The Outsourced Writer

Why You Shouldn't Write For Free

2012-01-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, I still come across clients or job listings that ask for a written sample. Or, more specifically, they ask for work on spec, meaning they're asking the writer to write something new, provide it for review and then let the client decide if it is worth paying or not. Beyond this, I still see listings (often on Craigslist) advertising "Writers Needed" and then stating that there is no pay in the position, but you can get exposure.

While a lot of new writers may find this kind of job ideal, especially those who don't have no experience or who don't have samples or a portfolio, I've always thought it was a really bad idea. If you'd like to earn a living, you have to feel comfortable enough knowing that what you do has value. And you have to know exactly what that value is in the marketplace. Some article writers charge $1 - $3 per article. (Most of those are from Pakistan, India or other places where the economic factors are much different than they are for writers in Europe or the United States.)

This article summarizes much of the value of intellectual property creation, though it is about photography and not writing. The conditions are similar. If you have a skill, charge for it. If people don't want to pay, don't work for them. If you choose to work for free, that's your choice of course, but what you're saying to both your employer and others is that you are so bad at what you do that no one in their right mind would ever pay you for it.

*Of course, I'm referring to copywriting here. (Or technical writing, or content writing, or corporate writing, etc.)

Finding Freelance Clients Through Craigslist

2012-01-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

I recently completed a project for a new client I found through Craigslist. Actually, the client found me through Craigslist. So far this is my only client I found through the site, and though I've heard other writers have had some success finding clients there, my results are very minimal. Here's a summary:

Option 1: Applying to job ads.

I haven't had any success in this area, but then again, I haven't responded to a lot of adds. I have had a few potential clients contact me back after I sent a response to the add, but I haven't had anyone who ended up becoming a paying client.

Option 2: Posting a "services" add.

Oh, and I only landed my recent client because I posted both a link to my website and a phone number. The client said I was the only one who posted a phone number and he was uncomfortable hiring someone over e-mail without first talking to me over the phone. The client paid up-front, which was great, and he may be interested in more work. All in all, not bad for posting an add once a month.

I'm sure there is material out there about using CL to find clients but I'll have to spend some more time researching if I want to identify a specific marketing strategy. At this point, however, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

How To Buy Christmas Gifts From a Pawn Shop - Conclusion

2011-12-29T17:17:00.000-08:00

Well, that was a bust. Mostly. My attempt to but all my Christmas gifts from pawn shops met with very limited success. I didn't actually buy anything, but I did try. Here's what happened:

I went to several local pawn shops. Only 1 had a selection of ebook readers, including 2 Kindles. (The newer ones with the keyboard, but not the touch ones.) Both came with the Kindle cover offered by Amazon, he black one with metal clips to hold the kindle and an elastic cord to hold the cover together when not in use.

The pawn shop wanted $85 for both of them. They were both in fairly used chape and the covers were worthless because each had one of the metal retainer clips broken off. I offered $60, the pawn store employee came down to $75, but I wasn't going to pay more than $65. No deal.

All in all, I still think pawnshops are a good deal, if you're comfortabel negotiating, have done your homework and are buying something like jewelry or tools. For used electronics, I'm not so sure. I wasn't comfortable buying a used kindle that had been used so irresponsibly that the person broke the metal cover tabs.

But, maybe next year.

Buying Christmas Gifts From Pawn Shops - Part 2

2011-12-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I completed my research into pawn shops and even made a trip to a nearby shop just to take a look around. Here are my general impressions so far:

1. According to my research, jewelry is marked up between 250 and 300 percent, apparently. This means I may be able to negotiate for much less of the asking price of anything I see.

2. I only have 1, maybe 2 people on my list that might want jewelry.

3. The entire inventory of a pawn shop seems to be: jewelry, coins, DVD's, electronics, tools, musical instruments and guns. Lots of guns.

4. Only a few people on my list will fit into this pawn shop inventory, so I'll have to go elsewhere. However, I do plan on buying a couple of things from at least one pawn shop.

5. Oh, and if you go to a pawn shop, bring cash. And always test it out before you buy it.

Everything I Write is Crap

2011-12-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

I generally don't subscribe to the whole "Monday is a horrible day" thing, but today I do. Every word I wrote this morning is horrible, trite, cliched, meaningless drivel that does nothing more than to serve as a monument to my own inadequacies and as a testament to my failure to become anything more substantial than a hack who is polluting the world with inarticulate babbling unfit for even the most idiotic proto-simian.

But, I know that tomorrow I'll probably read what I typed today and think "That's not nearly as bad as I thought. Lighten up, wouldja?"

Case of the Mondays.

Pawn Shop Christmas - A Guide To Buying From Pawn Shops

2011-11-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

Though I tend not to post material that doesn't relate to copy writing or freelance writing, I'm going to post my holiday shopping strategy because I think it is at least somewhat interesting. I've decided this year to buy all, or as many as possible, of my gifts from pawn shops.

Why am I doing this? Three reasons.

First, because I hate shopping. I mean, I really hate shopping. At best, it's a mindless tedium of going to a store, finding what you need, buying it and taking it back home. AT worst, it's an endless nightmare of not being able to find what you want or, even worse, having to go to multiple stores to get everything. Yes, I like giving gifts, but when I can't really think of what to buy for someone else, the prospect of looking around until I find the right item is about a pleasant a prospect as waiting in line to renew my driver's license.

Second, because I've never really been to a pawn shop before and I want to learn more about them. I've been inside a pawn shop once or twice, but I've never bought or sold anything from them. Why? Well, they seem kind of seedy, and I'm not exactly sure what pawning is in the first place. Also, I'm not exactly comfortable negotiating prices, and the idea of having to haggle over something is a little intimidating.

Third, because if I can learn something while shopping, the experience will be a hell of a lot more pleasant for me.

With that in mind, I've developed a strategy. Here are the basics:

Step 1: Christmas List: Write down an item or list of items for each person on my list so I know what I'm looking for. I'll also be open to interesting items I might find at the shops.

Step 2: Research Prices: For each item, research the price and be prepared to take the price info with me to the pawn shop. (This is primarily because of step 4, below.)

Step 3: Research Pawn Shops: I think there is a pawn shop a couple miles from where I live, but I'm not sure what else is around. I'll need to research the shops in the area as well as how pawn shops work in general.

Step 4: Research Negotiating: I know a little about negotiations, but I'd like to know more. Negotiating with a private person selling car may be one thing, but these guys are professionals. I'll need a bargaining strategy beforehand or I won't feel confident in my abilities.

Step 5: Go Shopping: Every student needs a test. Once I finish researching, I'll have to go out and buy.

I'll post more details about my strategy, research results and shopping results when I get them. I'm usually a last-minute shopping type guy, but this year I hope to finish with at least a week or two to spare.

Finding Freelance Web Content Clients - Progress Report

2011-11-17T07:27:00.000-08:00

So after a recent post where I stated my goal to find more private freelance clients, I thought I'd update my progress. So far I've had some success finding clients. Here's a summary:

1. Elance: I've submitted about 20 bids on Elance. Using my bidding strategy (which I'll describe in detail in another post) I was selected for 4 projects and had 3 other clients contact me even though they haven't (yet) selected anyone as a provider. 1 of the 4 clients is a long-term project that has me writing regular material every week. 2 others may also end up becoming long-term, and 1 of them may provide me with more work than I can handle. I've already had to hire a few freelancers to cover the excess.

2. Craigslist: I've found 1 client on Craigslist so far, though not through the "writing" jobs listing. This client posted in the "part time" section. The client is a web developer and regularly has clients who ask him if he can provide content. He can't. I can. It's a good match.

3. Direct Marketing: No new clients, but no new effort. I haven't marketed to web developers in my area, though this is my next step in my marketing plan.

4. Content Sites: I've submitted a few articles to Constant Content and have completed a handful of "Love List" jobs on Writer Access. I tried to get myself to complete a few articles on Textbroker, but I don't really feel like writing 300 words for $3.

I've also done a few easy Demand Media assignments, but wow, there is practically nothing left over there. A lot of people badmouth Demand, but my experience has been generally positive. I was almost always able to use the site as quick way to find work. If the topics were something I knew about, I could make a decent income from Demand. Now, it seems, there is very little available. I'm approved to write for a number of special projects over there, but even so there is almost no work to be had. Looking through the forums shows that pretty much everyone over there (who posts in the forums, anyway) is having a tough time getting work through Demand as well.

Three Alternatives to Demand Media Studios

2011-11-09T12:20:00.001-08:00

A lot of writers over at Demand Media Studios have recently found themselves without a source of income since the company apparently either fired everyone or at least drastically reduced the amount of content writing jobs available.

As content writing has grown in importance, and as content farms like Demand have sprouted up and paid writers very low wages, writers who haven't freelanced for clients other than content farms are looking for their next paycheck. As far as I see it, there are three options:

1. Salaried Positions: As I've pointed out before, web content writing is not just a freelance occupation. There are various companies that hire full time web content writers and specialists. Here's one sample listing from Sprint. Yes, these jobs are brick and mortar jobs where you have bosses, co-workers, commutes and all the rest, but if you are an experienced writer and content creator, you now have relevant experience.

2. Freelance Writing: Some content writers who worked only for content mills have never written anywhere else. At least, not professionally.

When I started freelancing I had to go to my copy of Writer's Market, find publications, pitch them with a query letter, wait for the response, write the article, send it in and then wait to get paid. That was for each and every article.

Today it's a little different, especially if you're specializing in web content and corporate copywriting. However, you've still got to go out and find clients. Getting a website of your own so you can tell the world who you are and what you do is essential. As is learning to market yourself. How do you do that? There are numerous resources out there about marketing your writing skills, but I'll provide you with examples from my own efforts.

This past week I've found three new clients, 2 of them through Elance and 1 through Craigslist. The one through Craigslist was looking for a part-time content writer, while both Elance clients wanted projects that fall within my area of expertise. I submit the lowest bid on any of the projects but the client still chose me over others.

It's all about marketing to people who need you.

3. Work Only for Content Sites: This seems to be the hardest option. Content mills like Demand may prove to be failed experiments in a business model that ultimately didn't work. We could be seeing their decline right now. They may also go through a change where they require less content, or they may suddenly change again and start requiring more content. Who knows. As of today, it looks like writers who only write for content sites are giving themselves a really hard way to make a living. Yes, starting your own writing business is hard, but if you push your boundaries a little and start taking the steps, you may be surprised at the outcome.

List of Content Writing Sites

2011-10-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

A commenter recently asked if I could post a list of writing websites. As I'm sure many freelance writers out there know, finding new clients can feel like an endless struggle. I also know that a lot of writers who spent a lot of time writing content for Demand Media have been suffering lately for

While I could post my own list, there are already a number of great lists out there. Here are two that contain a large number of sites, though they may not be completely current.

1. The Master Content Mill List courtesy of Entrepreneur Care
2. 40+ Sites For Writers courtesy of SocialMediaTrader

I tried to find others, but these seem fairly comprehensive.

However, if you haven't already figured it out, content sites have taken it on the chin since Google updated its search process. This chart shows how much traffic has dropped at a number of content mills since the Panda update. Not a good outlook for content sites, or the writers that contribute material.

So what's the freelancer to do?

Find clients. Businesses that need writing are out there. As a small business owner, you need to go out and find them. That means marketing. That means letting people know you're out there and actively looking for work by selling yourself.

I don't think I'm a very good marketer, and my new goal is to get at least one steady regular paying client per month. I plan on posting my progress here by writing posts about my marketing research and efforts. Marketing has always been my weakest skill, and I've always known it. I've also always known that I shy away from marketing because I don't feel comfortable with it.

I suppose then, that learning how to more effectively market myself is really a personal growth thing. I'm uncomfortable marketing myself. When I think about doing it I feel nervous. I get a warm feeling on the back of my neck andI want nothing more than to go to Youtube and watch videos of people fallign or getting hitby things so I don't have to do any marketing.

But I have to get past that, don't I. Damn adult responsibility.

My efforts haven't been fruitless so far. I've landed one long-term client through Elance, and have spent time regularly looking for clients specific to my niche and only bidding on those projects where clients are willing to pay at least close to my hourly fee.

But, I'm already familiar with Elance and know how to work there and find clients. What I don't know is how to regularly get local clients, organic clients through my website and clients through cold-calling or direct marketing. That's my next step, and I'll post updates as events warrant.

Till next time, true believers.

Opportunities for Web Writers

2011-10-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of freelance content writers who seem to be in perpetual state of excitement/grief about finding new clients a losing old ones. The constant struggle to find work, followed by the elation of landing a new client or a great paying gig can lead to getting into a groove, a comfortable, regular schedule of producing work and getting paid. But then, something happens. Like the client going away altogether, cancelling the project or significantly reducing the workload.

For some people, the idea of freelancing is the perfect fit. Being your own boss, getting paid for the work you love to do, being able to take the odd afternoon off. All of it is great.

But for others, it's a stress that never relents. Never being sure where your next paycheck is coming from, having to worry about your retirement funds, insurance, marketing, invoices and all the other issues associated with running your own business.

In my own ever-ongoing search, for example, I recently came across a job listing for a web writer in my home town. While I'm probably qualified for the position and toy with the idea of sending in my resume, I hesitate. Yeah, I probably work more than 40 hours per week right now. (OK, there's no probably about it.) But working full-time for an employer is something you're considering, you may have a whole lot more options after you've been a freelancer than before.

Take, for instance, the relatively new job of web writer or content specialist. I performed a quick search for these jobs and found positions open at Intuit, Sprint, Philadelphia University, Facebook and others.

I've also heard anecdotal evidence that some employers consider freelance work as a positive, especially if you can show that you marketed yourself, devoted time to finding new clients, kept to deadlines and performed the other desirable tasks of managing yourself.

Woops.

2011-06-08T13:45:00.001-07:00

Well, that took a while. Haven't posted in forever, though I still see there are some reader out there.
Fear not, new posts as events warrant.

*End communication.*

Writing for The Wittery

2010-04-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

I sent an application into The Wittery.com today. I came across the site through one of the forum posts over at Demand Studios. (Yeah, I spend time in the forums, so sue me. What am I supposed to be doing? Something productive?)

The site aims to provide witty, funny writing to those who need it. I'm pretty funny, and I'm curious to see what kind of projects they have. Of course, if I don't get hired, I won't be able to do that.

Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. Damnit.

Oh well. I've got stuff to do, and can't worry about rejection. Besides, as a freelance writer, isn't rejection part of the job? At least, that's what my therapist tells me.

More updates as events warrant.

Constant Content Article Income

2010-04-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to determine what my hourly rate at Constant Content is. (You can sign up with my referral link here. It earns me 5 percent of any sales you make, but it takes it out of the site's 35 percent, not your 65 percent. Ok. End shameless plug now.)

So far, I don't think I have enough information. Here are my basic numbers:

Articles Written: 9
Article Sales: 9
Full Rights Sales: 5
Use Rights Sales: 4
Total Sales $: $281
Net Sales $: $182
Average income per sale: $20

The numbers I don't have: Average word count per article and average time to write each article.

Requested Content

I'll also say that I wrote at least 3 articles for "Requested Content" that were not accepted by the editorial team, and by the time I edited them the content buyer had already purchases someone else's article.

Basic Equation

Constant Content takes a 35 percent cut on any article sold. If I assume I can write 1 article an hour, and I'm aiming for a $40 per hour rate, I need to charge $60 per article.

Now, I write a little faster than that, and can probably write closer to 2 an hour because I know the topic I'm writing. However, because the article review process is very stringent, I have to spend a little more time copy editing. This makes my article write time close to the 1 hour, or at the quickest, 45 minutes.

Requested Content

Then there are the requested content articles. I've made 1 sale on these articles, and it was my highest paying article so far on the site. ($100 for a 700 word article.) I've decided only to write these on two conditions:

1. The amount paid is greater than my $50 an hour rate.
2. The buyer needs more than a handful of articles. This is because there are likely a bunch of writers who'll try to get these article sales, and my chances of a sale are greatest where multiple articles are needed. Even if the article is a $200, 300-word piece, I'm not sure it's worth it to try to get it. There will no likely be a host of writers who jump on the project as soon as it appears, and you'll all be fighting for a chance at the single sale.

Rights

Another factor to consider is the full rights/unique rights/usage rights issue. In the past, I've liked Constant Content because of the usage rights potential. My thinking was: write a single article, have it sell dozens of times, earning income in perpetuity. Unlikely. I think the reality is closer to "Write an article, sell it cheaply, and maybe get 2 sales." Why? Because people want unique content, not rehashed articles they can find somewhere else. Look at it from the buyer's point of view. $25 for the rights to use an article, or $50 to buy it out right and know it exists nowhere else. Yes, that $25 is twice as much, but you know you have unique content.

Conclusion

So, to sum up, I'm not sure about the site yet. I know I can make at least $30 an hour at any time with Demand Studios, and I know my freelance clients pay a lot more. But, because my freelance clients don't always need work, and Demand Studios is a heck of a grind, I'm willing to give Constant Content a deeper look.

I think I'll write a series of article for Constant Content. 10 on a subject I'm familiar with that I know I can sell, and 10 for requested content. I'll post my results and see what kind of income comes out of it.

**

P.S. Here's my Constant Content Profile, in case you want to know. I uploaded a new image, but it hasn't appeared yet.

The Residual Article Income Myth

2010-04-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Because of some motivational problems, I've been spending far too much time poking around forums and blogs the last couple of days. (Yes, I've gotten work done, but not enough. Not nearly enough.)

With the recent changes over at eHow, I started looking at the numbers behind residual article income. I've read some posts, purchased an e-book, and tried to compare what I've experienced with the claims I've come across.

Reality vs. Fluffing

Let me state my experience in brief: the claim is you can earn $2 to $3 per month, per article. The reality is probably much closer to $0.50, or even less. The difference is significant. And not just significant, but monstrous. (Yeah, I said monstrous.)

Take, for example, The Residual Income Challenge. This blog chronicles the efforts of an article writer who wants to earn $100 per day from residuals. A noble goal. A great way to add a cool $36,500 in income without having to do much of anything, correct? I mean, all you have to do (according to the residual income proponents) is write the articles and let the money role in. Forever and ever like some great money-making, lazy income, get money for nothing machine. (Okay, they don't say that. But that's what some of the sales pitches seem like. So much puffy, fluffy rhetoric.)

I don't want to confuse the fluffery out there with the Residual Income Challenge blog. This blog actually puts up hard numbers that show the reality of the efforts. As of today, the numbers look like this:
That's $46 for the month. The writer has nearly 170 articles on his various residual income sites, which comes out to $0.27 per article, per month. Quite different from the $1 - $2 per month average I've seen claimed.

The Numbers

So, let's look at the numbers behind residuals.

Assumptions:

Average length of articles 400 words each.
Average time per article 30 minutes.
Average monthly earning per article $0.50.

With these numbers, we arrive at some startling conclusions. I've broken the analysis up into two parts, $1,000 per month residual income, and $3,000 per month residual income. (The $1,000 per month seems like a good "extra income" figure, something that would make the average person's life a little easier. I'm using the $3,000 per month as the minimum for a full-time income, or at least the residual income equivalent.)

$1,000 Per Month

Articles Needed: 2,000.
Time Spent: 1,000 hours. (About 25, 5-day work weeks of full time work, or 6 months.)
Word Count: 800,000. (About as long as 8-10 average length mainstream novels.)

$3,000 Per Month

Articles Needed: 6,000.
Time Spent: 3,000 hours. (74 weeks, or 1.5 years of full time work.)
Word Count: 2.4 million. (About 24 novels.)

And these are the numbers we get from $0.50 per article/month. I don't even want to figure the $0.27 price. (Ok, I do. It's truly horrible. Just double the $3,000 numbers to get there. Yeah, 3 years of work to write the word-length equivalent of 48 novels. For a whopping $3,000 a month income by the end of it.)

Further, that's for 2 articles an hour. At that clip, your content isn't going to be anything near great. Not to mention leaving no room for keyword optimization, and only the briefest of copy-edits. And that's if you're really cooking.

Of course, if your average is $1.00 per article/month, the numbers get better. You'll hit your $3,000 a month goal in half the time. Bumping the average up to $2.00 gets you there 4 times as fast, or $3,000 per month for about 3 and a half months of full-time work.

If you can get the $2.00 per article/month figure, that's great. Writing these articles may be lucrative and potentially offer you a full time job. But that is a very big "if" in front of that seemingly small number of $2.00.

Residual vs. Flat Fee

I won't spend a lot of time covering the fee average for residuals for flat fee rates, but some analysis is worth while. (You can read an excellent post from All Freelance Writing.) Let's assume you want to make the same amount of money ($36,000) from flat fee web articles.

Now, let's take the average flat fee income rate for the same articles. Assuming the same length, and a meager fee of $15, what do you need to write to get $3,00 per month? 200 articles. That's about 50 per week, or 10 a day. At 2 an hour, that's a 5-hour work day. Doing 12 or 13 a day will get you closer to $1,000 per week, or $52,000 a year. If you get better paying jobs with rates closer to $40 or $50 per article, you'll have to write about 13 articles a week to make $36,000.

Potential Flaws

Of course, my analysis could be wrong. I could be using numbers that are off-base. It could be that the average residual article income increases over time and after, say, a year or so, that average gets into the $1 - $2 per month per article range. I'd love to see some numbers on that. If anyone has any, let me know. The numbers I've assumed here are based on my own experience, as well as those of other writers who's work I've read or with whom I've discussed the topic. We could be a non-representative sample, for all I know. (I'd really like to see an academic analysis of a broad sample, or at least industry figures or company stats.)

Conclusions

I'd love to believe residual income articles can allow you to make a living. I'd love to think writers can sit at their computer and write great content and start earning a decent living on royalties.

But I don't think it's true. At least, not as far as residual income articles goes.

If you want to make it as a freelancer, you need well paying jobs. You need a steady income.You need quality clients.

Residual article income is the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick. It's the shiny bauble that tells you "You can do the work and then earn money for the rest of your life as you sit back and do nothing!"

And as far as I can tell, it's a myth.

(Photo courtesy Mike Flemming's flickr page through Creative Commons license.)

eHow Goes Demand Studios

2010-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

Got an e-mail from eHow today stating, in part:

"Today, we are announcing that Demand Studios is now the exclusive platform for writing new articles for eHow.com. Congratulations, you have automatically been accepted into Demand Studios. This change will not impact any of your existing articles or payments currently affiliated with the Writer Compensation Program (WCP)"

Wow. This sounds like a big change.

I've written about Demand Studios several times, and have only recently been writing for eHow. But, from what I can tell, there is a whole group of loyal eHow writers out there who love eHow for the residuals it provides. A quick check of the eHow community forums leaves little doubt about how many people are feeling: they hate it.

I've written a lot more for DS than I have for eHow, so I may not be the best judge here.I like Demand Studios because it pays regularly and I know how much I'm earning. I don't do much royalty stuff (never on DS, anyway), and I can make about $1,000 a week without too much difficulty.

Even so, I mostly work for my freelance clients and use DS as a gap filler. I only recently looked at eHow's set-up with royalties, and wrote about 10 articles on the site. Apart from the problems I listed in previous posts, I wasn't blown away by the income.

But, a lot of eHow writers love the residuals they get. A flat fee of $15 might not appeal to them because they know they can earn more than that over time.

Of course, Demand Studios does have revenue share articles, but in my experience the titles there are sparse and limited, and nothing like the choose your own titles that eHow features (Or did feature, until now.)

I'm not sure where royalty writers go now. But Associated Content, Suite 101, and other royalty sites are still out there.

Still, I feel bad for all those who counted on building a strong residual portfolio through eHow. Sucks.

The Introverted Freelancer

2010-03-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

I was discussing a new book with a friend of mine yesterday. (It's an e-book about how to capitalize on outsourcing opportunities, aimed at writers who are interested in actually, you know, making a real living as a freelancer.) I gave him a draft of the book and asked for his thoughts.

One of the things I found interesting was that he thought the book would be appealing to writers because it allowed them to find work and make money without having to actually meet with or talk to people. He said that might appeal to introverted writers who, he believed, were probably more introverted than most people.

It may be a cliche, but I think the generalization is accurate. As a population, writers are introverted. It's not that we don't like people, it's just that we need a certain amount of time to ourselves, in our heads, without any clutter. We love people, but we can't be around everyone all the time. We don't generally get charged up by it. Instead, we get our energy from those periods of solitude and introspection. (Yes, more generalizations, but apt. Read this excellent article from The Atlantic. It was published a while ago, but is still one of the best essays on the introverted personality I've found.)

Now, there's nothing wrong with being introverted. (Is there?) But when you're a writer who wants to build a career as a freelancer, there are drawbacks. Like having to find clients. And to find clients you generally have to talk to them and make them like you. Not something that's always in the introvert's wheelhouse.

Because freelancing so often involves sales, marketing, and ensuring your source of income (your clients) are happy, introverts can be at a natural disadvantage.

But, because of the growth of the internets (even the red one), introverted writers can minimize this much more than they could just 5 or 10 years ago. I've never met most of my clients. What communication I've had has been through e-mail, Skype, or, occasionally, phone calls.

So, while it may still be a problem for the freelancer/outsourcer, it's also less serious than before. The world of instant communication, cell phones, websites, freelance sites. content sites, all of it allows the introvert a much easier life.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go be by myself.

(Photo courtesy CC license through mark sebastian 's flickr page.)

How Big is YOUR Post

2010-03-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

I recently did some research into average blog posts lengths. While there are a lot of excellent articles out there on the subject, I wanted to compare some of the top money-making blogs against each other. I wanted to look at not only how many words an average post is, but how hard it is to read. So, I decided to take a look at the top earning blogs as reported at incomediary.com. The first five I analyzed were: Techcrunch, Mashable, Timothy Sykes, Perez Hilton, and Gothamist.

Here's the method I used:

Copied 10 random posts from each site. (My random process was going to the blog and selecting 10 posts from pages I selected.)
Went to textalyzer and the text content analysis tool from usingenglish.com. (I switched after textalyzer stopped working on my browser).
I cut and pasted the blog post into the text analysis window on each site and took the numbers it reported. (I didn't include blog titles.)
I entered the information for word count and Gunning-Fog index into a spreadsheet.
I calculated the mean scores for both word length and Gunning-Fog factor.

Here are the results:

TOP 5 MONEY EARNING BLOGS AVERAGE POST LENGTH AND COMPLEXITY
Blog	Mean Length	Mean Gunning-Fog Score
Techcrunch	699	8.81
Mashable	430	8.6
Timothy Sykes	526	11.7
Perez Hilton	89	7.6
Gothamist	201	11.6

Some of these numbers might be somewhat misleading. For example, the Mashable posts have a mean length of 430, but 10 posts were almost all less than 300 words, with the exception of 1 at 462 and 1 at 1994. Some of the other blogs had similar outliers, and a larger sample would likely produce better results, but I think the numbers here are at least worth considering.

I don't think it's surprising that Perez Hilton.com has the lowest complexity score, nor that Timothy Sykes has the highest. If you're not familiar with the sites, Perez Hilton is a celebrity gossip blog while Timothy Sykes is a stock trading blog. They probably have very different target audiences, which the complexity of the prose reflects.

If you're not familiar with the Gunning-Fog index, you can read the wikipedia article on in here.
It's a measure of word complexity, represented by a number estimating the number of years of education a person needs to be able to read the text. So, the Perez Hilton score of 7.6 means a reader would need about 7.6 years of formal education (7th grade) to read the site, while a reader of Timothy Syke's blog needs 11.7 years (almost 12th grade, or a high school diploma) to read the site.

If we average the numbers, we get a mean average length of 389 words, with a mean Gunning-Fog index of 9.62.

So. Can we draw any conclusions from this? From this list, it looks like the ideal post length is probably less than 500 words, though "ideal" might be too strong. The subject matter of each blog influences the post length and complexity, so more complicated subjects probably warrant longer, more complex posts. But in general, lengths of 500 words or less, with readability of about a 10th grade level looks like a good idea. Or at least in the neighborhood.

The World is Concave

2010-03-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

If Thomas Friedman was right about the world being flat, and the rise of outsourcing, I'm wondering what the world is when the outsourcing companies start hiring their customers.

I recently started writing for an outsourcing company in India. They wanted a writer with natural English skills to write their blog for them.

Which makes me wonder. All these outsourcing firms are essentially targeting a market with which they only experience as outsiders. An insider (native to the US, UK, wherever) knows the local knowledge, vernacular, slang, etc. Native Egnlish speakers are uniquely suited to providing expertise that the outsourcing firms don't have, namely: familiarity with the local market and culture.

What shall we call this? I'm partial to backsourcing. Anyone else?

EDIT

Now that I've looked up backsourcing, it looks like it's already been taken. Ok: Reverse outsourcing? (Too bulky) Re-sourcing? (Too confusing) Cross-sourcing? Home-sourcing? Super-Happy-Fun-Lucky-Sourcing?

More work is needed.

eHow Publication Problems

2010-03-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience with eHow.com, but I've been trying the site out recently and things are not going well. Why?

1. Glitches.
2. Bugs.
3. Site issues.

In other words, the site is horrible. I've written several test articles (about 10 so far), and the time and effort it took trying to get them onto the site have been ridiculous. Assuming residuals are in the $1 to $2 per month/per article range, spending less than a half hour per article is ideal. ($1.50 per month per article = $18.00/year. 2 articles an hour = $36/hour over a year.)

I'm not convinced the site is worth it. Anyone else?

Why Feelancing Isn't Going Away

2010-01-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Came across this article today about freelancing, and how office worker jobs seem to be dying faster than the dinosaurs living near Chicxulub.

Personally, I can't say the jobs at Elance have been stellar, lately, and I'm writing way too many Demand Studios articles than I'd like, but the article has a point. With the ease with which communications is affected giving ride to an increase in outsourcing, coupled with continued high unemployment rate and expansion of coworking spaces, I think freelancing is here to stay. And not only stay, but expand in both the short term and the long term.

Demand Studios Edit Equation

2010-01-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some writing on and off for Demand Studios lately. While most of my article are accepted without revisions, or at least with edits so minor they take just a few seconds to clean something up or add a piece I left out when I cut and pasted it from Word, some of them are rejected or, worse, returned asking for serious edits.

Here is how I look at it: A minor edit is no problem. A few minutes at most and you get your $15.00. (I hardly ever do the $7.50 articles anymore, and the $20 ones are almost non existent.)

A major edit, on the other hand, is a different story. I think you have 3 options;
1. Do the edits and submit for review. You might spend up to a half hour on these edits, essentially rewriting your article.
2. Don't do the edits and submit for review. Maybe they'll accept it, maybe not. Haven't done this.
3. Don't do the edits and let the time limit expire. Haven't done this either, but I plan on it as I want to see what happens. I currently have some article I don't plan on editing.

In situation 1, assuming you spend a lot of time doing the work, you have the best chance at the $15. You also have guaranteed yourself a lower wage. Why? Assuming you spend twice as much work on the revision article (the original plus the editing), you are cutting your income in half because your work is paid the same no matter how much you put into it. Further, you could have spent the time on a new article and submitted it. Even if that one comes back for minor edits, you'll still spend less time on it for a greater amount of money. Editing the major edit article is just not worth it.

Situation 2 is something I haven't done yet, but it might be worth it. There are two possible outcomes with it; rejection or acceptance. Even with rejection, you can submit the article to another site, like Associated Content.

Situation 3 is essentially the same as 2, but I think you are guraanteed rejection. Fine. Just submit somewhere else.

Demand Studios Update

2010-01-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

The holiday week is over, but the work on Demand Studios is ongoing. There's not a shortage of work to be had at the site, that's for sure. If you want to work full time and can spend 6- 8 hours a day, 5 days a week on the site, getting $40,000 - $50,000 per year seems achievable.

But we came across this interesting post on the Demand Studios blog. Apparently, you've got to be a good writer. They don't like writers who's work is sent back for edits 40% of the time or more, and may fire them. Does anyone know? Has it happened to you?

Make $1,000 a week at Demand Studios (That's $50,000 per year.)

2009-12-28T16:37:00.001-08:00

So the past week we've dedicated our time to focusing on Demand Studios work. All in all, it hasn't been bad. Consider the following photo:

That's not bad for a writing gig. We turned out about 13 articles a day, averaging 2.5 an hour or so. Since it was Christmas, we took Christmas and the Sunday of that week off. (Yeah, we worked Saturday, but not very hard.) That's not including the time we spent editing, though we didn't edit articles that we thought would take more than 5 minutes. If we hustled, we're guessing a $1,250 per week income wouldn't be too hard to do. (That's $62,500 a year for you playing along at home. Including a 2 week vacation.)

We had 2 articles rejected. (Bummer.) 1 was flagged for plagiarism but was later accepted without edits. (Of course.)

So what about the work itself? Well it isn't exactly raison d'etre. It's very basic web-copy article work on fairly dull stuff. Bur if you know what you are talking about, can write simply and logically, and can look up a few good links to use as support, you'll be fine.

As we mentioned before, the editing process is hit or miss. We've had a few editors who have been absolutely dreadful. The edits they requested for the article have been so out of whack it isn't worth pursuing. We don't know if the same editors review the edits after they've been made, but it doesn't matter. We're writing $15 articles and trying to get to $40 an hour. You get what you pay for, and asking another half hour worth of edits on a $15 article gets you in the ole: "Hey, that's a great edit. Just leave your suggestions in the waste-basket on your way out," bin.

Demand Studios Day 8

2009-12-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

We've spent the last 3 days writing for demand studios and it has been going relatively well. We've completed more than 25 articles, most of them of the $15 dollar category, but we mixed it up with a few $7.50 ones as well. Though we're aiming for a $30 an hour income goal, we're not sure that's achievable.

So far we've had 2 rejects, 5 rewrites and 1 flag for plagiarism. (Gasp!) We're not sure what the plagiarism thing is all about, as the question related to job requirements for a fedearal job posting. Can you plagiarise job postings? Are you supposed to take artistic license with an age limit?

We don't know. But we are quite curious to find out.

Anyway, here's another wonderfully miscategorized article title. This one was in the "Criminal Law" Section.

Demand Studios Update

2009-12-21T16:54:00.001-08:00

So we spent a good part of the day today writing for Demand Studios. We managed to write 11 $15 articles. 4 have been accepted for publication, 1 has been sent back for rewrites and the rest are pending until an editor can get around to them.

We wrote an article every 40 minutes or so, which comes out to about $22 per hour. But, when we concentrated on related articles (some of which had nearly identical subject matter) we started moving a lot quicker, getting down to about 25 minutes per article. (That's 5 in two hours, or #37.50 an hour)

$22 per hour is not great. $37.an hour is getting closer to our base fee of $40 per hour. We'll see how well this experiment goes the rest of the week. We're not going to spend all our time on Demand Studios, but if we can make $600 - $800, that'll be great.