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Finding an expert author who has personality and creativity?

by cs.marketer
6 replies
Maybe I'm asking for too much....

I have a website of mine that is based in the health and fitness niche. It gets a steady amount of traffic at the moment and makes a couple hundred dollars each month.

It started off with myself being the sole writer for the blog. After I had earned some decent money I started to outsource the content creation side of things to oDesk. That started freeing up some time to grow the site in other areas.

Now this is where the problem comes in. After outsourcing various posts there was always something I wasn't happy about. I felt the articles and posts didn't have much personality or creativity in them. I wanted the posts to engage me better - something they failed horribly on. Don't get me wrong they were all written well but they weren't something I could enjoy reading.

So then at the end of last year I decided what I needed was an expert author - I mean someone who was an expert author in the area of any given subjects must be the answer, right?

Well, after reading through some of these articles I still feel the same. Yes they are well written but there's no real personality in them.

I feel as if the quality of the blog has dropped since I have stopped writing so much (I still write the odd post.)

The idea going back to creating all the content myself isn't really an idea I want to look at as I have all sort of other projects going on at the moment. I could post a few job adverts for writers on other sites like freelance or elance but I fear I'll get them same sort of quality. What would you do?

1. Are there any places I could find fantastic expert authors?

2. Also, what would be your ideas to grow the blog?
#author #creativity #expert #finding #personality
  • Profile picture of the author Lurk
    one thing you could do is when you read articles you like in different places you could ask them to ghost write for you or guest post for your site. You'll have to pay them generously, but, you will get quality content.

    Sniff around the internet, see what you like, contact the author, pay maybe up to $100 an article if you can swing it. That will be enough incentive to get some great creative stories from an EXPERT I would think.

    Just a thought. Even on sites like yahoo if you see content contact the author.

    Good luck
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    DONT USE TIME CARELESSLY FOR IT CANNOT BE RETRIEVED. -LURK

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  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    Try the Warriors for Hire section in this forum as you'll find some great writers there for sure. You obviously know you'll have to pay for quality but it's worth it in the long run if it saves you precious time.
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    Cheers, Laurence.
    Writer/Editor/Proofreader.

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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    They are around, it just may take a few project posts on the freelance sites and examining LOTS of sample content to find them. I have had success asking for a combination of writing experience and expertise in the subject in the past.

    However, what I often do is mix expert "dry" information with my own so that the outsource content is the heavy-lifting from a research perspective or just to save time...then I bring the personality.

    An option would be to take the content you have written for you and the use it to produce videos where you add your own "flare", experience, opinions or added info to the table.

    Jeff
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    Turn Your Knowledge Into High-Paying Digital Products To Sell Online
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  • Profile picture of the author Toplink
    I have hired a few authors over the years from eLance. To write articles, hard copy books etc.

    It was a bit trial and error at the start but I found some really great authors. Really great!

    But for that sort of quality it's not cheap. I pay about $150 for a good article and a 20,000 word book can be $2,000-$4,000.

    I tried the lower end of the market for blog post writing etc, and the quality just wasn't there....

    Hope you find what you are looking for.
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  • Profile picture of the author spearce000
    I would go to article sites like ezinearticles.com, and find an author whose work you like. Approach that author directly and see if they will write articles for you, and if they say yes, work out a pay rate.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    OP -- kudos to you for picking up on this problem in the first place. Alot of site owners think they're doing great because they've listed all of the important facts and figures. While that's definitely important, it's only PART of having a great blog.

    The next part involves making people WANT to take time out of their busy day and choose your blog (out of the millions upon millions of other blogs that talk about the same subjects). That's where the personality comes in. (I like to refer to it as your "voice".)

    You already know you need it... so where do you get it?

    Take a spin through Warriors for Hire, and see if anyone grabs your attention. Or, if you know any other site owners, ask them who they've worked with. (You don't need to limit yourself to your niche. A good writer will be able to do the necessary research to become an expert on your topics.)

    If neither of those options works, look for a professional content writer that can help you. Talk to them first, and find out what they can do to give you a "voice". Read some of their work, and see if it's got the personality you're looking for.

    Good luck!!
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