Post: #26

Not true, I've seen the quality, reliability and experience of older writers versus college students. Yes, for generally simple content websites they work, but for compelling well researched articles, and long term work, they tend to be unreliable.

Post: #27

Could you provide a sample request from one of your clients? The SEO articles I've seen basically require trying to place certain phrases into the copy as often as appropriate. Is this what you do?

Also, how much work do you have/are capable of generating at that price point? Have you considered subbing out some the work and taking a fee?

Post: #28

Sorry I haven't bothered to come in and respond. I am still writing but haven't bothered marketing for new clients in quite some time,which I need to remedy before I put myself in a dangerous situation. I'm in Cambodia at the moment and typically work about 1 or 2 days a week.

I'm a lazy bastard.

I'm also publishing fiction on Amazon now, as many of you may know already, and aiming to make that my sole income eventually.

(07-18-2013 01:04 AM)darklightdispatch Wrote:  Quick question -- what would your recommend as a starting price for articles?

It's hard to say - experts differ on this. Some people say you should start out at a higher rate and put all your energy into promotion and building up your name. The thinking is that lower rates will tempt you to do lower-quality work as well as ruin your reputation before you even start. These people would suggest building a portfolio by doing promo work for non-profits and/or starting a blog to showcase your skills.

I like this approach and would personally recommend it if you don't need to rely on the writing for income yet. Think of it like any business and put the work in ahead of time to enjoy success later on.

As for me, I started out at .02/word but increased my rates after the first two clients left me Elance reviews. Then when my schedule was full again, I raised them again, and then again...

My thinking is that if you have 10 clients and double your rates and half of your clients "fire you," you've essentially cut your work in half for the same amount of pay. And you've freed up time to market yourself at your new rates.

Quote: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?

Yes, I do this all the time. If I start at a lower rate, I usually give some excuse of why I'm charging so low to set the tone. Later after we've worked together a few times and they've seen my work and reliability, I send a message along the lines of "I really appreciate the work you're sending me but I am putting a lot of work into your articles. Would it be possible for you to budget more?" or "My rates have actually gone up quite a bit since we started working together. I'd love to keep working with you, but I'll have to charge X for this job. I completely understand if that doesn't fit with your budget, so whatever you decide, it's been a pleasure working with you, etc, etc." These are just off the top of my head - put a bit more work into sounding professional.

Quote: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.

You can get these prices from those markets, but it is an uphill battle. If I were you I'd consider targeting other markets. For advice on how, pick up some of the serious freelancing books off Amazon or sign up for the Freelance Writer's Den.

(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?

Yes, I've read the book and it's very solid. If you want the higher rates ($100 per article and up), you really need to think of yourself as a consultant rather than just an "article provider." That book is a very good primer on how to approach your business and offers a lot of great specific advice on how to present yourself in the most professional way possible.

And yeah, it would be a great start for any type of technical consulting as well.

(07-25-2013 06:03 AM)CombatDiet Wrote:  Could you provide a sample request from one of your clients? The SEO articles I've seen basically require trying to place certain phrases into the copy as often as appropriate. Is this what you do?

Also, how much work do you have/are capable of generating at that price point? Have you considered subbing out some the work and taking a fee?

I rarely do SEO writing anymore and often turn this work away. Some of my clients will provide keywords from time to time but the more serious ones no longer demand including them a certain number of times. With my clients, it's more about producing authentic, quality work.

My clients all differ. Some just want a certain number of articles related to a certain subject every month. Some will send me a list of titles and/or concepts. Others will contact me about writing copy for a website and provide details on the pages needed and what each should convey, etc.

Yes, I have subbed out work before. At one time I had about 6 writers working for me. It was a bit of a headache and I often found myself rewriting their work.

I like to keep things simple now. No partners, no employees. I'm of the opinion that more money isn't always more ideal if it makes your life more complicated.

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: #29

BB have you already written about your fiction books you sell on amazon?
I read some really interesting stuff on selling your own books but I think it wasnt here on the forum. It would be cool if you could talk abit about that or provide a link if you have already done so in the past.

Post: #30

(07-26-2013 02:19 PM)w00t Wrote:  BB have you already written about your fiction books you sell on amazon?
I read some really interesting stuff on selling your own books but I think it wasnt here on the forum. It would be cool if you could talk abit about that or provide a link if you have already done so in the past.

Hey Man - here's the link to my thread about fiction: /thread-24894.html

Are you a writer?

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: #31

Which websites do you get started on?

Post: #32

(07-28-2013 10:04 AM)avantgarde Wrote:  Which websites do you get started on?

Mainly Elance and Guru. Some Craigslist.

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: #33

(07-28-2013 10:10 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(07-28-2013 10:04 AM)avantgarde Wrote:  Which websites do you get started on?

Mainly Elance and Guru. Some Craigslist.

For beginners, is it hard to get clients? Because why would they hire a beginner when they can hire someone with better ratings?

Post: #34

(07-28-2013 10:25 AM)avantgarde Wrote:  

(07-28-2013 10:10 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(07-28-2013 10:04 AM)avantgarde Wrote:  Which websites do you get started on?

Mainly Elance and Guru. Some Craigslist.

For beginners, is it hard to get clients? Because why would they hire a beginner when they can hire someone with better ratings?

Yes, it is hard, but then, any real business is hard - especially starting out. If beginning with Elance or Guru, start cheap to build some recommendations - plan on only winning 10% of your bids. Raise prices fast.

Why would people hire a newbie? Hell, I don't know. Why does anyone hire a new provider in any business...?

But they do. Just put some real effort into your bids and sell yourself. Fill out your profile completely. Tell them why you're the best choice and explain you're only charging such low rates because you're new. Then go the extra mile to make up for your newness and start building rave reviews. Have some samples handy even if you've never worked for a client before - just go ahead and write them for your portfolio or start a blog.

That said, Elance and the other sites are not the ideal way to start. I only recommend it if you need the money to start flowing right away.

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: #35

(07-26-2013 02:36 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(07-26-2013 02:19 PM)w00t Wrote:  BB have you already written about your fiction books you sell on amazon?
I read some really interesting stuff on selling your own books but I think it wasnt here on the forum. It would be cool if you could talk abit about that or provide a link if you have already done so in the past.

Hey Man - here's the link to my thread about fiction: /thread-24894.html

Are you a writer?

Jup just commercial stuff though. Im planning to branch out into releasing my own info product or selling fiction stuff om amazon next year, not sure yet. thx for the limk!

Post: #36

If you're interested in writing for a fitness/health site in the future, send me a PM.

*The articles are generally above 500-600 words and are well researched with citations from different medical publications. I do not accept low-quality articles*

Post: #37

(07-10-2012 03:44 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  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!

Beyond Borders -

I may be able to get you a job with my biz partner on some projects in the relatively near future.

What is the best way to hash out a deal?

Post: #38

Hey G - I'll send you a pm.

EDIT: Your inbox if full. You'll have to delete some messages or post a private email here and I'll get in touch.

(08-08-2013 01:00 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(07-10-2012 03:44 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  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!

Beyond Borders -

I may be able to get you a job with my biz partner on some projects in the relatively near future.

What is the best way to hash out a deal?

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: #39

thegmanifesto at yahoo dot com

side note:

Not immediate, but in the near future.

Post: #40

(08-08-2013 01:17 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  thegmanifesto at yahoo dot com

side note:

Not immediate, but in the near future.

No worries; no hurries. I'll just drop my contact over to you and you can get in touch if something comes up.

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: #41

I saw your reply on BKK SEA thread. If you dont mind my asking are you able to pull enough $$ to self sustain in SEA?

Post: #42

I will be happy to contribute to this thread as I have experience as both a buyer and seller of content.

I got into IM and affiliate marketing (my fulltime income now), from writing articles for exactly the reasons OP did. However, since I'm not a native english speaker, I had lower confidence in my english ability than I should have had in the beginning.

What I did do to change the odds in my favor was understand that writing is also simply supply and demand. There are millions of people who think writing is just putting a few words to paper researched from Wikipedia and a couple of google results.

Now, as a buyer for content online, I often have two objectives.

One is to find cheap unique content for SEO purposes. I will pay as little as I can for this content as long as it is readable. That means trying to find high school students or philipinos (my sites are not in English, but this is what most do).

The other objective is QUALITY content for my sites. Few people truly understand what quality means, including many writers who charge a steep fee.

Here is what I look for:

1) Deep knowledge of the subject OR very good at quickly aquiring new knowledge

2) Journalism type writing which captures the read and conveys the information in an engaging way

3) Understanding recipent - very important - who will read this? Is it to sell? Is it to inform? Most writers just write like it is an english thesis in high school. Sometimes verbose text is good, other times you need short sentences and colloquial language.

Specialization always works

The specialist makes more than the generalist. As a non-native english speaker I landed high paying jobs, because I began focusing on niches which other people don't like, because it is boring or difficult. Some examples are insurance, law, medicine.

You'll find tons of people who will love to write about travel and dating, but how many will want to write about the difference in Medicare and Medicaid or class action lawsuits or accounting?

If you master any of those subjects, you can quickly become the go to guy for text that needs writing on those subjects. Ramp up some good reviews on Elance and then raise your rates to match your image. Make an effort to be a better and more engaging writer. Take a simple journalism course if you must.

Copywriting

Copywriting is a word that has become inflated. It means writing text for ads and text to sell. It is a very important skill to have.

It requires great knowledge of both language and human psychology.

It is also very fun.

With the internet, a copy/text ability to sell can be instantly measured and tweaked using tools such as Google Analytics.

If you can prove you can raise conversions by 5% you could be worth $10.000 pr. text with the right customer, because consider someone with 10.000 visitors a month. If they have a profit of just $10 pr. and you upped their conversion by 5%, then they'll make $5000 more that month.

Conversion Optimization is the name of that game and if you can prove your skill, then you will be very well off financially.

If you can write well, you will never need to worry about money

The written word is so important, much more important than being able to make a Youtube video or designing a nice logo.

Words have the power to sell, to inspire, to advertise, to convert, to build relations.

Therefore, people will always want those who can write.

In my experience working with affiliate marketers, those who can write and have a talent for it, are usually also those who will do well in other fields. Of course, in my line of business, math skills and technical ability is equally important, but you will get far if you truly

Post: #43

(09-18-2013 07:48 AM)xmlenigma Wrote:  I saw your reply on BKK SEA thread. If you dont mind my asking are you able to pull enough $$ to self sustain in SEA?

Absolutely. I've been doing just that for years and live in SEA now (freelancing is my sole source of income aside from selling a little fiction here and there). In fact, it's enough to self-sustain in North America if you choose.

If you haven't already, read this entire thread. You'll find at the links below. Plenty of info on earnings possibilities as well as tips and resources for getting started. Cheers

/thread-26887.html
/thread-13269-page-2.html
/thread-19062.html
/thread-9290.html

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: #44

Just to add to my paragraph about copywriting and conversion optimization.

Danish copywriter Michael Aagard is one of the few writers I know that has fully embraced online tools to prove his skills in writing copy that sells. He blogs at http://contentverve.com/author/michaelaa/.

I don't think his stuff is so groundbreaking but you can learn a lot from how he markets himself and how he has gotten quite famous. Ideally, I think this is how you make the big bucks in copywriting.

Post: #45

This is one of the most interesting threads on this site, bar none. I recently got a freelance job writing 8-10 articles a month for $25 each. Most articles are 3-400 words and take about half an hour.

I've been thinking about ramping it up a little, but I make enough in my 9-5 to be comfortable. OP, what's your take on how I can parlay my $25/article rate into something that's double or triple that?

I have deep knowledge in travel hacking and the frequent flyer arena, but I've also written for the UCLA daily newspaper, a few music magazines and freelanced for a yelp-like review site. That last one was great, 10 reviews for $150.

Post: #46

(09-19-2013 12:03 AM)booshala Wrote:  I've been thinking about ramping it up a little, but I make enough in my 9-5 to be comfortable. OP, what's your take on how I can parlay my $25/article rate into something that's double or triple that?

Well, the fact that you've got the 9-5 puts you in a seriously good position, Man. If I were you, I'd ignore a lot of this stuff I've been talking about regarding freelance sites. Though there is some good work on these sites, it's more of an approach for guys who need cash now. Since you have time on your side, you should be focusing more on building elite marketing campaigns that take longer but pay bigger. Think long-term business strategies.

Examples are:
Networking in your local area.
Contacting niche-specific businesses directly to preach to them about what blogging and other services can do for their business.
Direct mail packages.
Cold calling.

For more on this stuff, I highly recommend Carol Tice's forum.

Also, I've decided to move forward with building a website, newsletter, and eventually some products in this niche. It depends on what people want, but a private, paid forum (with a limited number of seats), membership program, and private coaching are all ideas on the table. Main focus will be freelance writing for location independence, but eventually I plan to include other types of writing businesses as I see more success with them (book publishing, blogging, product launches, etc).

I've only now just started pulling it together, but I do have a viral website I've put together for early birds who want to hear what I've got going as soon as it comes out. I'm also going to give some free coaching calls to people who spread the word about my newsletter on social media, etc.

If you're interested, drop me a pm and I'll give you the link. I'll probably hit up some of you guys who have benefited from my tips for testimonials at some point too. Most likely I will not be dropping links here about this as I plan to keep it separate from the forum, so if anyone wants to check it out they'll have to contact me.

But again, Carol Tice's forum. Seriously epic value and way underpriced - she'd be seriously hard to compete with. If you want that higher-end work, that's where you need to be.

Quote: I have deep knowledge in travel hacking and the frequent flyer arena, but I've also written for the UCLA daily newspaper, a few music magazines and freelanced for a yelp-like review site. That last one was great, 10 reviews for $150.

You've got a solid start, Man. Put together a list of companies in that niche and write out a solid email about your experiences. Do some research on each company so you can tailor your approach to each one. Also, put some real time into your website and every other touch-point online - if you want the pro prices, you need to look like a pro everywhere, and you've got some great experience you can sell.

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: #47

BB,
I'll gladly spread the word in my circles about your newsletter/site or whatever services you may be offering. So hit me up when your site/newsletter/service is live.

Post: #48

(10-11-2013 12:21 AM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  BB,
I'll gladly spread the word in my circles about your newsletter/site or whatever services you may be offering. So hit me up when your site/newsletter/service is live.

I most absolutely will, VP!

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: #49

Great post, brother! Thank you for sharing!

Post: #50

I've signed up on eLance and set up a profile. I know I can pay to get more bids, and that I'll need at least 100-200 to even begin landing about 10% of the jobs. But my question is, WHICH jobs should I bid on? Most seem foreign to me. For example, filtering Writing & Translation > Web Content brings up all many different types of jobs, some of which sound very specialized. Should I just start randomly going for any of these?