Telecommuting jobs for writers

[Pauloz]

Being a writer myself, I've spent years hunting for jobs, and although I've had a lot of work, it has to be said that it's not easy to get good paying gigs. The demand is very highly specialized, in many cases, and the work varies from SEO crunching to a range of jobs, interesting and uninteresting.

The basic story with telecommuting is that you work on various rates of pay, some good, some terrible. This is a version of Work At Home where the main issue is who you're working for. I've had excellent clients, and some who were to put it mildly, neurotic.

Rates of pay vary from assignments with deadlines to articles at rates per word, to contracts on bidding sites like Elance.com . The money can be good, but the people posting jobs are often demanding, as well as semi- literate. I've actually got better work, and better working relationships, with people who aren't native English speakers, and who know their stuff, than English speakers who are new to the writing profession, and are basically trying to hire copywriters, not creative professional writers.

That's murder for articles, because actual content, and readability, takes a back seat to styles and semi- relevant usage. I had one client who started wanting an FAQ style for his site, then I didn't hear from him for a few weeks, then he came back with a completely different style. OK, people prefer different styles, but it left him with two quite different forms of information on his site, and me with having to use words like "easy peasy" to a market which was supposed to be getting properly informed about power tools.

The client isn't always right, but is the one who's paying, and that's the fundamental issue of writing jobs: What you can stand, vs. what the client wants. The difference between what's readable and what's asked for has to be seen to be disbelieved.

Scams

Another issue for writers is scams. The most common, and the one likely to cause writers the most heartbreak, is the essay scam.

This involves so- called "Academic Research", where the writer researches the subjects and produces academic essays, which are then recycled ad nauseam. These essays are basically scrambled into different forms, rewritten by other writers, and where you get paid for one essay, they get maybe 20 essays in different forms.

Just to add some more insults, the usual result is that people don't get paid for their work, either. There was recently a scam where a woman in the US didn't get paid $32,000 for her work, months of it. The site was supposedly based in the UK, and turned out to be operated from Eastern Europe, where this is big business, turning over a lot of material every year. This generates a lot of the plagiarism you see online, and at the bottom of the heap are the original writers, who don't see a cent.

Real telecommuting jobs online

There are some bona fide job sites for writers which are your best starting point for checking out how things work, and what the demand is for your kind of work:

Elance.com is the oldest of the real writing sites, and it's the one you should check out first as a genuine example of legitimate writing work. You actually have to pass a test to work on this site, and it charges you to use its services and bid for projects.

http://www.elance.com/

Elance.com allows you X number of bids per month, based on your subscription, and if you want to work in their many other fields, you need to subscribe to that field. Like if you're an IT person as well, you'd need to subscribe to Web and Programming, as well.

This is where you'll see the common bidding process for writing jobs. It's worth having a good look at how this works, because most other sites use similar methods, and Elance.com is a major league, highly reputable site, where things are done properly. If you check out the Writing and Translation tab on the home page, you'll see what's available, the number of bids the jobs get, and you'll also see the range of clients and relative levels of skills required.

You can actually learn most of what you need to know about realities of the writing profession as it now is, just by browsing. As you can see, there are jobs you would like, and some you wouldn't touch with somebody else's barge pole.


Other sites for writers:

Craigslist, despite its at least partly undeserved reputation, is another option. (Craigslist does actually try to stay on top of the scams, and there are things you can do about bogus ads, so don't get put off by hearsay.) A lot of writers jobs are posted on other sites direct from craigslist, and to be up to date, and to make sure you can telecommute, you can check the telecommute box on the searches.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites


Online Writing Jobs is a compound of writers job ads, and it's quite helpful in terms of specific types of writing, like journalism, creative, ghost writing, etc, which helps narrow down searches before you start. Some of these ads are local ads, which is a nuisance for telecommuters, but there are enough telecommuting jobs to make it worth a look.

http://www.online-writing-jobs.com/

PCMoneymaker.net has taken over a site which used to be called Freelance Writing Jobs, and has a series of links to jobs and information features about paid writing work. This isn't necessarily the top of the line, but it's a good entry point, and most importantly this site also tells you what you're paid, from article submissions to advertising revenue sharing.

http://www.pcmoneymaker.net/category/paid-to-write/

Creative writers and authors

There's a particularly useful site called Writer Beware, operated by pro writers, which specializes in alerting people to scams like literary agencies that charge through the nose, vanity publishing scams where you get charged to publish (real publishers never do that) and other things you need to look out for. It also includes a good basic understanding of rights issues, and tells you what you need to know about copyright, contracts, and what to avoid.

Writer Beware: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

This is a site you should check before doing any business with anyone. The writers, one of whom is well known SF writer Victoria Strauss, will answer your questions and try to help with any concerns you have. I've contacted them several times and recommended them to other writers many times, and they can give you an insight into the real risks in the writing profession.

I hope this helps, because I know how tough it is for writers starting out. If you've got any questions, ask on this thread.

[bereanmh]

Paul,

Do you ever do editorial work for others who write articles? If so, what are the details and how much do your normally charge?

[Pauloz]

bereanmh

Yeah, I've done a fair bit of editing of writers on this site, and I have clients who send me material to edit ad hoc, including checking for plagiarism, where I've found 3 so far. I'm not cheap, but I'm quick. I try to keep my rates within clients' budgets, though, usually I charge $25 an hour.