How to Become a Writer – Article Writing and Avoiding the Article Mills

Learning how to become a writer is a steep learning curve, and finding that first gig is a tough preposition. Many sign up to freelance writing sites, such as oDesk, or make a few tentative steps onto the article submission sites. These are good first steps, and article writing is a great way to build up confidence; even a few dollars shows that you must be doing something right, doesn’t it?

In my usual obtuse way, I will say that the answer to that question is both yes and no. If you manage to find work with a private client, even if it is for a few dollars, you have taken the first steps on the road to becoming a professional freelance writer editor. With practice and experience, you will develop your use of language, build a reputation and, whilst it is not an easy process, you will get there.

Sadly, many potential freelance writer editors fall into the wrong sort of article writing, and end up in the clutches of the notorious, nefarious article mills. I worked for one, for a while, but managed to dig an escape tunnel.

Article mills, as the name suggests, are ‘writing’ houses that concentrate upon pumping out generic content, cheaply. A few keywords and a little research, and you can pump out a decent quantity of articles, every day. You can spot article mills by the fact that they proclaim that they pay $2 - $5 per article, as if they are doing you a favor, and only give your work a cursory glance, as it is meant to play the system and fool the search engines rather than be read by humans.

At first, the article mills seem like a great deal, especially when you earn your first wage from writing and live off the PayPal buzz. Even $2 an article is more than you had before and, if you churn out enough content every day, you might just scrape together enough money to eat and pay the bills. If all you are after is a little pocket money or some extra cash for the holiday fund, then good luck to you – that is not a problem and I wish you well.

For the rest, there are many reasons why the article mills are not the best place to start writing, lest you risk being stuck in a rut. Online freelance writer editors need to listen to the marketers; when people like Sunforged and Mark Knowles point out that the search engines are starting to punish people pumping out generic content, then it is clear that the article mills are on their way out.

Writing for article mills, or concentrating upon the article submission sites teaches you nothing about the complexities of writing. If you are concentrating upon churning out content as quickly as possible, you learn nothing about the complexity of language or how to shape words.

Writing swiftly is not always a bad thing; when I write commercial Hubs, for example, I tend to reuse and recycle stock phrases, word structures, and certain formats, amending them slightly to give the content a semblance of originality. However, this changes when I write for clients, and I spend a lot of time writing individual work, personalized to suit the client’s needs and a target audience.

The other downside to using article mills is that to become a professional freelance writer editor, you will have to create a niche, and churning out light content will not help you one bit. If you concentrate on gathering private clients for artlce writing gigs, you will find yourself falling into certain styles and genres, and build a good reputation as an expert.

The single most important reason for avoiding the article mills is motivation. Writers work long hours; that is what we do, but most would not change it for the world. However, if you end up article writing, day after day, with little respite, you soon become demoralized and, freelance writing becomes just another job. If you are serious about learning to write and becoming a fully-fledged professional freelance writer editor, you have to be in love with your vocation or you will fall by the wayside. 

As a learning freelance writer editor, constructive criticism and feedback is your friend; you may strike up a relationship with an editor who gives you advice and suggests improvements. With no editor, you will find it difficult to improve your craft and cultivate your innate talent. Content mills and article submission sites, with a few exceptions, provide little in the way of editorial feedback and, if you keep on making the same mistakes, over and over again, you will struggle to make any headway in a competitive field.

Content mills place the emphasis on light, quickly written content and, if they insist upon spun articles, you miss out on learning the skills that a writer needs. Researching an article for a client requires more than a quick read of Wikipedia: You have to learn everything about the client’s business and their target market.

If you write articles on a subject about which you know little, you have to learn, very quickly, and pick up a knowledge of the topic that is both deep and broad. You need to spend time researching the market, because this will dictate the style and tone of the article, and determine the complexity of the language you use.

As an example, one day I may be writing an article aimed at postgraduates, the next I may be writing one about science experiments for kids, and have to change my language to suit. A freelance writer editor must have the chameleon like ability to adapt to the audience. In addition, if you want to find a niche as a journalist, academic writer, or technical writer, you need to hone your research skills and know how and where to look for specialist information. You will not learn that from plagiarizing online encyclopaedia content or from spinning articles.

Content mills, with any luck, are on their way out, as search engines look at ways of filtering out the spun crap and finding quality articles. If this happens, it will be a case of last-man standing and those without the skills and ability to attract clients and write engagingly will sink.

Something is going to give, soon – the saturation of the internet with homogenous content does not help anybody, writers, readers or, more importantly, advertisers Peter Hoggan is a marketer with the same view about this subject, and I look forward to the time when the bottom feeders move on to the next fad.

If you write for article mills, other professional freelance writer editors will hate you, which may seem harsh but has some justification. Freelancers working for article mills are the sole reason why clients seem to think that a highly paid professional only deserves $5 an hour. Because people are willing to write for this type of money, it creates a vicious cycle – whilst cheap clients take some of the blame, they have been encouraged by desperate writers keen to get started.

I would not mind if the low wage culture remained there, but there is an illusion that writing is a homogenous global market and, when I receive e-mails asking if I will write highly specialized content for 2 cents a word, I become very pissed off, very quickly.

The other problem with this is that you risk damaging your reputation; if an internet-savvy client asks you about your experience and who you worked for, they will run a mile if you start giving them examples from article mills.

As I mentioned, I did a period in the article mills and, whilst it is easy to say 'don’t do it,' and try to maintain an air of intellectual snobbery, that does not always match reality. Sometimes, with bills to pay and no other assignments, you have to do something to earn a little money. If that is the case, go for it, but try to protect yourself and look towards the future.

• Carry on seeking out private clients to build up your portfolio and references. Even devoting a little time for pro-bono work for charities can help bulk out your resume.
• Seek to improve on your journey towards becoming a pro-freelance writer editor. This means seeking out criticism from people who pull no punches and will not worry about bruising your writer’s ego.
• Learn how to market – signing up for Hubpages, and following Sunforged, Mark Knowles, Ryan Kett and ThisisOli, will teach you a lot about marketing. When you finally have the confidence to build your own site, you will know enough about marketing to get ahead against tough competition.
• Read, read, and read some more. Look at what the leading writers on Hubpages and elsewhere are doing, and pick apart their writing style to see what makes them different, and explore why they charge high rates. If you combine this with developing a good niche, then you have set yourself up nicely for escaping the content mills.
• Set yourself goals, about where you want to be in six months or a year. If, in two years time, you are still working for the article mills and writing for cents per word, then perhaps becoming a pro-writer is not for you.

Learning how to write is an ongoing process and becoming a professional freelance writer editor is a constant quest for self-improvement. Avoiding the article mills and the more unscrupulous of the article submission sites is a big step, especially if you can find private clients.

Freelance Writer Editor

If you want to find out more information about how to become a writer and avoid the article mills, please check out my personal website and blog at: Freelance Writer Editor.

Good Luck!

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