[GlobalMan]

CR, are you primarily responding to gigs or are you posting services you offer?

[kongzi]

Does anyone here have experience with both freelancing and running their own online business/blogging/affiliate marketing? What requires less hours of work and is easier for you?

I have an MS in STEM and possibly could land some freelancing gigs, but I lack work experience. Running my own online business sounds appealing, but it sounds like more work than just freelancing in programming/data analysis/etc

[mirakirikiri]

based on my experience, freelancing takes less time than running own business. But if you want to develop yr skills, you have to search for (own) bigger clients and/or projects, and work on yr own portfolio. To be able to do projects for bigger clients, you need to run yr own agency/business and have yr own portfolio, and also you will have to solve administrative/accounting/managerial issues, etc.

[ColSpanker]

I write freelance and run my own business. I think it's best to concentrate on one or the other. Some days I find myself working around the clock to finish a writing assignment for a client, then I have to go pack up an order for my own company.
Eventually I will find a way to integrate the two.
However, what keeps me sane is the knowledge that I don't have to punch a clock or meet some a-hole's sales quota. Granted, when you work for yourself, you work for everyone, but people in mass are easier for me to deal with. I never never never want to go back to the clock or action plan.

[Neo]

I'm going to do a long read on this thread this weekend. The past two years I've gone deep into the programming route in my spare time. Ever since frenchcorporation posted his Python developer thread a few years back. (French is you're reading this thank you bro, wish you the best and the big
$$$)

Problem is I've spread myself too thin and don't really know any language like the back of my hand. I know 'some' Python, Ruby, SQL, CSS, HTML, and Java.

Now I have to make the decision to go hardcore into either Java for mobile development or full-stack web development. Note my goal is a thriving freelance business, probably not at the point where I'll leave my full time gig but as side income I can do in my free time to make some extra cash.

Any thoughts?

Searching the major freelance sites it looks like guys make good coin doing both. I'm curious more to the technical aspect, time input versus profit, difficulty, ability to scale, etc. The business side of getting clients I believe I can handle. I've already made lots of mistakes in some previous business ventures and am definitely more prepared and networked this time around.

I'm also keeping a mental list of freelance guys on this board and their specialties so if I come across jobs I can point someone's way I'll do what I can. Always best to network and give business to each other.

[Wutang]

Just started working on Upwork (which is what Elance turned into) and just submitted my first blog post yesterday. I had to submit about 10 bids to get my first job offer; only getting paid $20 for about 500 words but I'm just trying to build up my profile and get experience cranking out articles like people talked about at the beginning of the thread.

I have a tech background so I'm hoping I can break into writing white papers which pays pretty well. Gotta start somewhere though.

This thread hasn't been updated in a while - any changes in the last two years in this field?

[WhatTheFuck]

(01-31-2019 12:36 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

Just started working on Upwork (which is what Elance turned into) and just submitted my first blog post yesterday. I had to submit about 10 bids to get my first job offer; only getting paid $20 for about 500 words but I'm just trying to build up my profile and get experience cranking out articles like people talked about at the beginning of the thread.

I have a tech background so I'm hoping I can break into writing white papers which pays pretty well. Gotta start somewhere though.

This thread hasn't been updated in a while - any changes in the last two years in this field?

You're not going to get rich on Upwork probably but $20 for 500 words is a great start. Back when I started I was cranking out articles at $1/100.

Focus on clients that have at least several thousand dollars in payouts already, preferably $50,000+. They are more reliable, understand the system better and have realistic expectations, and can provide long term work. Applying for any jobs that are just single small projects like a blog post or two is a waste of time.

[Wutang]

Just got paid my first $20 for that 500 word article - feeling good. Also asked the lady to do me a favor and leave me a rating/

I had another proposal where someone was asking for 2000 - 3000 words a day at the rate of $0.01 per word. Was in the middle of discussing that offer but I've been working through this thread and saw this:

(04-21-2014 02:33 AM)w00t Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 10:51 AM)Nascimento Wrote:  

^^

Thanks.

After 10 proposals sent out and 24 hours, I got one reply with all the others except one still for hiring.. The reply apologized because they chose someone right before I sent my proposal which they liked. It was a simple job for 500 word article which I said I would do cheap for a review $1.5 per 100 words, ensuring I'd do my best work to get positive words in return.

I'm bugged about it, seemed so close to my first gig but at the same time this can only be a positive. Also said they would keep me in mind for future work as they would definitely have some. How likely am I to hear from them again? As in how often do clients approach freelancers as opposed to just posting and have the workers come to them?

Also, is it beneficial to take a very cheap job at first for a review? I'm talking about $3 for 500 word articles.. Seems way too low even for a first job but I am still testing the waters here. Trying to avoid being labelled as a bottom of the barrel cheap writer as has been mentioned throughout the thread.

Please dont whore yourself out for that kind of money.
You should be able to get $10-20 per hour right out of the gate, even as a newb.

By doing slave labor youre not only hurting yourself... youre also hurting your freelancer colleagues and your clients as its impossible to deliver quality work for these ridiculous rates.

The lady also explicitly mentioned she only wanted "Native English writers" and promised more work to come which are red flags according to another poster earlier in the thread.

(04-11-2014 02:50 AM)Enigma Wrote:  

Great points by BB.

Statements like "Native English writers" and "more work to come" are huge flags that will cause me to pass over a listing, as they are often indicators of awful clients with low rates. You'll be able to instantly tell who is and who isn't a native speaker but ways you could work this into your listing are things like "must possess excellent written English skills and grammar" and "I'm looking to build a long-term relationship with a quality writer". I'd keep the title something simple like "Article Writers Needed on Dating in other Countries".

Setting some sort of budget is also a good tip. A "not sure" budget will give you bids that are all over the place. You can set a project budget at $20-50 or $20 - 100 or whatever. That gives people an idea of what you're willing to pay but still allows people to compete on price. Or simply adding something like "willing to pay for quality and professional writing".

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, anything too sales-y or direct is often an indicator of low quality. By simply keeping your listing straightforward yet professional, you'll send more of the write signals to freelancers.

I ended up withdrawing the proposal after reading those posts. I was thinking that even if I worked quick it would take me at least 3 hours to crank out a 3000 word article - not really worth it for $30.

Also I have been looking at how much clients pay out in total and if they've been offering long term work to other freelancers. Working for these people would be the ideal situation but I figured I should get about 10 jobs done under my belt before I start applying for those sort of jobs. I wouldn't mind grinding out a few 500 word posts to get to that point.

[WhatTheFuck]

(02-01-2019 03:37 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

I ended up withdrawing the proposal after reading those posts. I was thinking that even if I worked quick it would take me at least 3 hours to crank out a 3000 word article - not really worth it for $30.

Also I have been looking at how much clients pay out in total and if they've been offering long term work to other freelancers. Working for these people would be the ideal situation but I figured I should get about 10 jobs done under my belt before I start applying for those sort of jobs. I wouldn't mind grinding out a few 500 word posts to get to that point.

You can probably start applying to those bigger jobs with better clients sooner than you think. Three or four solid 5 star reviews goes a long ways towards proving you're not an idiot like 99% of the other freelancers on there. Good luck man. I'm averaging about $25 an hour right now and didn't start that long ago. Not sure how high the wage ceiling is for writing really and what the best clients are willing to pay, but I'm satisfied with the consistent work I have right now. I agree it's better to avoid the low tier jobs at the start if you can.

[cholula]

I signed up for Upwork to do digital marketing work and they rejected me on the basis of already having too many people with similar skills. I changed my profile, and they're reviewing now. Hopefully they let me in so I can do this.

[Praetor Lupus]

Upwork turned my application down as apparently they already have rather a lot of web designers on the platform.

This pissed me off, but some time spent on Freelancer.co.uk made me think they might have a point.

Bidding for a job on there is like trying to get to a 7 surrounded by a sausage fest of thirsty men.

The one job I was accepted for turned out to be a complete waste of my time as the contractor didn't send me any details of the actual job despite my sending five messages to them asking for what they wanted me to do. They then disappeared from the site.

[JimBobsCooters]

Have also found Upwork to be an utter waste of time. You're literally competing with Indians and Filipinos that will do the work for $1 an hour on a marketplace where 99% of the clients are looking for the cheapest possible labour.

[pijamaboy]

US freelancing websites were a complete waste of time for me. I tried Upwork and it sucks. Got a few contacts from douchebags trying to scam me to work for them in exchange for shares of their company. I think unless you have a well defined niche you'd better not go to Upwork. If you have very broad programming skills you'll be outnumbered by IRTs and EE.

A good technique that I found to get in demand skills is this (I'm too generous, shouldn't share that) ->

- Make a web crawler with puppeteer (use a VPN and a fake account, don't get banned!). Program it to crawl for all the freelancers of the freelance platform (I don't think it's gonna work on Upwork, they are too secure, but on less famous platforms it works). The goal is to get all the skill tags for every jobs.
- Then do the same for all the freelancers.
- Now you have a list of skills with the number of jobs for that skill and the number of freelancers for that skill. You can calculate for each skill the freelancer / job ratio, and just pick the skills that have a very low ratio. Tadaaaa!

Ex :
- iOS has a ratio of 17. It's a shitty ratio. 17 freelancers per job.
- But Azure has a ratio of 4. Very good ratio.

Thanks to that technique I made myself in high demand and I landed a freelance job (outside of online platforms) very quickly. And at the same time I learned why I had trouble finding freelance jobs before : because my previous skills had a shitty freelancer / job ratio.

[bigbadpua]

I work on upwork and I can charge now up to 25$ an hour. But I started more than 3 years ago. Sign up should always be possible, you mean clients turn your application down. You will have to start with a low bid until you build a high rep and then you can charge a lot more. Obviously, you better deliver quality. I do translations as a native German and I have a rep of 100% now (not kidding), clients will invite you all the time. Even then, it still can get slow some times, but I have many regular clients now. Appen online is another source of income, which I got to thru upwork as welll. Dont remember how.

[Beyond Borders]

^ You are seriously selling yourself short.

If it's that bad that you can only charge $25/hour, maybe it's time to get into another industry.

Or you could do what has always made the difference in freelancing (including on these sites) and learn to market yourself better.

[Wutang]

Just did a 1000+ article on UpWork for $40 for a forum member that PMed me. He paid me and said the article good but ultimately he would prefer to keep working with another writer he already regularly contracts with. He gave me a few tips on how to improve in the future as well.

Used up all my bids on UpWork so I'm waiting until the end of the month for it to reset. Going to keep studying and practicing in the mean time. There's a blog idea I've had in mind for a while - looks like it's time to actually produce some content for it.

[Tigre]

(02-09-2019 07:23 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

Used up all my bids on UpWork so I'm waiting until the end of the month for it to reset. Going to keep studying and practicing in the mean time.

https://freelancetowin.com/writing-upwork-proposals/
https://freelancetowin.com/phrases-that-...proposals/

For next month - This ^ is the best advice I have seen about how to write proposals that get you hired.

[Wutang]

Excellent articles. I embarrassingly have used pretty much every single one of the phrases that the second article say you should not use in proposals in my own proposals.

There are two general ideas I got from reading these articles. One is to show rather than tell. Instead of saying "I am a good fit for this job", give examples and reasoning for why you are good for the job. The other idea is to think about what the client wants and show exactly how you can satisfy those wants. Don't sell yourself to the client with the idea of trying to impress him about how great you are with a list of positive qualities you have. Instead, identify what the need or needs of the client and then give him a reason to believe you can meet that need.

[BeardedMastodon]

Anyone do this for technical/Engineering work?

[Wutang]

Turns out I had two connects left for the month so I applied to one last job before my connects are replenished next month. I'd appreciate critique on it

Hello,

I took a look at the LiveTiles website to see exactly what the company does and what I read is interesting to me, especially the chatbots. As someone who works in technology in my day time job and someone who keeps track of technological trends, I think the chatbot trend is something that will continue to accelerate in the years to come with the advancement of artificial technology.

I hold a masters degree in Computer Science and I currently work at ..., one of the largest IT consulting companies in the world. The current client site ... has me assigned to is ... I say all of this not to toot my own horn but to show that I have skills that are relevant to your needs. Your ad specifically mentions B2B marketing and my experience working and communicating with both technical and non-technical people in a corporate environment on technological issues gives me an edge in creating the sort of content you are seeking.

I have previous experience writing for a blog on technical issues. One of my previous clients was a 24/7 technical support company named OneSupport. They have a blog that offers technical tips and information for readers. My work can be seen here: https://www.onesupport.com/tech-support-blog/

The articles written on the OneSupport blog are similar to the articles that you have provided as examples in your ad. I read a few of the articles on the LiveTiles website and I noticed that the paragraphs are short. The benefits that the technology discussed in the article can offer to readers is constantly emphasized. These are ideas that are important for capturing the interest of readers; many readers can be put off by overly long writing and with reading about things that don't address a need that they have. When I produce content, I always keep these concepts in mind. The professional writing I do is not to entertain myself but to attract and hold the attention of readers and then to direct them to perform an action, concepts I'm sure your marketing team is familiar with!

I live in ... so it is feasible for me to come to the LiveTiles offices if that is ever needed. If you wish to discuss things further, please feel free to message me or to even invite me to come down to visit!

Thanks

[CleanSlate]

^ too long. You can cut out the rambling and shorten it by 30-40%, and still convey the intended message. I also don’t think it is necessary to mention your degree (no one cares), instead briefly mention your actual experience and how that can help your client.

[Wutang]

I've been reading the FreeLanceToWin website and they specifically mention cover mentioning your degree. Guy said it's generally not a good idea to mention your degree but if it's relevant to job, it should be fine. I don't mention my degree unless the job posting is related to something tech related. I actually got my first job on Upwork despite not having any feedback or ratings because the woman hiring me specifically said it was because of my tech background.

As for the rambling, that's a bad habit of mine. When I write articles I find I have to constantly remove words and sentences since I tend to go on for too long. Looks like I'll have to do it for my proposals as well.

Actually just got an email from the marketing team of the client I applied to with the proposal above literally as I was writing out the two paragraphs above. Will report back if I get the position.

[Wutang]

I've had two clients who interviewing me request that communications be taken off of Upwork and onto e-mail. What are your guys experience with this?

[CleanSlate]

Ideally you want to talk to (and prospect) clients without using Upwork, but taking them off Upwork is risky. One of you or both could get permanently banned for that.

But getting banned for life from Upwork myself (without explanation), was actually the best thing that happened to me, business-wise. It’s a crap platform.

[WhatTheFuck]

Working offsite is ideal but never mention anything in the chat about doing work offsite. Some clients will send you their skype and ask you to contact them or something like that. Do it, but don't show that you are agreeing to contacting them offsite in the chat if possible. Paypal fees are only 3% versus Upwork ridiculous structure. Just make sure you are working with a trustworthy client/business because you won't have any protection if they choose not to pay.