Think Twice - Don't Write for Next to Nothing

Personally, I wouldn't suggest writing free articles when you are starting out. The reason is simple. Many people do this, and if you check the threads you will see the same people asking for the free articles. Yet the majority of them never give any sort of feedback.

It leaves the writer not knowing if they can write, or if the work was so bad the person didn't want to comment. The reality is the person is a freebie seeker who never intended to leave feedback.

If you want to write free articles in exchange for feedback, then contact writers directly and ask them if you can write for them. They may not give you a testimonial, but they will be able to give you practical feedback to help improve.

If you want to start with a cheap rate, then selling via a WSO would be a good idea. However, don't take on too much work because you will need to complete it. I have seen people offering articles at say $2 and they need to earn $500 and then find they don't have enough time to research and write the articles.

Be aware if you do put your prices up and your only salesplace is here, then you will always be competing with new writers who are doing the same thing, pricing low to get business.

If you're in a tight spot, you have to do what you have to do. Once you're out of your jam, you can approach things differently, though it would be good to plan ahead where possible.

Over the long term, you have to think long term.

If you write for people that pay $5/article, they probably aren't going to become $25/article payers. You would have to switch your client base.

It's like opening a fast food joint and trying to change it into a fine dining restaurant after you've built a customer base.

You basically have to start over because the two are completely different customer bases.

That's why, instead of taking a bottom up approach, it may be better to take a top down approach.

With a website, you can put up samples of your work. In the vast majority of cases, there should be no reason to write a "free sample" for anyone to demonstrate the quality of your work. That's what your portfolio is for, and that should be more than sufficient for most legitimate article buyers to determine whether or not your work is a fit for their content needs.

I think part of the mindset that causes writers to underprice themselves comes from marketing to other IMers. That's not to say there aren't IMers who appreciate the value of writing (some of them have responded here), but we in IM are used to seeing article writing promoted for around $1 for 100 words (or less). And I think we often don't differentiate enough between PLR and unique original content. PLR can sell for $1 an article because that same article can be sold several hundred times. I know that's an obvious point, but the way I see some writing priced makes me think that both writers and end-users don't quite get it.

"Normal" folks with non-IM offline businesses don't have the same jaded view of writers, for the most part. Think of all those people out there paying big bucks for often less-than-effective seo or marketing campaigns. To them, this is all woo-woo stuff about which they have no clue. So all you have to do is find a market that can afford you and show them why they need you, and you should be able to name your own price.

A couple of examples. My most recent "real" job was managing a massage clinic. The owner spent over $10,000 (that she couldn't afford) having someone design a custom website. Actually, she went through 3 designers - the first 2 flaked out.

But on to writing. The owner hired me to write a weekly blog post on a site that connects massage employers with massage therapists. Well, she didn't actually realize the importance of updating the blog regularly until I convinced her (weekly was the best I could get her to do). I asked for $50 per post and settled for $25. I knew she couldn't pay $50, but wanted to establish the true value of the work. She was more than happy to pay.

I see people in the IM arena saying they'll do blog posts for $3 to $5 all the time, and I've had the same experience as the OP re checking out job posts on rentacoder, odesk, etc. Every once in a while I think, what the heck, maybe I'll do a little writing on the side, but as soon as I look at a couple of posts with ridiculous requirements (well, they wouldn't be so ridiculous if they were willing to pay anywhere near what the project is worth), I quickly come to my senses.

If I wanted to make money writing, I'd probably start by working with local businesses. Sure, you can market online, but most of the people who are actually in a position to pay what you're worth aren't looking for writers online (imo). Do some local networking. Go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, join LeTip, BNI or Biznik, basically just get out there and schmooze and build connections. Yes of course you should have a website with samples, but at least until you've established a solid rep, you'll probably get most of your work by pounding some local pavement.

I'd shoot for some medium-sized businesses, not sooooo small that they're not even thinking about this kind of stuff (even though they should), not so big that they probably have their own in-house writers. There are publications like the Puget Sound Business Journal that have lists of local companies, including the number of employees and annual gross.

Yeah, I think it can suck that writers aren't treated better. When I was a tech writer at an internet start-up, we writers were definitely at the bottom of the food chain. But there's work out there if you seek it out and create it.