Fuck Yeah Freelance Writing

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Evernote is Some Good Shit

I've known about the jobs of Evernote for some time in many capacities, but I started using it to manage my job listings / applications / submissions instead of being a massive article / book idea repository and it's pretty epic. It helps that the job searching tools I use have integrated Evernote options so it's a one click process to send the listings to the appropriate notebooks. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

Can I Pay My Rent in Impressions?

Rev-share and pay per impression sites annoy the ever living shit out of me. 99 percent of them don't have any goddamn traffic to speak of, so it makes zero sense for anyone to submit articles to the sites. They expect you to do the promoting and content sharing yourself to help drive readers to your articles and their sites. The only reason that writers go for this is because for some reason, they've gotten themselves onto the Internet but they haven't figured out how to hit two rocks together and make a basic website or WordPress blog they can slap Adsense onto. It takes time and effort to build up your website traffic and income, but you're pretty damn likely to make more residual income off of your site instead of some random "news" site with no cohesive theme, a horrendous design, and coding that a kindergarten would do.  

Pay per impression / rev share works if you get it in addition to a base payment. It's performance pay in that case. But until my landlord is down with receiving 1,000 clicks on his article instead of actual money, I'll continue to stay far away. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

You want me to come into an office for HOW MUCH?

I really hate how goddamn undervalued good writing is, or even bad writing. You are seriously going to have a job posting up that wants a writer on-site for $10 an hour? Seriously? I don't even get out of bed for less than $30 an hour, and that's telecommute. You're looking at $50 min (and that's a stretch) if you want me to haul my ass down to your office for shit that doesn't actually need to be done at your office for any reason other than your gross work inefficiencies. 

I saw a job listing that had enough requirements for a skill based position that I assumed would be in the 75k range due to responsibilities. $12 an hour. What? What the fuck is wrong with people? You want someone proficient in social media marketing, viral content creation, reputation management, general copywriting, and community management for that much? I hate you and the ground you walk on. I hate the fact that we are breathing the same air right now. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

I fucking hate doing graphic design

I don't really offer graphic design as a service, but I do dabble in it now and again for my own needs, such as logos and website navigation buttons of prettiness and that kind of thing. I really should make friends with a graphic designer who I wouldn't mind bugging for the little stuff. I've got plenty around for bigger projects and client things I need assistance with, but for little bullshit things I feel bad about asking. But dear gods, I wish to murder Gimp, and Photoshop, and my inability to wrap my head around ANYTHING INVOLVING APPLIED GRAPHIC DESIGN FUCKING HELLS. I've been fucking around with making a new portfolio and it's driving me crazy, for real. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

Content Mill Writers Enjoy Shooting Themselves in the Foot

The one good thing about content mills is the easy money. The work is there for whenever you want to pick it up, and the hourly rate isn't bad when you have a lot of experience in quick research and an ability to write 110 WPM or so. The bad thing about content mills is the fact that it's a low hanging fruit job. The dabbling freelance writers flock to them like crazy, so when you find one that has enough work to make it worthwhile, you keep your mouth shut. 

Time and time again, these writers decide to post on publicly available forums about the latest openings at decent paying content mills. At some point, you would think the morons would see that they're shooting themselves in the foot as the regular workflow instantly disappears. Sadly, they have not appeared to figure this out. 

I suppose a big part of this is due to the fluctuations with Demand Studios over the past few years. From 2009 to 2011, it made up a big chunk of my income because it was stupid easy and they needed endless content. Then Google Panda came along and fucked everyone's life up for easy money.

The professional writers knew how to market themselves for other business. The dabblers who had been making full time income on Demand have been floundering about for the past two years or so. DMS shut down their site entirely until Jan 2nd, and given that you don't just shut down websites over the holidays, I'm thinking that it's the final death throes for the content side of things. 

So once again, there's going to be a decently large deluge of writers who are floating around, ready to post incessantly about all of the "great opportunities" that they have found. Some of the sites stay intact because there's qualification gates in the way. But generally, the work just goes poof. It doesn't affect me in the long run since I have plenty of other options, but it's certainly going to have a profound impact on the writers who don't have the time or energy to invest in full scale marketing efforts for their own clients. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

I made it through a waitlist on a content writing site

As long as they aren't totally fucking over the writers on the payment split, this one pays reasonable levels at the high end of their scale. However, these fuckers want a custom sample in their applications. I have THOUSANDS OF ARTICLES that have been published all over the damn place, but nooooo. You want custom samples. I've got a custom something for you, it's silicone and phallic shaped. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

Invasion of the Cloud Monsters

I do a ton of technology writing, which is good because, well, I like to get my tech geek on. However, when I get stuck on a particular market segment over, and over, and over again, I get a bit stir crazy. Cloud computing is a a huge trend in both consumer and enterprise IT right now, so it makes sense that companies need plenty of content. But seriously guys, there's PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, DaaS, EVERYTHINGaaS wherever I look. I use the cloud pretty godsdamn extensively for my business, but that doesn't mean every piece of technology writing needs to be about it. 

Please. Throw me a bone here. Let me talk about graphics cards or physical servers or ANYTHING NOT INVOLVING DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING AND VIRTUALIZATION. 

[fuckyeahfreelancewriting-blog]

Fuck Yeah Freelance Writing

There's a lot of sites about freelance writing out there. Most of them are probably better than this. However, what most freelance writing sites lack is enough snark, sarcasm, and realism to drown the Internet with. I've been doing this for 11 years, and let me tell you, I have seen some shit. This is mostly a personal freelance writing themed rant space, but it might give you a more realistic view of freelance writing. If it helps you, that's great, and feel free to send messages along if you have questions. If it doesn't help you, oh well, it's helping me, and that's what's really important.