Should Writers Work on Freelance Websites?
I’m going to write about this question today: “Should writers work on freelance websites?”
Normally I write about things I’ve been tackling during the day as relate to my writing career. Today, not so much. I’ve been copying and pasting thousands of words into WordPress posts ready to launch a new project. It’s dull and I’ve basically calculated that I’ve got another two hundred hours of dullness before I’m ready to launch.
All in all then, a dull day.
But that’s cool; any job is going to involve dull days. Meanwhile, there’s been constant rain all day and parts of my town are flooding, so it’s not like going outside is all that attractive anyway.
So I’m just picking a random topic I found whilst browsing around in a tea break. For those who are interested in more reading, this is probably going to be a continuation of these articles:
Uses For Fiverr You’ve Probably Never Thought Of.
What Should A Beginner Copywriter Charge?
Should Writers Work On Freelance Websites? The Good
I’ll be straight up and honest: You should work on freelance websites. Remember this when you get to what’s probably going to be a very lengthy “the bad bits” section.
When you write for a freelance website, you’re going to deal with customers from all over the world. This is pretty awesome. I’ve had clients in Kiribati and Uzbekistan. I’ve worked with Eastern European oil companies and Australian doctors.
That variety is amazing. It’ll make you stronger on its own. Very few people can write about how to build an oil tanker and then sell an overpriced gaming headset in an hour, but if you get good at freelance writing on freelance sites, then you can do that.
Also, unless you’re talking exclusively about Fiverr, you have to learn to pitch. Most people hate rejection. I can’t say I’m a big fan of it, but when you work on Upwork, you have to get busy with your applications. One guy on reddit was talking about taking half an hour to write a proposal. That’s crazy talk. Within a few days of that, you’ll either quit or get a better plan.
That’s something great about work on freelance websites: It’s like a sandbox where you get to find out how businesses work (or, more often, don’t work.) Once you’ve got rejected a thousand times, you won’t have any problems sending out a proposal ever again to anyone. Once you’ve sent out a thousand proposals, you’re going to be pretty good at cold convincing people you’re awesome too.
Those are just a couple of reasons that writers should work on freelance websites. Here’s some bad news.
Should Writers Work On Freelance Websites? The Bad
If writing on freelance websites were awesome, everyone would do it. But it’s not. I’ll be straight up and honest again: The pay is pretty bad, the customers can be pretty bad (although most of them aren’t) and the fact is the site itself doesn’t care about you.
The pay is mostly regulated by people following the Tim Ferriss dream who think they’re going to build the next Facebook by hiring people for five dollars. You know that’s not going to happen, I know that’s not going to happen and deep down they know that that’s not going to happen. But it is what it is: these people, plus third world outsourcers, drive down the price on freelance websites massively. Don’t do it for the pay long term.
The customers can be pretty bad – especially when you get the people we’ve talked about above. The key here is to know what you’re providing as a service, what is an extra, and what isn’t. Do not be tempted to follow the crowd of third-worlders and bend over for a measly $2. Do not let yourself get scammed into working for next to nothing.
The worst thing about working on freelance websites, the one which I would actually take a pay-cut to fix, is the fact that freelance websites do not care about you. Fiverr is the worst here, but they’re all pretty bad. They’ll routinely suspend you if their automated systems want to. Support takes absolutely forever. Even when the websites say they’re impartial, they’re not – they’d rather have the buyers happy because they spend money – than have you who makes them money. With any freelance site, do not let it become your sole income, and do not bank on you always having an account at the site, no matter how good your service is.
Should Writers Work On Freelance Websites? The Answer.
There’s a lot of reasons not to work on freelance websites. I guess I’m just concluding at this point, but I think you can work on freelance websites provided you do the following:
- Think of a freelance website as a small store you sell to. You’re happy that they’ll carry your products and throw you some extra money every now and then, but you don’t bank on that money to feed your family.
- Use a freelance website as much as they use you: Use freelance websites to test the market, see if there’s a demand for your service and research what companies do right and wrong in any given market.
- Use freelance websites to build a portfolio, experience and negotiating/time management skills.
- Always, always, be looking to improve your lot. Don’t get complacent and think you can (or should) be a freelance site writer forever. I did this – I got comfortable earning low amounts of money for a while when I should have been moving forward constantly. As a freelancer, nobody is going to push you forward. You have to do it yourself.
- Always temper freelance website work with your own projects and always be seeking clients outside other sites. If you have trouble with this, read How To Get Copywriting Clients.
With that, I’m over and out. Back to copy-pasting sales letters.