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0 pointshluska10y ago0 comments

Unless I walk into a writing project knowing an immense amount about a topic, banging out 750 words looks like this:

- Primary research:> I can't just bang out 750 words and have it mean anything, or even be remotely useful. I need some knowledge, I need to form opinions, and I need to read what that particular field's experts have to say. The alternative is a Wikipedia-esque survey, which is okay sometimes, but won't drive much more than kids who will use you in their homework.

- Finding/researching citations:> Assuming that you aren't a complete dickbag, I'll want to make sure that your finished piece has some actual intellectual merit. So, I'll need to find good quality citations. This is more than Googling the topic and linking to the entire first page of results. It involves reading important, useful works and making sure that I understand what the writer is saying enough that I can use it to back up my points. If I don't understand a writer, maybe she is mistaken, or maybe I don't understand the nuances enough to use that point.

- Outline:> My process usually starts with an outliner now (fargo.io is quite good), but I used to write outlines in notebooks. I like to make a list of my points, include citations (or carefully note if this is just my opinion) and start to figure out what the narrative will look like. You'd be surprised how often this stage shows me that I have absolutely nothing to say.

- First draft:> Hopefully this explains itself.

- First edit:> You meet lots of writers who send their clients first drafts. These are either superhuman writers or they never get paid. I have an editor who I send EVERYTHING to. In exchange, she sends me her stuff and we absolutely rip each other apart.

- Second/third/+ draft:> Sometimes I can nail it with one round of feedback. Other times, I'll struggle with one paragraph for an entire afternoon.

- Your feedback:> What you think is a first draft should really be a second or third draft...:)

- Finalize the article, publish and promote:> Some people like my writing and tend to get excited when I email them to let them know about something new.

Long story short, writing 750 words that actually mean something would take me a minimum of eight hours to really polish. For me, $6.25 an hour ends in homelessness...:)

0 comments

nemexy10y ago

I understand your point. My pricing is entirely based of what I learned about the sphere in a hour that most of the cheap writers charge half a cent/cent per word, which would make around 5$ per such article and multiplied that by a big number/10x sounded good/.

I am curious though, what an article written using this outlined process will cost? How much would you charge about that? I am pretty sure that I won't be able to afford you though as anything above 100$ per article will put my startup back in red, which is a scary prospect for now.

brudgers10y ago

Just to look at a business analysis of what $100 per article means:

1. 40 hours of your time is equivalent to $500 worth of work.

2. 40 hours of your time writing articles adds $500 of value to the company assuming you don't have any take home pay.

The end result is that the articles don't appear to be adding much value to your business and therefore writing them only pretends to be work. In my experience people do things that pretend to be work because the pretend work is easier than the hard work...like developing leads, qualifying prospects, closing sales and developing products people want.

On the other hand, if the articles are actually adding value for your customers, then raise prices to keep adding value via the articles. If you can't justify raising the price for something then it's not worth pursuing from a pure business standpoint.

Good luck.

porker10y ago

> My process usually starts with an outliner now (fargo.io is quite good)

In case the Fargo people are reading - it'd be great if I could try the outliner before linking with DropBox. I don't want to trust you with that immediately.

Also, your "Learn more" link in the initial modal popup (Learn more / Dropbox) is broken...

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