Is Elance Still a Good Choice For Freelance Writers?
I got my real start writing online professionally from Elance.
com.
Ten years ago, it was a great place to go to find jobs, bid on projects and meet up with great clients you can provide work for.
Today, I am starting to question whether or not it is still worth my time and the money I invest in membership fees and bids.
My biggest complaint by far about Elance is not with the system itself but with the people who use it now.
It seems it has become a community of people looking for jobs to be done at extremely low rates and a small group of people so desperate to get paid for their work and call themselves real writers that they're willing to do it, sometimes for nothing after Elance fees.
I can't tell you how many times I have been turned down for a job because someone less qualified is willing to do it for much less and I don't really mind that so much.
You get what you pay for and we all have to work our way up somehow.
I increased my rates over the years as my experience increased.
Sometimes I even have these very same people who turned me down, come back later because the person they hired wasn't actually able to do the job or do it properly.
What does bother me, however, are the people who invite me to projects or post projects where they demand 110% quality, someone experienced in the field and other specific expectations of how perfect this work should be and then have a ridiculously low budget.
1,000-word articles for $3 each are laughable.
Trust me, I am not a snobby writer and I'm not bringing in the big bucks yet but I have 4 kids to support and at those rates, I'd be making like 50 cents an hour- BEFORE expenses! Over the years, I've seen the numbers of these types of projects growing on Elance and now it seems to be the trend.
Perhaps some of these buyers really don't know any better and they just see the rates of other projects and think it's the "norm".
It's also troubling to spend my money on bids to have everyone decline them for someone who doesn't speak English as their first language to write their articles or content for an incredibly low rate or to have people try to haggle and manipulate me into taking reduced rates or even worse, to come to the end of my month and have bids left over (which don't carry over) because there just were not any projects worthy of bidding on.
I still have a few regulars who use Elance to start projects with me but other than that, I'm finding I shy away from it more and more.
In past years, I would highly promote it, especially to new writers but now I'm not so sure it's the right choice for freelance writers anymore, myself included.
Lisa Mason is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet.
She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content.
com.
Ten years ago, it was a great place to go to find jobs, bid on projects and meet up with great clients you can provide work for.
Today, I am starting to question whether or not it is still worth my time and the money I invest in membership fees and bids.
My biggest complaint by far about Elance is not with the system itself but with the people who use it now.
It seems it has become a community of people looking for jobs to be done at extremely low rates and a small group of people so desperate to get paid for their work and call themselves real writers that they're willing to do it, sometimes for nothing after Elance fees.
I can't tell you how many times I have been turned down for a job because someone less qualified is willing to do it for much less and I don't really mind that so much.
You get what you pay for and we all have to work our way up somehow.
I increased my rates over the years as my experience increased.
Sometimes I even have these very same people who turned me down, come back later because the person they hired wasn't actually able to do the job or do it properly.
What does bother me, however, are the people who invite me to projects or post projects where they demand 110% quality, someone experienced in the field and other specific expectations of how perfect this work should be and then have a ridiculously low budget.
1,000-word articles for $3 each are laughable.
Trust me, I am not a snobby writer and I'm not bringing in the big bucks yet but I have 4 kids to support and at those rates, I'd be making like 50 cents an hour- BEFORE expenses! Over the years, I've seen the numbers of these types of projects growing on Elance and now it seems to be the trend.
Perhaps some of these buyers really don't know any better and they just see the rates of other projects and think it's the "norm".
It's also troubling to spend my money on bids to have everyone decline them for someone who doesn't speak English as their first language to write their articles or content for an incredibly low rate or to have people try to haggle and manipulate me into taking reduced rates or even worse, to come to the end of my month and have bids left over (which don't carry over) because there just were not any projects worthy of bidding on.
I still have a few regulars who use Elance to start projects with me but other than that, I'm finding I shy away from it more and more.
In past years, I would highly promote it, especially to new writers but now I'm not so sure it's the right choice for freelance writers anymore, myself included.
Lisa Mason is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet.
She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content.
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