Life of A Writer

Back when I first signed up for oDesk I didn't know if they'd really help me gain new clients, but today I'm happy to report that thanks to oDesk I've been able to increase my clients. Not only have I gained new clients through oDesk, but I've gained friendly clients who have been great to work for. The clients that oDesk has blessed me with have been very helpful and provide great instructions, and this, my fellow writer friends, is something we all want with clients.

I'm sure you're wondering how you, too, can increase your clients, and since I enjoy helping others, I'm going to share a few tips with you. These are the things I do to increase clients with oDesk. Remember, oDesk guarantees payment on all hourly jobs!

Seven Simple Ways to Increase Clients With oDesk

1. Check writing job listings daily. If you don't want to visit the oDesk site on a daily basis, you can subscribe to be notified of new listings via e-mail, or use the search feature on your left to search for the jobs you want, and then subscribe to the RSS feeds for each search you perform.

2. Apply for jobs that only pay by the hour. This guarantees that you'll be paid for your time and work.

3. Create and save a pre-written cover letter on your hard or flash drive. Then when you run across a writing job you want to apply for, edit your pre-written cover letter to match the writing job your applying for, and then follow oDesk's steps to submit that cover letter to the potential client.

4. Use your best clips on your oDesk profile,and update every so often with more recent clips.

5. Post your resume on your oDesk profile, along with any client testimonials.

6. Follow up with potential clients who requested an interview but never got back to you.

7. Take the free oDesk skills tests, and when you score high, make the results public so potential clients can see you really do have the experience you say you have.

Disadvantages

While oDesk has been making improvements, there are still a few things I believe they could improve. For one, if you're writing in Microsoft Word or researching (reading through information), the software that tracks providers' hours doesn't always log the time as "online." Instead, it logs it as "offline," and pay for "offline" time is not guaranteed. I guess it logs it as "offline" time because it considers you idle since you're just reading and not typing. That said, if oDesk could improve this, it would be great!

Finally, there's no guaranteed payment for fixed-price jobs. Personally, I don't understand how oDesk can guarantee their providers payment on hourly jobs and not fixed-price jobs. Although I'm already grateful to oDesk, they would earn my respect more if they'd change this policy.

Rest assured that this won't be my last post about my success with oDesk, because I plan to continue sharing my oDesk experience with you. To stay up-to-date with my oDesk experience, subscribe to my full RSS feeds or opt-in to receive free updates via e-mail.

Do you use oDesk to increase clients? Feel free to share your oDesk experience in the comments area.

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Jerry Allen asked me about Associated Content (a.k.a., The People's Media Company) in a comment, and I thought it would be better if I answered his question in a post, because there may be others reading wondering the same thing. Jerry asked, "Tell me about AC. IS it a pretty good gig?"

Well, Jerry, to be totally honest with you, it is a nice place to earn a little extra money, but I wouldn't recommend trying to make a living off of it alone, and you're certainly not going to get rich.

I've been a content producer for AC since February of 2006, and since that time -- not including the performance payments, which they just recently started -- I've earned a grand total of $1,019.31. In the beginning, I wrote more often for them, because their one-time offers were a bit higher than they are now. In fact, when I first started writing for them, I got quite a few $10 offers for my articles, but since they've introduced the performance payments, their one-time offers decreased. As I've said before, the performance payments are a nice addition, but I think it was more of way for them to decrease their one-time offers without looking bad.

Since I've been struggling financially lately, I figured up how many articles I would have to write a day for AC to contribute to the bills enough to keep hubby happy. Nevertheless, to be honest, at the rates they offer, there are times when I find myself uninspired to keep that commitment to myself because of their low offers. And this is where I'll admit that I sometimes miss a day of writing for AC, because I don't want to feel uninspired when I write… I believe it hurts my writing when I'm not inspired and just write, and because I don't want to shell out low quality content, I choose not to write for AC at all on those days. Instead, I write query letters and submit them to markets that pay fair rates. Believe it or not, I feel more inspired writing query letters and submitting them to well paying markets than I do writing an article for AC… even if they may be rejected.

I have refused offers from AC, because I have set a minimum amount on what I'm willing to accept from them, and if they don't offer me that amount, I'm more than happy to submit the article to a better paying market. Moreover, 99.9% of the time I only give them non-exclusive rights. You have two options with AC on rights: exclusive or non-exclusive, and if you give them exclusive, then you're signing away ALL your rights, and for the offers they make -- even with the performance payments -- it's not worth it to hand over all my rights for such low pay. At least with non-exclusive, I can sell the article as a reprint and earn more for it later down the road.

So would I recommend AC to you, Jerry, or to anyone else? Yes, I do recommend them as a side job. AC is the only one I know of on the Internet that will make you a one-time offer and pay you for performance (page views) too. There is no obligation to accept their offers either. If you don't think the offer they make is fair, then refuse it, delete your article and submit it to a trade magazine or other publication that will give you a fair rate for your hard work. The offers AC seems to be making right now range from $3.00 up to $7.00, and their performance payment is $1.50 for every 1,000 page views.

Best wishes!

PS
Since the performance payment was released in February 2007, I have earned a grand total of $185.90 for those. Not too bad, eh.

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