Am I working for less than I should be getting paid? (Please Help)

[Hurley4540]

A client wants me to re-write about 300,000 words. What I have to do is just make the articles grammatically correct and such. Like I said, the articles are already written, I just have to go through them and fix the punctuation, capitalization, etc.

What price would you charge for completing this job(re-writing 300,000 words)?

[Melly]

I would charge 3k for a job like that.

I normally charge 2-3 cents per word for originals and 1 cent per word for rewrites. Techically even if you have the work already its still creating an original piece.

I would maybe give a small discount for such a large job but not more than a 100 or so.

[Hurley4540]

Thanks, I have informed them the price of 3k sounds reasonable as that is $0.01 per word.

[Banned: democrat]

Nah dude.. for a project like that, tell him you normally write for 5 cents a word but you are willing to write it for 3 pennies on the word. Then he doesnt feel buyer's remorse or anything like that! nice scoring on the gig!

[MAllie]

This is not actually a writing job, but an editing one. Like the best writers, editors are normally very highly paid, but the amount you pay depends on what is required. Some editing is just as you describe, making grammatical and spelling corrections, but other editing extends to rearrangement of the material to best effect. When doing research on this you need to price editing costs rather than writing costs.

[myst woman]

wait until you have spent all day completing articles for a client who reneges on them at the 11th hour before you can deliver them with a made up excuse because they didn't know what they were doing. In my book, announcing you will be "traveling" in coming days and "won't have time to read" the articles you commissioned doesn't cut it.

My laptop is in the shop and i spent all day tweaking articles on public computers, leapfrogging over teenagers and slackers to craft a series of work. Waitign 45 minutes to complete 15 minutes worth of work. All day. Nine o clock at night the clients sends me an email like they never agreed that i knew what they wanted and could deliver it. Next day i get an email saying previous day was the deadline they don't want any more content. From a senior user on this board.

People if you don't know how to commission content, don't )(&(*^&*(( order it.
and if you do want to order it, don't give the writer any junk about not paying paypal half up front. if you don't have the funds to pay or the stomach to read, don't hire the work. if you wanted something different ask for a sample.

Telling someone they know what you want and then changing your mind the next day: priceless.
Boy the things you learn about who people (very senior users) really are on this forum is crazy.

[MAllie]

It's happened to me here a while ago too, though it wasn't for payment but payment-in-kind, and I don't think the guy is senior. Still, it shows there are people out there who will use you.

Perhaps some domainers don't really know what writing involves. They think it's just a case of cutting and pasting from someone else's content. They can't rate it very highly, anyway, to act like that. Sorry about your experience. :(

[Tia Wood]

myst woman, Always get half (larger projects) or full (smaller projects) before starting work. If new clients give you beef about it, stick to your guns. Eventually, when they have worked with you awhile they won't mind paying upfront OR you won't mind getting paid later because you know they will.

Hurley, I paid a professional editor $300 for 50,000 word edit and that was at a discount. Keep in mind you are not writing anything, so the 3 cents/word doesn't apply. Editing is not cheap.

[myst woman]

thanks you guys. Yes, from now on i will have to do that, even from extremely senior members of this board, whom you'd think would know better.

i think someone just didn't look at the checkbook before sending the email and got creative about how they eeled out of honoring their commitment. thanks for responses.

[Wired]

wait until you have spent all day completing articles for a client who reneges on them at the 11th hour before you can deliver them with a made up excuse because they didn't know what they were doing. In my book, announcing you will be "traveling" in coming days and "won't have time to read" the articles you commissioned doesn't cut it.

My laptop is in the shop and i spent all day tweaking articles on public computers, leapfrogging over teenagers and slackers to craft a series of work. Waitign 45 minutes to complete 15 minutes worth of work. All day. Nine o clock at night the clients sends me an email like they never agreed that i knew what they wanted and could deliver it. Next day i get an email saying previous day was the deadline they don't want any more content. From a senior user on this board.

People if you don't know how to commission content, don't )(&(*^&*(( order it.
and if you do want to order it, don't give the writer any junk about not paying paypal half up front. if you don't have the funds to pay or the stomach to read, don't hire the work. if you wanted something different ask for a sample.

Telling someone they know what you want and then changing your mind the next day: priceless.

myst woman, you are speaking of me.

I also received a Pm from a good friend of mine here to say you have negatively discussed this order and named me in your Pm while looking for more work. My reputation here at dnf and the other forum is impeccable.

Here is what transacted:
YOU contacted me for work.

I said actually I do have work and I gave you a list and asked what you can do and what is turnaound time. You said you can do the entire list of about 35 names and they will be completed by end of next day. You said, 500 word count articles. You also said the first article will be on my dnportfolio name. Rate of .015 per word.

This is what I got the following night: I received 4 articles on the same subject: games i.e. xbox, playstation. Articles were 1100, 800, 400 word count and the fourth I was unable to open. No other subject and no dnportfolio article.

I got your Pm and it said,

Re: i am a contenting fool

4 articles to you more coming
I had crashes today oy vey

I replied as graciously as I could that I do not have time to edit material as I was/am busy traveling with my job.

This would have been a convenience for me if you fulfilled your order but getting 4 different sized articles on one subject and the article that was to be rendered first, was not delivered.


Yes, when I hire professionals, I expect work completed as assigned on time.

I am tired of paying developers and now writers for missed deadlines, work not done as discussed and now having someone badmouthing me for work they did not deliver. This is not a way to get new customers by badmouthing clients, in particular, when it was YOU who did not complete your assignment as agreed.

As a long time senior domainer, I have heard too many excuses about system crashes, dsl outages, and my dog got run over. Then later, I get accused that I have no sympathy or lack understanding on their part. I've been there, done that.

I had no idea if you are a staff of one or a staff of many. I asked for you to look over the list and tell me what you can do and you stated, you can do it, and you can do it all in one day.

Despite this, I paid you for the four articles via Paypal as I said I would, immediately or after you gave me your paypal correct email address as the one you sent me was incorrectly typoed.
.



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~Wired

[Krshna]

QUOTE:
"Re: i am a contenting fool

4 articles to you more coming
I had crashes today oy vey "

LOL! Three funny lines that cracked me up today! (I'm not taking sides or anything)

I think the best way to go about a project is by clarifying and knowing each others needs and abilities best.And I think this is done best by chat rather than emails or PM's . The content developer AND the client must take time off from their "busy" schedules and DISCUSS the project, and finally summarize everything that was spoken. Most of the time, clients think that adding content is like buying paper clips, and that they dont need to "waste" time discussing how to get the best from their content developers. Content writers on the other hand, are just so excited that they have a new gig that they churn out the articles and send them in ASAP, to impress the client. At the end of the day, its just bad blood in between both because of a simple misunderstanding of thoughts!

The Client loses a valuable/cheap/dedicated/ambitious content writer.
The Content Writer loses a prospective/good willing/interesting client.

I have also had bad experiences before, but had the presence of mind to put my emotions behind and maintain the decorum in things. Later on, (though the client was very "pi$$ed off" with our work(sheesh) ) he came back after a month and asked if we were free for more. And I took my time to reply that we were on leave

Content writing is not a "part time job", its a profession. CLients must treat the content writer professionally, and content writers must react the same way. There's no point charging/paying "professional" rates and behaving like an amateur!













Spread the Cheer!
Krshna

[GUA]

No, the best way to go about getting projects done is use due diligence, and dont deal with idiots. Simple.