Hiring A Freelance Writer

Hiring a freelance web content writer can be a daunting and expensive process. Here's a list of few frequently asked questions that I receive.

Q: Do I need a professional freelance writer?
A: Not necessarily. Regardless of the type of written copy, you only get one shot at gaining your reader's attention with it. As you make the decision to write your own copy ask yourself the following:

1) If the copy is for the internet, do I know enough about key word density and search engine optimization to write this myself?
2) Have I done adequate research on my subject?
3) Do I have the grammar and formatting skills required?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, I would recommend you request a free consultation with me regarding your writing needs. (angelaswanlund@gmail.com)

Q: How much will it cost to hire a professional freelance writer?
A: The amount can vary greatly! I personally know writers willing to write for as little as a penny per word - to as high as ten cents per word. If you're interested in my services, you may view my price list here.

Q: What if I'm unhappy with the finished work?
A: If for any reason you're unsatisfied with my work, I will render a full and unconditional refund, guaranteed.

Q: Do I have the right to say I wrote something I buy from you?
A: Yes. By purchasing full rights you may sell the work, change the work, or reproduce the work in any manner or fashion you choose.

Dirty Writing Tactics

Competitive Industry

Online content writing is one of the most cut-throat and competitive fields you could ever enter. Content buyers pay as little as .01 cents per word, and expect academic quality writing, and full rights of ownership to your work. That's right, for as little as a few dollars, a buyer can slap their name on your hard work and take full credit for it. What's truly sad, is that this is actually the least of your worries as a content writer.

Content Samples

Content buyers requesting multiple samples of your work can also be a dirty tactic to get content for free. It's fine for a buyer to request a small sample, or be shown an online resume or portfolio. However, recently, I've been encountering buyers who request multiple samples on specific topics and key words. In some cases, a buyer may request this in order to establish your identity and confirm your writing ability – otherwise, you might submit the best piece you've ever written, or even work that isn't your own. Unfortunately, in some cases, it's a dirty trick to get quality content from you for free. By having you write a fresh sample on the key words and topic of their choice – in effect – you just completed the order they had. By declining your submission, you don't get hired to write another article for them – and they already have the one you submitted as a sample. Nothing say's they can't use it. You willingly sent it to them, in effect, giving it to them.

What you can do, is include a disclaimer with your sample that specifically says: “This work is to be used for sample purposes only. Any unauthorized use, publication, or distribution of this sample will be pursued as an act of plagiarism to the full extent of the law.”

Personal Information

Another dirty tactic is for content buyers to request personal information, in direct violation of content warehouse terms of service. Large content warehouses team content producers with buyers – taking their cut off the top. This isn't a bad thing! They keep writers in an abundance of work, and offer many benefits to both buyer and seller. Knowing that the warehouse takes a cut off the top, some buyers have began contacting writers outside the warehouse. The easiest way to do this is to request a link to published work, a resume, or an online portfolio. From this, a buyer can gather contact information. By contacting the writer outside the warehouse, they save the cut that the warehouse charges. The writer doesn't make a penny more.

What you can do when contacted directly by a buyer through a content warehouse site is advise them that the warehouse charges a fee for bringing buyers and sellers together, and you cannot complete a transaction with them outside the warehouse for the same rate of pay as you receive through the warehouse. They need to either complete the transaction through the warehouse, or pay your regular rate (slightly higher, of course).

Content Righter Blog

Unique website content can be time consuming if you write it yourself, and expensive if you hire professional writers. Some people choose to ignore duplicate content warnings, and use free or low cost PLR, only to later find their website banned from search engine results. Content Righter is obviously a play on words, but it's also a unique website content warehouse.

What is Content Righter?

Each week, the Content Righter blog features a set of five (5), 100% unique, website content articles on a variety of topics. Each article is 500 words in length, and comes with a royalty free stock photograph for use as a featured image. What sets this content provider apart from the rest is price. Each set of 5 articles and 5 accompanying stock photographs is only $25.00 (USA). That's only .01 cents per/word!

Who Are The Writers?

Highly experienced web content writers from all over the world contribute their work to Content Righter. Each applicant must pass a grammar test with a score of at least 90% proficiency, and submit 3 samples of previously published work before being considered. There are no ratings with varying degrees of talent or price. All of the writers who contribute work to Content Righter are 5-star, published, web content writers.

Why So Inexpensive?

As writers, we've all been stuck with completed content that a buyer passed on. Perhaps they didn't need as many as they originally thought, maybe their budget caused cuts to be made, or maybe they simply changed their mind on the topic they requested. These are 5-star, top shelf, 100% unique web content articles that have been enhanced with the latest key word and SEO tactics! In order to not be “stuck” with content a buyer passed on, these writers have agreed to offer it to you though the Content Righter Blog at a drastically reduced price!

Is This PLR?

No. Absolutely not. Once a package of content has been purchased from Content Righter Blog, the files are removed from the server, never to be sold again. The buyer becomes the sole owner to all rights and copyright, and may author the content with their own name/pseudonym. However, a buyer can choose to market and re-sell the content packages as PLR once they've purchased it. Most PLR article packages sell for upwards of $50.00 each, so the profit margin is huge if a person wished to stock a PLR storefront with these article packages.

How Do I Get This?

You can visit the Content Righter blog, and browse the current selection of available content packages, or fillWhy wait any longer to fill your website with expertly written and affordable content? Get the unique web content that your clients and customers deserve and the search engine spiders crave! Visit Content Righter blog today.  

out the contact form and request a package on the topic/niche of your choice. (There is a slightly higher cost for requested packages. Turn-around time is generally 3 business days.) Purchasing the available packages can be done easily and securely online via PayPal.

To PLR or Not to PLR?

I’m going to step on some toes with this one, but I strongly encourage anyone with an opposing view to step in and offer their opinions. I’m in no way against anything that helps writers, or promotes good web content ethics and practices. In the case of PLR content, I simply have a hard time seeing the benefit of it’s use in the long run.

Where did this come from, originally?

Before I spent much money or time on PLR articles, reports, or ebooks, I’d want a few key questions answered to my satisfaction - starting with this one. Where did the material come from - originally? The seller should be able to answer your question simply with one of two responses, either - I wrote them myself - or, I purchased the re-branding and re-selling rights. Otherwise, you’re running the risk of purchasing illegally procured material which might also be plagiarized. For your own protection, I strongly suggest you keep a record of the purchase and any rights the purchase claims to entitle you to.

How can I know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ PLR until I buy it?

Quite often all the information you’re presented with is a list of titles, and a large sales page for the PLR package. You have no real idea what you’re buying until you purchase and unzip the file. One way is to pose questions prior to placing your order. If the website doesn’t have clear contact information - this in itself is a red flag. Prepare an email to the seller and ask for a sample article from the pack you’re interested in. If you receive no response, this seller is not one you wish to do business with. An honest salesperson is more than happy to answer questions about their products or services.

What do I do if I've purchased illegal PLR content?

In most cases, this situation will be brought to your attention via a ‘Cease and Desist’ notice. The owner of the content will give you so many days to remove the content from your website, blog, or publication and as long as you comply - this is typically the end of the legalities. As for getting your money back, you can try, but more often than not the seller was scammed just as you were. They bought the material with re-brand and re-sell rights just as you did.

What’s the advantage to buying PLR, as opposed to downloading free PLR?

Borrowing directly from sales pitches I’ve read, supposedly, you get material with ‘limited publication.’ This perplexes me. If the seller has sold it at least one time - then someone else has the re-sell rights. If that person sold it at least one time - then someone else has re-sell rights… and on and on. Furthermore, if it’s been published one time - anywhere on the world wide web - it wouldn’t pass a duplicate copy filter anyway. So does it really matter if the material has been published 40 times or 400? Does it make enough difference to justify the cost? I wouldn’t think so.

The best argument I've heard recently for purchasing PLR...

“It makes excellent resource/research material, and saves a writer so much time!”

Really? Let’s think about that. Suppose I’ve never owned a house pet, but I want to write an article on having a house cat. For resource/research, I go get myself a well written PLR article on cats as pets. I dissect out all the pertinent information, the facts, the statistics (if there are any), and then I write my article based on my own desire for a house cat and information I’ve learned from the PLR article. How embarrassed will I be when my article is rejected because I said house cats are the #1 pet in America (based on PLR article information) and in fact, the #1 house pet in America is the dog?

As simplistic as this example may seem, I see this over and over. PLR articles may be so outdated that the once correct information is now obsolete. Before you can securely use information obtained from ANY source, you must check the facts! If you have to spend the time to check the facts, why would you spend it checking another writer’s facts when you could just as easily (and in the same amount of time) gather your facts from an accredited source - one in which you could cite at the end of your article and offer your readers even more information?

Who Do You Cater To?

Some of you who’ve known me for years and followed various websites and blogs that I’ve built have no doubt noticed that I have very minimalist tastes design wise. I tend to go with 3 base colors, Courier or Ariel font, and I hate advertisements.

Google Adsense absolutely infuriates me, and I refuse to put one of their ad boxes anywhere on a site I control. The explanation as to why actually goes back several years - to the dark days of contextual advertising. There was a time when anyone with a blog could earn money by adding a link somewhere within the text of a regular blog post, on ‘key words’. For example, suppose you blogged about a day at the park with your children and used the words ‘playground equipment’ in a sentence. Those are ‘key words’ to anyone who sells playground equipment, and they would pay you to make those words a link to their website. The problem with this in Google’s eyes, was that it tripped up their algorithm. All of those links gave websites a ‘false’ sense of importance, and scored the website a higher placing in search results. So, instead of changing their algorithm, Google decided to penalize blogs and websites who participated in contextual advertising.

You may have heard phrases such as “Google Slap” - and “Page Rank” and wondered what this meant. Well, in short - this is what Google did to offending blogs and websites. If found guilty, the blog or website would be stripped of it’s page rank, and banned from Google search results - essentially - black balled. What infuriated me about this is that a search engine used it’s power to control a marketplace. They won. Then (to borrow a phrase from my dad) like an egg-sucking dog, they offered Google Adsense as a means to earn money from your website or blog. So, it was never advertising they were against - it was simply advertising that didn’t benefit THEM.

Another area where Google used it’s might to control the marketplace concerns ‘duplicate content’. Any blog or website found to contain previously Google cached content would be stripped of page rank and banned from search results. Supposedly, these measures were taken in an attempt to fight plagiarism. No doubt, there were very serious allegations of plagiarism on all fronts - I’m not arguing this point. What I am contending is that a search engine was allowed to be the Deputy Dog on the case. Here’s an example where a ‘blanket’ duplicate content rule adversely effects the marketplace:

Suppose you wrote an article on child development that was so cutting edge and revolutionary - half of the child psychologists in the world were contacting you wanting to use your article. Wait… they can’t. At least not word for word. Google won’t allow it. Nor can you profit from the article more than one time. You may sell re-print rights, but only ONCE. Otherwise, the article will appear more than once in search results - a direct Google violation.

Obviously, most people ignore these ridiculous stipulations and you’ll often see the same articles high and low… but the fact remains, you’re taking the risk of being banned from search results each time you violate the duplicate content rule. As writers - this cuts right into our pocketbook - because it doesn’t allow us to gain income from re-print sales.

Some people choose to let the public decide - and pay no heed to the Google rules. Such as PLR content. I know several people who earn a substantial income and enjoy massive website traffic from sites that contain nothing BUT duplicate content. For example, suppose you have a website devoted to herbal supplements, and you publish PLR articles from known experts in the field. The public wants and needs this information in order to make an informed decision regarding the use of herbal supplements. The public doesn’t care if those articles have been previously published. If Google bans your website from search results (and they well might) there’s several hundred other search engines that won’t. The public can still find you - and most certainly will if the content is good.

So… what’s your take on it? Cater to a search engine, or cater to your readers/customers?

Conflicted Inspiration

In some regards, I’m very lucky to live in what most people would consider a vacation retreat. Nestled deep into the foothills of the Magazine mountain range, twelve miles away from the nearest form of humanity, and farther to a paved road. Bad or wet weather demands a 4 wheel drive vehicle to even access my property. Sometimes I wonder if this extreme isolation is conductive to my creativity - or detrimental. Have I been here so long I’ve lost all touch with the world outside? For an example, my oldest son mentioned what he’s paying for rent the other day and I almost called the kid a liar. I couldn’t fathom rent being that high now days, because it’s been so long since I’ve had to pay it.

Several years ago, I dated a musician and songwriter and he absolutely left me dumbstruck one day with one of his observations. We were talking about creativity and agreed that neither of us could work on any sort of time clock - either ideas flowed, or they didn’t. This accepted fact made our relationship somewhat more tolerable, because we understood when one or the other jumped up at 4am and ran to write something down. But, then one afternoon, he said: “Happiness and contentment block me.”

Excuse me?!

He went on to explain that extreme emotions are generally what fueled his creativity. The ordinary, even keeled, daily flow of a good relationship and steady lifestyle tended to put him into a lull. Whereas conflict, drama, unrest - fueled him into writing some of the best music and songs of his life. Hum… interesting. Needless to say, our relationship didn’t last, but it’s nice to think the breakup led to some good music for him.

But, the point I was trying to build into is that I’m wondering now if my lack of social interaction with the ‘rat race’ has a lulling effect on me as well? Does it soften the ‘edges’, or give a ‘moonlight and magnolia’ effect to my writing? Does a writer need a certain level of conflict or drama to prompt strong writing?

Something to think about…

Ode To Thwap!

THWAP! Thwap, thwap, thwap! Thwap! Thwap… thwap! Click, cheeeeng, bang. THWAP!

You have no idea what would make that sort of sound do you?

And you call yourself a writer, heh!

That is the sound of pure determination, focus, and inspiration. The sound of a manual typewriter sitting on a cramped student desk in the corner of a dark bedroom. No one could type fast on those things unless they had stubby fingers and an absurd level of accuracy. A mistake was comparable to one’s pants splitting - hard to fix and the mend always showed. We all tried to correct with the paper still lined up and securely wrapped around the roller - because it was a real bitch to line that back up again. Rolled eraser slag would fall down inside the typewriter case, and no matter how hard we tried - we’d always erase 3 letters instead of one. Sometimes the eraser pen tore the delicate typing paper, and then we were really screwed. That required taking the sheet out and trying to mend the hole with tape on the back. The glorious day of White Out was still several years in the future, and no one had invented the correction ribbon yet.

To get the typewriter in the first place, we had to either beg our parents relentlessly, or mow yards to earn the money. Some of us were blessed with shiny new typewriters, some of us were handed the one their Mom scored at a yard sale for $3.50 and had a broken W key. Our thrill at possessing the magic machine was soon abashed by our sadness at how quickly the ribbon ran out of ink. Some of us got creative (and handy) and learned how to re-ink them. We stole typing paper from school, and anywhere else we could find it laying around, because it was quite expensive. Once that climatic moment finally came when we had it all together - oiled, inked, papered - and ready to crank out our first best selling novel - we went blank. Performance pressure. After three crumpled pages on the floor, we started to count the pages we had left and guesstimate the amount of ink left. Each paragraph became harder to write, as the stakes got higher.

We loved our writing machines, and we hated them - equally. One undeniable fact about our machines was that they demanded the best of us. Total focus, total commitment. No key stroke was wasted. No sentence hit the paper until we spoke it aloud, acted it out, and made sure that was precisely what we intended our reader to read. Hours were spent pacing floors, acting out dialogue between our characters - making sure each word had the proper impact. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, library books, newspapers, magazines, and thesauruses lined the floor around our desk. Some of us had decent lighting, some of us had a bare light bulb on a drop cord hanging from the ceiling - but creativity happened. Works were completed.

Now I have a computer with unlimited white space, unlimited ink, unlimited formatting, spelling, and even grammar editing tools. I have a backspace button to fix small problems and a delete key to eradicate major ones. An entire room of my home is designated as my office, and I even scored a studio outside the home for really serious writing projects. I haven’t had to steal printer paper since college. I don’t remember the last time I blew a fuse because I was trying to run a shop light and a space heater off the same plug in. Why haven’t I created anything amazing now that all the hardships of creation have been removed?

Hum…

Perhaps the lack of challenge itself is the problem. After all - there hasn’t been a new set of Commandments since the ones chiseled in stone.