Post: #1

I haven't posted in here in quite some time and just wanted to
contribute if possible to those out there looking to make money
overseas - I know how many of you are dying to figure it out!

I want to stress how much there is to be made in the online content
markets. There's a lot of misinformation out there about there
being no money in it, but it's really far from the truth.

I made my living writing web articles and SEO content for people
while living overseas and have brought the business home with me.
I do web design and a little IM here and there, but the writing stuff
is what really pays my bills.

Don't listen to people who tell you that you have to pen articles for
$1 - $5 each. I'm still pretty small-time, I suppose, but I get about
$30 - $50 for most articles. Keep in mind that these $30 ones take
me about 20 - 30 minutes to write. The $50 ones sometimes a bit
longer but not much.

The hourly on that turns out pretty nice (keeping in mind that you
have to spend time emailing and marketing as well).

My newest client is paying quite a bit more. I don't want to
give too much info as they're one of the bigger players in their
industry online, but this last month alone, it took me about 4 days
to write all their content, and I cashed out a couple grand.

They are going to have enough work for me to make a solid income
every year on their stuff alone - well more than enough to live on in
Asia or South America and with plenty of free time for other clients
or projects.

Not too shabby if you ask me. Also, this is not the higher skill of
direct response copywriting but just your basic web content and SEO
articles! If you can write decent, you're good to go - just learn to
market yourself.

This client came through word of mouth, but from other people I've
talked to, there are a ton out there just like them - think the big
corporates - and I'm going to work on getting more of them. At
these rates, I could build a 6-figure business out of writing alone,
and I'm thinking about re-ramping up my business to do just that.

Hell, I know of one lady who started around the same time as me
and her and her husband cleared a million last year with their team
of writers - they were basically flipping sales pages (paying their
writers to write them and doing all the marketing to get clients).
That's direct-response stuff, and it pays big.

This isn't 4 hour workweek stuff - not exactly, anyways. It fullfills
freedom of location but not freedom of time.

Writing for a living is hard work and not always fun. You'll work a
lot too, if you want to take it seriously, but keep in mind that it's
nice to have something keeping you busy when overseas - otherwise
it's way too easy to party all the time and ruin yourself. I know
because I did it.

Also, if you really want, at these rates, you can work 2-3 days a
week in a 3rd world country and still live well. I know because I did
that too. You'll take a cut in pay and won't be able to save a lot for
retirement or for investing if you do it that way, but if you want to
take it easy for a while, that's not a bad way to go. All brain cells
aside - it was fun as shit!

Again, I'm not saying it's easy, and nor is it easy to get going -
there were times in the beginning when I put in 18 hour days holed
up in my little SEAsian apartment marketing and filling orders. How
bad do you want full location independence? For me, it was a
matter of survival at the time.

There's room for leverage in this business too if you're a good
communicator and project manager. At one point, I had 6 people
writing for me and just sat around managing clients and flipping
articles. It was hard work, but it paid.

I kind of let it all go partying over there, but with the success with
my latest client, I'm starting to second guess that decision. I think
I'm going to ramp it up again and then head back overseas. Build
up a little investment cash and get into the import/export thing with
the money I make while I"m over there (awesome contribution with
that pdf, YMG!).

How to get your start?

I started with Elance, to be honest. It gets a bad rap and may have
gotten more difficult, but I started by doing basic SEO articles at
$10 a pop (500 words) and selling myself as a quality provider. I
did maybe two or three projects at that rate, and then as I stacked
up a client base, I doubled my prices a few times until I was making
a solid income. Work on building a great reputation and treating
clients like gold (without getting pushed around).

There are other freelance sites out there. Then there's Craigslist.
Warrior forum. Wicked Fire. Industry-specific forums.

Another great way is to start talking to businesses in your local area
about writing web content, brochures, ads - anything you can get
your hands on. Email big businesses online.

Or how about getting on Amazon and ordering the top 5 books on
there about becoming a commercial content writer? Read them all,
take notes, and you'll probably know more than me. Million-dollar
consulting by Allen Weiss is another good one to look at - it's not
about freelance writing, per se, but if you learn to think and act like
a professional consultant in this business, you'll be way ahead of
the game.

Shoot questions if you want. Ironically enough, I'm rarely online
right now and just hop on to send in my stuff or research, but
hopefully I'll be spending more time working this month as I gear
up.

I'm sure there are a few real copywriters who can contribute on here
too. I'm not the be-all end-all expert on this stuff, by any means - I
do it enough to pay the bills. But I've been doing it almost 5 years
now and for how much I work it's not too shabby at all.

Nothing I've said on here is revolutionary info. You can find the same
testaments from other writers online - hell, it's a constant argument
over at the WF. Go do some reading. But I thought maybe a heads-
up from a fellow RooshVForum member might be the kick-in-the-ass
some of you need to look closer at the writing opportunities.

Got skills? Then think about it.

Cheers!

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #2

Cool and inspirational, buut... any more info on how to charge the higher end and still get work?

Even $10 per article on elance seems difficult to get from what I've seen. If you look at the writing projects it seems most are offering $3-5 per article.

Any tips on how to up your rates quickly and get to the $30-50 per article? Is the key reputation and feedback? Do you have specialist knowledge in any areas, or is it all about finding the right corporate clients - etc?

Post: #3

I know exactly what you mean. It does look like that - as it did 5 years
ago (I think it was) when I first got my start. In fact, I think at the time
most jobs seemed to be offering $1 - $5 per article. It took me years to
even give it a go for that very reason.

I thought the same thing as you, but then I went and proved myself wrong
and had half a grand of work lined up within the first week.

The trick at the time was pretty much just playing a numbers game. In
other words, don't just bid on 3 - 5 jobs and pretend you gave it an honest
effort. You bid your ass off - I think I posted bids on about 200 jobs each
week for the first 3 weeks I did it. I eventually even hired someone to do
the bidding for me while I wrote.

You have to invest a little money getting started that way (for bids), but
it's well worth it - and what business doesn't require a small investment, at
the very least?

The real trick after that is winning people over.

Yes on the feedback and key reputation too (at least if you go the Elance
route). But also, it's about winning over the clients you do get - be a great
writer, but most importantly, be the most professional they ever had.
Overdeliver. Be a good communicator and always be on time, if not even
turn in things early, as I did.

A lot of those first clients order a ton of articles. Some of them are still
with me to this very day, and some refer you to other people. You might
get paid a mere couple hundred dollars by a first client and then they
start ordering 30 articles a week.

It's like a snowball rolling down a hill. You've got to get that momentum
going.

Then again, screw Elance. A better bet at better rates is those business
owners - both medium sized businesses and corporations. they know that
professionals cost money. Present yourself as a professional, paint a pretty
picture, build up your reputation, and charge more as you go along, firing
clients (politely) that can't afford you.

No, I didn't have any special expertise, although, if you do, you are way
ahead of the game. Being a specialist who can write will get you a lot
better pay than just being a good writer.

Corporate clients are great - those are the ones that will pay the real big
rates - but a lot of my clients at the mid-range (30-50 per page) are just
your run-of-the-mill internet marketers. It's really all marketing. People will
pay what you think you're worth, but you have to convince them you're
worth it, which you get better at over time.

Think about it this way. You can go buy a bottle of wine for $3 or $3000.
A bottle of shampoo for $1 or $15 (or likely much more). A brand new
vehicle for $10,000 or for millions (and everything in between). There are
people who paint a house for $10 per hour. Others won't even go hourly,
and imagine how much those who paint the homes of the rich are charging...

The difference is sometimes in the performance. But it's typically in the
marketing. The professionalism and credibility.

It's true for nearly every industry out there. Writing is no different.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #4

Nice one, yeah that makes alot of sense. Very cool that you've made it happen.

So to summarise (correct me if Im wrong):

-The work is out there, people are willing to pay those rates
-Decide you want to charge a premium rate
-Position & market yourself accordingly, and f'in hustle to make it happen
-Local Biz + finding corporate clients online pay much better than elance

I like the idea of outsourcing the bidding too. Awesome posts, thanks.

Post: #5

Thanks for this information, very helpful. I no longer have a full-time job and am throwing myself into freelance writing 100%. I have money saved up to last me for at least a year, probably more, while I get myself established but I am still in the absolute infancy here.

Would you mind expanding on a couple of points?

Specifically:

1. Marketing yourself on the freelance sites. Tips for the profile. Advice for what proposals should say. Ways to streamline the proposal process. Those types of things.
2. Ways to market to local businesses and larger mid-sized/corporate clients away from the freelance sites.
   

Post: #6

2 questions

1) who are the low end options
- Infobarrel... who else?

2) Do you double dip, that is do original work for clients, and put those same articles on your own site?

Post: #7

(07-11-2012 12:49 AM)RichieP Wrote:  Nice one, yeah that makes alot of sense. Very cool that you've made it happen.

So to summarise (correct me if Im wrong):

-The work is out there, people are willing to pay those rates
-Decide you want to charge a premium rate
-Position & market yourself accordingly, and f'in hustle to make it happen
-Local Biz + finding corporate clients online pay much better than elance

I like the idea of outsourcing the bidding too. Awesome posts, thanks.

People are definitely willing pay those rates. In order to make the most of your bids though, I would advise skipping bids that demand an astronomically low price. They're not worth your time.

I know how you're going to feel already. It's going to feel like skipping those leaves you with barely nothing. But keep on bidding on what you can day in and day out. To be honest, there were a couple times I bid on jobs that requested lower rates (though probably not that low), and they still gave me a chance.

As far as those nickel and dime guys go, they'll either end up coming around and start paying more for higher standards or end up failing at what they're doing completely. You should see what kind of articles they get at the prices they pay - and even if the articles are good, the professionalism is shit. Because who wouldn't get burnt out working at those kind of rates?

To top it all off, with the last couple changes in Google, premium content has gained more respect online. People are waking up and realizing it's time to build a long-term business or fail. They'll pay.

Even with the local clients, you'll have to send a lot of emails and/or make a lot of approaches to make it happen. As with any business, the major effort happens in the beginning. Once you get the ball rolling, though, it's well worth it for both the rates and the location independence.

If you want to really go big quick, network in your local area with businessmen. Join the chamber of commerce. Talk to people. That will tie you down for a minute, but once you're up and running you can run all your stuff from your computer. You can even tie down a local number that forwards to your Skype and then your cell phone, though you're probably better off letting your clients know from the get-go that you travel a lot and work remotely.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #8

(07-11-2012 03:59 PM)Mr McGillycuddy Wrote:  Thanks for this information, very helpful. I no longer have a full-time job and am throwing myself into freelance writing 100%. I have money saved up to last me for at least a year, probably more, while I get myself established but I am still in the absolute infancy here.

Would you mind expanding on a couple of points?

Specifically:

1. Marketing yourself on the freelance sites. Tips for the profile. Advice for what proposals should say. Ways to streamline the proposal process. Those types of things.
2. Ways to market to local businesses and larger mid-sized/corporate clients away from the freelance sites.
   

If you have money for a year, you're stoked! You might even consider relocating immediately so that money goes further. In Southeast Asia, that might last you two years. But don't take it for granted! It's easy to keep buying time and not working as hard as you can to get your business going because you have that little cushion, but it's way better to instead use it to pay the bills while you bust your ass. You can still party and have fun - just give yourself a regular work schedule and stick to it.

Freelance Site Tips

Be as thorough with your profile as possible! Don't half-ass this - include a pic to be personal. Fill out as much of it as you can. And sell yourself! SELL YOURSELF!

The best advice I can give you is to do a search for content providers and then study the profiles of the ones who are making the most money. Emulate those as much as possible - these people know what they're doing.

It's really all marketing.

Also, write up standardized bids for the different niches you want to work in. But change things in each bid as you place it - to match the specifics of the job. In other words, you want to use semi-standardized bids to save time, but you don't want the people who've placed the job to know it as they don't like standardized bids all that much.

They want to think you're the perfect person for the job.

I put all my bids for different types of jobs in one word document, and then as I go, I copy and paste and edit. It takes time, but it helps.

I won't tell you exactly what to say because if too many people bid the same, it dilutes the effectiveness of the bidding style. But just stop and think what would concern you most if you were ordering premium content off a site like Elance. What are the problems these people face? What are their fears? What do they really want their INVESTMENT to do for them?

Answer these questions and then find ways to address those buttons in your bids. Make them feel confident about going to you.

Tell them exactly what they'll pay and why. Hint at being flexible if you have different ideas about word count, standards, etc, but if they message you for lower bids, try not to lower your prices without taking something in return.

As for the corporates and small bizzes, email them directly. If you're in one area and want to establish a business presence, get out there talking to people and act like a real business. As success comes, you can fade into the background more.

To be completely honest, my work directly with offline businesses has been minimal, but it's paying off anyways. Once you establish a presence, there's word of mouth, and there's also just networking that happens for anyone who puts themselves out there and does business the right way.

I hear LinkedIn marketing is a great way to go too. Spend some time on the Warrior Forum and pick the brains of the people on the offline section of the forum. Those guys look for ways to connect with businesses all day - do what they're doing, but instead offer something different (premium content rather than SEO services, etc).

You can also consider emailing people with crappy content that was obviously written by cheap writers (many who are non-native English speakers) and offer to clean up their content for a "minimal fee."

Like I said, hitting up these companies directly is not my strongest point. I began my business while living overseas and therefore focused mostly on the IM crowd, but I want to again reiterate the value in buying the top books off Amazon about commercial writing and just delve into them. They'll give you way more than I ever could on this.

I started a business doing landscaping stuff when I was in college. Did I know how to plant a lawn, etc? No. But I picked up a book when it came up and dug in. Read the books ahead of time and keep them on hand as you go. Any business has a learning curve. You'll make mistakes, but that's just part of anything.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #9

(07-11-2012 04:35 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  2 questions

1) who are the low end options
- Infobarrel... who else?

I couldn't tell you. Textbroker, I suppose. NeedAnArticle.com. Your basic struggling internet marketing. If you want to do low-end work, just do a basic Google search.

(07-11-2012 04:35 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  2) Do you double dip, that is do original work for clients, and put those same articles on your own site?

HELL NO. If you want to charge premium rates, you need to be ready to conduct yourself with the utmost professional integrity.

There's no question about it when it comes to these ethical issues or what's expected in the industry. Most of it's common sense.

If you want to make it at something like this, be trustworthy.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #10

(07-11-2012 05:48 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(07-11-2012 04:35 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  2 questions

1) who are the low end options
- Infobarrel... who else?

I couldn't tell you. Textbroker, I suppose. NeedAnArticle.com. Your basic struggling internet marketing. If you want to do low-end work, just do a basic Google search.

(07-11-2012 04:35 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  2) Do you double dip, that is do original work for clients, and put those same articles on your own site?

HELL NO. If you want to charge premium rates, you need to be ready to conduct yourself with the utmost professional integrity.

There's no question about it when it comes to these ethical issues or what's expected in the industry. Most of it's common sense.

If you want to make it at something like this, be trustworthy.

Sorry, I meant to say "struggling internet marketers" on my response to the first question.

Also, a second thought on your second inquiry...

Look, everything's negotiable. By this, I mean that you can do anything you want as long as you're upfront about it and your client agrees to pay for what you're offering. You'll probably find "double dipping" a hard sell, but the point is that it's your business and you can do what you want - just make sure you're not being shady.

You just might find people out there willing to use your articles at a lower rate based on those terms.

You could also do PLR if you want to get more leverage out of your work, but that's not really my market so I don't know a whole lot about it. I do know some people make a ton on the PLR markets, and I have thought of offering a more high-quality PLR package myself to test it out.

Sorry if I took your question wrong.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #11

What do you think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk service?

Post: #12

(07-11-2012 10:12 PM)ColSpanker Wrote:  What do you think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk service?

To be honest, I've never heard anything about it. What's it all about?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #13

https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

Post: #14

Mech Turk is basically a ton of micro-tasks that people need doing. Things like finding businesses in google or writing 3-sentence opinions. From what I understand it's really the bottom rung in terms of freelancing. I read some guy's experiment to see how high he could get his hourly rate, and managed to get up to about $7/hour after a fair bit of effort. But most people are doing $3-5 or less.

It's not like its totally mindless and effortless either - the writing tasks you still need to think, be somewhat creative, etc.

Would think most peoples time here is better spent working towards something more valuable or learning skills they can charge more for. Then again if you just want to sit at your comp and generate SOME money without having to do any marketing whatsoever, maybe it could be worth a look.

Post: #15

(07-12-2012 07:44 AM)RichieP Wrote:  Mech Turk is basically a ton of micro-tasks that people need doing. Things like finding businesses in google or writing 3-sentence opinions. From what I understand it's really the bottom rung in terms of freelancing. I read some guy's experiment to see how high he could get his hourly rate, and managed to get up to about $7/hour after a fair bit of effort. But most people are doing $3-5 or less.

It's not like its totally mindless and effortless either - the writing tasks you still need to think, be somewhat creative, etc.

Would think most peoples time here is better spent working towards something more valuable or learning skills they can charge more for. Then again if you just want to sit at your comp and generate SOME money without having to do any marketing whatsoever, maybe it could be worth a look.

Thanks for the breakdown, Richie. Yeah, I'd avoid doing these low-end things. Like you said, it saves you from having to market yourself, so if you want to use it to fill in the hours you're not working, go ahead.

That said, I'd be really careful about associating your name with these low-end markets. So try to use a fake persona/pen name.

I personally feel filling in those hours would be a lot better spent marketing yourself for mid-range or higher-end jobs.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #16

Thanks for posting, good stuff. I figured I'd start like you did, feeling things out through elance, but they're pushing me to get "verified" through "Integrity's Global ID and Age Verification." Did you do this or did you just ignore it? Also, what books would you recommend other than Allen Weiss' work?

Post: #17

(07-14-2012 10:16 PM)ZeroSum Wrote:  Thanks for posting, good stuff. I figured I'd start like you did, feeling things out through elance, but they're pushing me to get "verified" through "Integrity's Global ID and Age Verification." Did you do this or did you just ignore it? Also, what books would you recommend other than Allen Weiss' work?

I don't think I ever did the Gobal ID and Age Verification, but it's been a long time since I've had to use Elance at all, so I'm not 100% sure. Once you get the ball rolling, most of your business comes through word of mouth and old customers. Not only that, but I have slowed down on my marketing a lot since I came back to the States. Hoping to change that starting next week.

Other books to check out are "The Well-Fed Writer" by Peter Bowerman and anything by Carol Tice. I guess Carol runs a private forum for freelancers too, but there's a waiting list. She also offers mentoring services (also with a wait list) and is raved about online by a lot of people.

To find more books worth reading, just go to Amazon and do a search on freelance writing (filter by bestselling or something like that). Read the reviews to get a feel for which ones are must-reads.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #18

Thank you very much for starting this thread. I did a little bit of freelance writing a while back but got off track and screwed up my relationship with the few contacts I had. You've really inspired me to give it another shot, now that I'm older and (hopefully) wiser.

Post: #19

Quick question -- what would your recommend as a starting price for articles? I did a little writing before via wickedfire.com at .02/word. I was able to find plenty of customers, but it was hard to rack up any serious $$ at that rate. Plus, when I saw examples of the typical .02/word article, it was obvious that I was delivering far better quality than the average writer at that price point.

Do you ever raise your prices with a client once you've established a relationship? If I start out at a fairly low rate, would it be reasonable to bump up my prices once I've proven myself?

I plan on starting out by posting on IM forums like wickedfire, digital point, and warrior forum, both because I'm somewhat familiar with IM and because this feels like a relatively more appealing route than Freelancer/Odesk/etc. Any thoughts on how I should approach pricing? I would love to get up to the $30-$40+ per article level as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance for your help and thanks again for the very informative and inspiring thread.

Post: #20

There is definitely money to be made. Ive been hustling and building a portfolio for about a year and now I write simple product descriptions and SEO articles for about 20-25 dollars for 500 words. But yeah its a lot of work and not always fun. Im writing pretty much every day though I dont even work that much (still finishing up university). I lucked out and scored a job that let me work from home so I could lay off the elance hustle for a while. Surviving on elance and odesk alone can be tough in the beginning but its definitely doable. Next year I want to start marketing my own info products so I can get some passive income going and just kick up my feet for a while. Im also working on some affiliate sites always want to get that passive income rolling, nothing like having money coming in without doing anything for it!

Post: #21

As someone who buys high quality content on and off (own quite a few premium domain names), here are some key things I look for now --

a) Google+ profile with good credentials. College degree, contributions to other well known magazines or websites, possibly job history in area the article is about.

b) Content that is written about specific cited facts, not broad generalizations or possibilities.

c) Original content, not rewrites of someone else's article

$30-$50 an article is definitely an on target price for someone who can meet a,b, & c. I specifically look for people who have a background in the topic the article is about. It is hard to find people who meet those requirements and will consistently produce content.

Post: #22

Hi BB.

Do you have any insights for people trying to get into specialised business and technical consulting online? Looking at elance and freelancer isn't exactly inspiring. Have you read the "Million $ Consulting" book you mentioned. Is it worth a read in your opinion?

Post: #23

(07-24-2013 10:43 AM)Bad Hussar Wrote:  Hi BB.

Do you have any insights for people trying to get into specialised business and technical consulting online? Looking at elance and freelancer isn't exactly inspiring. Have you read the "Million $ Consulting" book you mentioned. Is it worth a read in your opinion?

Cant speak for BB, but IMO LinkedIn is gonna be waaaay better for finding those kinds of clients. The Million $ Consulting book is essential if you want to do actual consulting too, btw. Also "Book Yourself Solid" by Michael Port.

In terms of finding clients, your best bet is to sniff out the kinds of nooks and crannies online where your clients hang out. If there are industry forums, community sites, etc, that's where to go. There will certainly be groups on LinkedIn for people in the sorts of industries you want to serve.

Post: #24

Derek Pankaew - Unlimited travel, is a good source of knowledge. Ebook used to be free, not sure if still is.

Post: #25

Great post.

On the other side if you're looking for content writers college students are perfect.

Right now I have a writer I'm paying 1.4$ per 100 words, he started at 1.2$ per 100 words. His writing is pretty awesome, and he does very good research.

I'm guessing he could beat a ton of writers who charge 4 or 5 times his price.