I have made several posts in the past regarding GetAFreelancer, how to win jobs, and other miscellaneous details concerning this service. But even then, some freelance writers feel that this site is not worth their time. In other words, they think that all the jobs are low paying, or that they will be outbid by others. While this is true to some extent, it is not the case across the board.
A few months back I won a project on GetAFreelancer to complete a batch of 10 articles. Even though the pay was only $150 or so, the entire job only took a few hours to complete so everything worked out in the end. But instead of looking at this as a one shot job, I continued to follow up with the client every other week or so. The result: two weeks ago they asked me to write 20 press releases for them. Better yet, they did not want them to be any more than 150 to 200 words, so they were actually quite simple.
For the entire job we agreed on a price of $1,000 or $50 per press release. This may not sound like a lot, but the project only took 10 days to complete. I wrote two press releases a day for ten days. In most cases, each one only took about 30 minutes to write thanks to a lot of good direction and information from the client. As you can see, that works out to $100/hour.
Every job on GetAFreelancer is not going to suit your needs. But in the case outlined above, one small job led to a quick $1,000 a few months later. Keep in mind that bidding on and winning one job may turn out to be way more than that.Â
Wouldn’t it be nice to make it through the workday without having an unsuspecting problem arise? Even though I do not work in an office, as a freelance writer there are common glitches that I deal with time and time again. And of course, it always seems as if these problems come about when I am bogged down with tons of work.
Here are three common glitches that have gotten in my way more than once during my freelance writing career.
1. The ever popular internet access glitch. When it comes down to it, if I do not have access to the internet I cannot get a lot of work done. Even though my internet service provider is very good as far as uptime is concerned, there are times when I cannot gain access. When this happens, my entire day gets set back until the internet “comes back on.†Even though I use the best connection available, this is still bound to happen at least a couple times a year. And guess what? Every time I lose access I get just as frustrated as the time before.
2. Working at home as a freelance writer has its benefits. But at the same time, when you are always at home you have to deal with problems as they come up. For me, this includes everything from dealing with the cable man to dogsitting from time to time. As you can imagine, these unexpected occurrences can throw a wrench into your routine.
3. As every freelance writer knows, writer’s block can happen from time to time. I am lucky enough to avoid this for the most part, but some freelance writers have no such luck. All in all, this can be the biggest freelance writing glitch of them all. When you have nothing to say as a writer, you are pretty much useless for the time being.
There you have it! These are definitely three scenarios that I could do without in the future.
One of the main goals of this blog is to help aspiring freelance writers learn from my mistakes. Well, listen up! I recently made a huge error when accepting a job from a client that I have been working with for several months.
Most of the jobs that the company offers me are within my realm of knowledge. The topics that they ask me to write about are usually main stream, while not touching too much on the complex. But this time around things were a bit different.
So where does my mistake come into play? Instead of considering all of the details of the job, I simply said “yes†after reading their initial email. As I mentioned, this is usually not a problem. Sure, I took a quick glance at their requirements, but I was far from diligent when reading them over.
The result: a project that was technical in nature, and full of keywords that I was not familiar with. Of course, I got the job done on time and with high quality, but it was far from ideal from where I was sitting. Even though I have a long term relationship with the client, I probably would have turned this job down; even though they were offering a high per article rate.
The moral of this scenario is that you should always check every last detail of a freelance writing project before taking on the job. This way you will not find yourself in a situation where you are working way too long to complete a small job.
After finishing this job today it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. It is safe to say that I will never make this mistake again.Â
