Comments on: Freelance Writing Jobs for Thursday, August 28, 2008

By: greg pouget

greg pouget — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:55:39 +0000

FYI… thirteen people wrote for that assignment. All were paid except this lady for no fault of mine. She wrote several strange e-mails to me over labor day weekend requesting feedback and pay. When I returned to work on Tuesday, she had blocked my e-mail address. After that I tried to get word counts to no avail. I guess she actually blocked me. Good riddance.

By: Alicia N

Alicia N — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:27:50 +0000

Update and warning — I am not sure which one of the ads this gentlemen wrote from, but I received an email from a GREG POUGET to write three articles–I delivered them, waited and when I heard no word I wrote to ask if he had received them. All I got back was a cryptic , “yes” –no response regarding if he was looking over them, if he was going to use them or if I would be paid as promised.

I should have done this before, but I performed a search and could find nothing on Greg Pouget or his company “PR Legal, inc.”
If anyone gets an email from Greg Pouget DON’T WRITE ANYTHING FOR HIM — he is obviously a scammer…

By: Mariella

Mariella — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:50:12 +0000

Congrats, Jenn! Happened to me a lot of times before, too. We all just have to keep trying!

By: Jodee

Jodee — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:18:01 +0000

@ Jenn: That is such great news, and you have encouraged more people than you know to keep trying by sharing it!

@ Dani: Thank you!

By: Dani

Dani — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:03:30 +0000

@Jenn: Congratulations! That is such wonderful news! I am so very happy for you.

@Jodee: I am so grateful that you put so much time into sifting through so many leads in order to bring us such a wide variety! I love the variety, and I love reading about others landing gigs posted here. Especially stories like Jenn’s! Oh my gosh – I teared up!

I know what it is like to be struggling like that. It can get so frustrating to be trying so hard and wonder if anything will ever turn up. I am so glad she got work – and I am so grateful to you and Deb for all you do to help us.

By: Niki

Niki — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:38:28 +0000

@Jennifer. I worked for rentacoder for awhile. I did short SEO articles for fairly low pay. The site takes a percentage of your pay. Most clients were easy to please. One was more difficult. I stopped because I was tired of it and wanted to try other things. I still get invitations for work over there because of my rating. I’ve also done work on guru.com. You just have to make sure you understand the details of the jobs so you don’t do a very difficult job for low pay.

Niki

By: Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:07:04 +0000

Ask and ye shall receive… Apparently that really works. I’ve been struggling for weeks now to find work. Last week I actually had $2. Not on hand, not “except” anything. Just two dollars. It’s frustrating and defeating to be so diligent and get no results. Remember my comment yesterday about applying and getting no responses? Apparently someone finally heard my cries. (Apparently a LOT of people did…or maybe it’s just national “hire Jenn” day… LOL) Today I woke up to an inbox with two part time project basis gigs for me (you know the type, a project here, a project there… nothing serious, but still it’s work). Then I continued applying to positions because one of the two pays monthly and won’t pay until the end of September… yuck. I submitted trial articles for a job I didn’t even apply for… the guy found me from my profile on a different freelance site. He paid me for the trial work, and he loved it, so I got a bonus, and another part time gig. Applied to the Auto Insurance Blogger listing, which will take about an hour every day (or less) since they only want 10 articles a week… got an email this afternoon that says “Welcome aboard!” While most of these aren’t steady gigs or full time work, I think between them all I should be able to stay on top of things for a little while, and I’ve got to give a huge THANKS to Jodee and Deb for helping me by providing the listings every day. You guys rock!

By: shani

shani — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:23:30 +0000

Hi,

I saw the about.com position and told my husband, who’s a practicing audiologist of 27 years to apply. They got back to him right away saying that they already had a deaf guide. He sent something out for them to consider doing a hearing impaired guide, because it so different from the deaf community. About.com got back to him to say they would review it. So they definitely weren’t dragging feet with us either…I hope about.com really considers it!

Shani

By: Sally Kane

Sally Kane — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:45:25 +0000

I am the legal careers guide for About.com and it really is a great gig. While $725/month is the base salary, many guides earn much more. I have not seen much turnover and some guides have been with About for over ten years.

On another note, I was hired today for the legal blogger position posted recently on this site. Thanks Jodee!

Sally Kane
About.com Guide to Legal Careers
http://legalcareers.about.com/

By: Cindy

Cindy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:20:50 +0000

Hi, everyone. Thanks for the links again, Jodee! I look at them everyday though I rarely post a comment. (Too busy applying!)

I applied for the About.com position for Stay at Home Moms guide a month or so ago. I got a response last week that they had hired someone else. I just wanted to say that I did NOT get drug around by them. I thought they were very nice and encouraging in their response to me. I’m keeping an eye on their available positions in case another fits my skills.

Thanks for the great work, Jodee!

Cindy

By: Dionne Obeso

Dionne Obeso — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:27 +0000

I applied for an About.com job a few weeks ago, and I would just die of happiness if I get it. Still waiting back re: my status.

Nothing for me today. Thanks for the links, Jodee!

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:19:35 +0000

I work for About.com and I love it! I get a chance to work in my field. I’ve only been doing it a few months but have already gotten some extra money from page views. You can also make some from affiliates.

Many of the Guides have been around for years. They have been adding a lot of new topics this year

Vanessa
Trees and Shrubs at About.com

By: Jodee

Jodee — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:03:46 +0000

@ Ed: $30 for 800 words may be worth someone’s time. Our rule here is to post jobs paying $10 and up. If I can find the pay rate, then I do post it with the link. Since trolling for leads takes a couple of hours every day, I hope you will understand that ranking them as well according to pay would just make that part of the job too time-consuming.

By: Brandi

Brandi — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:25:19 +0000

@Brian: Some of the guides make 6-figure incomes – mostly in the health topics. With their traffic, guides can make a ton of money. The thing I always wonder about is the turnover. Positions seem to open up repeatedly, so I’m not sure what the problem is.

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:51:10 +0000

Sorry to break the About.com chain, but it would be nice if job postings here were ranked by pay. In other words, if someone wants to pay $30 for a 800-word piece, its not worth anyone’s time.

By: Damaria Senne

Damaria Senne — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:35:07 +0000

Thanks Jodee. I applied for the “writers needed” position. Holding thumbs.

By: Fiona

Fiona — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:16:11 +0000

I also applied for the About.com British food position and they emailed me back asking if I also knew about Scottish food. Not a good sign!

I see there’s one today for a native Brit – I’m on it!

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:05:40 +0000

Funny enough, when I went to fill out an application for the Freelance position – they must not be accepting any more applications because I could not get the system to accept it. Also, I looked at their job postings for About.com guides and also freelance writers and it states there are no freelance writing positions open – go figure… I get very leary about jobs that you get paid according to ad clicks – Suite 101 did not start out that way and I used to write for them, but they did not pay very much either and the application process back then was grueling. To me, some of the craigslist jobs look more promising.

By: Ann G.

Ann G. — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:52:59 +0000

Re. About.com: I did apply for a job with them once for British Foods. My mom’s British, as are many of my relatives, and the topic is very close to home. Because I didn’t have a video camera, they emailed me back and said unless I were to purchase one, they couldn’t consider me for the position. So something to think about for some of their job postings.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:21:10 +0000

I have never once heard back from about.com even when I was very qualified for what they were looking for. $795 a month sounds like a lot but they say an average guide needs to work 20 hour per week to do well. That’s less than $10/hr and considering the fit some people throw around here over $10/post, maybe it isn’t that much after all. You do get some sort of bonus based on page views, et. al. I’ve never actually heard how that works out for anyone. Maybe it works out to more than a grand a month, then we’d be talking about “paying well.”

Anyone on here an about.com guide? How’s your pay per views going?

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:15:52 +0000

I absolutely love that you guys are putting “Onsite” on postings. That saves us a ton of time when we live in the middle of the country and a posting is for the edges and they want someone in the office. Keep up the good work.

By: DeMarco

DeMarco — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:09:00 +0000

About.com pay starts at $725/month. Solid pay, lots of work. I was a “finalist” for the Atlanta guide position. Didn’t get it. Sigh…

By: Spencer Spellman

Spencer Spellman — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:33:44 +0000

Thanks for the list Jodee! Nothing for me today, although I’ve applied for a lot of gigs this week. I heard back from the website I interviewed last week and they’re looking over my samples and will get back to me after labor day. I hope something works out.

By: ciara

ciara — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:51:56 +0000

Alas, nothing for me today, but thanks so much all the same.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:51:00 +0000

Per the About.com ad, what do you consider great pay, it seems they want a lot of footwork for those small articles.