Education Freelance Writing For Websites

Freelancing world is now full of starry eyed. And if you have any doubt about what happens to the starry eyed, just check with some who have jumped into it unprepared, and now have stories to tell. Let us take a fresh look at some of the claims and mythologies surrounding Freelance writing. What are your choices? If you start with Helium, you have made a very good choice on several accounts. Joining it is free and without any hassles. You do not meet that frightening person called the editor at the door. There is a chance indeed that you may be welcomed by a smiling mentor. Problem however is money. It is not visible at first. It may come in large quantities, but it will be slow by nature. Constant Content on the other hand is very frustrating. My one article was rejected thrice. It was rejected the first time on the ground that they do not, "accept personal narratives". But I had submitted the article in the blog category after checking that occasional "I" was allowed. I changed it and it was again rejected as, "This piece does not offer useful information to the reader." The third time round they did not bother to tell me the reason. But there is money. A writer, for example, took his daughter to a movie and spent $7 on the tickets. The same night he wrote a review of the movie which took him five minutes. The review sold for $20 within 15 minutes of its acceptance. He now has about a thousand articles on Constant Content. What are the other choices? For example, you could join Elance or Guru. But they are not free. You not only pay membership charges upfront, but also charges on every dollar that you receive. Both have a system of bidding for work. Many writers have made money on these sites, but these also have their share of scamsters. Many buyers (as Elance calls them), or Employers (the Guru term) are openly stating in their Project descriptions that you should bid only if you are willing to give an article for $1. The article of course has to be unique and will be checked on copyscape. There are also payment issues. At Guru for example, you do not know who the buyer of your article is. Secondly, they say you are on your own if you do not opt for escrow (the buyer shall be asked to deposit the sum with Guru, to be released on your request on completion of the project). But what protection do you have when you have in fact opted for escrow? If the employer refuses to pay, then you can opt for mediation. In the mediation, actually it is you who has to find a solution. These are the options that may be given to you: --1. You and Employer negotiate a monetary settlement and part ways. --2. You and Employer split the escrow funds 50-50 and part ways. --3. You perform some additional work for Employer at no charge in exchange for the full amount of the escrow funds. --4. You write this off as a business loss, return the escrow funds in full to Employer, protect your reputation, and move on to your next project. In case mediation fails, the next step is Arbitration. In the Arbitration, the burden of proof is that of the Provider/Professional writer. As per Guru again, the burden of proof is that of the professional (writer in this case). The burden of proof, as per the Guru site means: To receive the Escrowed funds, you must prove that: - You completed and delivered the work to the employer. - You completed and delivered the work according to the timeframe in the online Project Agreement. If the employer and professional did not specify a timeframe in the Project Agreement, the timeframe demanded by the employer prevails. - The demands of the employer are outside the project's scope as defined in the online Project Agreement. - The quality level of the completed work objectively meets the quality standards outlined in the online Project Agreement. If quality of work determination is subjective, the quality level demanded by the employer prevails. Implication is clear-even if you insisted that the employer escrows the money before you will deliver him your article or book, there is no guarantee that you will get your money. The Employer may simply say that in his judgment, the work was not upto the mark-nobody can dispute that judging a piece of writing is a very subject matter. It becomes even more difficult as many buyers/employers are not specific about what they want. As "the quality level demanded by the employer prevails", the arbitrator will accept buyer's word and you can wave a good bye to your work. Is that all? No sir. In addition, your feedback rating will receive a negative mark in the event of your losing the case in the arbitration. Feedback is very important on these sites as many prospective buyers/employers look at your feedback before awarding you a project. essay writers