How are articles *actually* priced per word? - Data Analysis

[PaulMaplesden]

You've certainly done a lot of great research that will be helpful to the writers. The only thing that worries me is if writers start lowering their prices based on how someone prices their work. I have noticed a lot of low priced articles selling lately. Unless I am submitting an article for use (only because it is also listed somewhere else), I price my articles at 10 cents a word or higher. I have no problem selling them. I make a few exceptions for quantity work that might go for nine cents, as well as some work that goes for 12 and 15 cents a word. If you have expertise in an area, you don't want to give it away. My sales percentage is high, so I know you don't have to give your work away. Remember, 35% of each sale goes to CC. If you charge eight cents a word, what are you really making? You will only be making 5.2 cents a word. It's important to think of how much your 65% will equal when setting your prices.

I have worked for years using an agent and he received a percentage for doing basically what CC does. When I priced my print writing for magazines, I priced by the amount I wanted to make after the commission was paid, not before. Now I am my own agent (thank you Internet), but I still include the commission amount in my pricing and use that amount for advertising etc.

Judith, I completely agree, and I think that a lot of it comes down to the quality of the articles. I believe that there will always be customers paying the lower prices for cheap articles, and consequently there will always be writers that price accordingly. Likewise, I think that more unusual topics by skilled writers can be priced higher, and they will also sell to customers looking for unique articles. I'm just trying to shed light on how much money customers are actually paying, rather than suggesting we reduce all of our prices in a race to the bottom.

[Lysis]

There is someone going through each category and buying use articles. It's cool, because he's buying old old articles (he bought mine from 2009 and 2010). This also skews the above data, because the above is for a month and the big buyer is probably skewing the results. Plus, he is manually pulling numbers, so the data is (and I think he admits this) inaccurate. But, it does give you a reasonable idea.

If I need cash faster, I lower the price, which currently I'm doing to generate some income. But, yeah there are a few low low ballers.

But, I usually price around 10 cents too and I don't normally have issues either. It just takes longer to sell.

For me, I usually stick to what I know or what I've experienced, so it takes me 30 mins to an hour to write something, depending on the length.

I just bumped my full rights price from 5 cents to 10 cents and usage from 4 cents to 5.

Last week I bumped usage from 3 to 4 and full rights from 4 to 5. Now I need to work far less to make it work. I was going to have to do minimum of 25 articles per week, now I can relax at 10 to 15.

I think writers get too caught up with price per word. Take into consideration your time. If I can write an article in 30 minutes, then having $20 revenue from it is reasonable. But, if it takes me 3 hours, it's probably not reasonable. I also price based on whether or not I think I'm bringing something to the table that others can't write. I'm a software engineer and recognized by Google as an expert at dealing with crawling, ranking and indexing, so if you want writing at a better level than some random, I'm your best bet. However, not everything is at that level and sometimes I just write stuff that is a quick article I think of with not much high level info. In that case, I price cheaper.

If I'm writing from experience, I charge more. If I am writing something I know is more common knowledge, I charge less. I also think of my target customer. I'd say 95% of my customers are CTO/CIO people or they are marketing people who need someone technical. I also have a lot of web developer customers who just don't have time to write content but need someone who understands their business to write for them. In other words, bloggers are really not my typical customer, so I target my market. Some writers here are what I call "fancy" writers. Relationships, merchandise, and other categories are what I consider "fancy" writing that I really can't do, so I don't even try...don't step into those areas and just stick to what I know. I think you might find different style editors for technical vs those categories too, because it's just a different target market and tone. In other words, know your limitations. I see a lot of writers claim to be an expert in everything because they are great "researchers." It really doesn't work that way, so you have to know your limitations. Find one area and dominate it with whatever expertise you have that others don't.

When I first started, I wrote anything and even wanted to stay away from tech. All I did was frustrate myself, and I've found much better success at being an expert in something and selling myself as an expert and avoiding the areas where I'm meh. That isn't to say I still lose sometimes. I lost a customer yesterday that I'm still a bit peeved at. Sometimes, price still drives the customer and I think that's why I lost him. But, that's the game and sometimes you lose the game.

[ReneeF]

There is someone going through each category and buying use articles. It's cool, because he's buying old old articles (he bought mine from 2009 and 2010). This also skews the above data, because the above is for a month and the big buyer is probably skewing the results. Plus, he is manually pulling numbers, so the data is (and I think he admits this) inaccurate. But, it does give you a reasonable idea.

If I need cash faster, I lower the price, which currently I'm doing to generate some income. But, yeah there are a few low low ballers.

But, I usually price around 10 cents too and I don't normally have issues either. It just takes longer to sell.

For me, I usually stick to what I know or what I've experienced, so it takes me 30 mins to an hour to write something, depending on the length.

I just bumped my full rights price from 5 cents to 10 cents and usage from 4 cents to 5.

Last week I bumped usage from 3 to 4 and full rights from 4 to 5. Now I need to work far less to make it work. I was going to have to do minimum of 25 articles per week, now I can relax at 10 to 15.

I think writers get too caught up with price per word. Take into consideration your time. If I can write an article in 30 minutes, then having $20 revenue from it is reasonable. But, if it takes me 3 hours, it's probably not reasonable. I also price based on whether or not I think I'm bringing something to the table that others can't write. I'm a software engineer and recognized by Google as an expert at dealing with crawling, ranking and indexing, so if you want writing at a better level than some random, I'm your best bet. However, not everything is at that level and sometimes I just write stuff that is a quick article I think of with not much high level info. In that case, I price cheaper.

If I'm writing from experience, I charge more. If I am writing something I know is more common knowledge, I charge less. I also think of my target customer. I'd say 95% of my customers are CTO/CIO people or they are marketing people who need someone technical. I also have a lot of web developer customers who just don't have time to write content but need someone who understands their business to write for them. In other words, bloggers are really not my typical customer, so I target my market. Some writers here are what I call "fancy" writers. Relationships, merchandise, and other categories are what I consider "fancy" writing that I really can't do, so I don't even try...don't step into those areas and just stick to what I know. I think you might find different style editors for technical vs those categories too, because it's just a different target market and tone. In other words, know your limitations. I see a lot of writers claim to be an expert in everything because they are great "researchers." It really doesn't work that way, so you have to know your limitations. Find one area and dominate it with whatever expertise you have that others don't.

When I first started, I wrote anything and even wanted to stay away from tech. All I did was frustrate myself, and I've found much better success at being an expert in something and selling myself as an expert and avoiding the areas where I'm meh. That isn't to say I still lose sometimes. I lost a customer yesterday that I'm still a bit peeved at. Sometimes, price still drives the customer and I think that's why I lost him. But, that's the game and sometimes you lose the game.

Looking back at most of my work it is either in natural skin care or in SEO, rank, tech, and Google compliance. I too have worked in the field for nearly 10 years. Most of my articles do not even take research, its just from stuff i know or experiences with companies or even Google themselves. I get bored in one singular niche, but most of my work is in business - marketing or health - skin care. for the rare fluff piece, when I need a break and am getting frustrated or bored, and especially if it takes me 30 minutes for a price, I'll price lower. Most of my research now is fact checking or say..correct statistics and such.

[JDWhang]

sometimes you lose the game.

This line just made me lose the game.

[Abbamay]

So were these stats generated from articles in the general catalogue which have prices next to them but haven't been bought yet?

My experience seems a bit different really. Some writer pool buyers are paying 5c per word for relatively easy stuff, and others pay 8-10c. My private client pays 10c per word, and that is the rate I usually get, although very occasionally it has been higher. I have a 1,000 word article in the general pool and someone offered to buy it for $10.10 the other day, so I declined.

[PaulMaplesden]

So were these stats generated from articles in the general catalogue which have prices next to them but haven't been bought yet?

My experience seems a bit different really. Some writer pool buyers are paying 5c per word for relatively easy stuff, and others pay 8-10c. My private client pays 10c per word, and that is the rate I usually get, although very occasionally it has been higher. I have a 1,000 word article in the general pool and someone offered to buy it for $10.10 the other day, so I declined.

hi, the stats for the price per word come from articles that have sold on CC available on the 'writing ideas' page. I take data from the category, license cost and license type and can calculate the average value of a particular type of license in each category. I did a bit of other research to find typical article lengths (currently around 617 words) and using all of this we can come up with the average cost per word for what customers are buying.

[Abbamay]

Thanks! So do you get much time for writing too?

[Lysis]

sometimes you lose the game.

This line just made me lose the game.

I lose a lot.

[PaulMaplesden]

Thanks! So do you get much time for writing too?

Not surprisingly (!), I'm also tracking my own productivity here and over the last month I have averaged between 3 and 4 articles submitted a day - No idea if this is typical or not.

[Lysis]

I'm trying to do 5/day but get burnt. I've seen writers write 100/month for a while back when I was trying to get an idea of the potential money each day I could make here. Also trying to write some longer articles although I know those don't sell as well. I've sold really long articles but 5/day short ones is what I'm going for.

[PaulMaplesden]

I'm trying to do 5/day but get burnt. I've seen writers write 100/month for a while back when I was trying to get an idea of the potential money each day I could make here. Also trying to write some longer articles although I know those don't sell as well. I've sold really long articles but 5/day short ones is what I'm going for.

I'm aiming for five a day, but I find it difficult to concentrate for that long and get distracted far too easily! It would be interesting to know what the typical submission rates are and what percentile people that submit certain numbers of articles fall into. (Can you tell that I kinda like date? ) Unfortunately, that sort of information isn't readily available, but I'd love to get my hands on it!

[ReneeF]

I see articles for sale in the price per word range of 10 cents and up. so i am assuming the average sale price includes those who sell for a penny or two and that is bringing the stats down so low?

[PaulMaplesden]

I see articles for sale in the price per word range of 10 cents and up. so i am assuming the average sale price includes those who sell for a penny or two and that is bringing the stats down so low?

The price per word is based on articles that have actually sold, not those that are for sale. So articles might be for sale at those higher prices, but if thy aren't selling, they won't be reflected in the stats. That said, there *are* quite a few articles (mainly older ones) that sold at ten dollars and below, so that will make the price per word lower.

[Lysis]

I'm trying to do 5/day but get burnt. I've seen writers write 100/month for a while back when I was trying to get an idea of the potential money each day I could make here. Also trying to write some longer articles although I know those don't sell as well. I've sold really long articles but 5/day short ones is what I'm going for.

I'm aiming for five a day, but I find it difficult to concentrate for that long and get distracted far too easily! It would be interesting to know what the typical submission rates are and what percentile people that submit certain numbers of articles fall into. (Can you tell that I kinda like date? ) Unfortunately, that sort of information isn't readily available, but I'd love to get my hands on it!

Well, what I did was take random authors and track their submission vs sales rate. There is correlation between number of articles you write and have in your open pool and sales. But correlation causation and all that. I started daily but I just do monthly now. It seems even the big boys get burnt at some point. Plus, I'm sure being in pools help and invited to projects. I just got put into a pool that I don't think I was in a few weeks ago, so that's cool.

It's hard to track because we're looking at open pool numbers (the writers idea section doesn't show private projects) and there's a large chunk that's due to private requests. I know for my numbers, at least 75-100 written articles are for private requests, so that skews perception of what I've sold in the open pool.

[EFowler]

I find it difficult to concentrate for that long and get distracted far too easily!

Ha ha, I can tell!Not complaining though