Overheard: “Why should I pay someone $50 or more an hour to write something when I see ads for discount copywriters all over the internet for as low as $2 an hour?”

Answer: You get what you pay for.

Let’s start by looking at the ads themselves. Imagine that you are a painter and you want to advertise your services. You would pick your very, very best work – you might even create something specifically for the advertisements. After all, this is an example of the type of work you will do for your customers. Your craftsmanship and attention to detail will show in your advertisement, as it should. Above all else, you want to show what you are worth.

Now, imagine that you are placing an ad for your services as a writer or an editor. Shouldn’t that ad be the very best piece of writing you have ever done? Of course! You would take the time to make that ad absolutely perfect. And, yet, here are some examples of the ‘discount’ editors currently advertising on the internet (the names have been blurred to protect the guilty).

If their advertisements are riddled with grammar and spelling errors, just imagine what the rest of their work looks like. I’ll say it again – you get what you pay for.

Let’s go one step further and look at the types of writers you find on the big, discount sites. The very first one that came up – notice the 5 stars – is the best the site has to offer? {shudder} Need I say more?

One last consideration: At $2 an hour, what is the incentive to meet your deadline? What are the guarantees that any research is accurate or the work is original? Wouldn’t you rather pay $100 for two hours and receive well-crafted, ready-to-post or printable work than pay for 10-40 hours and get…well, what you see above?