I have made a good living as a professional writer for 10 years. I have done this working for others and for myself, sometimes at the same time. I worked for free exactly once: when I wanted to break into white paper writing. I offered to write a white paper pro bono. It turned out well, the client was pleased (I got a box of Godiva chocolates) and from then on I charged good money to write more.

White papers, case studies, press releases, and trade journal articles were my bread and butter while I was freelancing. My rates were average for print business writing:

• $200 per press release page (not per release, per page)
• $500 for a 2-page case study
• $1 a word for a trade journal article from 800-2000 words
• $600 a page for white papers from 5-12 pages

I am NOT saying this to brag. My rates were decidedly middle-of-the-road.

But they will tell you why I am so appalled at the $3-per-article prices you find for online articles.
I understand why buyers want that. In this day of high quantity article writing, $3 per article keeps the costs in control. It doesn’t seem to matter much that the articles are spun, duplicated, or otherwise poorly written. Quantity is the name of the game. Quality goes begging. And so do writers’ rates.

Look. If you are using tools that let you produce numerous articles an hour to sell, O.K. As long as they’re decent quality and not copied, that’s fine with me. But if you are stuck with writing two or three articles an hour for $3-$5 per article, then it’s not O.K. Not when you can do so much better.

Let the cheapskates hire someone else’s desperation or tricks. You can get out there and make real money as a writer.