Lets decide to pay less

[JohnG]

I agree with this whole position in certain circumstances however when it comes to content it is very hard to set specific values on things. The reason for this is as Kaus mentioned there is such a discrepancy between bad, good and great content writers. I am assuming that most of the people that buy content on this site do so for one of 3 reasons:

1. They are not good at writing content

2. They are to lazy to write content themselves

3. They can afford to have content written for them and feel their time is more valuable focusing on other areas of business

Whatever category the hiring party falls under, they will need to make a decision at some point about what kind of quality they want when they hire someone. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for (most of the time). In my experience will not find a dirt cheap writer who knows your topic, speaks and writes in English perfectly and can make an article flow properly for readers. These are all skills that a writer must possess in my opinion to be considered great.

I guess what I am trying to say is that when it comes to writing I feel that in some cases, higher pricing is justified. If you look outside of our industry to other freelance writers you will see their rates are well above what is charged here. In our community, the said writer must have a working knowledge of our industry and environment in order to effectively communicate with the visitors to our sites and I think that this requirement does have significant value associated with it.

Anyways that is just my two cents and I realize that the market will determine the prices on both ends of the spectrum, I just think that sometimes the value of a truly great writer is overlooked when in fact it is just as difficult and challenging a skill as mastering SEO, negotiating or any other area that requires constant learning.

[LadyHoldem]

I used to think I personally charged more than most writers. I actually don't charge more than all, but I wouldn't care if I did. I've lost customers due to lower prices. That's a fact. Though I've found that most come back.

There is a market in these forums for two types of writing, quantity, and quality.

I believe you should only buy products that you believe are fairly priced, but I disagree at least on the basis of what I've seen publicly that the prices are all that high.

The highest per word rate I am aware of personally offered for content on this forum is .12 per word.

Now that does seem expensive more than a dime a word? I think really that's because it's a silly method for charging for things.. This is going to be a long post, I can tell already. Therefore it would bore me if I didn't write it, and I'd skim over it . Longer isn't necessarily better.


I'm going to take one second and defend my own pricing, as I'm who I relate to best . I studied SEO for about what, three years? I took writing classes in college. I studied just poker reviews for more than a year.

I still study everyday.

I do my very best to provide the very best content available on the forums, or even online, I'm sure most of the writers here do. It's human nature I think in any creative area to at least try to impress.

I think Nikki (Notspot) has me beat hands down, but that's ok, keeps me on my toes . I found another writer to look up to too, I hired her.


Is it worth it?

Now I'll be the first to say, as far as numbers go, it's really hard to place a value on my own time, skills, ideas and insight. I take a good hard look at what I'll accept, and I try as I'm sure all the writers here do, or should, to stay competitive.... while not going any lower than what makes sense, what that acceptable amount is imo.

The people I choose to work with definitely think it's worth it. The other guys, hire from DP.

Low End Writing

I cringe when I see people writing for a penny a word or ten bucks an article. They can and should earn more than that.

I can 'rewrite' something in just a few minutes. That means take someone else's article, form an opinion, and rephrase the information in my own words. - There is a market for that type of writing here, and it's a low end market (ie cheap).

That style of writing aside..

An informative article, that is not a regurgitation of someone else's work can take anywhere from an hour to a day or more. My desk is covered with press contacts telephone numbers, my email list includes thousands of people, with notes as to who they are.

On any given day I talk to staff at 10-15 casinos. I have become a forum troll. Background info can generally be found within Google, but if you want a unique quote, or an unknown fact, or just something personal to add to your article, you're going to have to do some res

That's the work I get paid for. I am also my own customer service team. My own Sales Force, and your average every day decent person.

So an hour or two a day is spent PMing, emailing, IMing, giving quotes, helping with minor code, just because we all do that for each other.

Editing Included! No Extra Charge!

I work with a couple other writers, I'm sure many of you have talked with Donna (don't you just love her!), and a few of you have met Rebecca, our newest team member. We edit each others work, help each other out.

In addition to that infrastructure, again for no extra charge, articles you get from guys like mjmurphy, or ace_high are often proof read by me, and behind the scenes, they'll look over my stuff for me too.

As for links, my throat is starting to hurt a bit from all this soap box preaching. But just fyi, ime the price has gone down on the forums, up outside of the forums.

Links.. cheaper than they were two years ago!

The average index link price here is less than $50. The standard rate here is $10 per pr point on most pages. When I started in this industry, $75 min for PR4. (PR Shouldn't be the standard here, we all know that, parrot it, yet still it is.. )

Off this forum, from guys that are doing well in the industry, but don't have our sense of 'team spirit' or our competition especially in the rakeback realm commonly charge upwards of $250 per month.

It sucks to feel unappreciated, or like you're ripping someone off.. So I wanted you to have some idea what goes into all of this writing/selling/linking stuff we do.

I'll go ahead and get off my soap box now .

[Graham]

Originally Posted by mjmurphy53711

Hey, please don't take this the wrong way - not trying to be inflammatory but coming from someone who genuinely looked into and still plans on buying some of your review posts, do your comments now mean I can have it for $50 instead of $100? :-)

How can you say that you are "not trying to be inflammatory" with such an attacking post like that? There are many factors that go into how I price my reviews, and its not really relavent to this discussion anyway. If you don't like my prices, don't pay them. I have never tried to "sell anyone" on buying them other than the one thread I posted here, its more just something I do when I get some free time. In fact, I have turned down people in the past because I didn't want to link to their sites, so save your money and don't bother asking me for one.

My response to this thread had more to do with how some people's prices on here have skyrocketed, without any justification for such a spike. For example, you were selling articles not too long ago for $15 each, now I have seen some as high as $90? And here I was thinking gas prices were climbing fast. Maybe you got your degree or something during this time to justify this increase, so its hard for me to comment, but since your posts where you sell your content have no indication to your educational background/poker experience (pretty important for a poker writer IMO), how am I supposed to know?

Ladyholdem's response was definitely an insight for me into what you get for the prices that she charges. When you put it that way it is definitely worth the price that you charge. You should really put something like that in the posts where you sell your work as I think it would make it easier for all us "non-writer" people to see your side of things and justify what some of us see as high costs (bear in mind I am really cheap ).

Regardless, it doesn't really matter to me what anyone charges, and I probably shouldn't have replied to this thread from the beginning. It just so happens that this subject comes up a lot in coversations with friends and I couldn't help but open my mouth.

[TheShortStack]

Originally Posted by hazo

I'm not sure what the market used to be like because I haven't been around that long

I'm with Nick on this one. I've only really been an affilite for around 6 months now and trying to figure out a reasonable price for a link was (and still is!) one of the most frustrating things.

All I have to base prices on are the posts I've seen on here and on CAP over the last few months. Having said that I have been taken aback by some quotes I've had from contacting webmasters directly.

[PokerProp]

A lot of good responses from writers here. Good writers are really hard to find so of course the price will be high for specialty and quality work, my intent was not to insinuate otherwise.

[BootyCraze]

lol. supply and demand. Economics101. Drop the payscale, dropped standard.

I'll offer 100 unique articles for $300, that works out at $3 per article

Alternatively, I'll offer 1 article at $50.

Both options will be delivered in 4 hours.

Prop, maybe you have a problem with quality to pricing. Maybe look at different avenues for the quality but you need to remember the fine line & ultimately what the article is going to do for you.

[kaus]

Wow.. some good responses and some not so good ones. Prop was trying to point something out that has become obvious to some and again others feel its fine. I guess it just boils down to what someone is willing to pay and what they actually get for it, be it behind the scenes stuff that takes place or doesn't.

I had a quite a bit written here for this post but in the end it really doesnt mean anything. MJ I think maybe you should chill sometimes instead of assuming everyone is riding your ass, sometimes comments made are not always pointed towards you,

Have a good weekend all

[Notspot]

Originally Posted by LadyHoldem

I think Nikki (Notspot) has me beat hands down, but that's ok, keeps me on my toes . I found another writer to look up to too, I hired her.

Awww - thanks, that is high praise indeed coming from you - I'm sooo chuffed.

However, I must point out I don't do content for anyone else (I've had a couple of PM's about it already from Cathy's post, lol - I think she meant 'I'd hire her' or was talking about someone else at that point.).

Also, although I do most of my own content I have bought more than a few strategy articles from Mark (mftpg), when I think now of how much I paid him for those (around $25 per article I think) it seems incredibly cheap considering the quality, but at the time we were both just finding our feet and it was a massive investment for me back then and a cash boost for him to spend on his own sites (I assume).

I would pay a whole lot more for articles from proven writers like Mark or Ladyholdem now. You get what you pay for and the value of natural links and 'stickiness' shouldn't be underestimated when looking at the rates the experienced quality writers charge.

As for prices, yeah, they do seem to be going up, but I still have my limits and stick to them. But as someone said nothing is sold for a penny more than someone else is prepared to pay for it. Market forces will prevail and things will find their own natural price. Saying that, I appreciate what Pokerprop is saying and I'm glad he made the post - I think the key is to research what you're buying and look around in a few other places for cheaper prices before you blindly accept the price people are charging is correct or fair - especially where links are concerned.

[PokerProp]

Originally Posted by BootyCraze

Prop, maybe you have a problem with quality to pricing. Maybe look at different avenues for the quality but you need to remember the fine line & ultimately what the article is going to do for you.

Actually, this turned into a thread about quality articles with lots of good responses.
When I wrote the OP I was thinking of some areas where the demand is not as high. I'm not going to rant on about them though because my post as just meant to be a quick suggestion not something that was going to causes prices for me in particular to get higher .

For the record the people who responded in this thread were not people I was specifically mentioning.
mjm I've worked with and the prices I've paid I've been happy with.

Rich;s work is outstanding and for sure is premium quality work.

LadyHoldem comes super highly recommended here. I purchased a detailed review from here, but admittedly am behind right now and haven't read it but felt confident it will be worth the price.

Not sure if I've bought anything from others here who posted or not.

So to clarify for the final time, my comments were just about inflation in general and were not to anyone specific, and were just an idea to through out there.. nothing more nothing less

It turned into a decent thread though even though it was intended to be a stand alone suggestion

[mjmurphy53711]

Graham -

I just want to note that my post was a miswritten joke, I certainly didnt mean it the way you took it and really mean it when I said I considered it a valuable service.

It was a "poke" so to speak, I apologize for the way it came off - in all sincerity.