Note: Never hire a cheap article writer!

Yep, you get what you pay for.

Hi

I feel for you - it's happened me before. First batch turn out good, order more and get rubbish.

In the end I was so fed up with trying different writers I decided to write my own and set up in business doing so.

It can take as long to re-write a badly written article as it does to write one yourself from scratch.

Mary

Cheap
Fast
Good

Pick two

(Added: A couple of people have taken this to mean I am offering cheap writing services, sorry to disappoint but no, my comment was about writers in general and not about me specifically )

chrisgarrett - When it comes to article writing, it's more like pick one...

I'd rather pay someone $20 for 500 words that take two days to get to my desk than $5 for 700 words when I KNOW that $20 is going to make me $100. That $5 article might be 1000 words and get there in 2 hours, but it probably won't make me $100.

I'm not advertising myself, because frankly, I haven't written articles for a few months now.

But, I charged 1c per word. And my articles were of a high standard (compared to other articles charged at 1c per word!).

I'm just trying to say, don't knock all cheap article writers. I did it just until I got photoshop so I could make templates and such. I made my prices cheaper so I could get more sales, it didn't reflect my quality.

Guess the moral of the story is.. well I dunno, but somehting along the lines of - cheap doesn't always mean nasty. The author could just be desperate .

Cheers,

-Aidan.

Like all these out sourced item's its trial and error. Don't give up, try someone mid range price wise next time. Once you find a good one stick to them like crazy, if I like their work I normally send them a 10% thank you. If you do this they remember you and will usually put your work to the top of the pile.

Hey I am not knocking low cost writers, I routinely write for free (and get big rewards doing so). You can see an article about that here:

http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/...e-writing-pay/

Prashie would you write copy for $37? If not, why not? You know why not, as a copywriter so what were you thinking of assuming $2 articles would be high quality.

My articles are high priced, because I factor into the price something a lot of cheap article writers forget, the amount of time it takes to research a subject.

I can write a high quality article in 7 minutes once the research is completed, but many people try and cut off minutes to make a decent living and then the quality and sense are compromised.

In my opinion, one should find a quality writer who SPECIALIZES only in writing. True writers actually enjoy the process of research and editing. Good writers know they will never get rich by writing, but are okay with that, too. Not everyone wants to be a billionaire. Some people enjoy just being creative and learning new things by writing. That's why I enjoy it anyway. Chin up!

Cheap attracts cheap.

Its not the writers fault. Its yours for the way you HIRE.

Follow a strategic hiring process and you wont have this problem at all.

Let's make it clear: you get what you pay for.

If I pay somebody $1 to build me 1000 one-way backlinks...you seriously think I'm going to turn around and complain when I find out they are all from the same link farm?

Oh, and maybe you can string together a passable sentence, but you need to work on your punctuation. There is no way in hell I'd read passed the first sentence of an article if it didn't punctuate one occurrence of 'I'.

Least you should be paying for a 400 word article is $4-5.

Well there ya have it...

Ya get what ya pay for...
I wouldn't do that to you...
Are you a nit wit for trying to get good stuff cheap?

Come on folks...we know that there are good bargins available...

Maybe the operative idea here is to limit the risk to your investment. Do a bit more than one testing.

There is always a price to be paid, time or money and if you go on the cheap you'll end up paying in time with re-writes.

Great writer's will usually charge accordingly and rightly so, it's because they're worth it, they know that your work will be well researched and well executed and that you as the recipient will be able to slap your name on it and sell with it, isn't it worth paying a little extra rather than pulling your hair out with the frustration of re-writing everything?

Don't go cheap and you really do get what you pay for.

Prashie, why didn't you make it clear in your project, that you would pay ONLY upon each and every article meeting your standards.

My suggestion next time then, with ANY writer that you hire, is to specify in your project that you will not pay for plagiarized content, or content which does not meet your standards for english in BOTH grammar and english, etc...

(some writers get sneaky and try to send you plagiarized content, it may be only a few articles in each batch, but this is something they may do when they are feeling lazy, so always check for this as well before using them.)

Anyone who then accepts your writing project would agree to this, and in turn would understand that any and all articles which have a problem (such as grammar, or spelling mistakes), would be returned to them to fix, without payment...or simply they would not be paid for those articles.

You should also never pay upfront the full price, and if they are asking for some payment, then you may do the 50% thing, but once again, this is at your risk when you haven't even seen the content yet which you are going to use.

This is my suggestion to you, so that way no matter what amount you are paying, you can ensure that your money is still well spent. Even great writers have their days where things just aren't in the flow, so this may work well for you.

At the end of the day it's YOUR project, and if you are getting people to bid on it, they should be meeting YOUR standards then. So that is really would I think you should do and try, and I disagree there are writers who can write good at the price you listed. You just haven't found them yet.

Presumably you are outsourcing, and if so, there are some outsourcing "teams" who have many groups of writers. This is how you can end up with really great articles one time, and really horrible or weird articles the next, because there are different people writing. However, if you find a "good" team, they can be tuned in very well to your needs, especially if you promise them bulk work, as they love to make money this way.

I know of people doing this, and once in a while there are issues, and if so then there are steps taken to prevent the buyer from being ripped off, which were mentioned above. It also helps if you give clear cut details each time, because as mentioned, you never know exactly WHO is going to really get your project if you outsource, as many of the "writers" are actually a team of writers.

Thus, when you do this, make your project clear and concise each and every time as to what you want, the kind of content, etc...so that way there are less misunderstandings in the future. I wish you good luck in finding a quality writer,

Regards,

Sigh.. cheaper doesn't automatically mean worse and expensive doesn't always mean better. I've paid big bucks for crappy work and cheap rates for great work and everything in between.

Keep in mind that price is a point of competition between competing businesses.

I don't think you can make a sweeping generalization about price.

I have a very good writer who does 400-500 word articles at $3 each. And I have a very good rewriter who rewrites at $1 each. I never pay upfront either. I went directly to the freelance sites and hired them directly. It took a bit of time to sift through the offers and find a good match, but I've been working with them for several months and have been happy.

So far, I've been more satisfied with the quality of the articles using freelancers, then I have been using an article writing service.

Those customers were probably SE spammers who don't give a rip about actually providing decent content.

Anyways, I think a great place to hire people who do excellent work is Odesk.

You can actually monitor what your workers are doing because they have to log in to the system while they work in order to receive payment. It is a really cool setup.

Tommy

I had the same experience with an article spinner. The first 10 articles were pretty decent for overseas content, but on the 2nd order, you could barely make sense of a single sentence.

You spent $40 and you want to let off some steam...

Give me a break!

Usually, I would say, "You get what you pay for," but I can see where there would be situations for a writer to offer their services at a discounted rate.

Maybe he or she is trying to build their portfolio or they are in need of some quick cash.

Inexpensive does not always equal bad quality.

But I am concerned about some of the insanely cheap deals that we see once in a while.

I edit and proofread for small business owners, along with offering my writing services to them, and sometimes they send me really bad articles or ebooks to edit. We've all seen examples of really bad writing posted here and everyone chimes in and makes fun. Well, there are some people out there, calling themselves writers, and selling this terrible work to people who have trusted them to provide well-written content. It's pretty sad.

I have found that mostly you a;ways get what you pay for. If it's cheap so is the product.
Brooks

I can't imagine writing a 500 word article for just $2.

I don't just spit out whatever crap comes to mind. I research the facts and the keywords, then I make sure each idea is conveyed very clearly and smoothly. Depending on research time this can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours. Would you go work in a regular job that just paid $2/hour? I think most immigrant workers get better pay than that.

No one in their right mind would work for that low payrate for any great length of time. If they are willing to charge $2 for the LONG term (not talking about temporary promotions), then something is wrong.

My rates are reasonable. I don't think $10 is bad, at all. It's 1.5x the pay I get at my day job. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I would not work $2/hr for the quality I produce.

well at 2 bucks a pop you cant complain ... I generally get good articles at around 4.00

I had this happen. I wish you could trust the referral.

You get what you pay for!

What you need to do is hire an editor as well, a top notch writer. Offer him 1/2 of what your paying to actually have the articles written. Tell him all you need is someone to fix grammatical errors and the like.

$3 is a bit more, but its still cheaper than $5 or $10 for a top rate writer.

I couldn't resist chiming in on this topic...

Let's put the shoe on the other foot. How much would you charge to write a 300 to 500 word article? Your time is valuable, right? Most of the paid for content I've seen is absolute crap. If you believe that content is king, and is an important component of your success, you're either going to have to start writing it yourself or pay the price for well written, professional quality articles.

It's amazing how much people underestimate the value of a PROPERLY researched very well optimised article.

Such an article put onto one's own website which attracts the right traffic can make you a LOT of money.

Don't compare this to having someone bash out a $5 article and then splattering it all over the internet in the hope of making $50.

I have numerous articles that are each responsible for bringing in $xx,xxx's in my niches.

So would I have expected this by paying just $2 per article?

Sam

I've used quite a few writers here. I'll be the first to say that a well written article is gold for marketing.

TMG Enterprises puts out good work. Keyword juicy, well written, worth more than they are asking for. I wont use anyone else.

I agree. When people see poor copy it kills your sales. Hey, you get what you pay for. Would you go to a surgeon that had a sign over his door "Deep Discount Brain Surgery - THIS WEEK ONLY!!! 50% OFF!!!"

It seems like every day I see the Digg effect on digg. and when I click on a site I see this message "Service Temporarily Unavailable - due to high bandwidth use."

A lot of cheap web hosting UNLIMITED plans out there.

Don't pick the cheapest or the highest bidder.

Pick the middle.

That has helped me pick the best article writers.

Here on the forum you have some cheap writers they have very good writers.
Try them out.

Great, I just hired a cheap article writer about an hour ago. I really wanted to see if he would do a good job and then order a large batch if he does. Of course now I am thinking he will do a good job on the first order and then screw me on the second.

Cheap... doesn't always mean bad quality
Expensive... doesn't always mean good quality

I would say however you would find more bad quality in the cheap realm. Cheap and Good writers shouldn't stay at cheap for very long.