Are Ghostwriters Easy Targets - Would You Write For Nothing?
Posted on | August 1, 2007 |
I subscribe to Freelance Daily which is a great e-mail that I receive everyday. What I get is a listing of all the best freelance writing jobs available on Craigslist and other websites. These are not bidding jobs and therefore you would assume that they would be high paying. I’m sure most of them are.
A couple of days ago I came across an interesting job: website content needed for jewelry site. It caught my attention as I do a lot of website content writing and jewelry sounded fun. So anyway I send off an e-mail offering my services. I got a fairly quick reply and a link to the website. The website I have to say was very badly put together and was, I assume going to be a portal that sells sterling silver jewelry. The pictures of sterling silver rings were under sterling silver necklaces, the necklaces were under sterling silver earrings, etc. You get the general idea.
The owner said that he was looking to have 25 pages of content written using specific keywords - no problem. I said that I could do the pages 300 words each for $5 each. This is a fairly standard price for articles of this length completed in .doc format. He agreed but then when I wrote the article said he would prefer a minimum of 500 words. Again not a problem I added content to the article and re-submitted.
The article was accepted and he asked me to do the remainder keeping the length to a minimum of 500 instead of 300. There was no mention of additional payment and a little light bulb went off in my head. I e-mailed him saying that I would do the remainder but that a price had not been agreed for 500 word articles. I said that I would not be able to complete them for anything less than $7 each and at that this was an extremely good price for this word count. I had taken into account the fact that he said he was on a very tight budget and that he was just starting out online.
Guess what, I received an e-mail saying that maybe I shouldn’t write the articles that $7 was too much and that if I stuck to the original $5 I could have the job.
Please… am I really that desperate for work that I need to work for nothing. I only said $5 if they were 300 words because I knew I could have them done within 5 hours.
This really annoys me, some people actually expect you to work for nothing. Do they not realize that whilst I may be a ghostwriter/freelance writer, I am still a professional and not someone that will work for nothing.
I bet if you asked a carpenter, plumber, secretary, teacher, cleaner, cook, you name it, to work for a pittance they would soon tell you where to go.
In the end I decided not to complete the job. I have enough work to be doing without spending unnecessary amounts of time on something that doesn’t pay. The most annoying thing about the whole experience though is actually having to go back and say that you won’t complete the job after you have initially agreed to it. I wonder is there an easier way of going about this? If anyone has any suggestions please post them.
Until next time,
Amanda
ghost writing job, ghostwriting, sterling silver rings, sterling silvery jewelry
Comments
5 Responses to “Are Ghostwriters Easy Targets - Would You Write For Nothing?”
Leave a Reply
About Me
My name is Amanda Evans, the owner of Ghostwriting Uncovered. The aim of this blog is to provide additional help and advise to those who want to know how to become a ghostwriter.
Writing is my passion and I have been doing it all my life. I began freelancing in 2000 and have been working full time as a professional Ghostwriter for almost 2 years. My mission is to help as many people as I can to become successful ghostwriters and be able to quit their day jobs too.- Visit My Website
- Contact Me:
August 2nd, 2007 @ 2:43 am
Cool site, Amanda. I too, am a professional ghostwriter. My ghosting tends to be more geared toward writing novels, but you are OOOOHHHHHHH so right when it comes to clients wanting writers to work for nothing.
Of course, this is not true of all clients, but I have to say alot of people placing ads have no idea what it takes to construct well written material. I’m putting your site in my favorites. Check my site out sometime…
Taryn Simpson
http://www.Taryn-Simpson.blogspot.com
August 19th, 2007 @ 10:05 am
92JkcB Great work, webmaster, nice design!
free laptop
laptop
August 20th, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me!
.
http://canadaviagra.eusme.info/sitemap.xml
August 21st, 2007 @ 6:19 pm
n5VE3d Hello people, your site is best!
.
.
August 21st, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
2kLxSb Hello people, your site is best!
.
.