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I read two really great blog postings today from some freelance writers who have had plenty of experience and are in fact mentors themselves. The premise is that there are more and more opportunities for people to write articles online for say $5 or even $1 to be used basically as mass churn out for SEO related hits. It's more of a quantity than a quality thing these article mills are looking for and they are able to find plenty of eager beavers to fill their needs. The thing is though, if you are serious about being a writer spending your days writing these low paying jobs are realistically only going to net you something that could be less than if you were out there working at the local burger joint.
I am still learning the ropes of the freelance writing business myself and I found that both On Writing for Peanuts and Content Mill Writing... got the point across to a tee. There are always people willing to write for low wages but are they necessarily 'writers'? If you read some of the work it's not going to be something most publications or more noted resources would ever consider printing or putting up on their sites. But the intended purpose of those articles are to just have something SEO friendly that can be cut, pasted, and reworked multiple times to just get traffic. That's great if that's what you want out of your writing, but if you are more serious and want to pursue a freelance writing career you most likely want to be spending your time elsewhere.
I admit to having worked out for pennies in my writing but I didn't know there was something better. I was under the guise that these were going rates for anything online (okay, I admit I didn't work for $5 an article, but not much more for some of them!) and was frustrated in that I was breaking my back and not really creating anything that I was particularly 'proud' of or putting my passion and talents to good use. So it was refreshing to read that others acknowledge that there are so many low paying markets but that you can still find plenty of places that are looking for 'serious' writers. Sending out queries and pitching articles to print magazines and other sources online is far better than selling your writing abilities short and working for far below minimum wage. This freelance writer just wants to thank these fellow writers for giving the newbies hope and sound advice.
