Adventures in Freelancing

As many of you know, Demand Studios recently reduced the rate they pay for their “User Suggested” titles. This was a huge blow to my personal economy. I love writing for Demand Studios. I enjoy the format, like the pay rate, and enjoyed developing my own titles.

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I understand the reasons for the change in their pricing policy, and I certainly don’t begrudge them their right to change pricing policies in order to maximize their profits. I get that. It does, however, make me think about what I want their role to be in my business.

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Since writers will now only receive $15 payments for the Demand Studios suggested titles, I will limit myself to writing only their suggested titles. I assume this is what they want. Unfortunately by sticking with their suggested titles I am forced to write about the following topics:

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1. Chinese Knife Fighting

2. Blacksmithing

3. Robot, automobile and backyard jet plane building

4. Post workout rectal bleeding

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I will still write for them, but luckily I have many back up gigs.  Bright Hub-which pays slightly less (but they pay page view and link bonuses)- is a gig that gives you popular search terms for subjects and asks you to develop your articles around them. This makes Bright Hub very flexible and fun to write for. I am approved for the Personal Finance, Small Business and Accounting & Business Finance channels- 3 subjects I know oodles about, so I’m pretty comfy there.

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Textbroker pays extremely well and offers a ton of different subjects to write about. When you are a level 5 writer with Textbroker, you get paid more per word than you do with  Demand Studios, which makes the Textbroker client suggested titles definitely more appealing.

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So, I guess my point is that I’ll be doing fewer Demand Studios articles.  Way fewer. 

If you look in the top left corner of my blog, under the blog title, you may notice my new tagline, “making newbie mistakes for you since 2008.” Can you guess what kind of week I’ve had?

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It’s funny, this whole freelancing thing. I know that I have skill, business acumen, ideas…potential. There are, however, many little nuances, and big…well…whatever the antonym for nuance is….things that I don’t know.

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I almost got declined at Bright Hub because I turned in a writing sample that did not pass copyscape. Okay, that’s a pretty big deal. The Editor of the channel I was applying for asked me why it didn’t pass and I explained that it was because I ghostwrote it for a client. She was fine with this and accepted me into the channel as well as two others. So, happy ending, but for Bowie’s sake was I embarrassed! 

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Can someone please learn me on what I can and can’t do with these clips? I need them as samples to show that I can write about certain topics…but what is the right way to show them, use them, prove that I didn’t copy them from someone else? 

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Oh, and for those checking back for the Amy Winehouse pics, please see my personal blog: Notamomma . They seemed to be more appropriate for that blog

As you may have guessed from the title, I’m not feeling very well today. Apparently the weed pollen count in our area is dangerously high, so I cannot leave the house without a face mask. Since I don’t want to look like I’m trying to bring back SARS chic, I have instead opted to stay indoors today.

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This month promises to be my most successful month yet as a freelancer, and I couldn’t be happier. I have earned over $250 in the first two weeks of the month and I’ve only devoted about 12 hours to writing. There are a few changes I have made that I think are making this difference. They are:

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1. I have changed my rates. I am really new to freelance writing, and have been charging very little to write while I try to gather me up some experienced. Now that I feel more confident, I have kept my rates for an initial article with a new client low, but have increased the rate for future articles. This gives me a chance to prove my worth to a new client and serves to justify my rates.

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2. I have been concentrating on my high paying clients. I can’t do the Associated Content $3 and $4 articles very often- it’s simply not worth it. I still try to write one article with them per week because I’m superstitious like that, but that is my limit. From what I have seen on Digital Point Forums and GetAFreelancer, the rates AC pay are actually not bad…but they’re not as good as what I get elsewhere.

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3. I am creating more content based on my own ideas. In the beginning, I was way too scared to try to come up with my own content. You tell me what you need and I’ll research it and write it. Now I realize that I have a wealth of useless knowledge and tacky ideas that I can work in to articles and get paid for. This decreases my writing time significantly because I already have the knowledge and don’t need to research anything.