$0.50/word too expensive?

**Nick R** · 06-10-2009, 05:13 PM

Hello,

We are looking to outsource a content author for our blog (see link in signature) so we contacted a person who maintains a blog of their own, and here are the rates at which he is willing to work:

Quote:

50c per word for exclusive rights, no author attribution required
40c per word for exclusive rights, author attribution and link to my blog required
30c per word for non-exclusive rights, author attribution and link to my blog required

That's pretty steep, in my opinion, but I have never outsourced a content writer, so I have no clue what the going rates in today's market are.

Also, I'm not sure if I should go for the exclusive and no-attribution option (we originally wanted this, but it's fairly expensive at this guy's rate) or not. His website is a blog with articles for our niche, and our website is a blog, forum and other resources. I don't see how attributing the articles to him and giving a link to his blog would hurt us. We wouldn't really lose forum members to a blog; they're totally different types of sites.

Your thoughts?

**willcode4beer** · 06-10-2009, 06:01 PM

It really depends upon the quality of the articles.
If the articles are high quality, then it's worth it.

OTOH, if buying articles, I would only get exclusive rights. Otherwise, you could find yourself in the duplicate content hole.

**marketingman100** · 06-19-2009, 09:11 PM

Sounds reasonable to me for solid content.

**TanyaFox** · 06-25-2009, 08:15 PM

Everythings depends on the content and topics.

**hairygunther** · 06-25-2009, 08:38 PM

People in the freemarket world very severely overrate the importance and value of their words. Don't waste your money. A dollar for 2 words? 100 words at $50???? There was a time when only high quality broadsheet journalists expected that kind of money for their words. Now every ex-callcenter worker with a laptop thinks he's Oscar Wilde!

People should shut up. Definitely people who think what they say is so important they deserve to be paid to speak - THEY more than anyone should shut their **** cakeholes and start using their brains instead of their mouths.

**BenjaminGates** · 06-27-2009, 11:08 AM

It is way too expensive, if you don't use it to make more ROI.

**Dairyman** · 06-29-2009, 04:32 AM

I have seen people selling a 250 worded article for even one dollar in many of the popular forums but I wonder about the quality of the article. But quality comes with a price and you have to determine what is the level?

**knswritingcorne** · 06-29-2009, 07:54 AM

As a professional online writer with several years of experience, I will tell you that the rate is too high. It is often more expensive to hire someone for blog posts than articles, however, you can still receive high quality writing services at a fraction of that cost.

Yes, I would suggest that you purchase exclusive rights. I only provide writing services with exclusive rights to my clients. You do not want to have content on your blog or website that is being used on various other sites on the Internet.

**hairygunther** · 10:48 PM

There are people who buy and sell words, as their trade. Either journalism or advertising. Dilettantes ought to not get involved. Recent years full of spam and scraping and freelance-network-driven bluffers' articles, consumer-generated information-stack systems and every kind of arsepedia possible (wicky wacky pedias, which most don't understand is not valid information) have amounted to a massive overload of worthless rubbish that is all dissipating and getting screwed now.

WHY is it screwed? I'll tell yez, ye eejuts. All over the place now I see signs saying to the middle buyers "don't buy from google any more, spend less on ads" and the trend is indeed that a lot of falling eejuts are losing their google budgets. google's adsense is thus paying out less and less and less for your clicks as your traffic-monetization becomes less and less and less a force of economic upthrust to anyone involved.

That's what happens if all you do is pour out lots of utterly unhelpful rubbish whose purpose is to do nothing but advertise. At least murdoch makes the rubbish his channels spew dress itself up in tarty clothes and show its cleavage, often completely. Not that this sort of thing interests me any more now that I'm 90, but I was young once. I know what makes so many people buy and do so much pointless rubbish.

Writers of the world, true writers, don't worry. One day all keyboards will have an inbuilt automatic function driven by artificial intelligence which electrocutes spammers the moment they have written more than 9 words of spam.

**gringo** · 07-01-2009, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick R

Your thoughts?

You can buy cheaper and you can buy more expensive for any given level of quality. I'd shop around and get samples before making my mind up.

Is $250 expensive for a 500 word article? That depends on lots of things like how esoteric the subject matter is, how well written it is, how cheaply you could get a similar article from someone else, how long it would take to research and write yourself etc. And how well written the content is doesn't just relate to how nicely it sounds. What about the specific action you want the reader to perform (buying something?) - is the author skilled enough to get that?

What kind of content are you looking for i.e. is it for a simple content site, membership site, affiliate sales site etc?

**joeworld** · 07-01-2009, 03:32 PM

sounds about right

**kashirakaze** · 07-02-2009, 02:36 PM

That does seem a little expensive. Gotta think a good article is probably 500 words at at 50 cents per word thats $250!

**johniman7** · 07-03-2009, 01:19 PM

That's expensive as ****, get somebody on digital point to do it cheap, just make sure you check their examples first to make sure they speak proper english.

**gringo** · 07-03-2009, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johniman7

That's expensive as ****, get somebody on digital point to do it cheap, just make sure you check their examples first to make sure they speak proper english.

You get what you pay for. I wouldn't trust DP regulars to wash my car.

Proclaiming $0.50/word to be too expensive is a little foolish when you don't know the requirements of the project, don't you think?

**hairygunther** · 07-11-2009, 12:57 PM

An example of writing these arseheads consider to be worth money.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_a_judg...man_Rights_Act

He or her???????

???????

**mrandrei** · 07-13-2009, 10:53 PM

$0.50/word is an expensive rate for article writing. You can buy good articles (with reprint rights) from freelancer sites for as low as 4-5$ per article.

**gringo** · 07-15-2009, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arslan321

yep too expensive i think one can write you an article for 2 dollars.

And I bet it will look like a $2 article too. You get what you pay for. I'll bet you any money that that $2 article will put you firmly in the land of recycled, badly written content that gives nobody a reason to read another thing on your site.

But again, you don't know the requirements for the project, so how can you tell how much the job is worth?

I have some work that needs doing on my house. How much do you think I can get it done for?

**aidanjb** · 07-15-2009, 06:41 PM

Its expensive unless they are a top writer...check out elance.com - you can outsource for 10c per word there...

**promisem** · 07-15-2009, 08:00 PM

If you want to figure out the value of a writer, it's a good idea to convert the number of words into the number of hours it will take to produce those words.

I've been a professonal writer and editor for quite a few years. I can produce 400 words of decent quality in about an hour for an article submission site using no sources other than something at my desk. At 50 cents a word, that's $200 an hour.

But if I have to interview people and go hunt for content, that changes the picture a lot. If it's just getting on the phone, that's a certain amount of time. If I have to drive somewhere, that's more time, and so forth.

In this environment, I suggest you figure on 300 words per hour of labor plus whatever time is needed to go get the information. That's based on hiring an experienced, high-quality writer. Even if it's an hour of writing plus an hour of research, that's still $75 an hour for a top quality writer.

Of course, as it has been suggested, you can easily hire someone online from India who will charge $2-3 an hour. I'm not making a joke. I know the forums where you can hire that kind of help.

Regarding exclusivity, once you publish it, I believe any other publication will be seen by the search engines as duplicate content and therefore ignored.

**Eastern** · 07-16-2009, 05:50 AM

My short answer is: "IT IS TOO EXPENSIVE!"

I outsourced all my article writing to few ghostwriters.

The rates are different and it's true..the quality also different.

However, i'm satisfied with the quality of $5 per 500 words article.

You can find many good writers at this rate today.

Cheers..