Can You Make a Living Writing Content?

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sombra

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Some time ago I was considering the idea of writing content as a full-time vocation. But, I have got busy working in another field. Now I plan to revisit this idea.

Unfortunately, I find that there is very little value placed on high quality content. Let me rephrase that. It is very difficult to find anyone willing to pay a fair rate for good content.

I write this from the perspective of living in the United States. In areas where the cost of living is lower the calculus changes.

Where I live a teenage babysitter can earn $50 for sitting in your home and watching television for an evening while your children are asleep. An adult babysitter can easily get $15 to $20 an hour or more (cash). While a house cleaner can earn the same amount of money scrubbing your toilet and dusting your furniture.

A "university trained, native English speaker" gets perhaps $30 for a well researched, 1000 word article including rewrites and this is considered a good rate. How many well researched, well written articles can one write in a day? How long should it take?

I realize that over time, if you are lucky you might cultivate clients who pay more. But it is not easy.

If I am coming at this all wrong and I am missing a key piece of information I would very much appreciate someone pointing this out.
 
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Does a bear s##t in the woods?

If you don't know what that means, it means yes lol
 
Actually I think you mean Soldier Field and it is not always a given.
 
sombra said:
Actually I think you mean Soldier Field and it is not always a given.
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Very true its not always a given and you raise some good points and examples of how it seems wrong that a cleaner could earn more than someone writing a well researched article. I guess if you are experienced enough you could write 3- 5 good articles a day and I have seen 1000 words go from anything from $10 - $150 so depending on what part of that you fit into you could make a decent living.
 
"What kind of writing brings in the most money?" "Ransom notes."

Trying to make it as a hack (which is what "content writer was called, back when Anais Nin did it) mostly depends on keeping your expenses down and being able to play the camel (survive long dry spells). So, to answer your question: yes, if you can take that sort of living.
 
Not very encouraging. Maybe I am overestimating the time it takes to steal someone else's content, spin it, add a graphic for show and send it back.:)
 
sombra said:
Not very encouraging. Maybe I am overestimating the time it takes to steal someone else's content, spin it, add a graphic for show and send it back.:)
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You could write fiction about Gor and the slave girls who live there. :rolleyes::D:p:cool:
 
If you can't find people to pay you the price you want, you aren't looking hard enough.
 
"I realize that over time, if you are lucky you might cultivate clients who pay more. But it is not easy. "

Why shold writing be exempt from the cold realities of life?
 
Not enough people are on the lookout for well documented articles. Most of the marketplace runs on filler content.
The answer is yes, you can make a living off writing even in the U.S. but not a fancy living.
With 8-10 hours a work ( FROM HOME !! ) you can get around 40-60-70$ a day depending on how fast you write and how low you are going to go on the price.
As of writing, there are some difference between writing a good article and writing an article based on keywords, which is what is wanted more around here.

Problem with making a living off writing articles for other people is that you get paid only when you work, as compared for example with a website when you put your articles and make bucks even when you are not working.
So you need to take that under consideration when pricing your products.
Wish you best of luck!
 
It's not feasible long term. If you're being paid 3 cents per word, that's like 80 articles a month to pull off $1,000. But you could probably pub that off 1 or 2 months straight. After a while it just gets tedious mentally. Writing is not mindlessly shelving items at the grocery. It's not something you can repeat day in and out.

And that's why most content creators quit or start trying to charge more
 
If your writing skill is too good then start blogging , you can earn lot more by quality content with SEO(Which you can learn/Buy here)
 
I have written longer white papers and multi-chapter posts before and the money was much better. But you need a client with somewhat deeper pockets and those gigs are not easy to find. I have a few dozen web sites that generate leads. I am going to put my time into my own sites. The results were much more encouraging. My first site which I launched a little more than 18 years ago still makes money for me.
 
JV1999 said:
It's not feasible long term. If you're being paid 3 cents per word, that's like 80 articles a month to pull off $1,000. But you could probably pub that off 1 or 2 months straight. After a while it just gets tedious mentally. Writing is not mindlessly shelving items at the grocery. It's not something you can repeat day in and out.

And that's why most content creators quit or start trying to charge more
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This. And for all the hopefuls going on about how "good quality content gets paid", sure it does. Write the next Harry Potter or whatever, make a billion.

Now figure your odds of the next Harry Potter or Great American Novel being about penis sneakers.

Actually...
 
Have you ever tried,

Being a ghostwriter for authors, researches, thesis (masters or doctorate)?

You can make a living off those.
 
There is a writer in my location who owns a contenct creation company. They charge $150 per hour and the average 700 word article is 5 hours. This includes research, revisions, and those. They are selling legitimate articles to legitimate companies and not this online nonsense $.01/word fee. He's been in business for a while.

There is another guy here who does white papers for firms. His costs are a little lower. I can't give out their businesses because I don't think they'd want to be mentioned here.
 
No offense, but if the content you're selling is the equivalent (in syntax/grammar) of what your first post portrays, then yes, I agree. You will have a difficult time with convincing people to fork over $3/100 of your words. Generally when I buy content, I pay very close attention to how the writer writes. Moreover, once said writer begins writing and has the inevitable reviews posted about the QoS, I pay even closer attention to the language of the reviewers.

Example: "He provide great Native English article for my site. No mistakes!!"
I see shit like this and it makes me question whether this reviewer would have the grammatical aptitude to even notice any mistakes.
 
Tosmekop said:
No offense, but if the content you're selling is the equivalent (in syntax/grammar) of what your first post portrays, then yes, I agree. You will have a difficult time with convincing people to fork over $3/100 of your words. Generally when I buy content, I pay very close attention to how the writer writes. Moreover, once said writer begins writing and has the inevitable reviews posted about the QoS, I pay even closer attention to the language of the reviewers.

Example: "He provide great Native English article for my site. No mistakes!!"
I see shit like this and it makes me question whether this reviewer would have the grammatical aptitude to even notice any mistakes.
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Fie Dolla Sucky Sucky! Ten Dolla Wam Bam!
 
Archard said:
Not enough people are on the lookout for well documented articles. Most of the marketplace runs on filler content.
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Could this be true, that the demand for any tier of content above the wordai level is a mere fraction of the supply in the article market?
 
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