Finding Freelance Writing Jobs in Forums: Good Idea?
Many new freelance writers feel that the best way to land new clients is through forums such as Digital Point. The question is: is this a good idea, or are you more or less wasting your time? The answer to this question depends on who you are, the stage of your career, and what type of gigs you are chasing.
Through my experience, the majority of jobs in forums are not worth chasing. Most of the buyers are only offering a few bucks per article, if that. To go along with this, you should not expect to find many clients outside of webmasters scouting for talent in forums. In other words, magazine editors usually don’t post online to find freelance writers.
Are there any good jobs available through these boards? Yes, there are. But as noted above, they are usually few and far between. If you have some time, any it only takes a few minutes, you may want to scour the most popular boards once per day to see if there are any jobs worth applying for. You never know what you are going to find.
Also, don’t forget that a lot of “scam artists†hang out in these forums. They are in the business of doing whatever they can to scam others, and in turn make more money on their own. In many cases this means taking unsuspecting freelance writers for a ride. They will request a batch of articles, tell you that you will be paid upon completion, and then disappear once you give them the finished product. If you are going to accept work you find in forums be sure to ask for at least 50 percent payment upfront. And if you really want to cover yourself you should request payment in full.
While you can find freelance writing jobs in forums you should not get so caught up in this method that you don’t look elsewhere. Remember, you need to have a solid marketing plan that gives you the chance to find new work in a variety of areas. You may want to add forums to your marketing plan; just make sure they don’t dominate your time.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Chris,
What resources do you recommend for finding work?
January 29th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Deborah – Check out the link I provided to a past post on marketing: http://www.chrisblogging.com/market-your-freelance-writing-services/. It touches on the many ways to find work including forums, cold calls, cold emails, query letters, etc.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I have to say that there is a lot of truth in that article. In November I got on Digital Point and pushed it pretty hard for a couple weeks. End result was $600 worth of articles (and that is lots at a penny a word… lol) and $460 worth of payment. So yes I took a bit of a bath on the payments. But I also got some good practice.
I would love to hear if anyone has had good results with the old standbys like writers digest resources. They claim to have new listing for the online world, but I havent paid the fees to check them out.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I’m always reluctant to categorically state that I won’t use a particular method to look for work. If I don’t have enough work to fill my day, you can bet that I’m scouring every website I know about for a good opportunity.
That said, I know that I’ve had less luck with forums than other sources. I’m more than willing to consider a well-paying gig off of a forum site — but I’ve tried to minimize the actual time I spend looking through forums. (I’ve managed to get RSS feeds for all of them so that I can quickly scan through any updates without having to go through a whole list of websites.)
January 29th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Wayne – Glad to hear that this post hits home with your career. That being said, it is nice that you have found some work through forums. Hopefully you will get paid soon enough.
Thursday – If you can find high paying jobs through this method you should definitely continue to do so! You never want to pass up a good opportunity.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
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