Advice on how much to charge for some writing

[translatorwriter]

I have been offered some work writing articles for an American dating website and have been asked what I charge. This would be my first "real" writing job although I am currently making a living as a freelance translator so I do write professionally in this capacity.

The articles would be between 400 and 500 words on a given topic and I'd have 3 days to do each one although I may be given a few at a time. The person who I'm in touch with says that he is really just looking for a rehash of an article that he will provide me with on each occasion (I'm guessing if you need to write a new article on online dating every day ad infinitum there comes a point when you stop looking for new angles!) and has suggested it will be pretty straightforward.

So does anyone have any idea what a ballpark figure for this kind of work would be or where I might find this out quickly? I will be earning less than what I can make as a translator but I would like to add another string to my bow.

How long will each article take to write,then you can apply a reasonable hourly rate?

I don't really know, to be honest Seashell. I'm guessing 1-3 hours but until I've done one I can't be sure. What would be a typical hourly rate for this type of thing?

A friend who does some writing work suggested 10p a word but this seems quite high. It's a higher than I would charge for translation and translation is harder and I presume can be done by a smaller pool of people.

Ok so lets assume 10p per word, which gives you £40/50. This would work out at £13ph worst case scenario or £50 oh best case scenario.

Do you want to take this on for less than £13?

If you are happy at this rate level, Start at £65 to give yourself room to discount if you need to or if it becomes a long term gig.

SEO content writing pays around £15 for 400 words if that's any help

I'm getting all sorts of conflicting information from my friends in real life. One has said they employ a writer to do case studies and pay him/her just under £200 for 500 to 800 words. The content is a little more complicated but it's still higher than I thought it would be.

I'd have thought SEO would pay more, Hopping, especially as it may be a little more complicated than what I've been asked to do.

Seashell, I'm not sure if I do want to take it on for less than £13 an article but at the same time it's good experience and something for my CV. Dithering now!

have a look at these rates Which I actually think are ridiculously cheap, but they will give you an idea of what other people are charging.

10p a word is not high by the way and good - really, really good - copywriting is just as skilled a job as translation.

I didn't mean to imply that the more challenging jobs require less skill but what I've been asked to do does sound relatively straight forward. Thanks very much for the link though Lonny!

If this is journalism then look at the NUJ rates. Bottom line is around 15p a word for small publications (I know yours is online.)

You need to wise-up on the costs of being self-employed: your income covers not only your work, but has to cover tax, NI, use of your home as an office ( assuming), advertising your services via a website or blog ( hosting costs etc) and so on.

Here

NUJ rates

I'm a freelance copywriter and typically would charge around £25 an hour for general copywriting or more for more high level strategic work. Be sure to allow some time for amends when you quote though.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the advice. I quoted him the US equivalent of £50 and came back to me and said they usually only pay $15 (£9) dollars an article. He said they only take about 20 minutes to do and it's really just rewriting an existing article so it can be reused and won't be flagged up as duplicate content. I said I'd do 3 at that rate to see if they really took 20 minutes and so far they're taking a lot longer. So I may just call it a day after the last one's done and move on with some paid writing experience to put on my CV. He said he like my work and would consider a raise but it would have to be quite a substantial one I think!

I usually pay us copywriters between $20 to $30 for around 500 words. I give them a choice of two topics/ideas to cover, and they do the angle, the research, and the actual write up. This is technology based, and require a certain amount of knowledge.