Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Hope this helps you:)
You do have a highly skilled editor on board to handle the copy and manage the writers, don't you?
venrooy> A reasonable price to pay someone for a review is what you would expect to receive yourself for the same piece of work.
Anything less makes you an exploitative hypocrite.
If you think this is wrong, go and work in print or web media for six months and then come back and see if your views about how much to pay for articles haven't changed.
If your site is a business or intending to be one then pay according to what you will be able to make back. For instance an info site with a low turnaround in articles that have longevity could afford to pay far more for an article than a news site running 500 stories per day. Your exmaple of a game review...I would bet you could get people to review games in return for advance copies of said games. Paying $100 for a game review it is going to be hard to make it back unless you are doing hundreds of thousands of users per day.
Personally I pay as little as I can to get the quality I need to get bums on seats. Whether that is using freelancers, volunteers (lots of people will review for exposure/slush), agencies or salaried staff. Think who am I trying to make money for...the writers or myself. If you can do both then great, if not then exploit people looking to make a mark...they are getting something out of it too...just not cash.
Also if you get the stage where you are running lots of articles/reviews each day then paying a salary is far cheaper than per article.
Oh and bear in mind writers sometimes come with a print pricing mindset...this does not work too well on the Web, unless you are doing very heavy traffic....imho.
A reasonable price to pay someone for a review is what you would expect to receive yourself for the same piece of work.
In which case you would never have incentive to hire anyone else to do it.
Anything less makes you an exploitative hypocrite.
No need for name calling.
If you think this is wrong, go and work in print or web media for six months and then come back and see if your views about how much to pay for articles haven't changed.
Yeah, you might find you've been overpaying. And you might certainly change your view about whether it is worthwhile to work in media for six months.
There are plenty of things in life that I pay for, yet would expect greater renumeration if I were doing the work myself.
Do you ever eat fast food? Ever go to a full serve gasbar? How bout child care? Do you buy anything made in countries with lax labour laws? (If you say "no" to that one, read a few labels the next time you shop. In some stores, it's hard to find items that aren't made in the third world)
Unless you live under a rock, I expect your house (and lifestyle) will be full of conveniences and items purchased at far less than you might demand if _you_ were providing the labour that created them.
In short, don't be so sanctimonious.
Merry Christmas Everyone.....
Remember, this is the AdSense Forum--not the Content, Writing and Copyright Forum. If the primary reason for buying content is to generate AdSense revenue, then "filler material" (to use my term) may be completely appropriate. For example, there's a large articles site (I've lost the URL) that consists of nothing but "filler material" (mostly articles of a few hundred words) on a plethora of topics. Its business model is based on breadth, not depth. The writers are paid very little, and the quality of the content isn't high--but so what, if the writers are happy and the business model works for the publisher?
Again, I think $75 for a 1,000-word article is low, but--as I suggested before--it may work for certain types of material. For that matter, it may even work for high-quality material in certain industries. In the travel field, for example, there are some experienced professionals who'll work for letters of assignment that they can use to get press trips. And in other fields, experts may write for nothing to further their careers or if they have something to sell.
The bottom line is that there's no simple answer to the question of "what is a good price to pay for content." It all depends on supply and demand, the purpose of the content, and the level of quality that's needed to meet audience expectations (remembering that the audience may include advertisers, PR people, critics, etc. as well as the site's target readers).
I pay them by paypal immediately, but after they send their article.
My team of "expert writers" consists of a group of preteens that go to school with my son. (a very expensive private school.)
When my son and his friends get together, all I hear them talk about are their video games. So I thought, hey this would be a great way to put that useless jabber to work and maybe earn them some college money. They are all very intelligent. I have seen them all write reports for school, and they all have literary skills beyond their age.
I mentioned that I may pay them up to $20 for a full page review, and they were chomping at the bit to do it. Does this sound like a fair price?
A reasonable price to pay someone for a review is what you would expect to receive yourself for the same piece of work.
In which case you would never have incentive to hire anyone else to do it.
That's patently not the case.
Two very good reasons to outsource are
1) you don't have the skills yourself
2) you don't have the time
A not very good reason to outsource is because you want to underpay someone.
Anything less makes you an exploitative hypocrite.
No need for name calling.
No name-calling intended. Apologies if it came across that way. But, when you have the skills yourself, paying a skilled worker less than you would expect to be paid is a) exploitative and b) hypocritical.
There are plenty of things in life that I pay for, yet would expect greater renumeration if I were doing the work myself.
Noted. But we are in this case talking about a skill that the OP as an independent publisher already has. Not something that they would need to train for (and have their training costs covered).
Ever go to a full serve gasbar?
A... what?
In short, don't be so sanctimonious.
Handbags at dawn, then.
There are lots of writers out there willing to work at a low rate to produce articles so don't pay too much if you don't have to.
The articles are history based so they wont change.
