If You Can't Get Writing Jobs ... Is It Because There IS Too Much Competition

There's competition for everything in life!

Just get to be one of the best and you will do well

Ah Bev!

You said what I suspect a lot of us have wanted to say!

Where there no competition, you either have got incredibly lucky, or there is no profit.

Bev,

They really mean that there's too much competition for the lowest-hanging fruit.

Thank you for the timely post. You are my inspiration.


I feel that one of the reasons why some people on the Warrior forum fail to succeed is they make their world too small. What I mean is, they market only to Warriors.

There really is a whole other world out there that needs all kinds of content. It is just a matter of reaching them.

I myself have fallen into the "small world" trap. I miss the days when I could run a WSO for my writing services and pull in enough cash to pay off my bills and have a nice Christmas for my family.

But the WSO forum has changed. These days you post a WSO and it stays on page one for less than a day. Then you are underbid by people who are using writers from other countries.

It really doesn't matter how much you preach that quality writing will outrank poor writing, people will still shell out the money for $2 articles.

I know I am a good writer and I know my writing is worth a heck of a lot more than what I have been getting paid.

I just need to learn how to leave this small world of the Warriors and get my name out there.

Hi Bev,

There are a million NLP and Self Help experts out there. There are a million people who know how to live off the land. There are a million people who want to have spirit be big in their online and personal lives.

There are FAR FEWER who have THAT exact combination.

Those are some of who I appeal to.

Those who can't / won't succeed, look at the large numbers. Those who succeed wildly choose / develop their markets and their marketing.

Mr Twenty Twenty
The captain of clarity.

For those who read the title and nothing else, I am not saying personally I can't get writing work.

I know my target market and how to reach them to get writing work.

LOL Bev. You are so right, as usual.

Quality always wins in the end.

I haven't advertised for ages (because I've got so much on), but I still get new enquiries. And even when I subtly suggest they can get the work done far cheaper elsewhere they still insist on giving me the work.

Another thing to consider... is that as a writer you can always create work for yourself, and that is often more profitable than writing for others.

There are a ton of newly ex-print media writers out there all of a sudden. This can add to the competition. However, there are also many companies that are cutting back on their staff, including their technical writers and marketing communications personnel. Most of these companies are now using free lancers, and many more magazines and newspapers are using them now too. That says nothing of the growth in online publications, blogs and the things Bev mentioned.

So, with any change comes opportunity. It is up to the warrior to find and exploit it.

Frank, if you notice I didn't include article writers in the figures, and many on Elance are listed as article writers

There's definitely competition but if you REALLY want to get into it, give it away for free at first. Build a monster thread with good feedback and people will flock to you.

I'd like to qualify a few issues here.

It's not a lack of writing jobs I see online, but rather a lack of reality about a fair price for work. Writers are often expected to write for slave wages or the work is farmed out to writers who will actually write for wages from which nobody in the US could make a living wage.

The market for writers offline is much different from the one online. Online I am being offered about a third of what I could once make outside of requests from a few clients that have used my services for years. I just made 14 times (yes 1,400%)more selling a report offline then I could have online. And it was cash in hand....do we need to be overt about those implications?

There just seem to be many website owners who either don't understand the importance of quality or just don't care as long as the clicks are coming in. I signed up with elance and was horrified to see the prices they were asking for writing -- and many of them expect the writer to do their own research as well. (not to mention they want you to pay to be allowed a reasonable amount of contacts, then also charge a percent). With the voova everyone is getting over outsourcing, people are starting to feel that EVERYONE in the market is willing to write for prices lower than they could make working at fast food companies. Some even buy automatic software to rewrite the work of others (not saying this is a good idea or produces anything palatable, but but they are being used).

Another trick they have learned is to buy the cheap poorly written piece of garbage then hire an "editor" to fix it.......and I've found too often that means a total rewrite so indepth that I might have just as well started from scratch.

BUT - here's the good news for anyone who is actually qualified to write decently. Markets correct themselves sooner or later and this one is just starting to flow in the right direction again. Ezinearticles.com is cracking down on crap. No longer will the two dollar article have free reign in that market. Being an industry leader, this will force other submission sites to follow suit or to just peter out silently.

As a qualified writer I am starting to turn back articles for edit that are so screwed up that they need whole rewrites and letting the clients know that the work is not of a sufficient quality that a mere edit will suffice for fixing and that articles needing this kind of attention will cost them more. I know a few other writers getting keen on this scam and are falling in line with returning material that is nothing but scrap handed for "edit" to save money.

With FTC rulings, and crackdowns on high rankings for trash sites, everyone is going to be needing higher levels of quality before too long to be able to compete or even stay afloat online. I don't think the .5cent a word article offer is going to survive too much longer.

If people who are writing quality continue to refuse crap offers, and sites like Ezinearticles.com continue to crack down on crap writing, it won't be too awfully long before the market corrects itself again and the only people who will be complaining about writing for a living at any level will be the ones that need a reality check about being qualified for the position in the first place.

Writers are available and there is competition too, but mostly it's the cost that's not good enough for an experienced writer.

Thats too funny Ms. Clement . . .I saw it on the (teevee) internet , it Must be true . .
Eric

Hey Bev,

It's not the competition at all. It's all about mindset, quality and exposure in the end. Some can say it is about pricing too, but I don't believe so because most good marketers can sell at any price if the quality is good, and the price range somewhat matches that quality of information or whatever.

To me, competition is everywhere and in everything we do whether we are competing or someone else is competing with us, or for our _________ (fill in the blank). This is where the right mindset comes is or is important - if you are confident in your work and basically who you are, then the competion will not matter in the end.


Mary

Oh, there's competition out there. It will crush crappy providers, just as it should.

If someone is crying about the competition, it generally means they're losing to it.

I stay busy. Ad Astra Traffic is getting busier. Why? If you're kicking the competition in the ass, everything works out fine.

Great post, Bev.