@Carl one of the issues that western world readers need to come to grips with is the quality of English in countries such as India and Philippines is sometimes much better than American/UK/Australian writers - and yes they are native speakers too.

@Language Dude Thanks for giving me an idea of pricing. Actually submitting the articles isn’t something I mind too much but when you start getting into huge amounts, I imagine it would get tedious. Editing articles is something I would probably find even more annoying than writing them myself.

@Goldfish Care I think a good balance is something I would be aiming for too, at least at this stage until I can afford to go 100% outsourcing.

@Carl For article sites, yeah, it’s just content and as long as it makes sense and speaks the truth, it doesn’t matter if it’s not of a high quality. For my own sites, however, getting high quality content is very important. The difference with me though is that I actually prefer it when my writers aren’t professionals. I like the content on my sites to have an informal, chatty sort of approach and non-pro writers can do this just fine. What I’m most interested in is the information they’re writing about, not really the style. I believe that people visit sites because of the information that they’re looking for and the quality of the writing. I’m not a professional writer but I don’t think that fact would ever turn a reader away as long as they’re getting the information they’re after. Yep, the only reason I’m writing the articles is to get the backlinks.

@Language Dude again I agree that good writing will get more and more expensive. I remember when people would gladly submit content for free and they didn’t have any sites to promote either. I guess it would just to help out, share info, or to get their name on an online article, I don’t know. The online writing market has changed and is continually changing, I think, and I think it is heading in the direction you are talking about.

I am all for outsourcing article writing once I get a plan and a bit of cash behind me. So if anyone can recommend writers they use, I would love to have some contacts for when the time comes.

Yes that’s the reality as far as articles for directories are concerned. Now the writing on your own site is definitely another story. The better the writing on your own site, the better off you are. However, even with your own site, you should probably settle for less than ideal for now.

Drivel is dirt cheap right now and will probably remain that way. However, good quality writing is still relatively inexpensive. That said as someone who pays for writing and blogging, I can tell you that market prices are slowly creeping upwards.

If you want to be an internet publisher, then you better start now because as demand grows, good writing will become more and more expensive. So much so in fact, that I believe in a few more years it will be quite a bit more expensive to get good writing. This will effectively slam the door shut on people who want to bootstrap sites that are magazines with a stable of writers or regular contributors. It’s still pretty cheap to get what is effectively a magazine site up with lots of good content. I think internet publishing costs will rhyme with 20th century publishing costs. So get started now, because it will eventually become more difficult and a lot more expensive to get good talent.

If you want to be a writer, then you’ll probably be able to make much more in a few years than you can today. I could be wrong, but that’s my view.

Writing is often perceived — and priced — as a commodity. Something anyone can do (I guess) and not worth spending a lot of time and money on. It’s just content… and writers are perceived as loving to write so much that they’re willing to do it for slave wages (again, I guess). You should pay as little as possible and just get something up there.

Web design and anything sort of technical is perceived as very difficult, however, and people are willing to pay good money for it.

Of course, customers and readers don’t visit web sites because of the logo, the number of columns, and so on. They will trust a professional looking site more than something that looks cheap, of course — but they’re going there for the content. The content, the writing, is ultimately what sells.

For http://freedomainclassifieds.com, I had the idea, bought the domain name, and set up and designed the site with WordPress in under 2 hours. It was super easy. There are so many templates and plugins available that you can quickly do a lot of customization. (Now that it’s up, I’m not sure it was a good idea, and I don’t know what to do with it, but that’s another issue.)

On the other hand, I’ve spent hours trying to come up with one good, solid headline that will communicate a benefit and motivate customers to act. And then been told to write a hundred more. It’s really hard — and generates a lot of money, which is why top ad agencies and Fortune 500 companies pay good copywriters fairly well. The economic collapse lowered prices for everyone, but the price range for professional copywriters who know what they’re doing is anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour. (At the moment, the biggest challenge is getting work.) Some of the direct mail writers earn tens of thousands of dollars per project and get a share of the income they generate — but they’re in a special class of their own.

Not trying to pick on you, Kristy, or start an argument with you or anyone else. I just find the issue very interesting for personal and professional reasons and thought I share my perspective with you. The companies that really make a fortune don’t pay some guy or gal in India 8 bucks for their web content. They pay professionals thousands and thousands — and outsource the technical work.

Last Weekend I pulled my Dragon naturally speaking software & fired it up
to see if i could do more of my own articles it was surprisingly easy.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Do-I-have-to-be-a-good-typist-to-create-an-article

I’m going to be trying to balance out hiring & writing.

How has HubPages and such been going for you? I keep hearing about how they can be a great passive income generator, but I’m a bit skeptical.