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You can make money, you just can't rely on freelance sites as your sole
source of business. I completely ignore the "write SEO optimized ...." and
"500 words for $1" jobs, and look for proposal, business plan, marketing,
website design, and technical writing projects that have a budget I can live
with, or have not pre-defined it. I do get the occasional "I can't believe
you're asking that much" reply, and I just move on.
I've made a pretty good amount of money from elance and guru over the last
two years, but my major source of business still comes from my network,
former employers and word of mouth--it was ever thus and I expect it will
always be so....
Connie P. Giordano
The Right Words, LLC
Communications & Information Design
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of neilson -at- windstream -dot- net
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 4:29 PM
To: Dan; voxwoman
Cc: TECHWR-L Writing
Subject: Re: Good sales pitch
---- voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> eLance ... downhill in a big way... 500-word ... $2.50 each
That's half a cent a word, which was the low rate for science fiction back
in the Golden Age of SF, like 1939, where you would at least be writing for
John W. Campbell. That's when your $1.00 Coke cost a nickel. You could rent
a house for maybe $40 a month. 2000 words a day is about the limit, but a
few of us can do 3000. Depends on the amount of polish applied. So that's
$10 or $15 a day max. I think I can make do with that if I live in a tent,
use a bicycle, and eat rocks.
I think the way folks "write" 500 words for $2.50 is to copy them from
somewhere. A lot easier now than in 1939, because back then there weren't
even computers in the science fiction stories, let alone under the authors'
sweaty paws. No Xerox machines, either.
Maybe the $2.50 trick is to sell the SAME 500 words to each of twenty
customers.
I looked at e-lance and a couple of the other bid shops some time ago, and
could not find any way to make any money.
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You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as connie -at- therightwordz -dot- com -dot-
Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all? Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at: http://www.doctohelp.com/
Explore CAREER options and paths related to Technical Writing,
learn to create SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS documents, and
get tips on FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICATION best practices. Free at: http://www.ModernAnalyst.com
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