Where do you prefer to find freelance writers?

Here's a list...

--Job sites like Fiverr
Variable quality and trustworthiness... tread carefully. Amazing writers and terrible writers alike hang out here. You've got lots of options, though! Also, if worst comes to worst, you've only invested $5 in each writer you try.

--Bidding sites
Elance, oDesk, and other outsourcing websites. You place a job ad up, people bid on it, you choose the winning bidder. The advantage is that you're bombarded with bids in most cases. The disadvantage is that you have a hard job to sort out all those people without truly knowing how good their work is. Feedback is not always accurate... a "great article" for them can be a "piece of trash article" for you. I found this out the hard way.

--Forums like this (Warriors for Hire, WSO, and Classifieds sections)
Writers (like me :rolleyes put up ads in all of the above sections. There's quite a variety again when it comes to quality, and just like before, testimonials are not always accurate. What I really like about this method, though, is that you can search their posting history to find out just "how good stuffs" they write. :p Their ad might be perfect, and every post in the main IM forum or Off-Topic might be appalling.

--Constant Content
Not sure if there's another site quite like it. You buy a premade article, or place an order to have one written on your specs. Several writers typically respond within a couple of days, so you can choose the article (or articles) that best match what you're looking for, and you don't have to buy the rest. Prices are a bit higher because all articles are read by an experienced editor who makes sure they are top-notch.

--Private sites and portfolios
The very best writers often don't advertise in public or on forums. They have portfolio sites which can be found through some Googling. Of course, they usually post samples, but quality and trustworthiness can still vary.

As for pricing, you've just opened one of these. You can get a fantastic article for $5... but it's rare. This price range is usually good for backlinking. If you're looking for the type of stuff that gets linked to and commented on, $10 or $15 is a more reasonable minimum price, and depending on the niche and if it requires technical specialization and advanced knowledge, up to $50 or more.

Zabrina has covered a lot of the common places to find good writers so I'm not going to comment on that (since I don't have other resources ) but I would just like to say something about the price. If you visit places like oDesk or Digitalpoint, you will find writers willing to write for as low as $0.50 for a 500 word article. As you might guess, the quality of such articles depends on your luck - but mostly you would be disappointed with the quality. So if you want to play it safe, be prepared to offer between $5-10 for a good 500 word article. That's the bare minimum, actually.

Definately follow Zabrina's advice. Good writers will curate and research your topic and you have to pay for that if you want quality.

Cheers,
Terri

Odesk.com is definitely the best resource to get some high quality articles written for as little as $2 per 500 words article and they all are high quality.

You will hire some people from philipins, who studied English at university and they really write some high quality articles for such a little amount of money...

I know several people who "charge" $5 per article, but they actually get people from philipins to write an article for $2 and they make $3 per article!

I would highly recommend that you take a look at writeswap.com This is a marketplace for content writers and buyers.

I used to use textbroker. I'm not sure if it even exists anymore though.

Textbroker is still around and charges by the "quality" of the writer, with "5 star" writers going for .5/word ($25/500 words). I think clients can require rewrites on Textbroker as well. I've only been on the writer-end and have never had a rewrite request, but I think Textbroker treats them as the customers right so you can get good value for your dollar over there.

"2 star" writers (aka "legible" by Textbroker's standards) go for .07/word ($3.50/500 words), but expect to put time or more $$ into fixing up the article if you want something with some juice. That probably carries over to everywhere. Good luck.

Cool, I didn't know Textbroker was available to small clients! I'll start recommending them and Writeswap, too. *must add to mental list*...