Need a Writer? Dont Use Freelancer Sites.

I have had really great luck with my outsourcing, the people I have working for me are great at a really affordable price too. Glad you hear you are having good luck with CL.

I think it depends a lot on how you post your job postings and if your ad is written like you know exactly what's involved and how much effort it's going to take it will be easier to get better prices - just a thought

I guess it's just the luck of the draw sometimes

Also once you have a great outsourcer what you should do ask him or her if they know anyone that can do "xyz" work. I have found some of the best workers this way. Your connections will get you everywhere

I just think that when hiring a WRITER, its good to find someone who is not churning out tons of content. You get a more home-grown organic feeling from having someone from CL do it.

But I guess there are cons with CL too. On the outsourcing sites, people could be a bit more serious, perhaps.

I suggest to hire a company instead. Freelancers do not have employers, most of the time, you can't contact them for various reasons and they just do as they please.

I found a phenomenal writer for a great price and have been using her for years, found her on Get A Freelancer (GAF).

I'd have to disagree with your premise because there are lousy business people everywhere you look. Craigslist is no exception.

I've been a service provider on RentACoder for almost 6 years. I'm rated #2 out of over 280,000 service providers there and have 1600 or so article, content and copywriting projects completed. I never outsourced a one of them.

Put away that wide brush you're using to paint freelance sites and just focus on the fact that you had a bad experience. What would your post have read if your bad experience had come from Craigslist instead?

It might have been "You know what? Screw Craigslist."

Freelancer sites give us opportunity. You can't just say that all freelancer sites and all freelancers are bad people, just because you have bad experience.

It's just opportunity to find what you need for less price!

Victor.

Hi all,
If anyone needs writing work. I would like to ask you guys to give me a chance of proving my quality work. This writing work is not only money making business for me but also my passion. So, I know what is required for anyone to grow his business by article marketing. I have a team of quite good professional writers.

Thanks,
Ed

I agree to an extent, there are a lot of people out their selling their services who're not all that serious about their work...but then again, there's also an equal number of people who're serious about their work but don't advertise as much simply because their work speaks for itself...

Well I agree and disaree. You get good and crap writers on both. CL can take a while to find someone who is good, as can outsourcing on the WF, Elance and others.

What works for me is being as specific as possible about what you want done. From article titles to sites or articles that you like. Really it is a bit of a trial and error affair.

Let's face it, the criticism is against people who were not raised reading and writing in English. I know a few people who are well educated article writers in India and elsewere, but they usually just don't have the capacity for writing content that is read by people raised in Europe and America.

Of course, there is always the exception that proves the rule. I think the cheapest and best way is to write the damn stuff ourselves, as painful as that may be.

I prefer freelance sites because I can choose writers based on the bids they submit plus on the feedback they've received from past customers. On Craigslist you only have their word for it that they are competent to do the job.

I agree. Guru.com gave me a hard time...

Yeah I've found hiring somebody locally works better as well, freelance websites are FULL of people simply outsourcing the work you give them, which just causes a back-log of problems IF something goes wrong, causing very slow communication. I personally suggest you find a writer and stick to them, after a while you start to build a contact list of people for just about anything, at a affordable rate.

You could always just hire me

The reality is that hiring someone via the internet is going to be a crapshoot from both sides of the..crapshooting field.

You are taking a chance on the writer hoping he/she is going to be worth the price you are paying and won't simply give you 500 words of "Dis site iz gud. I rlly <3 it! Go there u totly needz dat produck."

The writer is taking a chance on you, hoping that you aren't going to turn into one of those clients who sounds nice at first and then goes "whaddya mean you won't write 1000 articles for me for $50 by tomorrow? You said you were good at what you do!" It happens more often than not these days, sadly.

The best way to make sure that you've hired someone worthy is to do what others have suggested: start with something small as a test assignment and build up the workload slowly over time. This is something I suggest with every new client I take on, whether they want 2 articles, 20 articles or an entire marketing package. I'm usually wary of someone who wants to go whole hog right away.

Well, 50 and 50 I agree.
You gotta make sure that the freelance site that you are looking at has a good reputation.
On the other hand Craigslist has a lot of garbage in it, you gotta get ahold of the person or company before making any deals with them!

Making connections and finding talent through word of mouth is the best way. However, good writers that are also inexpensive also tend to be very, very busy, and ultimately unreliable - not necessarily because of a character flaw, but simply because they are snowed under by too much work. Paying a little more for a quality writer and developing a long term relationship with them will ultimately be more lucrative and less stressful over time.

It can sometimes be difficult finding a good provider where ever you go.

The key is to develop working relationships with the good ones, regardless of where you find them. Then, keep in touch with them, even when you don't have work for them.

Then, should they switch to a different freelance site or just go completely independent, marketing through their own site, you'll still be in touch with them so you can continue to work with them.

As a freelance writer, I think you have to look at both sides of the coin. Many of those freelance sites have fierce competition. Writers will do work for very low pay, especially in other countries. It's hard to have a good writer stick around when people are only paying $1 for an article. That's really low, especially for someone that actually does research before writing. I don't know many US providers who could live off of $2 - $4 an hour... I use oDesk, but I have to really hunt for offers because everyone wants a bargain. You do get what you pay for. I've had to rewrite content made by other people that was just terrible, and I did it for $5... For an hour of your time would you want to be paid that low???

Just my thoughts....

I have hired students from local college before

Find a better person thats a good writer from forums like WF, work with that person for all your writing needs. I guess thats best way, instead of looking for some newbies everytime and get screwed..

HTH

Here's a trustworthy observation...

Some topics are perennial favourites and never die
It's one of the things I love about the Warrior Forum

I've had good and bad results with Elance for articles. I'd never outsource blog writing cos it's too personal ...

I'll agree that freelancing sites are not that useful anymore. Search for the professional content writers, approach them directly, that would cost a bit more but you can get a quality stuff.

First of all you shouldn't be generalizing like this. Not all people on freelance sites do that.

Well, craigslist has some disadvantages too. If you hire someone local to do the work for you then you have to pay them in US Dollar or GB Pounds or whatever. This won't be cheap like the most freelancers on the freelance sites.

I know you can hire people from Philippines and other countries from craigslist but those guys can easily scam you (like they did to me). On freelance sites you can give a negative feedback or report the person to the freelance sites if he stole your money or didn't do the work but on craigslist if he's gone, there's nothing you can do about it other than starting a claim with paypal.

Could not agree more. Finding somebody local is nearly like a quality guarantee.

Actually it is depends on the writers, can't say freelancer site is bad if you get screw from just 1 writer.

I hire a writer for my press release in "warrior for hire section" a few days ago, and get the press release back with the first sentence as shown below:

"Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Date - This is the golden era for the home buyers in Malaysia because the real estate Malaysia has Property Malaysia for luxury living."

Should i say "Screw the warrior forum?" haha...

I believe it depends upon the right choices. Even if you have searched on Craigslist and then you failed to show your specifications, agreements, etc. you still won't get any longer to find for the right staff to write for you.

What's important is whatever freelance site you're in, you should always be specific on your needs. I have experienced both ups and downs with outsourcing and I realized it's not about them but it's also about my search - I haven't been so careful and thus, I paid but didn't receive the results that I need.

Here's my blog post to help you with your decisions:

How To Find A Virtual Assistant That’s Right For Your Internet Business? : Internet Business Podcasts | Internet Business Profit Resources | Weekly Business Expert Podcasts

I hope this helps.