Re: Writing Articles

Andrea,

Do you really need to be paid "up front?" I think that will severely limit the number of places that you can look for work.

Steve

All of these places, they will not pay you an upfront fee. You will need to write the article first and then you will get paid after you submitted it to the person who paid for it.

....She said on a daily basis.

I'm not sure any of those pay on a daily basis.

Also, for the love of God, avoid Odesk like the plague unless you don't competing with foreigners for $2/3/hourly rates. The number of clients on there willing to pay even $1/100 Words is pretty much the same as Digital Point.

I've been reading threads on there Wanting To Buy section recently and the majority of them want writers that produce "quality" for $1/500 words.

In the long run, the way to do that (and to be much better paid, overall) is to write to order for private clients.

But that means treating it like a business, because that's what it needs to be. It also means having your own professional website to promote your services (even if it's only a 2-page blog), having samples and testimonials, and all the things your competitors are doing.

Textbroker always has work. You give them a short sample when you sign up, they rate it two, three or four stars. Then you are able to write articles up to the corresponding level. For example, they rate you a three, so you can take a two star or three star job. If they rate you a four, you can take a two or three or four star job. The first week or so you are limited to five articles until they evaluate them. After that, you can take as many as you like.

Yes, lots of people make a good living at it. Like others here said, you need to get private clients eventually plus sign up at the better paying content mills to ensure steady work that pays a decent amount. Starting at textbroker is a great beginning to get a feel for keywords and what the clients want.

Good luck!
Mary

Hi Andrea,

They have lots of jobs. I've never seen them out of jobs. You need to sign up and actually work with them to find out if you like them. It costs nothing, it's an easy sign up process.

Nobody is giving you a guarantee in writing. Based on others experience, as you can see in this thread, there is work out there for you at the content mills. Just take a chance and sign up. What do you have to lose?

Cheers,
Mary

Put up a post offering to write a few articles for a testimonial. Put the testimonials in a WSO which you will pay for here at the warrior forum...state your price and I think you will find people who will get you to write for them.

I did just what I told you and was able to get people to write for right here on the forum.

Just make sure that you have your pay pal ready.

Part of being a freelance writer is knowing that there are no "guarantees." That being said, your financial goal is not that high. You should be able to meet it without a problem.

If you are not sure about how well you write, then offer a few trial articles for review on WF and you will find out very fast. I was not on Elance very long before finding steady work and after advertising on WF I found some great clients.

If you decide to pursue freelance writing, check out Tiffany Dow's ghostwriting course. Lots of useful info.

Good luck!

That's a practical, kind gesture!

Mary

Andrea,

I understand if you're in a hard place and you're looking for quick payment, but you actually have a pretty good grasp on the English language and your writing seems to be well structured on here.

I would highly consider building your own website to advertise your services and letting your clients come to you, because you'll get higher quality clientele, more pay and more experience writing about content that takes effort rather than just mindless cheap content that can be churned out in 10 minutes an article.

I'm currently still working on editing my site/details and what's going to go in it before I launch it when I have time but if you want to make decent money writing, whether it be content creation or Copywriting, you definitely want to have your own website.

Can you make money without one? I'm sure there are people who do just fine without one but it sure helps with credibility and gives people a professional source to go to when they need one. Plus, you can get organic traffic from an attached blog which could bring in even more clients.

I used to be someone who sold myself cheap and I hate to see others do it. It's not fun and you'll lose part of your sanity every day dealing with some of the clientele that you have to deal with.

I've never used Yahoo's platform for payment but I imagine they have some strict guidelines on the content submitted just because of the name it's going under. Trust me though, your English and your sentence structure is far better than about 90% of the people who contact employers looking for content creation or copywriting work.

Best of luck to you,

Corey