After realizing that we would be better off financially if I quit trying to start up a money-making business (ironic, isn't it?), I decided to get back into the wide open world of freelance writing. As a kid, I always wanted to be a writer, and boy howdy, I got my wish - it's just not quite what I had expected it to be.
I work for an online freelance site called oDesk, where you are called a Provider if you're providing a service (such as article writing), and called a Buyer if you buy those services. oDesk then takes a fee from the buyer to facilitate the transaction. If this business model sounds a bit familiar to anyone, that's because it 's basically prostitution. Now, of course there's no sex involved - get your mind out of the gutter! - but in this scenario, you as a writer are the prostitute, the buyer is, well, a buyer, and oDesk is your pimp.
Now I know that any money is good money, but after busting arse all weekend long, I realized that if I calculated my time spent vs. the amount of money I got for the fixed rate job, I'd just been paid approximately $3.50 an hour. Okay, I might be overexaggerating the crappy pay, but not by much.
I've determined that the only way to make more money is to simply write faster. It's really too bad that I have this whole "commitment to quality" thing going on, because if I didn't, these fingers would be typing so fast you wouldn't be able to see them moving.
Actually, I only get about 45 w.p.m. on a good day, so I'm completely full of it.
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How much do you get paid to be a freelance writer, if you don't mind me asking?
ReplyDeleteCompletely depends on the project. You can get paid by the project, or by the hour. You actually name your own rate on the hourly jobs, but since you're competing with people from other countries (like India), you have to get a little bit of feedback by doing lower-rate jobs before you ask what you're worth.
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