Do PLR Writers Suck?

Few days ago, I happened to stumble upon a post at the Warrior Forum – the poster was *asking* a question whether PLR writers as a whole suck or not. The poster herself is a PLR writer and if you haven't already guessed it, the question was asked in humor :) Her post was prompted by a blog reader who posted a comment on her blog that he doesn't like PLR writers and that he considers them cheap laborers. Anyway, I just thought I'd ramble my opinion here (well, what else is this blog for, anyway?), and at the end of the article, you will find the keys to unravel the mystery. ;)

A little about the poster, Courtney- I know her for some time, have seen her writings and I really think she is one of the best writers around. She sells PLR, as well as does ghostwriting. IMO selling PLR stuff doesn't make her any lesser writer. You may already know that even top writers like Tiffany Dow and Bev Clement sell PLR stuff; does that make them cheap laborers? When it comes to ghostwriting, they command top dollars. Personally, I think that PLR writing and ghostwriting are completely two different jobs requiring different levels of commitment from the writer. But in both cases you need to deliver good content! Anyway here is my 'short', humble opinion on PLR writing, and how easily you can make a living from it –

PLR writing can be used both as a short term as well as a long term living. In one of my previous posts, I recommended this profession to my NuttieViralizer subscribers. The fact remains that if you are a starving writer with little income, you should really consider selling private label rights to articles, ebooks, videos or graphics as WSOs. It is of course a short term income, but looking beyond that, you are also making a good reputation for yourself in the forum, as well as building a list of customers whom you can blast a WSO offer whenever you want!

Remember that while at first you will face some skeptics who might post negative comments on your WSO thread, you will soon find out that you will have a loyal fan following, provided of course that you deliver quality content. That is because most people don't deliver quality. Now how can you also convert this into a long term income?

If you have a strong hold over a niche – I mean if you know a lot about a particular niche (yep, even the internet marketing niche would do), you can start off a membership site where you deliver articles and reports related to that particular niche each and every month. Your past customers will obviously jump on this offer. I recommend pricing this membership at no more than $9.95 to $12.95 at the start; you can always increase it later. 

After that, your only commitment would be to deliver a certain number of articles and reports as promised to your members, and you get paid month after month, forever. Want to know someone who follows this exact business model? Well, you can take a look at my friend Nathan's website. His IM PLR membership is one which I'll never cancel, not only because of the quality of materials he delivers each month, but also because of tons of bonuses he puts up. His site is PlrProductsParadise and this is the only internet marketing plr membership site I recommend to you.

Find Something That Works For You: Just make sure that you don't try to write on niches that you know nothing about! And don't try to outsource this stuff, unless you are outsourcing it to the Warriors, which means you'd have to spend a small fortune on it. And if you are a good writer, why not write all the materials yourself and pocket all of the profits? To maximize your income, you can of course start an affiliate program, but if your aim is to keep this membership exclusive, then an open affiliate program may not be a good option for you. In that case, you can secretly form a joint partnership or JV with a few of your close friends and ask them to promote your membership site to their lists. Make sure you give them a complementary lifetime membership to your site to make it really worthwhile for them, not to speak of the commissions. ;)

Another thing I should tell you is that you should not try to build a membership site unless you have made a strong rep for yourself in the Warrior forum and also built a moderate-sized customers' list. The last thing you want is to create a large membership site, put up all the content and then wonder why the hell you're not getting any customers! :D

Don't Write Crap, Ever! I know it is tough advice, but try not to write poor quality materials for your members. If you do, I can guarantee that it'll boomerang on you. You don't need to be perfect; no one is perfect, but try to deliver the best to your members. If you are a good writer then it shouldn’t be a problem. I write in broken English because English is not my first language; this doesn't however mean that I write crap! :) One another thing that you should bear in mind is never to write about the same old thing again and again. I have found this particularly with internet marketing plr articles; most of the plr articles I purchased from firesales as well as membership sites talked about the same old generic stuff the same old way. I used to wonder whether they stole the articles from each other ;)

Whether it is internet marketing or niche PLR articles, too many times I see that the content from PLR memberships is either old information or bad information. Either way it can harm your reputation. Just a few days back I cancelled my subscription to a niche plr membership site because I realized that while its content was not bad, it was not supplying me *THE* content that I needed; still, I had to pay them a certain amount of money each and very month which looked like a complete waste of money to me.

You should always be dynamic. Continue to learn new things about your niche, and write about them. And let me repeat: don't write about the same old basic stuff that everyone else is writing; it won't take you anywhere. People say that internet marketing PLR is dead; I disagree. As long as you offer quality nothing can be dead. The fact that Nathan makes a living from his IM PLR membership is proof enough of that. Stop thinking that you are writing PLR material; instead think that you are writing content from your customers.

I don't know how far I am correct, but I think that there can be two reasons behind the commenter's blanket statements aganst plr writers. 1. Either he has found something that works great for him (in his case, it is freelancing) and so doesn't bother to know about the PLR market because he doesn't need to! He seems to think that any writer who doesn't freelance like him has to be the one without any sense of integrity. 2. Or it can be that he has joined a lot of PLR memberships, and frustrated with the poor quality of content there, thinks that PLR writers cannot do anything better; they cannot be called writers because they sell low quality content for cheap (hence, cheap labor).

I can tell you that there are hundreds of people who think the same way, and it is quite hard to make them believe that there are writers who deliver quality as well, but like I said, if you can deliver quality information over and over again, customers will be beating a path to your door to get hold of it! It has been like this since the time business and commerce started, and this principle not only applies to online businesses, but also to the brick-and-mortar stores. If I receive rotten eggs from my local store, I will make sure that I don't purchase anything from that store again!

Yes yes, I know you want the keys. And now the time has come to tell you about the posts that spurred this week's newsletter. So here is the link to the writer's blog where you can read the comment, and here is the link to the Warrior Forum Post

Best of luck to you and if you have any questions or comments feel free to post them here.