welcome to the interwebs

I’ve never been a fan of these bidding sites, I’m glad I’m not the only one!

This is incredibly coincidental timing, considering our post this morning:

http://menwithpens.ca/would-you-use-a-job-auction-site-to-find-work

But the discussion is a good one. Feel free to drop by and see how other writers feel about bidding sites. I think you might’ve had a bad experience but don’t forget that your experience shouldn’t be considered a representation of all experiences.

I’ve gotta say, unethical pricing (or hinting at unethical pricing) is something I come across all the time moderating jobs at our job site. In fact, 60% - 70% of ads that actually list their prices seem really low to me — and I’m pretty hard on deleting them. I just hope the the percentage isn’t repeated amongst all the jobs that don’t list their pricing. Others don’t list their prices but basically set you up to be exploited. Some examples:

“Our budget is pretty low right now, so if you’re doing it for the money and not the fame, this job isn’t for you.” The ‘fame’ in question was like… coding some boring project. Famous among the 2-3 people who just got freelance work done for peanuts, maybe, but otherwise…

Others: “We will pay you $4.26 per article.” I’ve seen a few asking for complete web designs for $150. It’s definitely a recurring problem, and I think it’s because most of the people hiring have never been freelancers and have absolutely no concept of the time and effort it takes to do what we do. It’s like, “Sure, you can get a website for $150, but please be aware that I’m going to spend 2.5 hours on it.”

I’ve got to say, though, that freelance writers get hit very hard with this, because writing is a type of work where it’s a lot harder to see the direct value. Someone designs your online store, they’re helping you make money. Someone writes a blog post, it’s hard to see the direct monetary benefit (even though there is one — it’s just hard to quantify). There seems to be a prevalent idea among hirers that writing work is worth minimum wage or less. It’s not. It’s not mopping floors and flipping burgers. It’s a craft.

Furthermore, I’m not going to post a job ad for anyone that expects a skilled adult to work for $8 an hour, particularly when I know that there are bloggers and editors out there willing to pay upwards of $50 for the same work. The pay disparities in the writing field are just insane — and the only way to make things fairer is to stop doing and supporting those exploitative jobs, and to stop allowing them on job sites. While the problems in that field are particularly important to me because that’s my field, I’ve got no doubt that these issues are pretty prevalent everywhere. I think this is maybe the freelancer’s #1 problem to contend with.

Very true, and timely. I also wrote about this at http://www.quietrebelwriter.com/2008/03/14/marketing-rant-cheapening-the-craft/

The most distressing thing about online auctions is that writers are willing to comply. It reinforces the notion a lot of these folks behind the ads have - that writing is easy, it’s not worth much, and anyone can do it. So wrong. I subscribed to Elance for awhile when I was first starting out, and it was depressing as hell - all these folks bidding for pennies. Ugh. We need to remember we are worth every penny of our hourly rate.

ohh, that was nice story… really like the 2nd bid compare to the first one..ouch that ohhh, nice article right there you know. Thanks.

Why are people such cheap skates?

I’ve looked into some of these job-bidding sites and I was astonished by how cheap some people are. They almost always hint at spec work too. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for.

I’ve also recently checked out bidding sites and am quite shocked, frankly, at the low bids. I live in Malaysia - what you would call a 3rd world country - even then, I think it is way too low to justify the time I need to put in to produce a decent piece of work.

There will always be a grey area where new designers, not yet full time freelancers, that have a day job or is still in school, that will just try their hand at doing projects for cheap, or just to add more pieces to their portfolio, regardless of whether they underpaid or not.

I’m sure we’ve all been there at some point. You can’t expect a designer fresh out of school to know industry rates and just start making a living.

You are totaly right. These king of projects can just make you sick of searching. It is so very disappointing to see people actually writing or make designs for prices this low.

Well written shout out loud post. I never saw any post that would match my kind of profile, and the pay is so less, I wish I had never even seen such sites. It all makes me shiver even to think about it.

These bidding sites are part of a much larger, and more disturbing trend — falling rates for all types of freelance writing. Twenty-five years ago, I started writing book reviews for a mid-size newspaper, and no negotiation required, they paid $150 per review. Which you’d be fortunate to get these days. And I’m not even taking inflation into account.

One of the consequences of bidding sites, even those that offer better rates, is that they *still* offer extremely low rates. This makes publications and Web sites that are offering 25 cents or 50 cents a word think that they are being generous. Which they’re not — unless they’re just looking for quantity, and don’t care about quality. In my experience, however, cheap rates don’t necessarily correlate with low expectations.

Also — writers should be on guard for lowball offers. If the company can’t afford to pay respectable rates, can you rely on them to pay at all? In my experience, no — you’re taking your chances with either a startup that doesn’t have enough cash on hand or a solid business plan that includes *revenues*. So, do your research. I’ve made the mistake of not doing so, and it’s been costly. I’ve learned my lesson. The bottom line is, if they won’t pay you, and they’re not an established business (well-known, been in business for a while, has a street mailing address rather than a P.O. Box), there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, except warn others off of doing business with them.

A better route might be to try your local Craigslist for freelance gigs. A face-to-face meeting (and more possibilities for finding out about the company/person making the offer) could work wonders in resolving some of these issues.

Robert: For writers in very inexpensive countries, the low rates are sometimes higher than what they might be able to make otherwise.

However, for people in places that have a higher standard and cost of living, the job sites are going to feel sucky.

For those people, I always recommend looking for work LOCALLY and marketing yourself to clients — and other freelancers — who are used to paying local labor costs. Sure, there are going to be cheap clients out there, even locally, but those clients weren’t really looking for someone locally in the first place. They were looking to take advantage of cheap rates for lower quality work done in another time zone. And you have to be ok with that and move on to find clients who aren’t looking for cheap labor.

If noobs/idiots want to take these jobs, let them. I for one don’t care.

I see that there is a very negative opinion on biding sites. However, if you are a student with no experience or a wannabe freelancer, bidding sites are a plausible option to build a portfolio and experience.

I’m an Argentine immigrant living in New Zealand. As such, it is almost impossible to offer my services without a local or “international” portfolio. Whatever I did in South America in 6 years of back-end programming is of very little interest for local businesses. These bidding sites build for me a list of American clients and references that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Rates are low, very low when you start to use these sites. However, if you are patient and collect feedback, you can start charging more and reach reasonable rates. The trick is not trying to use these sites to make your living.

If you have a reputation and experience to show, use other methods to find clients.
101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads is good article to get some ideas.

A final note: as programmer and IT lecturer, I come up with many interesting ideas from these sites. I’m also aware of how easy is for students to submit work that is not their own work. My classes are full of onsite assessed activities. This last point is topic for another discussion…

Funny about Money wrote:

“And while it is true that we need to persuade clients that a professional can do a better job and do it faster than a wannabe who’s willing to work for next to nothing, that’s easier said than done. Many potential clients can’t tell the difference!”

That’s very true. One of the reasons the market doesn’t work as it should on these sites is that there’s an information imbalance. Many buyers don’t know what constitutes good work, at least until they’ve put it live on their sites and found out whether it improves their businesses or not.

The point I’m making is that we can’t just go to buyers like this and say “you have to hire me and pay me a hundred times more than you pay these other guys because I’m, uh… better!”. We have to prove we’re better. The onus is on us.

If you choose to bid on freelance sites, one way to beat overseas writers - at least for work from clients who are really bothered about quality - is to point out that although an Indian guy (say) might speak English as his first language, he will probably do so with a distinctive Indian idiom, and work from a different set of cultural assumptions from a western writer. My experience with Asian writers is that they often don’t have an instinctive understanding of what works for western audiences in terms of style and tone of voice. They struggle to get the level of formality right, for a start.

Rob, I can definitely understand the frustration with these sites. I refuse to use them anymore, but in the past I picked up a handful of gigs through one of them - probably about 2 years ago by now; I’ve noticed the gig quality has gotten progressively worse.

They can be fine as long as you live by one simple rule: you set your rates; your clients do not. As long as you only bid within your normal rate structure, you won’t be disappointed with the work you take on. While I didn’t take a lot of projects from bidding sites, I did get two wonderful long-term clients from one (ones who would pay my normal rates from the start, and who stuck with me despite the much cheaper competition over the years).

What’s sad is that it’s not just the bidding sites…, but forums, CL, and pretty much anywhere else Web writers look for work. That’s why I stand by another rule: network, network, network! Personal referrals are still the best way to get high-paying writing work online.

Oh, and as for those risking getting plagiarized content, truthfully, most don’t care. Most people in the Web publishing business don’t know enough about it to be in business at all - they think Copyscape-passed is equal to legal, when in fact they’re often illegal derivative works. They don’t get it, and you’d just be wasting your breath to try to get them to understand.

Last point - I agree with what you’re saying on the Copyscape front. If a client says they’ll run the work through Copyscape, I immediately tell them to take it to someone else. If they start the working relationship assuming you’re a content thief (not that Copyscape proves that anyway, as per my previous point), they don’t know how to work with a professional. Let them go elsewhere.

Apologize !

I meant this one :
http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-freedom/freelance-freedom-5

@ Ahmad: The angry face in the last panel is so cute! We’re lucky to have N.C. working with us.

And yes, we paid him a total $46 for all forty-six Freelance Freedoms combined. You know — fair rates.

I read this article and the first thing that crossed my mind is how smug the author was. This made me somewhat mad as it reflects a trend in the whole freelance community. Let me explain.

I am an avid use of those websites. Many clients I have met there have provided me with steady work, and therefore steady income for long periods of time. Granted, I am not a millionaire at the moment, bu the bills are paid and, most importantly, I am happy with what I am doing.

I agree that the rates offered on such websites are, sometimes, atrocious. However, the thing that the author failed to mentioned, or take notice of, is that these website cater to a large variety of professions. Being a translator, I am currently working at a steady income of 8-9$ an hour… I can hear it already. 8-9$ oh my goodness, that’s nothing. Well no, it is something. We do not all live in big cities, where the rent is 1000$ a month, we do not all have entertainment expenses totaling to 500$ a month, we do not all need the latest computer every time it catches our eyes. On the other hand, many of my friends use these websites to find programming jobs. They find them, and get paid very well for them.

At the risk of hurting the author’s feelings, the fact of the matter is that most people look at it this way: Anyone can write, so I’m not going to pay a stranger a fortune to do something everyone can do. Some people can translate, I will pay these people a bit more than I would pay a writer because translator have knowledge that I don’t and that not everyone has. Programmers have a lot of knowledge and they provide me with someone more concrete that will help me for a longer period of time than a bunch of written text and translated material. It’s sad, but its the truth. I know more people who can translate than people who can program. As for writing, I may be speaking out of spite towards the author, but everyone can do it.No I cannot write a novel or a book, but I’ve done writing work in the past and was congratulated on it.

My point is that, one has to figure out what their budget is and living accordingly. Someone here mentioned that these websites are great for students or people who cannot use their previous credentials. I very much agree with this. Experience has to be built somewhere. But beyond this, freelancing is almost always a decision based on happiness. “I am sick of doing this and that, I will be my own boss from now on”. As for me, I enjoy picking up a project here and there, and so what if I am not getting paid a thousand dollar. That is not what my field (translation) is usually paid anyway.

On a last and personal note, I have seen a lot of comments about Freelancing websites and it seems to me that it is always a way for the author to glorify him/herself after a dry period. You do not want to use these websites? Great! More work for people who actually want and need it!

I wrote an article on this very thing almost two years ago. I wsh we as freelancers could put this issue to bed once and for all.

I also wish that more freelancers (especially freelance writers) would stick to their guns on rate because in the end, it’s the only way to make a living. That’s why so many of us operate at opposite ends of the spectrum. There are many freelance writers who seem to make very good money seamlessly, while others struggle needlessly to make minimum wage.

As I say in the article at the below-mentioned link, “One of the things I’ve learned over the years is to charge what you feel is a fair rate for your editorial services and - within reason - stick to it. Working for less than what you feel you’re worth is not only bad for your pocketbook, it’s not good for your psyche. No job (freelance or otherwise) should make you feel this way.”

Read the full article, 3 Reasons NOT to Bid for Freelance Writing Assignments, at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/32067/3_reasons_not_to_bid_for_freelance.html?cat=3

Yuwanda

That’s a pretty angry post (not to mention half the comments!)… maybe this is another factor preventing you from finding good work?

There’s two things to remember with sites like this:

1) If you walk around saying you’ll pay people $50/hour to write for you, you’ll get countless offers from people who probably can’t graduate from high school. But you might also get offers from quality writers who appreciate being paid well for their skills. You just have to expect that the good ones will be a minority because any good offer attracts a lot of people who just aren’t qualified. You’re seeing the opposite side of this. Some sites have more quality buyers, and some have less. You’ll never find them if you can’t get past the fact that allowing anyone to post a proposal without restricting the terms means that some will be unrealistic (and maybe some buyers just don’t need the highest quality work - if you don’t know when your services aren’t right for someone looking for a “freelance writer” you have a problem).

2) Bidding doesn’t mean the lowest offer wins. If you’re actually afraid that someone with barely any writing skills who can live on $5/day will win projects that you wanted, you must take 5 times as long as you promise to do terrible work and have service that leaves people with emotional scars. If you seriously can’t understand the concepts of premium pricing and how to sell you won’t have much of a business.