Freelance Writing Jobs for Tuesday, September 16, 2008
September 16, 2008 by Jodee
Filed under Freelance Writing
Good morning FWJ Friends! Since I’m running late this morning, I’ll just present you today’s list of leads.
Leads….
- Step Up to the Plate: Freelance Food Writers Wanted - Los Angeles
- Freelance Proofreaders – Temporary – Princeton, NJ ($22-$33 per hour)
- Freelance Copy Editor @ Metropolitan Home Magazine – New York
- Editor – Temporary – Washington, D.C. ($20 per hour)
- Writer - Temporary – On Site – Beltsville, MD ($15 per hour)
- About.com Seeks Business and Money Journalists
- About.com Seeks Sports Journalists
- About.com Seeks Health Professionals as Writers
- About.com Seeks Tech Journalists
- Paid Writing Internship Women’s Studies and Rock Music – Carmel Valley, CA ($1000 per month)
- Weekly Newspaper Intern
- Technical Writer - Temporary – On Site – Beaverton/Portland ($15-$19 per hour)
- Public Relations Internship at the Kimmel Center – Philadelphia – College Credit
- Copywriter – Irvine, CA ($30 per hour)
- Contract Technical Writer – 3 Month Contract – Irvine, CA ($35-$45 per hour)
- Freelance Proofreader - Temporary – Contract – Irvine, CA
- The Mary Wright Minority Fellowship – New York ($500 per week for three months)
- Copywriter – Subscription Program – Telecommute
- Car Magazine Editorial Intern – Flatiron/New York – College Credit
- Document Editor Needed to Consolidate Spec Docs – Murray Hill/New York – On Site
- Gadget Writers/Editors Needed for RareMonoShop.com – Telecommute
- Article Writing – High Pay and Entry Level ($10-$50 per 300-700 word article)
- Arabic Translator Wanted ($1,000 + bonus)
- Press Release Project – Writer Needed
- Lead Writer/Editor Wanted in Austin (up to $2,500 per issue
Good Luck!
Thanks for the list.
Thanks, Jodee. You have to love honesty in ads: “and also tend to hover over the person working on the task, so it needs to be someone who’s able to remain calm and competent under pressure. “
You are most welcome! The person who applies for that job, Kristen, can’t say they didn’t know what they were getting into, LOL!
The Article Writer ad states, “Generally, depending on quality, our writers earn roughly $10 – $50 per article. Again, this depends on the subject and quality of them.”
Wow, you kind of have to wonder how they put a monetary value on quality (you might think your article deserves $50 but they may say it only deserves $10? – Yikes!)
Hello FWJ people – thanks so much for these lists, I only recently started browsing them but they’re practically built into my daily routine now.
I’d like to ask for some opinions as to how ‘fishy’ (on a scale of carp to really stinky carp) this email I received from the ‘Article Writing – High Pay and Entry Level ($10-$50 per 300-700 word article)’ posting seems:
“Hello,
Thank you for responding to our Craigslist.org ad. We appreciate your time and patience. Although we are based out of the Midwest, we do advertise and post in other cities and locations. Because of this, we get hundreds, to upwards of a few thousand inquires per day.
Unfortunately, we are not able to review and monitor each and every applicant.
To save both parties time, we require 1 to 3 “test” articles. Depending on the quality of the first, you may or may not be required to complete the 2nd and 3rd articles. If our review team grades your first article higher than a 7, you will automatically be accepted into employment and assigned an article manager.
Please be advised: we do not accept any pre-written articles you have written in the past. This is due to conflicts regarding ownership of these articles, as well as if you still have the same “quality”.
Unique to you, our support team will provide 3 specific subject matters. You are free to choose whichever product, service, person or place you like.
Articles should be no longer than 750 words (To save our review team time), and no shorter than 350. Proper grammar is required. Please use your regular spell checker, and make sure sentences are properly formatted.
When finished with the article(s), please send them to AnEmailAddressIRemoved@gmail.com – please attach the article(s) as a .txt or .doc file. Please include your full name and phone number in the body of the email.
On behalf of Article Writer, Inc, we look forward to working with you!
Sincerely,
A Name I Have Removed
Head Management – Advertising Division
Assigned Article(s):
Please research and write a review for one of the follow Amazon.com products. (Note: Please be aware, of company has integrated “DupeCop” into our software to check for duplicates online)
(links to three amazon products, including a HDTV and Digital Camera)”
It’s terrible to have to be on high-alert for scams all the time, but this did set off a couple of alarm bells.
- Multiple “test” articles are always a bit suspicious aren’t they? A cynical chap like me might wonder whether everybody ‘fails’ and gets less than a 7 from these mysterious graders, meaning they have to provide a couple more freebies before they even get a sniff of some cash!
- Doing ‘reviews’ of amazon.com products without any first-hand use of the products in question seems highly weird, even if it is just as a “test”.
I dunno, I just get bad vibes from this, but anybody knows better and would like to tell me it’s fine and dandy I would be pleased to hear it! The pay seemed reasonable (well, if it was closer to $50/piece than $10/piece, anyway).
Sorry I’ve rambled on a bit there. But what say you, fellow FWJobbers?
Yeah, I’m kind of unsure about the article writing one, too. I’m guessing there might be a range of articles and the payout range is dependent on the amount of research required and article length…?
The ad for an article writer asks for samples on a specific topic. They also state you cannot use previously written samples.
Re : the ‘article writing’ ad again -
They’re asking for ‘test’ articles on certain products and will not accept previous written articles in case ‘you don’t retain the same quality’. As if a writer slowly un-learns how to write.
I don’t trust them. I think they’re harvesting free work.
I actually applied for that article writing post($10-50) and I got a response back requesting a writing sample of 400-700 words on a topic of my choice. It stated that they may need up to 3 samples, but if you score a “7″ or higher on your first sample you’ll be accepted automatically. It also went on to say that they couldn’t accept any previous articles that you’ve already written (i.e. samples) because of “ownership issues” and because they wanted to be sure that your writing ability matched your submission and that you didn’t lose it since writing an older article(???). It really set off alarm bells for me and sounded like they were just looking for free content. Either that or they were just not that professional.
I can’t understand needing a possible 3 samples to tell if a writer is a good fit or not. If the first one doesn’t work, why ask for additional?
I sent an email back stating I couldn’t create free content just in the hopes of being considered and that most employers agree to review existing samples. I might have been a bit more terse than I meant to be, but they did actually respond with an explanation that because certain writers they’d hired in the past didn’t perform up to their writing sample standard based they believed that perhaps the sample was plagiarized or someone else wrote it for them so they now require fresh samples. Not sure why the same couldn’t be true of a fresh sample–but oh well. Long story short, if the ad didn’t set off enough bells it sounded very disorganized and quite possibly dishonest.
Looks like my suspicions were confirmed while my initial post was still awaiting moderation. Cheers all, I’m steering clear.
Oddly, I was given different topics to write about than some of the writers up above. This makes it pretty obvious that they’re harvesting, otherwise they’d have everyone write about the same stuff and compare.
@PP
I answered an add a few weeks ago and received a very similar response to write 100 words on one of the three articles they listed. After all was said and done, I was told I was ranked one under their highest rating and that I could now go log in and start writing articles for their site, Textbroker. I don’t know if it is the same as what you’re encountering, but Textbroker looks to be a bust. The highest paying writing assignment has been $5 for 300 words. Needless to say, I haven’t done any work for them yet. I’m still waiting for pay that is more at the level they quoted.
I got the same response back (“test” articles required) on the article writing job with a strange attachment. Did anyone else get this attachment and what is your take on that?
Heh. I sent them links to work published online two days ago under my own name. They replied with the spiel about how the quality of my work might have deteriorated since the samples were written.
Lol, that company couldn’t sound sketchier. As if “Articles Inc.” wasn’t a sign, that “writer deterioration” policy sounds like a real ploy for free content. Glad we have this forum where we can share our experiences and opinions!
I got the same email about articles too and they were different topics as well. What a scam. I could not delete it fast enough.