by Deb Ng
So I’ve been checking out leads online for about ten years now. Every now and then I think about what has changed and what has stayed the same. There are definitely more ads that don’t pay. When I first started freelancing it was mostly literary journals or poetry sites that weren’t paying. There wasn’t a lot of folks expecting you to stock their sites and blogs for the glory. The offers were a lot more realistic a decade ago as well. Though I saw many calls for content, there weren’t any of the “I need 40 articles on tooth decay in 24 hours type things.” Also, there were low payers back then, but not as many.
The good news is blogging jobs (outside of blog networks) are paying more money. Instead of $1 per post or $5 per post, I’m seeing ads for $10 and more for blog posts. I’m also seeing more jobs for people willing to pay more than $20 for an article.
How long have you been looking, and how have things changed in that time?
In any event…leads….
- Freelance Writer – $100 – $200 per project
- MMORPG Freelance Writers
- Freelance Resume Writer – $100 – $150
- Writer/Editor - Atlanta
- Writer with Nursing Background for Book Project
- Mom’s Squad – $15
- Writer for FOREX Broker Website
- Music Journalist – Boston – Telecommute OK
- Editor Needed for Book of Parenting Essays
- Copy Writers for Website – Chicago
- Writing About Medical Marijuana – $250
- Trivia Contributors Wanted – $50 – $150/month
- Magazine Launching – Writers Wanted
- Ghost Writer for a Novel - All Caps Alert!
- Innovative Direct Response Writer
- Ghostwriter
- Celebrity Blogger – $200/month
- IMDB Bio - $80
- Writers/Bloggers Wanted
- Textbook Editor – Brooklyn
- Book Proposal Writer
- Horoscope Writers - $100/week
- Educational Writer for Vocabulary Exercises
Hope you have a great day!
Hi Deb
Fab list as ever. Thank you for the time you spend doing this.
Do you have any tips for writing cover emails etc when applying for these leads? I have tried a few but never get anywhere. Or do I need to buy your book to find out…?
I’m one of those who got suckered into the Today.com $5 per post deal that they then dropped to $1 after just short of 2 weeks saying if I wanted a higher rate, I’d have to boost page views. Can’t say blogging impressed me. I did get another gig where I wrote a paragraph about a Scottish beer made from seaweed and got $20, so that was better.
I started as a book reviewer. It was a no-pay gig, but you got free books. The amount of money I saved on books was amazing, so no-pay didn’t bother me. I do know, however, that over the past year, people are demanding pay for reviews. I can’t offer pay and have made no mistakes about saying that. For me to pay for reviews, I’d have to start charging the authors and publishers and I won’t do that. I’ve lost a ton of potential reviewers that way. The funniest was an author who wanted to get paid to review but then answered quite honestly that from her standpoint as an author, she’d never pay someone to review her book. So quite a double standard.
I landed a gig with Publisher’s Weekly who don’t pay until you’ve been with them for 6 reviews. On my 6th review, they stated they had filled all the positions and no longer needed my services. Even then, they pay $20 for 500 words. I have other writing jobs paying that that don’t require a book to be read first.
I agree, some of those ads out there are pretty ridiculous, like the ones that barely or not at all mention what the position requires or even have all these grammer and punctuation mistakes that you can’t even understand what they are asking for! (the one on here in all caps is a good example of the vague part).
And I’m kind of confused about the magazine launching-writers wanted ad. It mentions on the bottom that it is for no pay, yet in the ad it says that it is a paid gig. Who knows. But I did apply for a few gigs today as some of them are quite interesting, though I got let down yet AGAIN by one opportunity that was listed on here later last week. Ah well, hopefully eventually I will get lucky…
I completely agree that we’re seeing many non/low payers. I’m guessing that can be attributed to the economy — but not totally. These people are playing on peoples’ fear — not just of current economic conditions, but that they might not get reliable freelance work — as well as their hope of getting published and getting paid for the privilege.
Most blogging jobs I’ve seen fall into this category. Though I know there’s a way to make a living blogging, I have yet to see it. I dropped a blogging client a few months back because he was paying something like $27/post — and was so high-maintenance that the hourly rate turned out to be miserable.
I don’t expect potential clients to baby my ego. Offer what you think is fair, but don’t be surprised if I turn my back in favor of my own unpaid creative work.
I just looked at the MMORPG writing project and thought it was a perfect thing for me to do. Can anyone else figure out of there’s a way to apply for that without paying a fee?
Just FYI, the 8th listing (Music Journalist-Boston-Telecommute OK) is a non-paying gig.
Actually, I tried finding ANY kind of legitimate writing gig through the web about five years ago, and gave up in disgust: EVERYTHING I found was either “write my term paper for me” or “pay money for our listings and maybe you’ll get a gig.”
Now, I’m finding that many very legit institutions are advertising online, and I’ve already landed (through your list and a couple of others) about $10,000 in writing gigs since about Thanksgiving!
There are a few keys to this: ONE – apply for everything you think you could possible be qualified for, and tailor each letter; TWO – read between the lines (if they can’t spell the word “magazine” in an ad, they probably aren’t a professional organization); THREE – be sure you actually know who you’re working for!
Natch, it helps to have a solid backlog of experience, plus a pile of clips to draw from. Over twenty years, I’ve put together an awfully big collection of materials I’ve written – so can tailor clips to potential clients. What I really need to do, now, is go through all my ancient history and put together easy-to-find collections of clips of all sorts…
Lisa (www.lisarudy.com)
The first article I ever wrote I got paid $200, from an alternative weekly. I think if everyone stopped blogging for $10, the market for copy would improve tremendously. Personally, I try to not to accept anything below that original pay level. After more than 15 years, with inflation, why should the rate be LESS?
The main key is to stop thinking that these startup Web sites have anything to do with professional writing or building a career. They don’t. There is plenty of great-paying work for trade magazines, specialty pubs, writing Web content for companies with complex services or products they need explained. Look for the writing that not everyone could do…and that’s what pays.
Carol
Thanks for this leads. I have applied to some of these and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.
There’s just one thing that bothers me, though. There are ads in craigslist that use public return mail addresses.
I’ve learned from my own sad experience that ad posters using free email address are very ” risky”. Translation, they’re 90 percent scam. (again, only my own opinion).
I must admit, though, that in the past I’ve landed in a couple of legitimate, well-paying writing gigs in some craigslist ads with free return email address.
Now, I stay away from ads with free return email address.
I would like to ask: Is it just my paranoia or someone else in this forum having the same view?
Arlyn,
I think that used to be the case with free emails, but now with gmail, it’s so easy to set up a box to use as a forward. I never put my real email on an ad because I get too many emails. I always post with a gmail addy that I can update with a message when the job has been filled.
So don’t judge every job by the email address.
Does anyone else get ticked off by these incoherent C-list ads that say absolutely NOTHING about the writing gig? I think this person is ESL but if you can’t communicate what you want in an ad, how can you work with a writer? UGHHHH…one of my many pet peeves when it comes to these ads, especially copywriting ads.
“We need copy writer who can take a look our website and provide feedback and new copies for our websites. Our business is IT services and we can use for client as well.
Thanks “
Cynthia,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter. You’ve got a point there, and I’m beginning to think that if I will post ads in craigslist, I would use free email address, too!
(I guess I would try to apply again to these CL ads. I’m a jobless freelance writer, by the way.)
To Therese,
I understand your pet peeve. But I learned ( too late!) that not all job posters passed through high school at the top 10 of their graduating class.
Translation, some of these job posters’ English sucks ( like mine) but they have the financial means of owning companies.
If you ask me, I just bear and grin it!
Been working all day, thought I’d check it out and what a list!!!
Many thanks!!
I have only been freelancing a few years, but I have also noticed that more people recently are willing to pay better for qualified writers. I think the internet is getting competitive enough that editors are having to give some weight to what is actually written instead of just trying to fill up space with as little expense as possible.
On the downside, some of these companies looking for qualified writers and offering decent pay go overboard. I have one that will reject your article if even three words match articles found in competitive sites. The articles are all about mortgages, and I worked in mortgage banking, so the knowledge is there. But try spinning “lower interest rates” so that the wording never matches another financial site. It gets very tedious.
Arlyn, Believe me I’m very much aware that many of these people didn’t pass high school and I think this was a matter of English as a second language with the communication barrier. I was just venting.
It pays to network locally.
I just made a great lead today for a potential consulting contract for non-profit. I’m also a marketing consultant so this could be a lucrative lead for doing some fundraising consulting. I really highly suggest that you hit the pavement locally. I made some great contacts today working in my local coffeehouse. It was a good day!
I have noticed that in the last few years there are more higher paying jobs being offered online, admittedly there are more lower and non-paying jobs as well, probably just a side effect of their being more freelance writing jobs available now than in years past. The other change I’ve noticed is that those that at one time only accepted print clips as reference material of a prospective writer are now more willing to look at online clips.
The whole word matching thing is like Big Brother coming down on thought. Be yourself! Give enough monkeys on typewriters enough time they will produce Hamlet!
Cheers and good blogging.