What to Offer Freelance Writers on Your Planned New Writing Site

You plan to create a new writing site, but there are already so many out there, how can you make your writing site better than other writing sites? Your goal is to have the best online writing site ever.

 

To get writers to not only flock to your site and submit many articles to your site, but to also have writers calling your site the best online writing site ever, you’re going to have to give them good reason to.

 

Research before fully embarking on your project should include:

• Studying other writing sites and their blogs and forums
• Reading reviews written by writers who are members at those sites - or who are no longer members!
• Reading the comments of visitors to those reviews

Your findings will most likely indicate that writers like different aspects of different writing sites – explaining why so many freelance writers submit their articles to more than just one site.

 

Logic dictates that you should offer freelance writers as much as you can, all on one site – on a site owned by you.

 

What makes good writers not even consider joining a new site, or make them leave that site?

• The site is only for writers who reside in a particular country
• There is a fee to join the site
• There is no payment option that the writer can use, or may have difficulty using
• It appears that some members abuse the choice of being able to vote down an article
• People may be struggling to get a Google Adsense account, and this is the only form of payment a site offers
• The site does not allow previously published materials
• The minimum length requirement of the submitted articles is quite long
• Members are not allowed to use their referral links when linking to other sites
• Members are not allowed to link to their own sites or other sites from their profile
• Spam isn’t dealt with quickly or properly
• There are no comment moderation options
• The writers name or date of article does not appear on the published articles
• There is only one way a writer can earn an income from submitting articles to a site
• Users are not also allowed to upload images to an image section, or bookmarks to a bookmark section (because these sections don’t exist on a site.)
• The earnings potential or payment structure is pathetic - and it’s obvious the owner of the site has the potential to make a huge fortune from submitted and published materials
• The site is untidy and difficult to navigate
• The pages take a long time to load
• There are hardly any FAQ, guidelines or tutorials
• Management takes more than 4 or 5 days to reply to an email
• Answered emails do not provide solutions to a problem
• Writers do not retain copyright or full rights of their articles
• It is expected that a tax form be submitted when some writers don’t even earn enough, or writers live in a country that requires tax details only after a person is earning enough
• The site publishes poor quality articles
• A writer has to earn quite a high amount before being paid
• Writers have to wait a long time to receive earned payments

Different ways that writers can earn an income from some writing sites

• Page views of their articles
• Ad revenue sharing
• Affiliate sales
• Selling their articles, with or without offering full rights
• Winning prizes
• Activity bonuses
• Voting up other articles
• Referring new users
• Referring visitors to any page of a site
• Making use of referral links and linking to their own or other sites

Can you create a site that eliminates all or most of the problems listed above, and that also offers freelance writers and those wishing to make extra income online more than just two or three different ways to make money? It may take a lot of planning and be quite expensive, but if you can do it, and can satisfy the wants and needs of every freelance writer out there, imagine how they would go mad submitting articles and promoting your site. You may just end up with the best writing site ever!

 

Original article on, and © copyright Teresa Schultz 2010

We have money to last about 4 days

and then no more unless some work comes in - this is how it goes with our freelance work from home business - we were kinda relying on a little article appearing in a local free weekly delivered to homes today to give us a bit of exposure, but no article yet. Perhaps next week.

It's depressing, but not the end of the world. It just means we should have spent less time (mostly me - Tony is working on a new SA Auction site for a client) trying to improve our sites in case a few locals popped onto them to take a look (after reading the article), and should have spent more time on looking for more work. We've had a few okay months since starting to work from home in February 2008, but quite a few pretty bad months too - this month is one of the not so hot ones. Even our next Adsense cheque is not quite yet due, and even then, it takes about 7 weeks before it arrives in the post.

Back to oDesk, I guess, for now. oDesk is a freelance site where all sorts of work can be done, or people (Internationally) looking for freelance workers can hire them. I've been a member there for about a year now - take a look at my profile there - and have picked up some fun and interesting little freelance jobs - some not so little - we did work for a Florida US personal injury lawyer, recently, that lasted over 4 months and paid well.

So, how do we survive at times like this (it's happened before) - while waiting for, or trying to get the next client?

As a divorced mom of two boys, the children get a maintenance at the end of each month (about half of what their living expenses are when they're with me, their primary custodian - they're with me 18 nights in a 28 day period) This amount pretty much immediately goes on our telephone and ADSL account, and our rent at my parents, where we live. Those are two biggies that need taken care of immediately each month. There's a little already set aside, in a fixed savings, for the boys' future, which is "off limits" and doesn't even exist in my mind. That's not being touched. It's for the boys - and actually still needs to be so badly added to.

Another biggie is petrol. It's a 22 minute drive to school, but at least it's not all one big monthly cost, and we take it as it comes.

Back to oDesk - if we pick up a little job there, that we can manage, say, today, and hope the "oDesk buyer" pays today too, we can only access our earnings 6 days later. So, if we have money for only 4 days, what do we do for the inbetween 2 or 3 days, before accessing oDesk earnings?

We make a plan, and this is what all people struggling for an income should do. Make a plan.

We can:
market ourselves silly and sleep just 4 hours a night, to get a local client before the 4 days are up;
if 4 days go by and no local client, then we skimp and save and cut all we can, to get through the next 2 or 3 days while waiting for an oDesk payment;
although we don't like to borrow money from friends in case we struggle to pay it back, there is a friend or two who could and would help us out for a day or two - the boys even have a little birthday money over they wouldn't mind helping us out with for a day or two - but this is pretty much a last resort (they will tease they want interest when we pay them back, lol!);
other options are to hang a sign on the front wall to sell something we no longer need, or sell a few plants - we pretty much started out selling plants;
pray

And we get by. We make a plan, and get by.

Our reputation of good service is growing, and so is our portfolio.

This article is probably putting people off thinking of quitting their regular job and trying to work from home, and, in a way, that's good. Working from home does not suit everyone, but, at the same time, one should also realise: where there's a will, there's a way.

Other articles on our sites that may be of interest to you:

How Difficult is it to Find a Decent Job in East London, South Africa?

Don’t spend forever trying to find work. Just work.

© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010