Becoming a writer is something I’ve wanted to so I recently checked out a website for freelance writers. People bid on various jobs and the website takes a cut when the work is done.
A man asked me to write some articles on coffee and I bid $240 and sent him a sample of my work. He said my writing style was good and wanted me to take the job.
Unfortunately, he also wanted to pay me a single dollar for each 400 word article. I’d enjoy the work but this is ridiculous. I doubt he could get someone anywhere in the world to do that work for a dollar. So, am I missing something here? Do I just not understand how these things work?
If anyone has any ideas, I’d appreciate it.
Congratulations you’ve stumbled on the scum. There really are people out there who think writing 400 words takes about five seconds and will pay accordingly. Very often they’re either people who don’t speak English very well or those looking to make a quick buck without concern about content.
My advice? If you really want to be a freelance writer start by writing a query letter with a good idea to a reputable magazine. You’re far better off working for people who know what they’re doing than those who don’t.
To find magazines you might be interested in writing for throw terms like “submission guidelines” into google. You can very often find a magazine’s website online where you can study the format and even read sample articles.
OK, thank you very much for this. I thought maybe it was just a scheme to screw the website out of their cut. It didn’t seem reasonable to expect someone to spend an hour or so writing a well thought-out article for a dollar.
And yeah there really are people like that out there. They’re all over the web.
If you’re interested in freelance writing I strongly recommend the forums at www.absolutewrite.com. You’ll find a great deal of advice over there for beginners from people who’ve done everything from publishing magazines to writing well selling books.
Great, and thanks again. I lived in the Middle East and Asia for a couple of decades and keep thinking I should be able to write something about that. Both interesting places and lots of stories about them, some funny and some sad.
This isn’t even a scam as much as a way to get amateurs to put out copy thinking they’ve found a route into publication. The articles will go up on a website about coffee whose sole purpose is to get people to click on the ad links and make money off of them. The content is to give coffee lovers something to think that it’s a real site and to have lots of distinct pages to give the site some heft.
So why do people write these? Because they think that having written something “professionally” it gives them a credit that can be used. Or because sometimes the pay is five dollars or ten dollars so it doesn’t feel like quite so much a waste of time. Or because they just don’t know any better.
You’ll find lots of these calls for freelancers out there. Close to 100% are worthless. Craigslist is full of them. Here’s one:
The pay is higher but the report is much longer. SEO (search engine optimization) is the key. They want to drive the site higher on Google. How well the report is written isn’t the issue.
LavenderBlue is right. If you want to do freelance work, you have to initiate the request. And there is almost nothing on the Net that pays freelancers money. Go to print magazines for that.
I’ve made a living as a freelance writer for a decade, and considerable time as a newspaper writer before that.
I’ll second what **Exapno **has said. This stuff is not really writing. Nobody will read it. It’s sole purpose is to generate search engine traffic.
If you want to write, then simply write. Publications like Writer’s Market or Writer’s Digest can help you figure out how to write query letters and how to contact magazines. At the end of the day, your work will speak for itself.
Thanks for explaining this to me and it looks like y’all are exactly right. I stuck to my bid on one of those jobs and never heard back again. I wrote one article a week ago and just got paid. I now have $3.75 in my PayPal account. Woo Hoo! Watch out Steven King!
Oh well, live and learn. My thanks to all of you for explaining this.
Examiner just farms the business out to individuals to fend for themselves. The successful ones have to write hundreds of articles a month to get a few dollars from each.
There have been a series of similar sites, each one of which fades after people figure out it’s not worth the continued effort. I’ve noticed that I encounter fewer articles from Examiner on subjects that I have alerts for than I did even a few months ago.
