People asking for 3 cents to .5 cents per word for articles.

What do you think? I just want to do no more than to leave a huge flame in their threads. I haven't yet, really, but I am getting more and more tempted to! like .5 OF a cent, not 50 cents. but a half cent or less are the most worthy of flaming their threads. 3 cents is not the best, but if it is a "shaving of a penny", this is UNACCEPTABLE!

 

What?

I think some non-English speakers have a hard time deciphering posted rates at times. I've encountered it quite a bit. Just last week some guy asked me to do something for him and I gave him a .05 per word rate. He was ready to get started, sent me the word counts, etc. Then when I quoted him the whole price, he balked - saying I had told him a rate that was 'half that number'.

No, he just interpreted it wrong.

.05 is five cents - he thought I meant 1/2 a cent per word, which would be .005.

 

Are you saying you want to flame the people who work for sub-human rates or people who offer them?

It doesn't do any good, they just get mad and tell you to go away. You can talk your ear off to them but if they only value content at $2.00 per article, that's all they're going to pay writers.

Basically, they're hoping that some dream writer will come along and agree to their rate, not knowing what they can earn as a writer. Does this ever happen? I'm sure it's worked out before... I mean hell, I actually bought into MLM in 2006 because I thought it was going to make me rich.

It's fun to be sarcastic and a smart ass in those threads but it doesn't accomplish anything. At the end of the day, they're still going to be cheap, they're still going to blame their writers for not allowing them to dominate Google and they're going to continue to look for slaves as writers.

It's better off just focusing on other things or marketing yourself to real clients and ignoring them.

 

I agree.
I have wasted far too much time in the past trying to convince people that you get what you pay for in this business, but they don't learn until they've already wasted considerable money, effort and time on adding trash to their site.

A few of them might come back to you in the future when it finally dawns on them that you were not trying to "rip them off", but the majority will just give up and fade away before they're willing to actually invest in their project.

 

Welcome to the world of competition. Cheap price, cheap quality. In my experience, users with extremely low prices are only trying to attract at any cost.

 

I have had disastrous results when quoting jobs as well. This lead me to only work for the highest paying clients and slowly weed out the crap as you get more. It is hard work finding the right clients, but when you land them it is gold. Getting paid $5 for an article sucks when they expect it to be well researched, captivating, perfect English, formatted and sprinkled with deep links….

Agree with you Conran - once people realise that their site looks like spam and they are getting traffic but high bounce rates and no $$$ in the bank, then they start to believe in quality content, good sales copy etc

 

It can be very frustrating as a writer, putting your services out there for the buyers who only want cheap prices. And, that just says, you are advertising in the wrong places. If you are getting this 'can you lower your prices' reaction from people, just ignore their emails/private messages and focus all your emotional energy on the good paying clients who know what you're worth and how valuable your writing services are.

For the prices these webmasters or buyers are asking, they won't actually attract real writing talent, but dabblers and part time money makers online who are just spinning out copied articles they found on other sites. And, we all know the dark path that leads down with Google.

 

This thread summarizes the lack of success I'm currently dealing with on a thread I started several days ago. Those who've bought my services continue to do do, yet my prices starting at $0.03 a word are too much for the content-hungry webmasters here at DP.

It's the same on all forums where it's free to post your services.

Still, it makes you wonder when all the wannabe IM superstars will conform to the current "Hummingbird" status quo.

I don't see it changing in the near future for the majority. These folks have to learn the hard way buying cheap, useless content and never seeing any change in traffic for months/years before the light goes on for them.

By then, most are so frustrated and broke they get shuffled out the proverbial "butt hole" of this industry.

 

Well said. Writing is a highly efficient marketplace with few barriers to entry – those who contribute only basic value will work for the prices given by the original poster. On the other hand those who contribute enormous value using the same tools, will command much higher premiums.

 

Irrespective of what quality I am capable of delivering, I have always been paid low, since I am not a native English speaker. Speaking about clients who want cheap work, there are many out there in the market and some dont even pay. I have had real bad experience working on freelancers but I am counting that as an experience with a heavy heart.

 

It happens to everyone. I was recently working for a big auto website for four months, and one day out of the blue they stopped paying due to apparent Paypal problems... First time in six years I've been stiffed. They may still pay me, or may not; it happens to the best of us.

Don't forget, but don't dwell either. It is business and freelancing is a business. The people who'd willingly set out to stiff you are likely poorer than you are. Despite the selfishness that exists in the world today, I've found that the majority are still kindhearted and honourable, and do pay for services rendered.

 

Then you probably don't even want to know what I pay....$0.00 per word. I give writers backlinks to their own sites/blogs, and share the revenue generated by their articles. If it is a popular article that is well promoted, that can lead into a decent recurring revenue. If it is not, then it can lead to pennies. It all depends on the subject.

On the flip side, I've written thousands of articles for others at $0.03 per word and never had a problem with it.

 

Now you yourself started this thread here - $10 for 5x500 word articles.
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/thr...ord-articles-have-i-gone-wacko-jacko.2641449/

That calculates to -
2500 words for $10
1 word for 0.004 ......

The people whom you want to flame are offering 0.005, that is not much worse.
Before flaming others, please make sure you don't get burned.

EDIT - Corrected my calculations.