline clients or my own products. I don't see the point in continuing to write for other marketers. Call me jaded.

Try textbroker.com

You submit the requirements, articles are returned, if they don't meet your standards or requirements you reject them and ask for revisions without paying until you are satisfied.

Dean my man, I've got a few recommendations for you mate.

PM me if you get a mo!

Cheers

Alex

I'm in the top .5% (yes, half a percent) on Rent a Coder for article writing - solid 10's on nearly everything. I'm also not the cheapest writer you'll come across but if you want quality work at a fair price - take a look at some of my writing samples:

http://www.ecoverartist.com/samples.zip

I also wonder what you are paying. I write at least a hundred articles a week for others at Rent A Coder, and I send a copyscape certificate and a keyword density certificate. Why would anyone not put in the keywords.

However most of us freelancers do the majority of our writing for ourselves, if you have the Search engine knowledge then why bother pay to mkae someone else rich is a fairly common attitude today. Another thing that I have found is that a lot of clients I have had for years, in some cases I have written over ten complete websites for them have asked me to work at a much cheaper rate this year, because of the economic climate.

There has always been a divide between good and competant writers and cheap writers, but many people this year do not to pay a fair price. The joke of it all was this year I had a client in Dacca Bangladesh who asked me to write 2113 articles for $2000, had I taken that job I would still be writing now. It does go without saying that even countries where labour used to be cheap are now outsourcing their work, and this was fdor writing articles not rewriting and it included all the necessary research if my memory serves me correctly across eleven niches

Unfortunately as things get tougher an increased number of people want ot work and earn an extra income by writing which made it harder for professional ghost writers to work, because so many amateurs are having a go.
La dominatrix

Hi,

I am a published writer (newspaper feature articles) and am just beginning to do content writing for IM.

Yes, my prices are 'competitive' (even cheap!) but, as someone has already said, that is only until I get myself established. Building a relationship with clients is my priority at the moment.

You can check out my work here: Swift Articles

Regards

Karen

p.s. this is my first attempt at a website - so please don't laugh too loud!

Dude, put the feelers out to your list of prospects (who have not bought your coaching program..yet) and TRADE your coaching program for their Article writing services.

You already have the asset, so go on and use it.

Have them write 7 articles/week (very doable) for the next 6 weeks = 42 articles.

Let in 10/15/20+ people per week on barter then you're set for content and also have an army of writers "on-demand" who are also glued to you for life.

In fact, you should build that into your coaching plan somewhere for your customers to earn advanced coaching support from you during and after the coaching program.

Leverage your assets and build business partnerships with your customers for a win-win outcome!

i love jayjayghostwriter on here he has done some amazing work for me and ive never once needed to send an article back to him to be amended.

kind regards


sam
X

Dean-

I know how you feel- I've been blessed with
writers, but other outsourcers have driven me
crazy.

For writers though, check out www.katfuschillo.com.

She's great- fast and reliable, and she's based here
in the UK too.

Good luck

-David Raybould

Good writers are only "cheap" until they are discovered - both by others and by themselves! Then you're left looking for the next undiscovered gem. It's a rather tiring cycle of find em, keep em, lose em...

It is worth paying a premium for a high quality article. Even if you buy just a small amount, you now have a template to work from.

You make a good point- but it does depend on what you are prepared to pay. And at the risk of sounding racist- I don't intend to be- if you are using the usual 'low priced' offers from Asia or Eastern Europe you may expect issues with their use of English and the 'tone' of their writing.
I was a resume writer for a number of years and detailed, precise work is time consuming. Most people are not prepared to pay what it costs- so the writer is forced to work fast and quality suffers. As in most things, you get what you pay for, generally speaking.

I'm still curious as to what the OP was paying the writer, because I truly think that has a significant effect on quality.

I'm with Alexa - I don't generally find that writing for marketers pays enough. It wasn't until I started marketing my services through social networking and found offline businesses and non-IM businesses, that I really started making a comfortable living.

I completely understand that if your need is tons of content, then paying my kind of rates - 10 cents a word minimum, and $150 for press releases - is not realistic. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to get cheap writers who produce good quality. And I've tested several on elance. The $5 an article writers that I tried out just weren't up to par.

Yes it can be difficult to find good writers in asia and eastern europe. With my years of searching I discovered the Philippines have the highest proficiency in english, which is why I based my business there.

This community is so heavy with talent
its not funny.

As I read through each post, a lot of good points.
It seem clear solution would be to post for help within
this forum.

Yes I know there is the question of affordability and
fair wage for effort.

However I think Clark hit the nail on the head. Negotiate
a nominal fee per article and then barter either service or give
a percentage 15% is what I have offered in the past.

We don't have to go overseas there is enough talent in house
within this forum.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

yves
the mentor on demand

This is an interesting thread. I am just launching out into providing article writing services and was a bit torn as to what to ask for since I am new. I would love to have some dedicated clients to write for on a consistent basis. One thing about me, if you are loyal to me, I can be loyal to you. Looks like there have been a lot of bad providers out there making it hard for others. I hope it does not spoil your resolve to find a consistent and reliable provider.

Dean - well written articles don't always accord themselves to the exact keyword structures you may request. You may want 7 keywords used in the first paragraph for example, but only 4 of them would actually logically integrate into naturally flowing material. Check your keyword requests first - are they reasonable requests for a writer to be able to write coherently flowing material from?

A problem with many writers is they have no idea about writing keyword or SEO articles.

Look at the situation for a moment, people ask, "How can I make ......" and the answer is normally given, "Write some article, sell as PLR, write unique articles and charge the going rate of $5 or below as a wso."

What's the problem with that advice, apart from not knowing if the person can write?

The person normally is totally new to the world of IM, so they don't have a clue about keywords, research or SEO.

Also, there is no such thing as a going rate in the world of writing.

Imagine telling a 5 figure copywriter, that the going rate for writing copy is $200 because that is what newbies are charging.

The copy you get for $200 will not be the same as a copywriter who charges 5 figures.

A warrior saw the need to do rewriting of articles, and she asked how much would people pay. She did a cheap wso, and the problems she had wasn't worth her time or the money she was paid. She left the forum, she left writing, because she didn't know there were people who would pay what she was worth.

If the writer doesn't understand the brief, then it won't matter how much is paid, the work submitted won't be acceptable. The price is only one factor, and paying more doesn't mean the person will understand keywords, IM and SEO.

For writing in the IM niche needs someone with an understanding, just like any other niche where either the person will need to research or has knowledge on the topic.

For writers who are paid less than $10 then often something has to give, and that something normally is the research. They realise the time which is needed for research, and how they are now earning less than they would flipping burgers.

Does that mean writers need to charge more? Not necessarily, because each business person is responsible for their own rates. But what it does mean is people need to understand the whole picture before they decide on a rate. If they don't include the research and writing into their pricing they will forever be working for peanuts. It has nothing to do with the buyer, but it is down to the supplier to price their work, and know how to earn a decent income for the work they provide.

I was almost enraged by this headline. I've been writing for 14 years so it caught my eyes.

Alas, that is when I noticed, if I didn't write my own articles currently (I do plan to outsource) I'd probably be in your same boat.

Might as well hire a bunch of writers from India to do it. Never go with the freelancers though and set some good guidelines for them, which sounds like you're doing. The bigger the company, the more high quality it will most likely be, and it is cheap.

Could probably hire a 100 writers instead of 10, so you'd find 10 good writers instead of 1 based on the above ratio

To the top,
-Gregory

Thread like these always kind of irk me, and I honestly mean no disrespect to anyone...

You need 20 articles and you expect to make $10 a day... You pay a very good writer $30 an article, a writer who knows how to pre-sell, how to get click throughs in the resource box, and you hit or exceed the $10 a day mark.

So it costs you $600 upfront, and you make $10 a day for say a year. That's $3,650.

Say your writer is excellent, you get more views than expected, people link to the articles, etc... And now you make $20 a day... $7,300 a year.

Is it worth it? Yeah.

When you find any kind of service provider who can do their job well pay them what they're worth... There are designers that charge $27 for a minisite and designers that can charge thousands.

Let's take my field of expertise, copywriting. You can find someone to write your sales letter for $100 or less, or you can pay a pro with a track history of high converting letters 5-6 figures.

Who do you think the guys who make money go with? They hire the people that make them money, and people that make you money aren't going to be cheap.

I don't shop around for the cheapest doctor, I look for a good one. I don't shop around for the cheapest computer, I look for the best combination of price and quality.

If I needed heart surgery and one doctor quoted me $500 and another quoted $50,000, there's a pretty damn good chance that I'm ponying up the $50k.

You *usually* get what you pay for, and if you take your business seriously you'll have to invest in it.

Hiring the cheapest help you can find is business suicide.

I hear people bitching all of the time (this isn't aimed at anyone directly)... "I'm not getting any traffic from my articles..."

It's probably because the writer you hired sucks and no one want to read the crap they put out.

"Why isn't my product selling?" Probably because you went with a cheap "copywriter" who's never sold anything in their lives.

I have no motives here, I'm not an article writer, you couldn't pay me enough to write SEO articles... But when I need articles written I don't skimp if the quality is there.

There's a reason good content costs money, it makes money.

Just like EVERYTHING else in this business, traffic, programming, copywriting.... If you want the job done right either do it yourself or pay someone who's good at what they do, and people who are good at what they do generally charge accordingly.

-Scott

I'm a fellow article writer and I guess we kind of look bad in this thread. I'm not sure how many people were tried but I'm thinking you should have found decent people at those prices.

I agree that sometimes people just don't have the marketing background.

I also agree with Steven and the others who mentioned that writers often discover that writing for themselves proves to be far more profitable. I have found this to be true time and time again and yet I STILL enjoy writing for clients. I guess I just enjoy writing and researching. It is simply fun to not know exactly what you'll be writing on next.

well actually I think that this is mainly due to the low prices pay for articles. Being a writer myself, I notice that people pay $3 for 500 words.....