“Looking to hire a writer for long term projects at Rs. 0.10 per word.”

While scrolling down the Facebook feed, I found a disgusting post from a recruiter in a content writers group.

Much to my shock, there were 100s of “Interested” comments. Few writers had mentioned their mail IDs too. Not sure, how many of them must have directly landed into the recruiter’s inbox.

This group was a plethora of similar posts where the prospective clients wanted “high quality, SEO optimised and grammatically correct” articles in peanut amounts.

1000s of writers had liked and commented on the posts to show their interest in the projects. I could sense a fierce competition among these creators to grab the projects at any cost!

Should we blame clients for degrading the value of the writers?

When you talk to a probable client for the first time, they usually ask, “What do you charge per word?”

Once you quote a price, you’ll get to hear, “Oh, that’s too expensive. My friend’s sister is charging half the amount. A girl on FB is even ready to do it for a sandwich.”

Can you criticise the clients for undervaluing the worth of the writers? No, because they can find the writers even at these prices too.

The clients don’t understand that quality content comes with a hefty price tag. Since they are worried about the cash outflow, they prefer to work with a writer who charges the least.

Irony! Even the experienced and skilled writers are ready to write content at 10, 20, 30 paise per word. 

When will the writers learn to value their own writing?

For the clients to correctly value the worth of a writer, the writers will have to value and respect their writing as well as the time spent.

Content requires concentration, extensive research and surplus creativity. A writer has to devote a substantial amount of time in writing an error-free, non-plagiarised, informative, engaging content that could benefit the client.

It isn’t easy – it consumes the mental and physical energy most of the times.

Hence, the writers should respect their skill-set and charge a price that compensates the amount of efforts put into creating a piece of content.

Should a writer charge industry average rate?

The content writing industry is highly unorganised, and the prices fluctuate substantially. Hence, instead of charging the average industry rate, you should fix your own prices based on the time required, frequency of content and scope of work.

Since this industry isn’t dependent on the experience; the writers should increase their prices based on the knowledge and skill set. Higher and most effective the skills, more could the cost of creating content.

In a nutshell, whatever the writers charge from the client should be worth the time spent in creating content.

If the content is the king, the content writers are kingmakers.