Can article writing be a career

13 years ago

Yes, it can be a lucrative career if you position yourself in the market with tact. I started as a freelance writer and I made good money. My writing projects helped kick-start my IM career. If you feel you are a quality writer and you can offer value then you need to identify how much your time is worth.

Price your offering according to the value you place on your time. However, I must say that the freelance industry --especially the writing category-- is becoming competitive. When you do secure good clients you should retain them by delivering quality all the time.

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JustSomeWarrior

13 years ago

Ashely999 got it right. I have been working at building a client roster (outside of WF) since about January on and off. I started full time as a content writer in June. I make a few thousand a month, but I work my ass off doing it. What is making it easier is the clients that have become regular buyers, purchasing $200 to $600 worth of content a month.

Good quality is the key. Don't even waste your time with buyers that want less than 0.01 cent per word. They are the worst.

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doingwrite

13 years ago

You've got to love to write in order to make this work. And you have to be open to criticism. I love sending my articles to colleagues every once in a while for their feedback. It is always helpful. And I make it a priority to respond to them when they ask for mine. We are competitors, but compatriots at the same time. Love it. Just love it.

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ladywriter

13 years ago

Yes, you can.

But it's not enough to write, you have to find clients--i.e., market yourself.

I do alright but if I spent a few hours a day on marketing I'd be making double to triple what I make now, I'm sure of it.

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premiumlinks99 13 years ago

The key is how you position yourself in the market. It's important to marketing your services properly on various IM/article writing forums in order start building up a clientele. Also you have to love article writing as sometimes it can be tiring to do it everyday (especially when you need to writing about subjects you are not quite interested in).
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AnniePot

13 years ago

Originally Posted by kstark

Yes, you can.

But it's not enough to write, you have to find clients--i.e., market yourself.

I do alright but if I spent a few hours a day on marketing I'd be making double to triple what I make now, I'm sure of it.

Just a point from a crotchety grammar fanatic: alright is NOT all right.

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prasanth5

13 years ago

Article writing can be a very good career provided you write at least for about 3 hours in a day. You can make some living from it.

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RylanClayne

13 years ago

I agree with the above comments and would just like to add that content creation is an art that will always be needed and in that sense article writing as a career has great prospects. I use article writers on a daily basis and I know that for my business they are a crucial part of the process.

In the end it depends on if you wish to remain as a writer or indeed build up your client base to the point where you can take on writers of your own and in doing so become more of a manager than a writer or a bit of both. In reality how much of a business/career you make article writing will depend on how successful you are at gaining clients and the overall quality of your work. There are plenty of people offering articles for a low price but less offering great quality at a good price. If you can define yourself in the market then you will certainly be able to cut yourself a piece of the proverbial pie.

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eklipz316

13 years ago

You can definitely make a living from writing but you have to go about it the right way. Everyone that responded before got it right, if you love to write, just follow that advice, and you should have a good start.

Good luck

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Alexa Smith

Banned 13 years ago

Yes, it can definitely be a career.

There are a lot of good and helpful comments above, I think.

Just go into it being very aware that what you earn, writing articles for people, isn't primarily about your writing skills (yes, you have to have those, too, of course): it's mostly about your marketing skills. I don't mean for writing for marketers - I mean for yourself: to market your own professional services as a writer.

You may find a few posts in this thread from earlier today pretty helpful.

Writing articles for $5 - $10, I suspect there may be more service providers than customers. Well, almost.

The customers for $5 articles aren't necessarily able to tell the difference between your work and the work of someone who's charging $20/$25. And you might have more customers at that price. (Yes, seriously).

It's all about the markets in which you choose to compete.

If you choose to compete in the low-price markets represented by Odesk, Elance, Getafreelancer, Fiverr and so on, you're effectively labelling your work "Low Cost Writing" and you're choosing to compete with people who are living and working in countries where $5 is a full day's pay.

Many people with genuinely valuable writing skills start off with very low-paid projects, thinking that this will help them to move on to higher-paid projects. It usually doesn't, at all.

It's really important, I think, to avoid at the outset the mistake of imagining that it's sensible to "start off by writing for low prices" with a view to raising your prices after clients have seen what you can produce. When writing for online markets, it simply doesn't work that way: when you write for low prices you attract clients whose primary motivation is to pay low prices, and you lose almost all of them when you increase prices later.

You might find some of these resources helpful/interesting:-

Jennifer Mattern's blog

Carol Tice's blog

Freelance writing jobs (minmum payment requirement of $50 per article to be listed there)

Free report on how to attract new freelance writing clients during a recession

The Renegade Writer Blog

The "Irreverent Freelancer" blog

The Well-Fed Writer: Lucrative Commercial Freelance Writing - Land Lucrative Freelance Writing Jobs

Words on the Page.

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Jill Carpenter

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Just go into it being very aware that what you earn, writing articles for people, isn't primarily about your writing skills (yes, you have to have those, too, of course): it's mostly about your marketing skills. I don't mean for writing for marketers - I mean for yourself: to market your own professional services as a writer.

I was just discussing this very thing with someone yesterday.

It is really very similar to selling products. You can have one great product and one so so product. If the guy with the great product has no marketing skills then no one will ever know how great his product is. If the guy with the so so product knows how to market, everyone will know about his product and how to find it. He makes it easy for them to order.

Unless someone big happens to discover you, then you are always going to have to market yourself.

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ASHLEY999

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

If you choose to compete in the low-price markets represented by Odesk, Elance, Getafreelancer, Fiverr and so on, you're effectively labelling your work "Low Cost Writing" and you're choosing to compete with people who are living and working in countries where $5 is a full day's pay.

Sorry, but you are mistaken. The type of employers on these platforms vary considerably, just as the quality of the providers do. Your statement quoted above is highly generalized which I suspect is based on a misplaced perception of these platforms and not from experience.

I earn between $50-$80 for a 500 word article on Elance!

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Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by ASHLEY999

I earn between $50-$80 for a 500 word article on Elance!

Thanks very much, Ashley. You're absolutely right - I didn't know that, and haven't used Elance myself. I've learned something good there, and will now know not to mention that as an example in future (or even to mention it as an example of something different!).
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Rose Anderson

13 years ago

It's possible, but it's work.

You can also branch out into selling PLR or writing your own products. It's always good to have a second stream of income. One of the problems with working as a freelance article writer is if you get sick or can't work because of a family emergency then your income stops. (And I speak from personal experience.)

Good luck!
Rose

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Mixengineer

13 years ago

How experienced are you and how much are you willing to work to make ends meet and then some? THose are questions you should ask, if you arent that experienced then keep at it and soon you will be

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Austin357

13 years ago

I started buying some articles from Odesk/Elance and realized very quickly that most of all the articles had to be re-written. Most of these writers know grammatical English very well. However, when writing for casual or conversational English they don't understand our culture. Most of my lighter topics were written in such a serious tone and practically no humor. Which I asked for both of these requirements upfront (easy and fun to read).

I was trying to get a good deal but having them re-written and doing double the work wasn't such a great deal. I found other very good writers who were charging closer to $15-25 per article and the quality was night and day. Lesson learned!

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nagendrabandi1980

13 years ago

Hey Sid,
Yes article writing can be surely taken as a career, its like a goldmine and lots of demand is always, however your success depends only on the quality of content you are writing, all the very best.

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Jacob Cuculiza

13 years ago

Yes of cause! But treat every customer as if they sign you paycheck!

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arkhamindustries 13 years ago

very well said
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mcass

13 years ago

You can, but I believe that it isn't sustainable. No residual income at all - some of the projects make you want to cry they're so boring - some of the clients you work with are just plain awful...

Mostly though, it's just a neutral career devoid of passion and incredibly bla. I would use it to learn the ropes and as a springboard to your own projects otherwise it has a way of trapping you.

And yes, I am speaking from experience!

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jet510

13 years ago

it is true that you must love writing in order to turn it into a career, you must put out a good quality product with your articles as well...

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angelafavs

13 years ago

hi

yes, you can..market your self through internet.

Good Luck!

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Gary Ning Lo

13 years ago

Yes you can, i suggest adding your service in your signature..

Proposing services in the warrior hire section of this forum.

Also check out fiverr.com

Cheers,

~Gary

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laurencewins

13 years ago

Define "living." I am on a disability pension but I do OK from my part time writing. If I could work full-time, I think I would do even better. But it takes time to build a business.

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2011profit

13 years ago

Being an article writer can really make a good living especially if you are good at it. Just do your best on every write-ups that you make and I'm sure your clients will be satisfied with your work. Impressing them will be your key to convince them to work for you in the future.

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lespritb

13 years ago

Well, yes of course you can make career with article writing, there are noting any doubt. but the point is after panda update is more demand, so you need to follow first panda's update and make sure your articles are fresh and copy passing
Good Luck!!

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CDarklock

13 years ago

Originally Posted by sidcandid

Can one make a living out of it?

Writing articles for magazines? Sure.

Writing articles for directories? Nope.

Once you've done your work for these two clients, total up all the hours you spent selling them on your services, all the hours you spent talking to them, and all the hours you spent working on their articles. Including rewrites and corrections.

Now multiply that by your desired hourly rate.

Would this client pay you that for those articles?

Now, don't get me wrong, there are clients who will pay you that for your articles. It will be harder to find them. It will be harder to please them. They will need more of your time and expect higher quality.

You can also reduce the amount of time spent finding clients, and the amount of time spent talking to them, and the amount of time spent writing articles. But you can only reduce it so far.

The writers who make a living without writing entire books are writing 2,000 word articles for magazines a couple times a month at over a dollar a word.

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Goldenboy

13 years ago

Certainly, article writing can be a career, and in fact, you can earn decent money by providing articles or re-written articles. I also started as a freelance article writer with words ranging from 150 - 1000 per article. If you are into reading and is interested in research, then you can make a career of this. One of the qualifications that I can say about being an article writer is that you should love to write since from the description, you have to keep on writing articles with different niches.
As per the rate of your article, it would really depend on the quality and the time that you have to spend writing some articles. And also, if the topic is really that unfamiliar, you have to evaluate the rate per article, for its number of words, the content and the time allocated to finish the project.
Just love your work, enjoy what you do and the work will also love you.

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Tylos

13 years ago

Of course after Google Panda update it's crazy in the web market. If have such talent means according to google rule then you can survive.
Good Luck!!

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Chris Worner

13 years ago

To expand on what Caliban said, becoming a wildly popular, widely syndicated columnist is where the bookoo bucks are.

Chris

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mikemeth

13 years ago

Definitely as long as you have talent for writing or you know what you are doing you will always find clients who are ready to pay more for your articles than others

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Hans Klein

13 years ago

Well... it depends what you're offering to the client.

The thing about writing is... it's tiring. You don't take breaks and it makes your brain hurt.

So.. you might be able to really create a well-researched, high quality article in 15 minutes to an hour.

(If you're really doing research, it's going to take around an hour or more).

But if you're only charging $5 an article... you've got to keep that up all day to make any money at all.

Personally... I love writing. But I'd rather flip burgers... or scrub toilets. It would be a whole lot more fun.

It's a content mill.

However... when you offer the right services and position yourself... you can get a lot more for your work. Instead of a $5... there are marketers willing to pay $100.00 or more for a 500 word article if it delivers them the "goods" (sales... social media buzz... and prime search positions).

In other words... make your writing valuable... and the prices others are willing to pay go up.

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myseoclub

13 years ago

Definitely possible, writing articles is in demand nowadays.
Wish you luck!

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WebPen

13 years ago

There's pure gold in here with stuff from Ashley, Alexa and Danielle.

I personally had heard before that you should start prices high... but didn't listen.

I think if you're writing for Warriors, you may have to start lower because they aren't used to paying $50/500 word article.

But that proves that it's probably worth taking the time to learn how to market yourself to the offline/Elance space.

Sure it might take a little more time to get regular customers, but if you're making making 500-1,000% ROI compared to writing for Warriors- it's probably worth it

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JamesGw

13 years ago

You can definitely make a lot of money from article marketing, but it won't necessarily be easy. If you write articles for your own websites, you can do even better. I don't suggest only writing for other people as this doesn't produce the residual income that your own articles will.

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Alexa Smith

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Kent

No, article writing is NOT a career. Kid yourself if you must, but it is not.

Surprised to see you saying this, Chris, when there are people here whose full-time occupation is writing articles for websites in the $200 sort of price-range, and I know from trying to refer customers to them that some of them are really fully booked. Perhaps you haven't seen all the posts like this one? :confused:

The reality is that clients needing articles for targeted syndication (rather than primarily for article directories) are the ones who know how to use them, tend to have successful businesses, and keep coming back for more.

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abond

13 years ago

Why not stick to E-book writing instead? I feel that will develop more credibility.

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RAMarketing

13 years ago

Who said the article writing has to be for websites? Guess how much a magazine or newspaper will pay you. Most of the time, it's far less than a website owner, especially a smart one. So, journalism is a career, even though it pays less...? I fail to see the point.

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moneymakerz

13 years ago

Definitely, article marketing can be a very rewarding career.........with google becoming more stringent with content quality requirement, scope for such a career is only going to include

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Can article writing be a career

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