Elance Upgrade

I was a little shocked when I logged onto my account on Elance. For those of you that do not know what Elance.com is, it is a marketplace for buyers and freelancers to get together.

 

Buyers place jobs that freelancers bid and and then the buyer chooses the best candidate and the work begins. This is where I get at least half of my work from. Elance charges high fees for bidding credits and then they charge a fee when you get paid.

After a job is completed, the buyer (and freelancer) have the ability to leave feedback and a score. The average of the scores for the past six months, the number of jobs and even lifetime average used to be displayed with my name when I bid on jobs.

Now they have created a level system. It is too complicated to describe here, but it includes how quickly I am getting jobs done, my feedback scores, and so on.

One of the GREAT things is that they are now penalizing freelancers for low balling bids. This creates price erosion and I think it is a great addition. It helps the average freelancer to make a decent wage.

 

I have not mentioned coffee in awhile, but I just bought a new “kit” for my coffee press. it contains a stirrer (dog ate it, grrr), a glass beaker that is graduated, a cleaning spatula (dig out the grounds), and a four minute timer that attaches to the press. I cannot find it online, only in the stores. If you have a press it is a great kit.

This is the press I use. Click and buy one. They are durable and keep your coffee hot. They make about 4 regular sized cups of coffee at one time.

Not all Work is Worth It

As I look for freelance jobs, sometimes there are jobs that seem like they pay a lot, but when I read the fine print I find that there is much more to it.

 

A perfect example is a job that lists a fee range of $1200 for articles. That sounds like a nice pay day right?

Often these types of jobs will have you write 400 articles. Yes, I said 400. So now you are working for $3 per article. These must be 500 + words, with keywords, all original and all the rights go to the client. Now how lucrative does it seem? Always ask for details before agreeing to a job.

The other type of job that can be misleading are the jobs advertising for an eBook. The job says they will pay $1000 for it. There are two areas that I look at before agreeing to this type of job. If there are 30 pages, which is the average size of an eBook, then this is a great paying job. If however it is over 200 pages, then I will be doing a whole of of work for about $5 a page.

The second thing I look at are the terms of payment. If an eBook is to be drug out over 3 months, then I will be waiting a long time for a payment, which means that the client has no money and is planning on trying to sell the book, before paying me for it. Do not work this way. The likelihood of you ever getting paid is slim.

Look carefully at the jobs before you bid or accept them. It can save you time, which means more money in the bank.

 

Have an Inky day!

Find Other Work To Do

These past few weeks I am reminded why I need many skills to be able to continue as a freelance writer.

 

I am able to do a number of things in a pinch to continue the money flow when things slow down- and last month it was slow.

I use the skills I learn while doing my jobs. One of the greatest skills I learned was WEB 3.0- which essentially is using social media (blogs, Twitter and Facebook) as marketing tools. I have a number of clients that I increased their sales (and I got paid) by being able to upgrade what they had.

The other thing that I learned to do was set up accounts to sell books on Amazon and create Kindle books for sale on Amazon.

Everything I learn from creating articles and ebooks for clients I tuck away, because you never know when that information might pay the rent.

 

Have an inky day.