Content Mills For Beginners

There are many “experienced” writers online who would beat up on content mills. They would say that one should not work for content mills. They say content mill companies abuse their writers by paying them very little money for their work. There are those who defend them. These people say that they earn good money from them and gives them freedom.

So the debate between those who oppose and support content mills may never end. I have read many articles about content mills together with the corresponding remarks from the readers of such articles. One thing is evident from these remarks. No one is getting rich from writing from content mills and people leave them once they have established clients on their own.

These reader remarks from these articles posted by writers who have real world experience in writing for content mills are sufficient evidence that content mills are not the best source of income for writers.

If you think that I based my answer from purely online posts about articles about content mills I can assure you I have tried content mills on my own and although my experience is limited I can bet my experience is similar to beginner writers who tried content mills.

Some Experience With Content Mills

What is a “Content Mill” by the way? I found a description online for content mills: a slang freelance writers use to describe online companies that provide writing services which pay their writers very small amounts of money usually a few cents per word.

Most of the articles online about experiences writing for content mills seems to be about writers from first world countries. I have not seen an article about writer experiences from developing nations.

Why consider the point of view from the perspective of a writer from a developing nation? In case writers from first world nations are not aware there are now many content mills who accept writers from all over the world and not only purely native English speakers.

Many of the Jobs Posted Pay Little

Content mills mainly compete based on offering the lowest price per word to their clients. This means that they would try to save on cost as much as they can which includes their writer’s compensation. This means if a writer can display competency in writing and if they come cheap then they are hired.

For example I checked in one content mill the earnings of writers who hails from a developing nation. The writers earn approximately $10 for each writing job they complete which is one per day. Writing for this content mill is unreliable and you would be lucky to land a job.

$10 for a writer in a first world nation may not be something but for a writer in a developing nation this could be the equivalent of buying one’s meal needs for the day. I am not saying that this is a living wage but rather it is a good enough supplement for one in a developing nation.

The going rate seems to be 0.02 cents per word for these content mills but I have seen a few others who are paying 0.015, 0.01 and even lower. I just wonder who are the kinds of people who would accept such low rates.

Writers want to point a finger at other writers who accept such low rates. They particularly like to bash writers who come from developing nations. They say that writers from developing nations are driving the writers from first world nations out of the market.

English-centric Countries

But this is simply not true. There are content mills that accept only writers from certain countries like the UK, Australia and other first world nations. Of course there are many content mills who accept only American writers.

They practically eliminate good English writers from non-English speaking nations. I am an Australian myself based in an Asian nation and although I have given my Australian identification I was still not accepted because these content mills can detect if the writer is not from their preferred countries.

How do they know? Their online software detects the country of origin their online website is being accessed on. Besides these the applicant writer’s bank details for example are checked to see if the writer is from their preferred country.

So content mills can block non-native English speakers if they want. They can even block native English speakers if they are not currently located in the country that content mills preferred. In fact it is not only me. I have read stories online of Americans who write for these content mills who are now not able to write for them because they left America.

So be very careful. Do not believe all the stories you see online of nomad writers traveling the world writing in some beaches in exotic locations. If you are writing for a content mill check to see if they would block you if they found out you are not currently located in their preferred countries.

Are Writers From Developing Nations Really The Threat?

Now that writers from first world countries know that content mills can block writers from developing countries if they want to then writers from developing countries should not be a threat.

Except that there are many content mills that are using writers from all over the world to write English content for a predominantly English speaking audience. So the fault really is not with writers from developing countries but from the content mills themselves.

Is this because content mills can’t get enough native English writers? The answer is a resounding “No.” If you do a little research then you would know that the rate for content mill writing jobs are fairly standard.

This means that if a content mill accepts writers from all over the world then it does not matter If you come from a non-native English speaking country your rates would be similar to a native English speaking writer.

In fact there are native English writers who accept the supposedly low rates of 0.02 cents per word and even lower. Did the writers from developing nations drive down these such low rates?

Being an Australian I tried to get Australian writing jobs from Australian content mills and I can attest that it does not matter if I declared myself an Australian. They still offered the same low rates.

In fact there are even content mills that specifically favor writers from non-native English speaking countries. For example they would say in their ad that they preferred writers from the Philippines even though they are an American or Australian company.

I can definitely say that there are many highly educated people in the Philippines who speaks English as their second language and are very good at it. I have also met many immigrants in Australia from many countries who already speak very good English even before arriving in Australia.

This means that speaking English is not really a skill that many native English speakers can proudly say is a skill that could only be acquired from birth. English is also the predominant language online and as many people spend more time online their English skills improve.

From the Point of View of Content Mill Clients

This seems to be the developing opinion for some clients of content mills: They know that the writing style and content of the jobs they outsource from content mills will never be at par with their expectations.

They have learned to accept the fact that they would have to do some work on the jobs they outsourced to content mills. At the very least they would be evaluating if the completed job is adequate for their need.

At most they would get only the information or data from the job and do a rewrite of the article themselves. This is the reason these clients pay so low. They know that these content mill writers would not be able to deliver to them 100 percent of their desired outcome.

Of course there would be clients who think so low of the writing profession. To them it is a skill that anyone can do and therefore it should be a service that should be paid cheaply. It also does not help that content mills are battling it out to see who can offer the cheapest rates.

Clients also know that most writers on content mills are after easy money. They know that writers on content mills want to do jobs they can easily do for the least time. They know these writers are “mercenaries for hire” and do not really have the client’s needs in mind.

Advantages/Disadvantages of Content Mills

Content Mills have a bad reputation but is there anything good about them? Let us discuss some of them to prove if they are really good or not:

They Accept New Writers
This is true. Almost all the content mills that advertise state that they accept new writers with no previous writing background or portfolio. At most they would only require that you pass a writing test.

If you set out to directly apply for writing jobs to many companies almost all of them would require some sort of qualifications before they would even entertain your job application. These qualifications would usually be experience and formal writing education.

When I mean experience it would mean years of working experience. I normally see there would be job ads where the requirement from companies is that one should have at least one to three years working experience in writing and even more.

When I mean writing education it means a college level education related to writing like English Studies, Communications, Journalism and so on. I have even seen well paid writing jobs with a caveat that you must have at least a PhD to be able to apply for the job.

There are however companies that hire based on knowledge for a specific subject rather than experience and education. For example there are no college courses for such subjects as comics, entertainment or Hollywood. One usually only gets a considerable knowledge about these subjects by being immersed in them seriously.

There are companies who pay good money to new writers for such subjects even though they have only competent writing skills and do not have enough or no experience at all. One should practice patience if they intend to skip content mills and go after companies directly.

They Develop Your Writing Skills
There are writers for content mills that attest to the fact that the writing skills they had improved considerably because of writing for content mills. This is true. Just like anything in life experience is mostly the key.

But experience in writing can be had in many ways. You can for example read like a madman and in no time you would begin to improve because your mind analyzed the writing of what you are reading. For example if you are a non-native English person reading English books would definitely increase not only your English writing skills but as well as speaking.

Your writing skills have increased by writing for content mills but how do you prove it? Content mills do not attach writers to their work. Content mill writers do not own their work. It belongs to the client in perpetuity.

There are even content mills that specifically state in their contract that writers do not own their work but renounce all ownership of the work in favor of the clients. They are not even allowed to give hints that they are responsible for the said work.

A writer could have written thousands of articles on a content mill but they would not be able to divulge them to prospective direct clients due to the secrecy agreement they signed up for. Content mill writers do not get author credits for their works.

They Are Reliable Sources For Money
In many content mills that I applied there could be drought spells where there would be weeks and even months before a writing job would be available. In others there was too much competition from other writers that getting a writing job is very difficult.

There is no doubt that there are many writers who get reliable income from content mills but drought spells do happen. The strategy of many writers is to apply to as many content mills as possible to cast a wide net on all available writing jobs available.

This means that there is no stability in writing income as writers drift from one content mill to another with differing pay rates. Many writers also adapted these strategy so competition can be fierce. Writers must also spend time monitoring one content mill to another which is time better spent already writing.

There are also content mills that do not exist anymore or who have merged with another company. As a result there would be writers left in the cold where they have to adapt to the new conditions or begin from the start with the new company.

There are also content mills with unreliable policies and editorial staff. Complaints about these are abundant online. There would be policies for example where the payment structure is changed all of a sudden to the detriment of the writers.

There are also complaints of editors whose editing policies are confusing and inconsistent which affects the writer’s income.

Then there is ghosting. A slight writer mistake or a bad rating from a client can cause a writer to be completely dropped from the pool of writers of a content mill. This can happen all of a sudden with writers guessing why they are not getting job assignments anymore.

This is not to say that all content mills are all unreliable. There are writers who have written for years at one content mill and many for multiple content mills. Just bear in mind that content mills prioritize clients more than they prioritize writers. Clients are only a few but they pay while writers are many and they need to be paid.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that for many professional writers especially for those who write directly for companies content mills pay very little.

But there are many writers especially those who are inexperienced and do not have much professional credentials who earn money from it but not as much money as their professional counterparts who market their services directly to their own clients.

Are they reliable sources of income although they pay little? Just like any business there are feast and famine periods. Writers can get a deluge of work one week and then a dry spell the next week. They can also be unreliable in terms of company stability and policies. This is why writers who intend to work for them should cast a wide net and work with as many content mills as possible.