Why so low?

[JStone]

MicheleH, that's a separate debate. I treat freelancing like I would treat a paid job - I charge by the hour or for the effort it takes me. It's then up to the buyer whether or not he wants to pay the asking price. We all price our work according to our own rules - its up to the individual.

[topquark]

There's a lot of public requests currently priced at $10-$20 (already very low for full rights) and yet the buyer is only offering $7 for articles submitted to them. That annoys me. Especially when I refuse a $7 offer and he comes back WITH THE EXACT SAME OFFER 24 hours later.

[CRDonovan]

[quote="MicheleH"]JStone, think about how you are able to write an article on a topic off of the top of your head. Were you born with that knowledge? Or did it come from hours, months or even years or study?

If that professor and I wrote an article about the Civil War and another about SEO, does it make sense that the one of us who had to do more research should be paid more for the same information?

I agree that "fluff" pieces are worth less than in-depth pieces. I do, however, disagree with you that the time required to produce an article is a greater indicator of its value than the information it conveys.[/quote]

An in depth article is worth more money - no matter whether the author brings personal expertise or research skills to the work. Both represent time spent.

[SEDeary]

There's a lot of public requests currently priced at $10-$20 (already very low for full rights) and yet the buyer is only offering $7 for articles submitted to them. That annoys me. Especially when I refuse a $7 offer and he comes back WITH THE EXACT SAME OFFER 24 hours later.

I saw those public requests and considered them very low and was surprised to see someone selling the articles for 7$. I didn't think the customer wasn't paying more! Isn't that highly unethical? After all, he offered 10$ - 20$ in his request. Should this be reported or something? Maybe Constant-Content won't ban the customer, but at least writers should be aware of this.

[jadedragon]

$10-$20 is lowest range that can be selected for requests. May not represent what the buyer is hoping to pay. If you don't like the insultingly low offer just let the article go to the pool with a proper price. It will sell.

[Antonia]

The customer offering the low prices was Georged. Most authors who have been here for any length of time know better than to write for his requests or to accept the ubiquitous lowball offers. He's not actually breaking any rules so I don't think CC will ban him anytime soon....it's up to the authors to set fair prices and stand by them.

[carpenjoyce]

I think there may be a couple of other factors in this whole debate. One of them is creativity. When you're surfing the net, you see dozens of fluff pieces and you don't bother clicking on them, because you've see the same thing a million times. But then someone spins something--something about it arouses your curiosity and you have to know what the article says. That's how websites get people to look at their ads. So if someone can write a fluff piece that makes people want to click, that's worth money--even if it was written in five minutes.

The other aspect is identifying what buyers want, and targeting content for the web. It isn't always easy to know what will sell, and to write it so it's appropriate for web viewing. We have no guarantees of sales here, so when we write something that identifies a need and fills it well, we ought to get a little more for it. Around 20% of the articles posted here never sell, so that time and effort that has to be factored into the equation too.

If you've been writing for $7 or $8 an offer, try setting your prices higher and turning off the offer button. Give it 6 months or so, and you'll be amazed at how much more you can make.