Freelance Writer

One of the most interesting things I've discovered running Article Writers Australia is that many online marketing specialists never consider using cheap content writing services. It seems that if they do, they end up wasting a great deal of time correcting poorly written content or re-writing articles to improve them before they can add it to their clients' websites - so paying a lousy $10-15 per article ends up costing them several times that amount and causing a major delay on the project. They prefer to pay more for quality content in the beginning, avoid the stress and the risk of losing a client.

The situation is similar for owners of multiple websites, particularly high quality sites - they can't afford to put visitors off with low quality content. Many do understand that if they pay peanuts they get monkeys - and are likely to end up re-writing the content themselves or having to pay a second writing service to edit the articles.

So if you've been looking with disappointment at the rates you see people offering to pay for articles and blog postings, take heart! If you have good content writing skills there is well paid work out there for you. If you market your services online, the clients who require high quality content will find you.

It's quite amusing to realise that the "churn and burn" content writing services that offer low rates to attract high volume work are actually losing jobs and presumably making less profit than they would if they provided a quality product and service.

Are you a university educated writer in Australia? Perhaps you have interests in creative writing or film but need some income to keep you going - and like many writers, you'd love to be able have a job that's flexible and can be done from home at any hour of the day or night - so you have time to work on your creative projects when you feel inclined.

If you're a quick typist with a creative mind and ideas that flow fast and furiously, you just might enjoy writing online content material. Article Writers Australia continues to grow and I'll be needing additional writers in the not so distant future. If you're interested, drop me a line and send me a resume.

Anyone interested can contact me through Article Writers Australia.

I'm fascinated by Internet marketing, blogs, and SEO writing. That, and I'm a compulsive writer! Writing is fun.


Picture by cambodia4kidsorg. Courtesy of Flickr.

It's not often you get a free eBook that's worth the time it takes to download, but there are three free eBooks on the Ezine Articles website training page. Here is the link:-

Ezine Articles Training Page

Peter Nisbet of Article Services has some fabulous resources for you. Peter is one of those kind individuals who sells some of his knowledge to make a living but shares a huge amount for free.

Peter sells a 137 page eBook called "Article Czar". It's packed full of amazingly useful information about writing and using articles to make money. I've read it and can happily recommend it to aspiring article writers and affiliate marketers.

Peter's give aways include a free SEO course and "Squidoo Guide" which is to help you get the most out of Squidoo.

If you would like to learn about HTML Peter offers a 14 video course for just $17.

Article Czar is excellent value. The information he gives away is probably worth the same if not more - and you don't have to purchase anything at all to get his freebies. You will have to give him your email but I doubt you'll ever receive anything from him that isn't extremely useful!

Here are three links. Happy learning freelance writers!

Peter's Free SEO course

Article Czar product

Peter's Article Services website

If you're an aspiring affiliate marketer like me but don't quite have the technical expertise (yet) to be developing your own sites, you really will want to see Niche Content Stores. For a very low cost they will provide the site and products for you and they have the content to back it up.

If you're a freelance writer and you want "in" on the affiliate marketing scene, once you get there, skip over to their sister site Niche Content. There is a separate affiliate program. It's absolutely perfect if you have a freelance writing site or even a Squidoo Lens. I kid you not, I made a sale within 12 hours!

- articles for web content
- blog postings
- marketing material
- scripts & concepts for video advertisements
- e-Book content

I'm currently putting together an eBook about the different ways people sell and make an income online. The eBook is targeted at those who find the whole thing confusing and complicated and just want someone to tell them what it all means - preferably in good old fashioned English!

If you are one of those people and there's something you would like to know about, contact me and let me know. I'll tell you what I can and will send you a free copy of the eBook when it's finished.

Photo by miguelb. Courtesy of Flickr.

If you're just starting out as an article writer you'll have to be keen! If you've had a browse at the sites offering work to freelance writers you would have been horrified to see rates of $5-10 per 600-800 word article. When I first saw this I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I mean really, what writer with any decent skill would accept that? It doesn't pay for the time it takes you to turn your computer on, sit down and open up a blank document! However, there is no shortage of people bidding for those jobs - many of them from countries where English isn't the first language. If a company is only offering $1-9 per article, I would let it go. If you're a student or you need to work from home and you still need to earn money, you might find article writing above that rate suits you. You can work from home without the cost of travel and are essentially your own boss.

Don't despair too early about the low rates. Keep looking. There is a good amount of work available at $10-20 per article and website owners who have lofty goals and want a high quality site, will pay much more for good quality articles. Blog postings can pay anywhere from a lousy $2 to $50 for a high quality site. Explore the options and be patient. While you're waiting for the better paying items to come along, do some of the cheapies. It will give you something for your online writing resume and some practice at writing quickly.

Don't dismiss the $10 articles either. There's a trick to doing it that you can probably master - write them quickly. Now, if you're a person who diligently researches an unfamiliar topic before putting pen to paper, you'll find it difficult at first to write an article in less than a few hours. You would normally spend a good hour or two researching - which will clearly make writing a $10 article very unviable. Stop it! Research time - 5 minutes.

Here's what to do -

1. Use your personal knowledge, however scant it is on the topic. Note down ideas that come to mind - quickly! 1-2 minutes.

2. Google the topic. In just 2-3 minutes you'll have 3 or 4 facts around which you can write a paragraph or two.

3. Start typing! Get up to your word count as quickly as you can and don't stop to revise as you go. You'll find that 600 - 800 words isn't long at all.

4. Now revise - quickly. Forget being your usual pedantic self. Don't do the "is there a better word I can use there?" thing for half an hour. Just do the 'spelling & grammar' check and proofread for the types of errors that it won't pick up. Fix errors and anything that sounds so awful you'd be embarrassed to submit it. Make sure you've followed any instructions about keywords, headings, fonts etc.

5. Don't worry about the entire article being simplistic and thinly researched. You're only getting $10 for it and your name isn't going to be on it! Your employer isn't worried about that - they simply want an article that is readable, correct and contains keywords that will bring traffic to their website.

With a little practice, you can rattle off a 600 word article in 20-30 minutes. It doesn't make the $10 a good rate but it will certainly be less painful knowing you're earning $30 an hour than if you procrastinate over it for 4 hours and spend the rest of your day feeling annoyed because you've only earned $2.50 an hour.

The great thing for writers is that there is a huge amount of this work available now. If you need to work from home, are unemployed, or simply need to top up your daytime income by $100-200 a week, you can access a consistent stream of work. If the desire is there and you apply yourself there's no reason you can't build up a full time income over a relatively short period of time. Even at $10 per article, if you did 10 a day, 5 days a week, you'd have a small but decent income of $500 a week.

Keep looking for the better paying work. If you can bring in a couple of clients at $20-30 per article, your income will improve significantly - and your practice on the $10 articles will have served you well. You can now potentially earn $40-90 per hour.

Keep your good clients very happy. If you submit your items on time and they don't have to send them back to you for corrections, you'll get more work and possibly, down the track, a better rate.

For the Aussies out there, if you pick up US writing jobs there are two things you should know:

a) The exchange rate will work in your favour! US$10 an article is currently about AU$18 - a substantial difference!

b) Check for tax implications. Depending on the terms of your engagement, you may have to fill out US tax forms and therefore pay both US and Australian tax - which might render the project unviable for you.

Photo by orphanjones, courtesy of Flickr.

Recycling can save you time and money. If you're writing for a number of clients it's likely that at some stage, something you have written is not quite what they wanted and you'll have to produce another article or blog post. Perhaps your article or blog post was more academic than they had in mind, or your opinion on the matter differed from their opinion. That doesn't mean the article or blog posting you've written should go to waste.

Set up a folder on your computer for these items and any half-baked ideas and articles you may have lost interest in temporarily! These items will come in handy at some stage. If you're asked for an article on a particular topic and you already have 300 words on it in your half-baked ideas folder, recycling it into the requested article will save you time!

My personal screenwriting website contains scene samples and a short script that earned me a nomination at our state screenwriting awards two years ago.

http://www.leoniegeorge.com


Photo by Danilo Prates, courtesy of Flickr.