Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
iWriter is a content writing service. It’s set up for two markets: those who wish to write content, and those who need content. iWriter works as the middle-man between the two.
I haven’t used a content writing service like this in years. I’d tried them years ago and just wasn’t impressed. The content was clearly 100% copied content which had just been ran through a word spinner 30 or 40 times by a non-English speaker. The result was some of the worst writing I’ve ever read. And this is coming from someone who reads Bleacher Report on a daily basis!
I’ve long since switched to in-house writers. However I had a big job coming up of about 500+ articles in the space of a couple of weeks, and my writers were busy. So I decided what the hell – time to give a content writing service a try again. I spoke to a few people and ended up going with iWriter.
To say this was a pleasant surprise would be an understatement.
How iWriter Works:
From a webmaster point of view, it’s a very easy process. If you want to see for yourself, register an account, log in and click “Get Content”.
Once you get they, you have to fill out a form stating the content you want. Some examples of what you need to fill in:
- Describe what the project is about.
- Choose the word length.
- Choose the language.
- Choose who to submit to – all writers, 4-5 star writers, or 4.6 to 5 star writers. This will affect the price.
- Choose the writing style – ie: friendly, professional etc.
- Write out the purpose of the article – what the aim of it is.
- Write down any special instructions.
That pretty much covers it. It’s about a 5 minute process, and then you send the job off to writers.
The writers then see the articles, and “claim” them. They then have a set time to write the article and submit it. You don’t have to pay unless you are happy with it. That’s what I like about this service.
You’ll get a notification that an article has been submitted. You can then review the article – which has already been ran through copyscape.
If you like the article? Great. You accept it, and pay the writer. If you think it is good but a bit rough, you can choose to “request a rewrite” and give notes as to how they can sort it out. If it’s utter crap, you simple reject it – and can choose not to allow that writer to see any of your requests again – then it goes back on the marketplace, and another writer will claim it.
It’s a very solid service, and is extremely favourable towards the webmaster. All the power is in your hands.
Who Writes The Content?
As I said to open this article – I was concerned about this being a waste of time. I was worried that all I would get is horrifically spun content and it’d set me back a week. However I was pleasantly surprised by the content I received. Some of it was absolutely fantastic – the point that I felt a bit crappy because I was clearly getting the better end of the deal.
I ended up speaking to a few writers privately and asking them about themselves. 2 of them were grad students who were looking for extra money during the Summer. 1 was a stay at home mom who did it to make some extra money, and would do writing while her newborn was napping. Another was a guy who had a boring office job and so he did it during office time.
That’s not to say they are all winners. I got some absolutely horrendous content too by people who clearly don’t know a lick of English. I’ll get into that a bit more later. But it really opened my eyes to the people who are writing on these sites, and made me a lot more accepting.
My Experiences with iWriter
In the past couple of months, I’ve had about 500+ articles written at iWriter. The majority of it has been non-gambling content. It’s been in a variety of different fields including multimedia, novels, landlording, technology and general blog content.
I’ve learned a few tricks during that time that I’d like to share:
- You get what you pay for. Not always the case – but if you aim for cheap articles, you usually WILL get the horrible spun content that is barely readable. Going for $3 500 word articles will result in crap the majority of the time.
- You don’t have to overpay. If you are doing a bulk order, test it out. For example – I can request an article to the “Basic” writers – a 1000 word article will cost $7.50. Or I can send it to the “Premium” writers – a 1000 word article will cost $10.50. I can also send it to the “Elite” writers – and it will cost $18.50.
My partner wanted to go straight to the $10.50 crowd. But as I had a huge bulk order to place I sent 2 requests to Basic, 2 requests to Premium, and 2 requests to Elite. Guess what? They were all of great quality. I sent all 6 to 5 different people and asked them to pick out the 2 basic ones – no-one could.
So I learned a lesson from that. When it comes to 1000 word articles, it keeps a lot of the crappy writers away. And for that particular topic, I didn’t have to spend more than was necessary. If you have a large amount of content, do some testing first.
- Know Your Writers: One great thing about iWriter is that if someone writes an article that you like – you can add them to a “favoured” list. Then when you next submit content, you can request it go to those people first. This is a great method and I recommend it – but take it one step further. Talk to the writer privately. Once you personalize yourself to them, you’ll see them write better and take even more interest in the articles they write.
- The “Please Rewrite” Trick: This is something that one of my friends does and it can be quite valuable. For the majority of articles he receives, he’ll request a rewrite. By doing that, it’s suggesting to the writer that he WILL use their content if they just touch it up better. He won’t even READ the original submitted piece. But as the writer knows they are almost guaranteed the money, they will put in that extra effort and turn a good article into a great article.
- Think of the Long-Term: Don’t just use iWriter as a content writing service – think of it as an interview process. You can hire these people if they do a good job. And remember these guys are writing articles – 1000 words for $6.45(their share) – if they are consistently producing good content for you, then just bloody hire them! Pay them a bit extra and they’ll be over the moon, and now you’ve got yourself a solid content writer.
What’s good is you don’t even need to hire them full-time; tell them they can still write for iWriter as well as you. But if you are paying them even a couple of bucks more, you’ll get priority, and get quality content for a hell of a price.
iWriter and Gambling Content
Obviously most people reading this are gambling affiliate managers, and will be wondering how it is for gambling content.
So far for me – eh.
I’ve tried a few articles and I haven’t been overly impressed. At least, not compared to the non-gambling content that I’ve had written. This is one where I think if you are going for gambling content – it needs to be more “filler” type content.
For example – I’d NEVER suggest they write a review of an online sportsbook. However asking them to write a preview, from a sports betting perspective, of how the Miami Heat will do in 2014/2015 would work well. I’d never ask them to break down a Roulette game and talk about it’s features; but I would trust them to write an article on Roulette odds or the different types of roulette bets.
Basically – straight-up, generally filler content that enhances your website but falls outside the “money” content category – that’s what I would go for when it comes to gambling.
And of course – keep an eye on the writers. If you get a good one – contact them. You might just find that Texas Holdem fanatic or online slots player who is making a few extra bucks, and can end up delivering you a lot of good content over the long term.
Even When It’s Bad, It’s Good
I’d say my success rate for articles so far on iWriter is about 95%. As in, 95% of the articles I’ve requested have been perfect, and I’ve accepted them with no changes needed.
Then there’s the other 5%. Horribly spun content, the works. Some of the shit you get is seriously amazing. But it’s actually AMUSING. Some of the phrases people use are unreal. If you are writing a professional article on eviction notices for example, you probably shouldn’t compare eviction notices to “a snowball in hell”.
I was worried when signing up I would have to sift through a lot of crap – but it’s actually enjoyable. You can tell within the first paragraph whether or not it’s going to be crap – and then you can sit back and enjoy the horrible writing and get a good laugh out of it.
My personal favourite – oh man, this one was gold.
I was requesting biographies on book characters. My instructions were clear. I wanted a biography of the book character “Dave Robicheaux”.
Robicheaux is the main character in a book series by James Lee Burke.
I asked for a 1000 word biography on him, and I provided clear notes as to how to structure the article.
I instead received a 1000 word biography on Alec Baldwin.
What’s great is it STARTED OFF talking about Robicheaux. Then the writer decided to stop, smoke a few eight balls, and get back to writing. About Alec freaking Baldwin. Here’s a screenshot:
Fantastic. What I like too is the little tricks the writer does to add extra words; instead of 1886 he writes “eighteen eighty six”. I also love the fact that Alec Baldwin apparently debuted OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
I like to think that that writer is just a huge Alec Baldwin fan, and attempts to make any article he can about Baldwin. “Oh you want an article on Roulette Odds? Here they are as defined by Alec Baldwin…”
iWriter Review: Summary
My main inspiration for writing this article is that from speaking to a lot of fellow webmasters, they would not go near a content writing service. They had the same prejudices I did when it came to websites like iWriter and Textbroker.
However after trying iWriter out – I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner. No offense to my in-house writers – but with a site like iWriter, I’m able to get a ton of basic content written just as good, if not better, for 50-60% less in price.
If you’re looking to get content written, I highly recommend giving iWriter a go.
This article was written on June 25, 2013 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
