Perhaps a lowball offer is a starting point for negotiations.

I know of other article writers that will actually write a series of articles for free in exchange for testimonials and reviews to build up their portfolio.

For an experienced article writer this bid amount seems very low. Have you asked the bidder why it's so low?

how long was the article they wanted you to write/rewrite?

Yeah some people are like that . Just laugh @ them, and maybe tell them, " Oh thank you, but my schedules are tight." LOL. Good luck buddy!

Yeah its getting more like that every day. it's all those indians. Their taking over lol, half of my old job is going to get fired soon and replacing with them indian workers.
(no offense its just the truth)

2-3 years back it was common to get paid $5-6 min per article.

The gentleman who emailed me spoke very broken English and said that he had a very limited budget .. He was looking for about 350 word articles.

I think offering low or free rates to build testimonials is something I will definitely look into more, thanks for the idea.

Don't ever work for less than 10 dollars per 500 word article, otherwise you're wasting your time, and even that is really low in my opinion.

Wow they offered you a whole dollar .

There is a difference in you offering to write an article for someone for free in return for a testimonial and someone insulting you by offering $1 for your intellectual property.

I would tell them for a dollar all they get is "kiss my ass" and oh yeah a signature

Umm, a dollar?

...a dollar.

really?

a dollar?

Just hit the delete button, bro.

Seeing more and more of that these days. As long as the good writers stick to their guns and don't sell their services for peanuts the trend will hopefully reverse as customers realize that people actually willing to write for so little aren't likely to do a good job.

Yeah, offering free articles as an intro can be effective, if your strategy is built on leading to a good, solid backend offer, or if you KNOW you're approaching reasonably serious buyers who can be upgraded.

That guy doesn't sound like either one. Just keep moving forward. Sometimes you get strange offers, but it's important o laugh and move on.

In Japan I did a lot of editing work, and sometimes I'd get a "customer" who'd offer me, say, 25% of my usual rate, but would send me lots and lots of work. My reply was always "So if I agree to lose a little money on this job, you'll let me lose a lot of money on future jobs? No thanks."

Years ago, I ran a painting contracting business, and one day a small builder asked me to give a quote on all the houses he was putting up. He offered $500 per house. I was just starting out, and I wanted business, but I simply could not figure a way to make a profit at that price, no matter how many houses he had. We talked back and forth for a while, and he finally let it slip that he was looking for a new painter because his last three painters had all gone broke.

Gee I wonder why.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

That's really bad... i think all the pro writers should stick on to their price. It was not just article your are writing, they gain credibility with quality article you are producing. You write with experience and charisma.

Those are probably newbies and lookign for cheap way to get more.

You are not using those 'software' to automatically generate new article.

you make good point there Charles..

I agree with Tina above. These writers are not your competition. Just like there are cheap buyers, there are cheap writers too.

Do you really think a person with say, a good reputable website would risk outsourcing articles to such people? Never. A person may end up paying even $50 for a well researched, useful article from a person who knows what he is writing rather than spending $2 on an plagiarized article. I use the word plagiarized because cheap writers (cheap as in people who sell by "price" not "quality") don't know the meaning of research.

Qualified writers do get a lot of repeat customers too. And business from reputable corners. There is nothing to worry about.

I have observed that in Guru.com, there are projects posted for articles at $0.50 to $1 per 500-word articles; and I can't even believe that there are numerous bidders. lol. It's normal bro.

just let it go without any remorse.

You have your own standard and stick with it. It's either they take it or leave it.

Had a good belly laugh at that one, Tina.

I see a lot of those rates in freelancing sites. Thing is, there are takers for these lowly wages. And that's the reality of it all. If it doesn't meet your standards, just let it go.

Hi

I've seen offers like that too - incredible!

Someone has just offered me $2.50 - $4 for an article which just isn't worth it for the amount of time and research I put into article writing. I'm worth far more than that.

Mary

you're now competing with people who use automated tools to do the initial rewrite, and spend maybe 30 seconds to a minute 'tarting it up'. When you look at it like that, a buck is quite a lot.

This is from my experience as a writer.

When I had my prices listed on my website as I did originally, I got a lot of people asking for my prices, around 90% asking would I give them a huge discount. They would say they couldn't afford to pay my rates and could I do them for [fill in the blank]. It seems that having a page with the prices for a lot of marketers (and I mean marketers) was the red light to start to ask for lower prices.

I removed that page and found that people who needed writing, would ask my prices (not displayed so understandable) and less than 10% would ask for a discount.

Now I have a downloadable price list, and I never, ever get asked for a discount. I get a few people asking what my rates are, and I send them a copy of my price list.

The other thing I found, as soon as I changed my model, I found that the people looking for writers also changed.

There are a whole lot of other factors but these simple changes will make the difference.

I laugh when I see people saying $5 an article is the norm, and you can't get more.

I have found sites which pay their writers anything between $1 and $5 per word and no I didn't miss out the decimal point.

I recently doubled my rates without any complaints.

I then did some work for a company, and that also was double my normal rates.

As I say there are many different factors which will make a difference to your business.

But, I would say get advice from other writers, not from marketers who don't have any money to spend, who will tell you that $5 is the norm or the top price for a 500 word article.

Would I recommend reducing your prices to get testimonials, yes I would reduce them to at least $10 for a testimonial. Would I do free articles, nope. These are not normally buyers, they are the people who are only looking for free. Many of them will say great articles, time and time again whereas the article is badly researched and written.

Before anyone asked, I now charge $45 for a 400 word article

Oh the irony...

@BlueSquares .. too funny

Just want to say thank you for all the advice and laughs in this thread

If someone tells you they're on a tight budget, then they'll need to look at budget writers in places other than the US to get anything written at those prices. Don't drop your own rates to suit what they think they want to pay.

When they figure out that paying properly actually gets them better quality, they'll find a new budget to play with.

Never compete for price. There's always somebody willing to go lower. At 1$ an article, many people could live like kings in some countries, writing 10 articles a day...

My mother's retirement wage is actually lower than that(30*10).

Tyrus

That kind of pay is ridiculous. If you are looking for work as a writer, pm me. I can offer you work, and definitely will not pay $1 for an original and $0.25 for a rewrite.

Tina, it isn't only me that found that. All my students who did it found exactly the same results. Those who were having the same problem now have downloadable price list (other reasons why you should do this as well) and are all getting at least $0.10 per word for their work.

I know some say top writers here earn $0.05 per word, not true, it's just that my students don't post here anymore, they have other fish to fry

There were a couple points in this thread I liked. Above all else, I have to agree with one thing, if you want quality customers, those who are willing to pay for your expertise with serious work, one that is proven to generate leads from your writing skills, you need to test the market.

Starting with free articles to more advanced articles is a good way to distribute a wide range of "portfolio" work and generate leads. My thought is this, if your services are requested for a very broad topic, one that anyone can research online and write a 500 word article in a matter of 15 minutes, consider that for free services.

If your services are for a more specific topic, and a more specific niche like mechanical ball bearings for an air conditioning manufacturer, then charge accordingly to your level of service. These people are targeting buyers who are looking for ball bearings for their air conditioners. (This is just made up. I have no idea if air conditioners have ball bearings).

If your article can translate into $5 per sale for your client, and you know how much traffic they get, then there is no reason why you can't ask for more than a buck.

I do know writers who are starting out with free articles and a penny per word. However, 500 words only means 50 cents. That's a tough deal because you have a choice between a "seo" article and a content filler.

I rather pay $20 for an seo article and fine-tune it to my personal style than a 50 cent article that is not optimized for search engines.

I guess you need to be asking, what is the point of this article you want me to write for you?

Haha, was that a joke? Delete it and forget about it. I don't even think you could get gibberish for that.

not bad!......i'd like to take that kinda job....cus its sure money!
SOmetimes it betta to write for ur own blog/site but its a long term....good bad!

It is common but only if you know where to look and what your looking for....

Ive hired literally hundreds of people at $1 an article (500 to 600 words) and a good percentage of them have been american or british which is even better. But then i can throw out an article every 10 to 15 minutes and so in an hour that amount add's up meaning i could charge a smaller amount.

Tom Brite

There is a lot of great info in this thread. I started writing services not that long ago too and I have come across MANY cheapies. It is true that they are simply not your target market. There is no way that they can expect you to write well researched articles for such cheap prices.

I just can't afford to have my prices so low because then I might as well just write for my own websites and make a lot more money in the long run.

So just stick with it and the higher paying customers will be there eventually! It is just the beginning part of getting your name out there that is a little difficult.

Let's see.

If I write an article every 5 minutes, that would be $12 per hour.

Since I am making only $8 right now at Micky D's, that sounds like something I will get into. Of course, I would be using software, too, and the product would be crappy. (shrug)

wow, and I thought $5 per article was bad.

I've paid people with PhD's $10 per article and though I was ripping them off.

$1? I'd move on. Seek your own clients. There are many who would benefit from article marketing that don't go to the outsourcing sites. Reposition your services to include some type of extra consultation and then you're not just another apple in the basket.

Dave

On certain sites (like Elance), yes.

You have to remember that, when people talk about "articles", they mean different things.

There are "Human bait" articles that a person wants to build their authority in their niche, that are going to be used to build a loyal following, and that will eventually lead to that following BUYING stuff.

Then there are articles that are basically "SEO bait", to create tons of backlinks to a site, or "Adsense bait", just to have something surrounding the Adsense ads that they really want the visitor to click.

Sometimes it's worth attempting to educate those types of customers into seeing and realizing the difference.

Most of the time, however, $1 articles are for "SEO bait" or "Adsense bait", so high quality isn't really their main concern. Their main concern is that it isn't an exact duplicate of someone else's article

How? How are you presenting this? Simply telling a client you offer "well researched, quality articles" doesn't cut it. That's also what the $1 article mill writers say.

In my report Write To More Money, I explain how you must "sell the difference". You must leave the client in NO DOUBT as to the value they will get from you, compared to a "cheap" writer.

Using cliched and overused phrases like "high quality writing" is NOT selling. In fact, this phrase means nothing since it's so over-used.

Precisely. But bear mind mind that what you consider to be "loose change" may be a decent wage in certain countries.

So unless you want to work at their rates, you MUST, MUST, MUST sell the difference to your potential clients.

Think of it like this.

If I offered you a choice of two cars, one at $1,000 and one at $3,000... which would you pick?

If that's all you knew about the two cars... the price... you might pick the cheaper one (if you could afford it).

If you knew the $3,000 car was actually going to LAST YOU 10 TIMES LONGER and be TWICE AS EFFICIENT TO RUN... you'd be much more likely to pick the $3,000 car now, because I've demonstrated higher value.

You must demonstrate the value of your higher priced writing to your clients.

Chances are, clients that are after $1 articles are just after "SEO bait" or "Adsense bait", and you probably wouldn't want to bother writing for them, anyway.

But for clients who want to use their articles to build up their authority, subscriptions and sales... MAKE THEM SEE the added value you offer to your writing.

Just like I did with the example of the $3,000 car versus the $1,000 car.

SHOW them how it will build them into the authority in their niche.

SHOW them how it will make people want to read more, and subscribe.

SHOW them how it will lead directly to sales.

The golden rule in sales is: Show, don't tell.

People don't buy just because you tell them, "I offer high quality writing". They buy when you can show this, and demonstrate why it's so important to them.

I have had that happen too ... just laugh.

I wouldn't get out of bed for this

I've only ever written articles for myself. I'm not about to say that mine were that great but this thread has made me realise that there is no real money to be made writing for anyone else.

Steve

Let's put the whole thing into perspective:

Your article is the raw material needed by Internet Marketers to promote their product.
Therefore they fully intend to make a profit off your work.
As such, they should be willing to pay a reasonable and fair amount for your work.
I have written several articles for my own products, posted them on eza and turned more than $100 in affiliate commissions from each article.

Now that being said, why would I write an article for $1?

Of course, this same type of thread has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum on WF for as long as I have been around, and there are always two sides
One says the articles are not worth more than a few dollars, while others say the articles are worth $10 to as much as $100.

To this I say, those who want to pay $1 for an article, write it yourself!
Those that wish to pay upwards of $10, let me know!

Now if you would excuse me, I am headed to Starbucks to see if they will accept 40 cents for a White Chocolate Mocha venti (normally $4) after all its just coffee! right?

Jon

you can get articles quality ones written for 2.5 dollars each if you order in bulk i have a guy i work with where i do so much volume with him now that he get really really cheap rates

[DELETED]

Don't back down! If you are a quality writer, stay positioned as such.
I think Tina and Bev put it nicely.

If they're looking to pay $1 per article, you could point them towards PLR? That's the going rate.

Peggy

I made a similar post a while back.http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...u-serious.html


I feel your pain trust me. Even if you have a hard time getting good pay there are several ways to use your writing to generate income.

Canadian Union of Writers tell their members to charge $4 a word

I'd write an article for $1...













































... if it was a 40-word paragraph.

- George

Okay, so for the uninitiated to outsourcing article writing, what is the "going rate" for a quality 500 page article? From what I'm reading here it sounds like a good $50. So to get 10 articles written for a startup blog would cost $500? That's nuts!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to take food out of anyone's mouth, but I have ALWAYS been told that 10 articles would cost you a grand total of $50. Eric Louviere himself teaches that in JobCrusher. Are all the IM gurus misleading us? Seriously, because these guys really shouldn't be quoting numbers like that if you writers command a higher price.

Well that's Possible. If you go on GAF there are many writers who are ready to right at $1 for per 350 words. So, if you want any go and find there. US & UK rates are high but some other Countries are available at this rates but may be you get some low quality but unique articles.

just move on.. and stick to something that make you actually want to research and write an article.

At least you were offered something. I have found article's I wrote hosted on someone else's blog! At least the left me credit as the offer and the back links within the article

I pay $3.75 sometimes and already think i am a cheap *******....$1 for an article and $0.25 is an UTTER joke..if have not ever seen such low rates on any webmaster forum. Even if i were to live in bangladesh i would charge more.

Wow.... $1 per article is very very low in my opinion. Even if it was only a 300 word article for a blog, that doesn't begin to cover any research done on your part, initial draft, keyword implementation, sound grammar, editing of initial draft, sending final draft, making changes as necessary, etc.

As a freelance writer you have to include these things since the person buying doesn't always know what you do and how you do it. Time is money, even time preparing to "write". Always stick to your guns on your base price, even when just starting out.

It's not even nearly minimum wage for the U.S.

Just my thoughts,

-TrigMan

There are places online where you can get unique articles written for a dollar that are acceptable by ezinearticles, (mostly non-US);but I do think perhaps that was just a negotiating tactic to see if he can get a better offer once your raise a counter offer.

There is a saying that goes like this
"Either work for free or for full price. Never cheap"
and I will stand by it in everything I do in my online experiences and "adventures".

I understand the whole concept of building a portfolio and all that, but come on, $1?

And why would you pay $50 for an article? If you knew that the article was going to bring you double or triple would you pay?

And also lets not forget that there will always be people asking premium price...even if the service is the same, they will just present themselves better and ask for a much more larger fee.

This is exactly what happens with designers...you have people making wordpress themes or logos for like $100 and then you have the quality&premium ones that charge $2000+ for a wordpress theme or a logo...and honestly in many of the cases I would gladly pay that price.

I was all set to tell you the same thing the others told you - laugh it off and move on. Then I looked at the prices you have posted at the link in your sig...

My friend, that offer was low but it wasn't that outrageous in comparison to your posted prices.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to at least triple your posted prices. Otherwise, you're going to keep getting lowballed.

If you feel you need to discount to get your foot in the door, publish realistic prices and then offer a limited time/number of packages.

Even better is the suggestion to offer free work to someone credible who can provide references/testimonials.

If you offer flea market prices, expect flea market bids...

When I get low offers (personally or through Ad Astra Traffic), I use it as an educational opportunity.

I send off an email that explains why I/we can't do the job for the money offered, explain what the person is likely to actually get at those prices and then compare that the results their likely to experience by dealing with better providers.

9/10 times, that doesn't do any good. However, I'm able to convert low-ballers into good customers occasionally. If you know *why* you're worth more, it's an opportunity to make a good pitch and to help cut through some of the "buy your articles from $1 providers" bull**** that permeates the IM world.

I won't get out of bed for less than $20 for an original article and in fact, will be getting up tomorrow to write one for which I'm being paid $100.

There are plenty of quality writers out there but sometimes (note I have said "sometimes") you really do get what you pay for...

Don't take it! Its not worth it! You can make more money by writing articles and placing them in EZA.

Try craigslist. You could get some nice jobs

This reminds me of a thread I wrote a while back. You can see it here. I think when it is all said and done you simply have to upgrade yourself. Look around and do all you can to increase the value of the service you offer.

I have paid a couple people in my local area to write articles for $1.00 . I usually get a couple calls, I do a "test" article where after I explain to them what I want and what the guidelines are, they get excited and crank out two or three... and then just stop, lol. I have a couple friends in China, and they won't even write a 300-500 article for $1.00 (but that's mostly because speaking and writing in English offers more opportunities for them)

[DELETED]

I wouldn't take less than $10. I can't understand why other skills get a good wage while writers are at the bottom of the barrel.

It's because the internet is international. There are people in Philippines and India who would work for this, but even some of them would not accept that.

Just laugh at it and tell it as a funny story. Not much else to do, really.

[DELETED]

way too low

I guess, its the supply and demand curve that is making all this happen. The supply has soared to higher levels and people wanting articles are kinda taking it lightly and think, to pay less is to be ahead of the game. Its better we writers create our own niche to sell articles at a price they deserve.

It depends on the blog post and how it is written. For most marketers they only want something added to their site, and as long as it brings in the readers who click to buy they don't care.

But, those outside of IM want more from their blog posts and they will pay higher rates for them.

Find the right market and you can and will get paid higher rates.

Lol, 6 months ago I was offering $100 per original quality article and I barely found 3 people to write something professional. People are used to this price since most of the article writers out there are just spinning.

Bev,

i have the strange feeling that your articles/writing are not the typical "ezine" articles...so maybe there's a problem comparing rates

Georg most likely, but I think it proves there are other options for people than writing for peanuts.

I didn't say it was a blog post

I disagree with you, there are a number of people on this forum who will pay far higher rates than the $5 per blog post. But, their expectation is totally different to the person who pays $5 or less for a post.

There is a very good reason for writers to be in a marketing forum, and that is to learn how to become a marketer.

I have a friend who only works with offline clients and she won't write an article for less than $200.

I won't write a blog post for less than $4 per 100 words and I know from my own perspective that if I had clients that were paying me $1 per article (NEVER going to happen - my time is worth much more than that!) and others paying $4 per 100 words, then I know who I'd be giving my preference to...logically...

Remember too, that many writers have qualifications in specific areas. For example, I am able to demand a lot more per article on life coaching topics that require specific techniques to be written about because I am a qualified life coach. My clients are more than happy to pay more because they know that they'll get an article that's written by somebody who knows what they're talking about.

It really all comes down to perceived value. Some people feel they're getting value at $1 per article, but somebody else (me included) is looking for much more than just price, but a particular style and of course quality of article. I'm more than happy to pay more as long as I'm getting what I want from my writer.

Although freelance writing used to be profitable (it still is for well established individuals) it's pretty much slave wages for workers overseas at this point...

What Monika said!

m sorry to say but yes this is the hard reality, i used to charge $8-10 per 500 word article earlier [ my team wrote it for me ] but from last one year or so i have to reduce the price to $2 or even less to stay in market. good times have gone and now we can even find some good writers for $1 per article

Well, $1 is really very low
for an original article. You
charge around $1.5 per 100
words.
This is feasible for most of
the writers and their clients.

Thanks
K

$1 for an original article is really less. just laugh it off and move ahead.

$1 per unique article? Ubelieveable!!! Just imagine, for freelance translator here in Indonesia we earn $2.5 per page. Translating don't mean think too much, like what people do in making or writing an article.

Those are absolutely normal rates...but only for Indians, I'm afraid. It must cost absolutely nothing to live in India. Maybe we ought to consider relocating there to keep up with inflation?

REJECT
REJECT
REJECT

<shakes head and walks away> Mike you don't understand because you don't want to understand. You have blog post, and your need for blog posts firmly in your head. You don't want to talk about anything else. I've have IMers pay me $0.10 to $3 a word in the past month. Warriors who wanted decentl writing done. Yes, some were for blog posts, others not.

Tell you what, ask Paul Myers for a copy of his last email "finding your voice". You might find/learn something of interest.

I just heard a click and had an AHA moment. I think I finally understand what CDarklord and Dan were trying to explain to me. Listen to this and tell me if it makes sense:

A quality article gives better results over a mediocre article because people want to read it more.

Let me clarify. The reason a quality article can topple SERPs results is not because it directly affects anything necessarily. It's because a quality article is more interesting to readers. That means more sites will aggregate the article, link back to it, social bookmark it, etc. because they genuinely like it. This of course ups it's ranking in the SERPs getting more eyeballs in front of it, who in turn socially bookmark it, etc... and the ball keeps rolling on it.

I was looking at it from a completely different perspective. I'm thinking - well if it's keyword optimized, isn't spun, even if it's okay it's still original content and that helps. I didn't put myself in the shoes of the *reader*

CDarklord, Dan, is that what you guys were talking about? If that's the case, I apologize profusely, I was wrong. Please forgive my noobness sometimes.

Okay, so the short answer is yes $50 articles are better and you should use them, but not at first. Makes a lot of sense. If you already know what your performing/converting keywords are, then check out a *good* $50 article writer and use them to scale your business, not build it. Use the cheapie articles to find out what those converting keywords actually are first.

Great advice, guys. Thank you.