Insane Expectations and Lies
Express Writers’ current job post at Indeed.com expresses the complete and unrealistic expectations of every content mill, as well as the lie about pay. $20 to $30 an hour? Not a chance.
Express points to this page as a great writing example:
https://smartblogger.com/best-about-us-pages/
That guide is well done, however, it is also 3,222 words and involved researching 29 separate web pages. This would be exhausting work under deadline, with the quickest writer finishing a well polished guide like that in no less than 13 hours. That’s at 500 words every two hours.
Mind you, it’s not so much the writing but the reading and research one must do before any writing comes together. You need to understand something before you can write about it. You also need to figure out the right SEO tweaks. All of that takes time. Still, the example article represents an assignment with a potential of $390 based on $30 an hour.
Express later shifts gears in their job description, however, moving from their initial salary listing of $20 to $30 an hour to $20 to $25 for each 500 words. “This is not a salary position.” At $25 for each 500 words, that pay rate drops to $162.50. You’re working for $12.50 an hour if you’re the quickest writer out there. And if Express doesn’t kick back the piece to you for revising. Which will be on your dime.
Realistically, I’d expect a writer to take at least two days or 16 hours to complete the example given. You’re now at $10.00 an hour. Quite a distance from $30.00. And totally consistent with the false expectations and the lie about pay from every content mill.
Of course, the content mills know exactly how long quality writing takes, they just don’t want to pay for it. You can expect $25 or so from these employers for a 500 to 750 word article. That’s it. That’s common. If they’re paying less, they should advertise on a Philippine job board and you should not participate in their low rent hustle. No professional American writer deserves Philippine wages. And to think, you need years of writing experience to get hired at Express. Get lost.
I come to this post with a hard background. As a writer, I produced many 750 word articles for Catalogs.com at a flat rate of $25 to $30. As an editor, I see our writers taking from two hours, exceedingly rare, to seven hours, also exceedingly rare, to complete a 650 to 1,000 word assignment.
If you want to dispute what I’ve written, tell me about your experience both as a writer and an editor. If you don’t have that experience, don’t tell me about how long it takes to complete online writing. You can stay in that alternate world the content mills occupy, with their insane expectations and lies.
