Every now and again, people come to my site and complain about the high price of ghostwriting. Then they run off to Elance to hire a writer for $5, $10 or $15 an article.
Sometimes they try to stand me down and push my prices down to that of another ghost writer. I don't play along. My ghostwriting prices are as low as they are going to go.
I understand that a business person must try to keep their costs down, but there is another side to this.
Writers are skilled professionals. Other skilled professionals such as plumbers, electricians, etc. are paid a minimum of $55 an HOUR for their time. They charge $55 just to knock on your front door, then they charge $55 an hour after the first hour.
You pay it because you have to get the work done... Either that or you have to crawl under the house yourself.
A well-written article can take anywhere from one hour to two hours to write. Depending on the topic and the necessity for research on the topic, a well-written article on some topics will require 3-4 hours to research and write.
Good writers know their worth. I know of a professional copywriter who writes only sales materials. He knows his worth and he charges accordingly. Through him, a five-page sales letter will cost a cool 10 grand. And, he is worth every penny he charges for his services. His sales copy produces lots of sales. http://www.instantwebprofitsmentoring.com
With the constant pressure to push our prices down, some writers have decided to take the work that has been offered to them. After all, they have bills to pay and families to feed.
Now, they write articles for $5, $10 and $15 an article. But, when they compromised their prices, they also made a compromise with their integrity. They still believe that they should be paid $100 or $150 for an article, so what they have done is to take the jobs at a lower rate to get some income, then they turn around and sell that same article to ten or twenty people.
Their justification is simple. "The person who bought this from me screwed me, so I will screw him back."
Once the first person has pushed the writer to compromise his or her integrity, there is no going back. It is all about the money now. The writer is going to make his or her money one way or another. And the market has forced them to do it in a way that they may not like to do.
It is a mindset. If you pay a writer what he or she thinks they are worth, then they will not feel inclined to screw you over.
If you treat your writers right, they will treat you right.
All of us are skilled at something. Do you bring your best skill to the table and then accept being paid peanuts for your skill?
Yeah. And you expect others to behave differently?
Instead of telling your writer what you are willing to pay, ask your writer how much they need from you in order to GUARANTEE that they will not sell your material to anyone else. Then pay your writer what he or she asks from you.
To do otherwise is inviting trouble.
EzineArticles.com and Isnare.com are not the only article directories putting the brakes on duplicate content, offered by several "writers". Directory managers everywhere are putting the brakes on this practice.
What it is coming to is if you do not pay the fee required to Guarantee exclusive content, then you are flushing your dollar bills down the toilet. People are going to know that you are using non-exclusive articles and they will penalize you for doing so.
Here you are, you are trying to pass off content as materials that you wrote youself, and everyone knows that you did not. If you wrote it yourself, how come others are saying they wrote the same content themselves? You couldn't both have written it!
Through my own ghost writing business, I personally guarantee that we will not resell your articles to anyone else. My competitor, Allwomencentral.com does the same for their clients.
We both still have our integrity, and we do not discount our prices to match other ghost writers. We know our worth, and you should too.
Bill Platt is the owner of http://thePhantomWriters.com Bill specializes in the distribution of reprint articles for the promotion of his client's business websites. Articles distributed by Bill reach tens of thousands of publishers and webmasters. While most of his clients write their own articles, some of them engage Bill and his ghost writers to create Exclusive Content for their own promotional use. All ghost-written articles purchased from thePhantomWriters.com are GUARANTEED to be sold ONLY to the client who has purchased it. In business since 2001.