I think the reason why we Filipinos are accepting low-paying jobs in freelance writing is because 1USD equals 42 pesos in Philippine money

my employer in odesk pays me 5 dollars per hour (4 hours daily) and that’s enough to cover for my daily expenses.

thank you for writing this post.

cheers!
sterndal´s last [type] ..Brave but not stupid

I really can’t add much to this discussion; I just wanted to thank you, Deb. Thank you for playing fair and for respecting your fellow writers’ choices.

Deb can you help me getting some freelance writing jobs?

Regards
Jayanti
919437919257

I was going to e-mail you some numbers today but for the life of me I could not seem to find any of your contact info on your blog (maybe I’m blinded by too much coffee this morning). In any case, if you read this, maybe you could pop over to my blog and drop me a line (my e-mail is in the profile section) or point me to where yours is on your blog =P I swear…I spent like 15 minutes but couldn’t find any contact info!

But you know what? As much as I hated them, and tried my best not to shop there…when we started feeling the pinch in 2007 prior to our move to Europe my wife and I started shopping for groceries there. Why? Let’s take, for example, a box of Cheerios at Safeway. 5-6 USD for a box of cereal. We could get the generic Wal Mart brand for 2-3 dollars. Half the price.

Now, not everything they sold was half the price of Safeway/Albertsons/any other chain grocery store, but the thing of it was…most of it was dramatically cheaper. We would go to Safeway and buy groceries and spent 100 dollars in a run for 3 bags of groceries. We could go to Wal Mart and get 5-6 bags of groceries for the same price.

So, regardless if you want to buy American Made or not, when your pocket book is feeling the pinch, you do what all the companies do to survive…you do whatever is necessary to make it through, even if that means using foreign above local/American.

We should talk sometime. I have my email listed on my blog- would post it here but the way Google spiders FWJ and with the junk going on, I don’t want to post it here where I can’t track who visited.

You are welcome to copy and post it if you like, Julie! I’m honestly relieved that we were finally able to find something in common That statement was actually a paraphrased version of something that I’ve been working on as part of my website network I’m launching in November. Feel free to reference back here or to my blog, either or.

Here’s another way to look at it, as well.

Person A works for a content site. He makes 20 dollars an hour. He writes 5 hours a day, and makes 100 dollars. He doesn’t have to spend any time browsing for leads, because he gets projects given to him. He is a sub-contractor; a freelancer.

Person B spends 3 hours a day browsing for leads. He finds 2 jobs per day, which he charges 50 dollars apiece for, and then spends an hour apiece writing them. He makes 100 dollars. He is a sub-contractor; a freelancer.

At the end of the day, they both made 100 dollars and both spent 5 hours doing the work. They both did it by writing. They both act as freelancers. There is zero difference between the two. Content writer or not, you are still writing as a freelancer, and you are still getting a paycheck for being a writer.

I have a really hard time grasping why so-called “freelancers” sneer down their noses at people who work for content sites. I see a lot of talk thrown around about how they aren’t credible places to work, how they should only be used as a backup plan for “advanced” writers, how they should only be used by “new” writers, how they are low-paying, or otherwise and…I just don’t see it. Especially when the paychecks are the same in the end.

Honestly. I’d love to see a survey with serious numbers when it comes down to it, but the people I know and associate with all make around the same amount of money I do. Some of them do it through residuals at place like eHow, some do it through word-of-mouth clients, some of them do it through content sites, others do it by journalism, and two of them freelance as WordPress website people…and they all make between 50-60k a year. There’s zero difference (in the people I know and associate with) between the guys working content sites and the ones working strictly for a variety of clients. We all end up making the same (roughly) paychecks. (this is based upon a dozen or so people I know of personally).

I just think it’s extremely uneducated for people to go running around bad-mouthing content sites and content writers (in general) when A) they don’t know what they are really talking about because they haven’t got all their facts straight and B) it’s none of their business in the first place.

This should be posted on every blog as a special guest post. Heck, T.W., can I copy this comment and post it on mine- with full credit, of course?

Depends on the person, the content site, and the content itself. To say that all content sites are evil, demeaning, low-paying, or otherwise is not only naive, but extremely short-sited. Until you know all the details behind something you cannot realistically comment on whether or not it is good or bad, because you lack the information necessary to make such a judgment call.

I think it’s extremely uneducated for people to call content writing a job. Writing *is* a job. Period. Regardless of the genre, the clients, or if you are freelancing for various clients or freelancing for a content site doing work-for-hire. It’s all work, and it all pays.

I completely disagree that content writers and content sites are perpetuating low-paying systems and poor quality of writing. I think it’s a case-by-case basis. Yes, some sites are notoriously low paying and yes, some sites do allow exceptionally poor quality work get pushed through simply to pad someone’s website with a lot of SEO wordage, but it’s not my place to comment on. If someone wants to do that work, good for them. Just like if someone wants to clean the sewers, or be a janitor, or be the guy who scrapes dead animals off the road, or the person who works at Wal Mart as a cashier, or the person flips burgers at McDonalds or the guy who flies the airplanes I ride in or the guy who drives the taxis I ride around in or the people who run the ISP I use or the people who make plasma TVs or….

You get the picture. Bottom line is, if it’s not directly related to you…it’s none of your business. If someone from the Philippines wants to work for a content site and get paid what is (to me) a scoffable wage, that’s entirely their prerogative. I’m not going to judge them, nor am I going to judge the site that’s letting them work for so cheap. It doesn’t affect me. It’s none of my concern. I make a living working for a different type of client, and I get paid an entirely different wage that is entirely up to me to determine.

Freelance writers need to pay less attention to what everyone else is doing and focus more on what is good for them and their own business. I certainly don’t make any money by going around telling other people how to think, what rates are/aren’t acceptable, and whether or not a certain company is worth working for. I keep my eyes peeled, I work hard, I love what I do, and I connect with people who want exactly what I can provide.

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is whether or not you have money in the bank and food on the table for your family with a roof over their heads. Not whether or not so-and-so is making such-and-such or anything else.

I applaud your reasoned approach. Seeing both sides can never have a downside. Even if one is firmly wedded to one side of the debate, knowing how the other side thinks can only improve our ability to rationally advance our viewpoint.

So much of what complicates the debate is the emotion. It’s intensely personal because writing itself is personal. We’re talking about our babies here, not widgets. Few can remain dispassionate when talking about their children. It makes us defensive, whether we intend it or not. That’s why your call for positivity is so necessary. It’s not only more pleasant and civil, it’s more effective. Few are persuaded to an opinion by insults.

I read somewhere that DS was looking to open up a UK version of e-how but that it was not a set deal and may not happen till the beginning of next year. As far as you know, is that true?

Since NAFTA, it’s become much cheaper for companies to purchase this wire or cable from China. The companies lost tons of business to China because they cannot compete without drastically reducing salaries and they insist on making sure their employees get a decent wage. As a result, they laid off half their workforce and everyone took pay cuts (including the management) to stay afloat. Doesn’t make it right for the workers who lost their jobs, but it happens so it’s one of those things they have to live with.

Knowing this is going on with thousands of companies all over the U.S., how many have changed their purchasing habits? Do you buy American made cars over foreign cars? Do you stick to clothes, foods, stereos, televisions,etc. made solely in the U.S.? Odds are high that you buy the most affordable for your budget, leaving you the most money in your bank account at the end of the month.

We’ve all been raised to buy within our budgets and I think this carries through to all corners of our lives, including content sites that want to make a profit by paying as little as possible.

Actually Demand is working on ways to accept writers outside of the U.S. Look for good things soon.

Maybe instead of getting all worked up about the content providers (who are only responding to the market’s demands), the people who should be targeted for nasty comments – I mean a thoughtful discussion about the impact of their actions on the writing community – are the ones buying the content.

Just a thought.