Potential writing clients: learn how to shop for the right writer and make your budget stretch.
Be realistic about your budget.
A writer isn’t necessarily going to ask for every penny in your budget; good writers only ask for what they’re worth. If you’ve got a low budget and advertise that, you’ll save time by narrowing down your field to people willing to work within your price range. The problem you’ll often find is that if you have an extremely low budget, you’ll get a low-budget writer.
Some good writers work for low-budget projects for many reasons; to build up a portfolio, to establish a client base or even to pay the mortgage if they’re having a slow month. However, many writers who are willing to work for extremely low budget projects (you know what I’m talking about: $4 for a 500-word article) are going to produce a low-budget product.
Think about it from a practical standpoint: if a writer wants to earn $20 per hour, and you’re only paying $4 per article, that writer has to complete 5 articles within an hour to meet the hourly rate. I don’t know many writers that can write 2,500 article-words in an hour (and if you do, please share your secrets with me!) but even if they can, you’re not getting the same quality from those 5 articles as you would from one 500-word article at $20.
On the other hand, if a writer has an hour to spend on a 500-word article, they’ve got time to revise it, make word choice changes, check it for grammar, and do detailed research to ensure all the facts are correct. Those 5 articles in an hour? You’re lucky if you even get complete sentences, and some ‘copy mills’ just copy-and-paste content from elsewhere on the Web. If that happens, you could be on the hook for copyright infringement.
Quality matters.
Be realistic about your budget. If you only have $100 to spend on a writer, consider asking for fewer pieces; your quality will increase exponentially.
Find a writer knowledgeable about your topic.
The less a writer knows about your topic, the more the writer has to learn before they can write about it. Most writers build-in time for research when they quote a project, but if they need more than a quick search to hunt down specific facts, that research cost goes up – sometimes significantly.
On the other hand, if the writer is an ‘expert’ in your field, the cost may go up; experts in niche fields are in higher demand, and can therefore charge more for their services. Expert knowledge also comes at the cost of time, so experts have gotten to that point by earning their fees in research and experience. Unless you need an expert level of knowledge to cover an esoteric topic in great detail, you’ll be best served to find someone who has good general knowledge about your topic and charges a reasonable price.
Formulate a clear idea of what you want before you go writer-hunting.
You don’t have to have a detailed outline of what you intend, and a writer with substantial experience can even help you improve upon your original plan. The idea here is to have a starting point so that you can intelligently communicate your needs to the writer.
Don’t just say: “I need five keyword articles.” Decide which keywords you want to use, and how they’ll help you promote your product or services. Many keyword trackers exist to help you find successful keywords.
Once you settle on the keywords or the subject of your article, go a step further: pick a direction. If you want a writer to write about Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, decide what angle you want to use for your focus. Tell the writer: “I want an article about how Chapter 7 Bankruptcy impacts foreclosure and debt repayment.” The more you can tell a writer about what you want, the more satisfied you’ll be with the end product – and the better it will meet your needs.
When possible, give a writer a sample of writing that you like, or that you want your work to resemble. Do a little research and see what your competitors are writing. If you like what you see, point it out to your writer, who can then take that writing style or format and create the quality content you want in the style that you like. If you don’t have an example for a writer and can’t communicate the style of writing that you need, you and the writer may churn out frustrating draft after frustrating draft, making you both unhappy and discouraged, and potentially raising your cost.
Communicate Clearly.
After you’ve nailed down your budget, determined what you want your writer to write and found a writer comfortable with your topic, communicate clearly. Clear communication is the key to a happy client-writer relationship. Both of you want to know what the other expects and whether they’re comfortable with the work – so ask! If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask your writer, and communicate your expectations clearly in return. If you “don’t want to tell the writer what to do” but then get a piece that makes you dissatisfied, you’re not getting the most for your buck. Most writers accept guidance happily to ensure they’re delivering content that meets their clients’ expectations.
Master these four tenets of hiring a writer, and you’ll get the most for your buck, every time.
