Writing for Content Mills: The Cons and the Pros
If you’re a freelance writer or is aspiring to be one, you’re probably considering working for a “Content Mill” or is already working for some or several ones.Content Mills or “Content Farms” are big business. There is a constant demand for fresh content online that is not likely to be exhausted anytime soon.
The demand is so great that content mill hiring standards are not so high: as long as you can write fluently in native English, you’ll likely be hired.
However, if you’re now considering writing for one, please take note that content mills usually pay a standard rate of only two cents per word, which means that earning a minimum wage writing for content mills is impossible if you’re living in a developed country.
But if you’re living in a developing country, 2 cents per word is a reasonable rate and is considered a minimum wage rate.
However, in my experience, since most content mills are based in the USA, they mostly hire native English speakers from English speaking countries only. This makes the content mill earning potential of writers from developing countries somewhat limited.
Here are the Pros and Cons of writing for content mills:
Table of Contents:
1. What are Content Mills?
2. The Problem with Content Mills
2.1 Mostly Low-Quality and Plagiarized Content2.2 Writers Mostly Earn Very Little for the Work They Do
2.3 No Career Progression for Writers
2.4 Writers are Mostly Just a Number for Content Mills
2.5 It Devalues Textual Content
2.6 You are Forced to Cheat on Your Writing
3. Are You Working for a Content Mill?
3.1 Very Low Pay3.2 Quantity Over Quality
3.3 Rushed Deadlines
3.4 Boring Writing Assignments
4. Are Content Mills Still Worth It?
4.1 It’s a good way to build up writing experience4.2 It’s a good way to build writing credentials
4.3 It could be quick money at times
4.4 Flexible Schedule
4.5 The Writing Training
5. AI has Arrived
Final Words
The Details:
1. What are Content Mills?
Content Mills are online content that sell textual content on a mass basis. These textual content are usually used by their clients for their online blogs or article contents.
Content Mills are also called “Content Farms” because they create textual content like a production line.
They usually have an army of low-paid writers who churn out high volumes of textual content of varying quality.
Content Mills usually act as middlemen between textual content buyers and writers whom they pay very low rates. This enables them to collect profit from the mostly low paying textual content buyers.
There are two kinds of Content Mills:
1.1 Individual Websites:
They publish tons of content from multiple writers and then sell them.
1.2 Writing Marketplaces:
They act as middlemen between textual content buyers and writers.
However, many content mills disguise themselves as legitimate freelance writing marketplaces. Also, whatever kind of content mill you happen to work for, you would largely work as a ghostwriter for someone else.
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2. The Problem with Content Mills
While the business model of content mills seems like a stroke of genius: offering cheap products to low paying buyers, the quality of textual content suffers.
Content Mills are known for churning out low quality and even plagiarized content which effects both the textual content buyers and the writers who write these textual content.
Since most writers for content mills are paid very low to produce a lot of textual content for a very limited time, most writers cut corners in terms of writing quality and even just blatantly copy the textual content of other writers.
Content mills have repeatedly cracked down on low quality and plagiarized content, but they pay so low that the cycle just repeats itself: low pay for low quality and even plagiarized content.
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2.1 Mostly Low-Quality and Plagiarized Content
While plagiarized content abounds online, they are especially apparent in online textual content produced by content mills.
This is because content mills offer such low prices to textual content buyers: usually at a standard rate of only two cents per word.
While this might be reasonable for writers in developing countries, these low rates are way, way below minimum wage for writers in developed countries.
The problem is: Content Mills want to attract native English speakers from English speaking countries, but won’t pay them decent rate to at least make minimum wage for writing for them.
As a result, there are writers from developed countries who outsource their writing jobs to writers from developing countries who are not experts in the English language of people from native English speaking countries.
This outsourcing further worsens the quality of the content which was not even good in the first place.
Since most writers for content mills don’t make minimum wage, they have a predisposition to create content in bulk just to earn more money, usually resorting to plagiarism which further worsens the quality of the textual content being produced in content mills.
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2.2 Writers Mostly Earn Very Little for the Work They Do
It has been said several times already that content mills pay their writers very low rates, especially for writers in developed countries who are paid way, way below minimum wage.
The standard pay rate for content mill writers is usually a standard rate of only two cents per word.
It has also been said that writers from developing countries are much better off with these standard rates, having the opportunity to earn at least their country’s minimum wage.
However, for the work done by writers, even most writers from developing countries, the pay rate doesn’t seem fair.
Imagine what you need to do to write an online blog or article: you have to do research, create a draft, spellcheck and grammar check, and make the final draft.
These are already a lot of work for such low pay, but you also need to consider that many writers don’t get paid until the rewrites requested by the textual content buyer have also been done.
Most writers can write between 2,000 to 3,000 words per day. This equates to about USD 40 to USD 60 if the writers get to have such a job writing these much words. Again, this is way, way below minimum wage.
We also have to consider that writers for content mills are freelancers, which means they don’t get benefits like sickness and vacation leaves, medical insurance, overtimes, and so on.
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2.3 No Career Progression for Writers
When you’re writing for content mills, you’re basically a ghostwriter writing for someone else. As a ghostwriter, you don’t get credit for your writings, it is the buyer of your writings who gets the credit and authorship.
If you want to be known as a writer, then you shouldn’t only write for content mills, but write for yourself. This way, you get credit for your writings.
Although content mills allow you to eventually increase your rate as you progress with them, you still would be just a slightly higher paid writer ghostwriting for someone else.
Although you might not be financially compensated producing textual content for yourself, it helps to grow your reputation as a writer, which could mean being paid a more decent amount by textual content buyers who might even grant you authorship rights or credits.
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2.4 Writers are Mostly Just a Number for Content Mills
Let’s face it, a writing job has such low barrier to entry that almost anyone can do it, even teenagers. As long as you can fluently write in the language a content mill requires you to, you would likely be hired by them.
But the bad fact is, since you’re just basically a number to content mills, they have no problems replacing you in an instant.
This is a lopsided relationship in favor of content mills. There are many reported cases online where writers have been maltreated by content mills, especially financially like withholding their pay or charging writers with excessive fees just to use their content mill platform.
This should be very apparent to writers even at the onset when content mills don’t even pay at least minimum wage to their writers.
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2.5 It Devalues Textual Content
With so many writers for content mills willing to write a lot of textual content for measly pay, it is no wonder that many textual content buyers have gotten spoiled.
There are even textual content buyers and providers who are demanding that you first write a series of free textual content for them before they would even consider paying you.
Also, with writer pay being mostly on a per word basis and not based on quantity, the industry model has moved from quality of writing content to quantity of writing content.
Writers who were once earning decent pay from their writing have now to contend with poorly paid writers who write a lot of content but with low quality. This forces them at times to also devalue their content.
It has become a race to the bottom where content mills have been offering cheaper and cheaper prices to textual content buyers for even lesser and lesser quality.
Although Google Search and other search engines have tried to tackle the problem by insisting on quality instead of quantity, the problem still largely persists with textual content buyers still thinking that the quantity of words is more important than the overall quality of a blog or article.
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2.6 You are Forced to Cheat on Your Writing
Since for the most part, writing for content mills is all about making a little bit of money only, many content mill writers don’t usually consider writing textual content of very high quality.
This is because of the low pay and limited time given to them by content mills.
And what do some/many writers for content mills do to write textual content with a lot of words for such a limited time? They usually copy or take inspiration from another writer’s textual content.
This is the reason why you would occasionally see online content which are nearly identical with each other, only varying by a certain degree from each other.
Although search engines like Google and even some of the content mills are cracking down on this practice, the practice is still rampant because of the sheer nature of the business practices used by many content mills.
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3. Are You Working for a Content Mill?
Content Mills abound online, and due to their reputation, many of them don’t want to be known as content mills. They can hide under such names as “Writing Services”, “Freelance Writing Jobs”, and so on.
But don’t be taken, there are several signs that you might be working for a content mill:
3.1 Very Low Pay:
The standard pay rates for writers on content mills are usually between two to four cents per word, with two cents being the usual norm.
While there are content mills who increase your writer’s pay the more you progress in their company, the increase in pay rate is usually very small, for the most part, you would still make way, way less than minimum wage.
3.2 Quantity Over Quality:
For the most part, you would be asked to write on a per word basis, with the price per word usually as little as two cents per word or even less.
Though content mills would push you to write very high quality textual content, for the most part, their fee basis and demand would be on a per word basis and not on a per article basis.
3.3 Rushed Deadlines:
Usually, content mills would demand that you finish writing your textual content fast. A writing turnover of just a few hours is not an uncommon demand among content mills.
3.4 Boring Writing Assignments:
If you want to write insightful and exciting online blogs and articles, then writing for content mills may not be for you.
You would usually have to write boring informational articles for content mills. Some topics can be: “How to invest in the stock market”, “Best cars to buy”, “Best screwdrivers”, “One dollar meals”, and so on.
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4. Are Content Mills Still Worth It?
Though content mills are not really a good way to earn a living by writing, they still have their uses:
4.1 It’s a good way to build up writing experience:
Although writing for content mills can seem like working for a sweatshop, its a good way to gain experience in the writing industry.
Many beginner writers usually start out writing for content mills just to get a good grasp of the writing industry and writing as a job.
Later, when they have gained experience in the writing industry, they either get better paying writing jobs and/or set out on their own writing business.
4.2 It’s a good way to build writing credentials:
Writing jobs are very competitive, even seasoned writers usually have difficulties landing writing jobs. If you are an amateur writer with hardly any credentials, you’ll find it especially hard to find writing jobs on your own.
This is where content mills come into play, they’ll likely take a chance on you when no other textual content buyers would.
Of course there’s a price to pay for being given a chance to write for content mills: very low pay and almost sweatshop like writing conditions.
4.3 It could be quick money at times:
Many content mills have a low payout threshold, some as low as USD 25.00 . This is especially very important if you are desperately in need of quick money, because for the most part, there is a constant demand for writers for content mills.
4.4 Flexible Schedule:
As you’re basically a freelancer when you write for content mills, they allow you to have a flexible schedule just as long as you meet their writing deadline.
You can also write as many textual content as you want, depending on how much you want to earn.
4.5 The Writing Training:
Since for the most part, content mills don’t pamper you but instead expose you to a rigorous work routine, you’ll become a very efficient writer in no time at all. You’ll learn to work under strict deadlines, learn to balance writing for profit versus writing passable content, and so on.
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5. AI has Arrived
Perhaps the current greatest threat to content mills is AI. The introduction of such AI softwares as ChatGPT have made writing textual content very easy.
There are now textual content buyers who instead of paying content mills to generate textual content for them, are instead using ChatGPT to create textual content for them.
Although critics of AI softwares such as ChatGPT like to comment that these softwares are not yet perfect and are even inaccurate, AI softwares are fast being upgraded to become better and more accurate.
There would definitely be a time when AI softwares would better the output produced by content mills.
When this happens, you can expect a lot of content mills to lose a lot of business or even close down permanently.
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Final Words
Writing for content mills is not a very good way to earn a living by writing. This is because content mills pay very low rates to their writers; way, way below minimum wage.
Writers for content mills also have a very rigorous work schedule, hardly any career progression, and are almost always forced to cheat in their writing.
But writing for content mills also have their advantages especially for new writers. For one, they’ll likely give you a chance to write while being paid when no other textual content buyers would.
It’s also a good way to build experience and credentials. It’s also quick money at times, you are given a flexible schedule, and the rigorous writing job trains you to be an efficient writer.
It is advised that you try to broaden your writing experience and market by both writing for content mills and writing for yourself.
Also, AI softwares have arrived that are already doing the job of some writers for content mills. Only time would tell if content mills and the writers writing for them would disappear.
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You Might Be Interested To Read This Article:
Writing for a Living: 11 Facts Learned From Years of Self Publishing
Writing is a good job if you land in a high paying writing position. Unfortunately, there are many writers who are not paid well and their working conditions are atrocious at best.
Also, many writers end up writing content for someone else and not what they want to write. This is why many want to be self published writers.
I have been a full time self published writer for more than two years and have been lucky enough to earn a little from it.
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