Adventures in Freelancing

Today’s writer charges just $2.50 for up to 450 words, which is just over .005 per word. He promises perfect grammar and spelling. Here is his response to my ad and my response to him:

So, his strongest area is politics. He guarantees correct English, and no grammar- punctuation flaws. His bio states that he has a Bachelor’s with a major in political science and minor in English. Too good to be true for .005? Yes, of course. After looking at his bio, samples and posts on the board, I knew EXACTLY what I would get…….and I did get what I thought I would.

Huh? Honestly, there is a lot wrong here- but he is charging the right price for his work. This would take a lot of time to time to rework and make readable. It is not quality content, although he obviously is trying. I think in this case (not in all) the language barrier might be too much of a hurdle.

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I have another sample from a writer who was in the .01-.02 range, but I don’t think I need to post it. Although, he did put the word, “crotch” in it- which is awesome because I have been looking for a way to get crotch onto this blog. If I had known all it would take was a post about wrestlers, I would have written it ages ago.

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Anywho, I think that I have learned all that I need to from this inexpensive experiment. Content buyers (website owners, whatever) need to hush up if they are paying a low amount for a writer. Anything under .05 per word and they should consider themselves BLESSED if they get decent work. Those of you who write well (and I know some of the blogs I’ve read have made me feel threatened to be competing with you) and write for under .05 per word, your clients should be kissing your toes (that’ll be a google hit) because that shit ain’t right. Content buyers who say we need to lower our rates to be more competitive are either taking advantage of us or are extremely short-sighted.

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The other thing I learned? Stop undervaluing myself. Sometimes, I get scared. When another freelancer gets a job that I didn’t, or I feel like someone wrote a really great article that I couldn’t, or I get the feeling that another writer has more business that I do, or a buyer tells me no, my price is too high…I get scared. I start to think…what have I done? I can’t make this work. I’m going to leave my job and end up losing my home because I write like an idiot. I’m such a dumbass. What made me think I could do it? WHO DO I THINK I AM??? But the thing is, I have to do this. Period. Even if me is bad writerer, me has to take the chance. Just like Petri 1 and Petri 2, I am a Petri. They are out there, just like me. Maybe they don’t follow directions as well. Maybe they haven’t quite developed their voice. Maybe they lack finesse. But will they always? As they write and get feedback, they’ll improve. 

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Lastly, I think I learned quite a bit about honesty.  Neither of the authors I featured had an authentic voice in their pieces. It felt like they were trying too hard- which I totally get. Isn’t that what we all do when we are trying to please a client? But, how about if we let our real voice creep in a little? Can that set us apart from the pack? I’ve heard your voices, and I think it can.

Stop by tomorrow night for Petri Dish- Part 2!

So, here is the ad I posted on DPF (I’m not very patient, so these images are small and I just gave up. You might need to hold down your control key and move your mouse to make them larger):

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Response from today’s author:

Notice how Author1 did not follow directions and include links to samples? I know it’s nitpicky, but how many editors do you think would disregard our emails if we made the same mistake? I think a lot. So, I ask him for sample links and finally get them. I look at some of his posts around DPF, then look at his samples and I decide that he is an okay writer. He has glimmers of really-goodness, but he is not very direct, uses some words incorrectly and has some grammatical errors. For .03 per word, I think he is worth it. So, I give him a topic (which is: creating the perfect email to score any freelance writing gig), pay his paypal $6 for 200 words, and an hour later I get this:f

It’s almost exactly as I expected from looking at Author1’s samples. It is solidly written, if a little basic and slightly clumsy. There are a few things I would change or edit- but it would take, maybe 10 minutes to do so. It is also almost 2x as many words as I asked for. In all, totally worth the $6 I paid for it.

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Lessons learned so far?  It’s really annoying when writers don’t follow directions. I got the feeling Author1 really wanted work, but that he may be a little desperate and less than completely professional. His writing was fine, worth the price and really not expensive. I think the thing that I most get from this- and tell me if you see it too- is that it does not seem as though he is treating this like a business. More like he is a mill, a factory of words always ready to move on to the next gig. I’m going to take a look back at some of my older work and think about whether or not I came accross like that at one time or another. Chances are I’ll be spending the next hour cringing at my own faux pas…s.