I just got an e-mail from this guy in the UK about an hour ago. He needs articles written. Specifically, 1,000 word articles.
He tells me that he has 4 writers in the US currently writing for him at the rate of 7.50 GBP per article, and can I match that rate?
So I’m looking at this and thinking… “wait, there must be some other meaning for GBP… because he can’t possibly mean British Pound, could he? Because that translates to about 12 bucks and change. And a professional 1,000 word article is like… prettymuch a half day’s work at minimum for any writer. Probably a full day for many, also”.
But of course, he did mean British Pounds and not “Gobs of Beer and Pretzels” or some other form of trade I might be interested in (those brits can certainly make some excellent beer!)
Anyway, I wrote back with a polite note saying essentially “not even close”, although I really wanted to say “are you @#$%ing kidding me??” But the professional in me says to keep it clean and instead complain right here.
But my point of this post really isn’t to complain about the guy… what puzzles me is there are writers out there who will actually work for this (I’m probably stretching this that these are real writers working for this rate. They are probably cut and paste hacks…)
But let’s assume they are writers…. listen, that rate isn’t even worth “well, I’m getting experience”. Because you aren’t. What you’re getting is friggen exploited for some moron’s SEO purposes. Wake up, chumly – there’s plenty of good paying work out there – don’t give guys like this the satisfaction of exploiting you.
Anyway, there’s my “need a good night’s sleep and won’t get it until the construction guys finish” rant for the week. House looks great – probably another week to go.
“Professional” is in my eyes the most subjective word in the English language. I’ve started to tell people that my rates (in addition to covering skill and equipment) allow me to have a decent life. If they don’t respond to that, I figure there’s nothing I can say.
Are you sure that was per article? That seems so weird.