The Ultimate Get-A-Clue Freelance Request for the Week of August 31, 2009

As more and more freelance "writers" enter the arena, one of the types of writing assignments I've really seen go into the dumper is press releases. I've watched irately as some of the highly established PR writers have slashed their prices over the last year in an effort to compete. Why they are undermining their talents that way, I have no way of knowing, but desperation breeds insanity I guess. Anyway, this week's Middle Finger Award winner illustrates just how badly press release rates have deteriorated.

Project Description: 10 Quality Press Releases
Specific Project Request: I need 10 x 400+ word Press Releases written, to help promote my sites. This is a small project, to help me identify a few good press release writers that I can rely on for larger ongoing projects.

I'm looking for writers that offer the highest value, but not necessarily the cheapest price. I'm looking for quality press release writers that are fluent in the English language and understand and are good at using them for site promotion.

For 400 word "unique content" press releases, depending on how well they meet the 4 objectives below, I usually pay $2.50 to $12.00 per press release.


These are my main 4 objectives with the press releases:

1. SEOed Press Releases (meaning focused on keywords in the title and content, so the Press Releases can achieve higher organic rankings).
2. Website Promotion/Traffic - this requires some promoting/sales skill with you writing (meaning I need the press release visitors to be interested enough to visit my website as well, in hopes of making a sale or two).
3. I need exclusive copyright to the content and each press release needs to be of "unique" content. No duplication from elsewhere and must be copyscape clean. I also need full rights and exclusive copywrite to the press releases and/or content that I am paying for (so you can't simply reword others press releases here and there, and you cannot sell or reuse the press releases you wrote for me, to others).
4. Your fluency with the English language.

So I can assess your skills, providers that can also provide a sample of your previous press release work, would be ideal.



Come on now! That's ALL the objectives you have for $2.50 to $12? You can do better than that, I'm sure! And $12 isn't necessarily the cheapest price? SCREW YOU!!!

Freelance Job Ad Observations

I've come to the conclusion that any freelance writing job ad that uses the following pieces of verbiage deserves an immediate "Screw You!"

1. We are looking for qualified "guides."

2. !! (usually just a lure to draw you in to the ad, only to discover the job pays crap, and the more exclamatory punctuation marks, the worse the pay)

3. "steady weekly assignments"

and a new one for me...

4. "first contingency writing" (The job ad I found explained this one as "how the magazine does with advertising, etc. then pay. It's part of our company and our company just recently launched. We are the best at what we do.")


Uh, yeah, so am I (the best at what I do) so screw that!

What are the words/phrases that immediately turn you away from a job ad?

Out of the Mouths of Cheapskates?

Just saw a job ad on Craigslist that contained this line:

Compensation: commiserate with experience

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Oh heck, come to think of it, a lot more job posters these days should be detailing their compensation that way.

The Ultimate Get-a-Clue Freelance Request for the Week of August 24, 2009

Sorry to all you generalists out there, but as someone who possesses a Bachelor's degree in mathematics, this particular projects offends me more than all those $1 keyword articles out there (and they offend me pretty badly!). For that reason, it's my Middle Finger Award winner this week.


Project Description: High School Math Teacher Needed

Specific Project Request: I am looking for a high school math teacher to put together a basic guide. This guide should cover high school math. This guide is going to be geared to GED students who need to cover high school math. This is more of a pocket dictionary rather than a comprehensive text. The guide should be about 65-80 pages and covers every concept covered with a limited explanation and 1-2 examples. I am sure you will have questions, so please ask. I am offering $75 dollars for the project. I will require an outline and a sample. Upon completion of the project, you will be paid in full and will no longer retain the rights to the project.

I look forward to your email.


Yeah, and I have a feeling you're going to be looking forward to that email for a LOOOONG time to come. Screw you!

An Intriguing Writing Competition

This writing competition looks quite interesting: Sledgehammer Writing Contest. I wish they had one in my area of the country. If you live in the Portland or Seattle area and get a chance to attend, I want details!

Admitting Grammatical Mistakes

I don't know about you, but reading my local newspapers is becoming more excruciating by the day. It used to be that I'd find an occasional typo or confusingly worded clause. Nowadays, discovering words that are outright used in the wrong way is the norm.

That said, I have to show a bit of admiration for a publication like the New York Times that owns up to its mistakes. See Subject, Meet Verb.

What is your newspaper reading experience like these days?

The Ultimate Get-a-Clue Freelance Request for the Week of August 17, 2009

In response to last week's Middle Finger Award winner, Joe Wallace brought my attention to this beauty.

Project Description: $1 Article Writer Wanted (1000 Articles to be done)

Specific Project Request: I am looking for article writers who can write good quality articles for $1. The articles should be around 450-500 words. Keywords will be given by me to write the articles. The writer has to submit at least 5-10 articles a day. Payment will be sent through GAF or paypal on daily basis. This will be a long term project. Only serious bidders pls.

Just wonderful. Even more wonderful is the fact that the project was awarded to a schneiderjohn4, who is located in the U.S. and claims to be "new to freelance writing for pay, but I have a BS degree from OSU and 20 years of office experience and I’ve taken a class in technical writing." Key words there are "for pay," if you can call $1 pay.

I think anyone with that kind of credentials who works for those rates is the one who deserves the "Screw You!" After all, the job poster is just looking out for number one. If no one accommodates him, he'll have to raise his rates, right?

In any event, how do I know all of this? Because the project was posted on GetAFreelancer.com. This seems to be the worst of the worst of the freelance-bidding sites, but as far as I can tell, such sites' days are long over for serious and talented freelancers (at least those who live anywhere other than in third world countries).

I'm curious, though. Is anyone else still making viable money through a freelance-bidding site? If so, would you care to share a ballpark figure of how much you're earning and where?

How Much Is a Freelance Editor Worth?

Of all the types of assignments I take on, I'm most likely to be met with resistance over my pricing for editing. I suspect such reactions are based on the fact that so many people who call themselves editors charge a fraction of a penny a word. The fact is, however, that not all editing is created equal.

Jane Friedman of Writer's Digest recently addressed this topic is a blog post titled How to Save Time and Money with Professional Editors.

Let me repeat part of that: SAVE MONEY with PROFESSIONAL editors. Friedman goes on to stress, "Even getting a synopsis edited can cost $200 or more, but it's money well-spent, since this particular $200 could save me weeks, even months, of fruitless revision and polishing."

So the next time you're tempted to hand your writing over to a cheap editor, think again. The person you screw over by taking the low-cost route will most likely be yourself.

I'm always willing to provide a one- or two-page sample to prospective clients because I know competitors who are quoting substantially lower rates are not providing the same level of service I am. Consider top-notch editing an investment in your future, and be willing to pay for it.

Wait! How Much Was That Again?

Another compelling case for the value of a proofreader: $9.99 TVs? Best Buy won’t honor price goof. Because of their stupidity (read, cheapness), I'm of a mind that they should be compelled to honor the offer.

Freelance Funny of the Day

Monday's Garfield comic strip touched on one of the perks of being a work-at-homer. (See the August 3, 2009 strip.) I have to admit, however, that this particular advantage isn't one I get to indulge in very often.

The Ultimate Get-a-Clue Freelance Request for the Week of August 10, 2009

Thanks go out to Jessica Mousseau for bringing this week's Middle Finger Award Winner to my attention. She's been a busy beaver these days in uncovering offensive freelance job ads, so look for more gems from her in the upcoming weeks.

Project Description: Content Writer Needed

Specific Project Request: "Our company is looking to hire a content writer for our website. We are promoting keywords for search engine optimization. You will be given a list of keywords and copy of our web page's content. It will be your responsibility to rewrite the content promoting keywords from the list. Each page is less than 100 words long. Pages cannot be an exact copy, new content must be used for each page. Willing to pay $.25 per page. Please email a sample of your work and be ready to start ASAP if selected."

Yep, that's right a whole QUARTER per page. Of course anyone who applies for this job will be keeping his or her schedule wide open to begin immediately, or so the poster thinks. Screw him or her!

Is the Recession Impacting the Way You Go About Freelancing?

This week, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article titled "For the Self-Employed, It's an Endless Workweek." Subtitled "Recession Takes Away Vacations, Weekends as the Consequences of Missing a Business Opportunity Mount," the report makes some interesting observations.

1. "Being out of pocket can mean missing one of a diminishing number of business leads..."

2. "...the rising tide of unemployed professionals has heightened competition for freelance work."

and the most unsavory of the bunch, to me anyway

3. "...competition among freelancers is increasing. Guru.com, a freelance job site, saw its total membership grow to 906,979 in July, up 15% from the same month in 2008. And rival Elance.com received 131,000 new applications from freelance professionals in the first half of this year, a 40% increase compared with the same period in 2008."

Personally, I've always worried about missing opportunities, so the recession is playing no role in that regard. My workload is down slightly, but not to the point that I'm a slave to my computer, anxiously awaiting the assignment that will put food on the table this week. In fact, because I've had a less demanding schedule, I've been able to enjoy MORE time off (some of it planned, some of it not). Furthermore, I've always competed for work, so this influx of new freelancers doesn't necessarily concern me. Finallly, I refuse to compete with the (mostly) lowballers who are turning to freelance-bidding sites in droves. I still believe there's a place for quality over low cost.

I'm curious, however, how other freelancers are responding to the current economic climate. Are you chained to some form of communication at all times, or are you taking advantage of the resulting downtime (assuming you're even experiencing any) while you can? After all, this recession can't last forever, right?

Unnecessary Quotation Marks on Speed

As some of you know, one of my favorite blogs is The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks. Well, this week, Lori Fox brought to my attention one of the biggest unnecessary quotation mark offenders I've ever seen. In its Zagat review of the Marriot Philadelphia Downtown, Priceline.com writes:

"Wear your convention badge" at this "huge", "hustling, bustling place" with a "fantastic location" "in the heart" of Philadelphia; the 1,400-plus guestrooms and suites are "smallish" but "comfortable" with "sublime bedding", and it's especially "nice to have the sushi bar in the lobby"; "attached to the Convention Center", "it does its job" as a "good meeting facility" with a relatively "friendly face", though solo flyers warn it's "not a good match for the independent traveler."

I think that's 14 uses in a single sentence! I dare you to find a guiltier party.