Thanks guys.

Good luck! I really just fell into the good paying gig, didn’t go looking for it. I feel really lucky that way.

I have started with pretty cheap stuff too, then kept looking and applying, hoping to unload the lower paying ones. Just keeping moving is the thing I can tell you. If you keep throwing out lines and gaining experience, you’ll catch something good.

I’m no freelancing genius – at all – just persistent. And I assume everyone gets lucky now and then.

I also wanted you to know that I got rejected from the today.com blogs. I offered to put up a blog for new parents who are also newlyweds. They emailed me and said they already had enough writers on that topic, so I could either do something else or move on. I’m moving on because I can’t think of something else I’d be really good at. (I bet there are lots of things, but I haven’t thought of anything just yet.)

Your posts stuck out to me–one with the $30 an article pay and another with earning around 1200 a particular month. I’m trying to jump into freelancing. I’ve sent some articles I wrote in college off to a few places (I found via this site and others, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. Come to find out, many were spammers! I recently graduated w/an English degree and writing is my passion. Any advice/websites to go to on landing decent jobs? I’ve seen lots of jobs paying pennies per word and I feel my writing is worth more than that. I saw the great article about setting up a blog/site and I’m looking into that. My email is msluchie@msn.com. Thanks for your help!

@ JackB: I have been looking for leads in your area and will continue to post them when I find them. I hope you will let us know where we can read about your adventures online.

Having gone through an audit simply because the gov’t pulls out so many names at random each year, I would never knowingly give them any reason to come back again. The auditor leaves no stone unturned in his search for hidden income, so (as an example) unless you want to have to explain that the $X dollars you deposited into your chequing account was an anniversary gift from your parents (like we did), I would declare every single penny of income.

Please clarify so we can rectify the problem. PM me at WAHM.

Thanks again.

I report everything I’ve been paid and here is why- Paypal has to report their income. If they were to ever have an in depth audit done and the government tracked the people Paypal was claiming to have done business with and saw you hadn’t declared that income, you could be in a heap of trouble. Who knows what records Paypal is keeping and submitting when they do their taxes!

I am still a little concerned despite having spoken with their rep, simply because they have sent me three logins and websites for three blogs that I faked my way through during my ‘detective-ating.’

In theory I could fill these with content and get paid as long as I have three paypal accounts?

Lack of checks and balances worries me. They are a new company though.

I’m heading off on an around the world trip in less than a month (starting off with my sister’s wedding!), this time taking a laptop with me.

The last couple of times I’ve headed to CA I’ve kept a sort of public journal which I emailed to friends and family and they emailed onwards.

This time though, after reading Matthew Tuley’s article on making websites, I’ve finally gone and chosen a host, registered a couple of web domains, and I’m about to get some little business cards printed.

It should give me more than a hundred fine samples of my travel and blog writing!

Thanks guys

I enjoy my writing more when I think I’m actually *using* my brain! If I think I’m doing brainless work, I’m probably going to start reconsidering it. You may as well be working in an assembly line somewhere.

about the essays – if they have that much time to be worried about you are doing, you’d think they could use that to…um…*write something* If they don’t have enough time to actually do their work, they might not be doing college right IMO. Hmmm……

I guess I figured out how to write all my own papers in school, perhaps they could too. Plus, I’m sure working with whiny worried students was a real joyful experience too

The minute you receive money for a product or service, it becomes income and that means you have to declare it. It doesn’t matter which country the money comes from, which currency or which buyer you’re working for.

If you’re not declaring your PayPal income, you’re evading taxation laws.

I feel you! Right now I’m writing for two blogs, doing piecemeal editing work for someone, with the possibility of two article jobs coming up.

What I did was create an excel spreadsheet and write down per day everything I was doing with a sum total. And I also created a projected estimate, based on the work I was doing. That made me feel better to know that I was making some money.

I do have a question of my own to pose and maybe someone can direct me to a really good article. Basically, if you are freelancing full time and you are getting these jobs from all over and getting paid through paypal and such, what happens when you go to pay your taxes for the next year? Technically you are getting paid ‘under the table’. I’m just not sure how that works.

Yeah, the “saying yes” thing is exactly what got me in trouble! I was so excited to actually get work, and I had NO idea how much I could really handle, so I nearly drowned for a while.

I think the content thing sounds like the next gig to get voted off the island

I’d feel icky about the unethical essay thing, too.

I agree with Mina about $15-30 articles. That’s a step in a great direction. My highest paying gig now is blogging for $30 a post. There are certainly higher paying gigs out there, but having $15-30 makes your time spent more worthwhile.

Getting my $30/post gig was the equivilent of 1/4 the work of one of the gigs I dumped (I was paid $8/500 words there)! So even though I had been trying to “downsize” for a while, I realized how it compared to that other gig and that this would be a lot better use of my time.

I’m still pretty busy now, but this better paying gig will be worth it once I do finish this other huge project in a few months.

Sorry, this has turned into a big thing about me – I’m just trying to relate what I’ve recently been through to help you out some. Hope you can find some information and get a workload that doesn’t overstretch you too much!

Wow – totally relate to how you are feeling from a few months agoin my life! I got a huge “dump” of work on me all in one week and I felt like my head was screwed on sideways for a while.

My strategy was to see how quickly I could unload the lowest paying jobs. If there is a solid practical reason you need to keep one of the lower paying ones (or it’s about a topic that is your passion), then you may need to unload something else.

Unless you are really skilled at juggling a lot of work in the past, too much work just leaves you feeling (you said it) fried. I asked one of my lower paying jobs (that was easy and I liked) if I could just go on a break for a while as I finished up a large project. Actually I did that for two places. I finished a project I’d obliged myself too, then said I needed a “time-out”. Both of them said that was fine. The second place is lower paying, so I’m not likely to return there.

This “take a sabatical” strategy might not work in your situation, but it could be an in-between solution while you either get up to speed on some projects or reassess your optimal workload. Killing yourself every day just isnt’ worth it.

Well, and figuring out the pay would help you with all of this. What’s the reason they’ve given you as to why you don’t know your pay by now?

Thanks. I did go to the WAHM website and they do have a good discussion going there. I also saw where they mentioned copy rights belong to the company. Really good to know this.

Maryam, good luck with finishing up all your work. You are way ahead of me if you have moved up to 15-30 dollar articles.

Jodee, thanks for everything.