Content generation vs. prose

Sunday morning, and I'm in the middle of cooking our breakfast. The week went by good. I had a decent freelance project last week, and I have a full week's-worth of work lined up for next week as well.

Today, I'm finalizing the last revision on a short story for an editor, and getting it sent back in. After that, I have a couple of articles to work on for tomorrow's deadline, and I am in the planning phase for a short story that I'm working on next week. Sadly, chapter work will have to wait, as this sequel request takes priority. Paid work vs. spec work, and all that :)

This week I have a good project 450 dollar project from my UK client that should keep me busy for a few days, and I'm hoping to get some Demand Studios time in as well (I love Demand Studios for a fast turnaround. They always pay within 5-7 days of your content getting approved; I just haven't had the time to dedicate to working with them in the past few weeks).

I made a post a couple of days ago on one of the community forums I browse as to whether or not content generation is "real" writing.

It's a paycheck. I like to think of it as Sir Laurence Olivier thought about the movie industry. He loathed movies, because he felt they lacked the depth of character that the stage traditionally held. But he was willing to do the movies because the paychecks were in movies, not in theatre. I feel the same way. Content generation is for the most part bland, boring, and is basically just doing re-writes. I'd say 60% of what I do is re-writes, 30% is original content, and 10% is SEO work (I may have mentioned these numbers before; I lose track of personal blog posts and community blog posts sometimes). The re-write projects are typically no-brainer work, but it has a healthy paycheck attached. I've loved the original content I've been able to do, as it's always been the most fun, but I value paycheck more than I do the "fun" factor of an article. I've been averaging 25 dollars an hour now for quite some time (if I throw in 1 Demand Studios article per day), and I just recently started using Dragon NaturallySpeaking a couple of weeks ago, and as I've trained it, it has roughly the same accuracy rating as my typing. My numbers are going up as well, and the product claims that when you have it trained, and you learn all the nuances, your work productivity will go to 3x or 4x what you could type.

So far, I'm impressed. And it saves my wrists. Over the end of the week I was comfortably using the program and was completing 450 word re-write articles in about 7-10 minutes...let's say 10 minutes max, with editing included. I get paid 6 dollars per for 500 word articles, so at the current rate, I can do 5-6 of those in an hour...which is up from my 2-3 previously, which means I've DOUBLED my productivity using this text-to-speech program. I will also argue vehemently with anyone who claims that you can't write quality content in 10 minutes. This is re-write materiel, folks. It's not rocket science, it's not breath-taking prose, it's not poetry...it's generic, re-write content that doesn't have to be pretty. In any case, I've gone from making 20ish bucks an hour on these, to being able to do 30+ dollars an hour with fairly reliable ease, and I haven't even finished learning the program. I'm chuckling right now at all those arrogant writers who claim you can't make money working for less than 30 dollars per 500 word article, and that anyone who takes less than an hour to write one is a hack.

I'm doing this for the paycheck. I write short stories for the art-form of writing. I'll finish my novel (hopefully) around Christmas, and depending on how much I get for an advance, (probably 3-5k, but if I'm lucky.....), I'll likely continue doing the freelance content part-time for the next 2 years or so while I work on establishing myself as a full time author. I don't plan on transitioning instantly; I don't believe in blind luck. In the meantime, I'm making a healthy 1500-2k a month working a few hours a day, and I'm only in my first 18 months as a freelance writer. Statistics show that I should be able to double that wage in the next 2 years, but with the global climate as it is...we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime...it might be dirty and inglorious at times, and I might prefer fiction work, but the fiction work isn't paying the bills right now. And until it does, I'll be sticking to the content generation and random original pieces to pay the bills and keep us going.