Content Writing - Am I Paying Too Much?

Remember too, the article is also only worth as much as you do with it. If you don't use it to its full potential, it's worth very little to you. The more you promote it, the higher its value to you.

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. I appreciate it.

I'd definitely agree that the ROI is what makes the article ultimately worth it, but, I had a bad experience with paying a guy $30-$40 a review several months ago. Apparently, he didn't think it was enough for the 700-1000 word articles I was asking for and he ended up not fulfilling the contract.

I decided to up the ante this time around and go for $75 for the same thing. So far so good, and if the articles produce like they did before, it's worth it to me.

That being said though... I'm not a fan of overpaying for something if I can help it which is what spurred the question. So any other thoughts you guys have are welcome.

I definitely agree with you on this... by "grammatical correctness" I meant that it sounded like a native English speaker and wasn't "choppy." Informal is fine, but I've dealt with some authors who simply didn't have a great grasp of Enlglish.

Overall I agree with you but I think you are passing up on some decent opportunities with the statement above. If you are getting all the jobs you can handle, then I guess it is working for you.

I will and have paid up to $100 for a good article in a specific niche that requires real experience.

Back to the original poster, you have to be careful on Elance and the other sites that you don't overwhelm your contractors. Most are real professionals and will flake out on you when you start giving them more and more work.

Based on your mention of "minimum wage," I can only assume you were referring to my post.

I like and agree with most of what you said here - fantastic post! But I feel like you may have misinterpreted my intentions...

I wasn't trying to tell the OP he absolutely must pay these prices and more for all the reasons listed above, etc. I may have gotten carried away on some tangents, but I was just trying to give him some insight on why us writers charge the way we do and why it may be worth it to pay (for those who can afford it).

I don't always charge those types of rates either. I do often with non-Warrior clients, who are looking for a different standard, but you can see by the rates in my WSO that I write some cheaper content as well.

I haven't put in the marketing work to make that $100 an hour for every single hour that I work, as I'm a lazy guy who lives in a 4th world country. But nor am I pitching clients with talk about minimum wage and benefits. lol So please try not to get it twisted.

I'm in the same boat as you and give clients what they pay for; I also often work with budgets, especially if I have some extra time on my hands.

All that said, clients who pay more often get better service and better content. I simply don't hold myself to the same standard if they aren't willing to pay for that.

It's a choice every client makes with their budget, and that's fair enough to me.

I also write very quickly and have the same sticking point with emails that you do. But I don't agree with you that writing an article of this length never takes a couple hours. It very well can, depending on the research needs of the project and the complexity of the article.

For more general content, or niches you have specialized knowledge in, where you can write off the top of your head, an article that length shouldn't take more than an hour, ever, and that's including redrafts. But if it's anything that takes some legitimate research, it can definitely eat up a couple, if not more.

Other webmasters want articles that are very similar to magazine content. Their business model works - their content takes tiiiiiiiiiime.

Review content can also take a long time (which is what OP needs) especially if he wants it accurate, detailed, and/or honest. I accept that many IMers aren't concerned with these things though.

If I want to, I can churn out 3 articles in an hour. But you better believe these are in a whole different universe than something I charge $100 or more for.

Once again, people really do get what they pay for.

Yes, but you've skipped right over all the authors who are in the mid-range, making a very good living off their writing without being rich and famous. In fact, I'd say that, contrary to popular belief, these authors make up the bulk of the market - I assure you there are many more 6-figure authors than you realize, and they offer something the completely broke authors do not.

Similarly, there are plenty of freelancers making mid to high 5-figures and 6-figures. Their content and their professionalism is a far cry from the countless writers struggling to pay their bills. I honestly don't even put them in the same ballpark. And their clients are extremely happy with them - enough to keep beating down their doors for more.

This is true, but you've only penned half of the story. Price is also impacted by supply - it's not all demand.

The providers set the price. The customer decides whether to buy or not. If they demand a lower price, the suppliers may accept that, but it's a cold truth in capitalism that the quality of the supply may also go down.

If the buyers aren't hip to that, they may compromise by agreeing to pay more, and the price creeps up again. Thus an equilibrium is met.

Or, as I said in my post:

It's also true that the quality writers may just decrease their efforts and join the lower-priced markets. The buyers get what they want, but they also lose something.

In these ways and more, the supply of quality writing with quality service is most definitely finite.

On the other hand, you talk as if there is only one writing market. But you simply can't tell me that a guy getting paid $1 for an article is serving the same market as a guy that is getting $75. It just isn't so.

Which market the OP places himself in is up to him and his business, but there is a market for both - several in fact - price ranges. My main point was that those who compose the mid-range and upper market are buying a lot more than just words on a page...

And then there is complex content. Some content may not be mind-bending, but as mentioned above, it may take more time to do. What a client pays will partly be based on this not because they care what their writer makes but because the time it takes to produce something in this economy has a direct correlation to its value, and smart providers charge accordingly.

Maybe. It isn't surprising that with all the talk of cheap content that goes on in internet marketing circles that there is some confusion of what people should be paying. Thus, it doesn't surprise me that someone like the OP would at least wonder if they could get their content for cheaper.

That doesn't automatically mean, however, that they're paying too much, and they'll often find themselves disappointed if they decide to go with a provider who charges less.

One client may be paying $100 an article and hear of someone paying $80 and wonder. A client may be paying $30 and hear their friend is paying $10 and wonder. Wondering doesn't automatically mean they're paying too much.

Or, I might buy a pickup truck for $29,000 and hear my friend bought a pickup truck for $23,000 and wonder if I paid too much. Wondering does not make it so. There aren't enough details.

What condition is my friend's pickup in? Make and model? Does the engine purr just the same - are there underlying issues? Has it been a wreck before? Does it come with a warranty and service agreement? What's the mileage? Until I climb in the thing to have a look around and maybe a peek under the hood, I have no clue.

Which, to be fair, can be covered by your suggestion to try out multiple writers...I wholeheartedly agree with that.

My main point is that if price were the only variable considered, the client starts toeing a slippery slope that can quickly become a race to the bottom.

Lest you think I'm trying to argue you with you, I do agree with the gist of your post. In fact, if you pay attention to the last couple paragraphs of mine, I essentially said the same thing as you, which is that whether it's too much or not depends on the OP's business and ability to turn a profit.

I just feel you may have stated your case a bit too strongly.

Then again, i may have done a bit of the same...

With Respect,
James

As many have pointed out, the type of content helps to determine the price. I need the articles I'm paying for to fulfill a particular purpose: They need to sell. Writers need to have familiarity with the products already and there is some time involved in using the products so that it can be reviewed. I also need the articles to SELL. They need to have a copy writing edge to them (talking benefits instead of features, overcoming objections, etc.) Because of these reasons, and because my ROI on such reviews has been fantastic in the past, is why I set the price at $75 per article.

So does anyone have any comments on review articles specifically? I would assume that it makes sense to include compensation for the time it takes to test a product out in addition to the article itself?

@Shadowflux - That was very well said. I really appreciate your perspective, and I'll probably reference your post in the future as I think it really covered so much of what needs to be said.

@Marx - I hadn't considered cutting the authors in on the products sold from a review. I love the idea!

Most of what I do concerns affiliate commissions, and the downside of affiliate sales is that you can't track the source through to the sale, so it doesn't seem obvious to me how to track the sales from one article over another so that a writer could be paid on it.

And for you writers out there... would you be interested in this type of proposition where you get paid a flat fee + % of the commissions?

Thanks again for all of the feedback guys, this is incredibly helpful!

Maybe you are thinking of just USA writers. There are very talented writers in certain countries for whom $2 is a lot of money in the local currency. You only have to look at the popular content outsourcing sites (I shan't mention names here) to find them...

Kingshouse