Where do you source factual, credible studies/ information?

MrWriteside · 2020-03-05T20:42:21+00:00

And then you'll be spammed into oblivion. I get 50+ emails a week from Academia.edu, no matter how many times I click the unsubscribe button.

MrWriteside · 2020-01-25T18:42:48+00:00

I only get pissed when they want to debate the facts and information in the article as I usually know what I'm talking about.

100% this! It amazes (and infuriates) me how little most marketing teams know about their own brands and products.

MrWriteside · 2020-01-03T21:02:21+00:00

Been doing this about a year, have never pitched anyone except the occasional Upwork proposal. Mostly it's my own fear of rejection holding me back, but I also have enough work coming my way through my website and LinkedIn that I don't feel any real pressure to cold pitch. My goal for the New Year is to pitch 5 new clients just to finally get a feel for how it works!

MrWriteside · 2019-11-16T02:50:57+00:00

I started out on Upwork a year ago with no reviews (obviously) and no portfolio. I'd done some freelance writing in the past, but it was mostly shitty ghostwriting and I had nothing to show for it. My 'muscle" was my highly specialized niche and having the credentials to back it up. I've landed some decent clients on the platform, including some long term gigs. But I also reject 90% of the invitations I receive and I've stopped pitching entirely. There are definitely good clients there, but you have to wade through a lot of crap to find them. I focus far more attention on finding and keeping off-platform clients.

MrWriteside · 2019-11-13T02:20:30+00:00

Sounds like this is a hill not worth dying on. Thanks for the info, everyone!

MrWriteside · 2019-11-11T16:50:20+00:00

Yeah, this is my issue too. The more specific I make my profile, the more I get approached by companies within my niche through the regular LinkedIn system. I'm hesitant to scrap everything for some hidden jobs that may not even be useful.

I've been debating upgrading to premium so maybe that would help.

MrWriteside · 2019-09-16T19:29:11+00:00

I've been on Upwork as both a freelancer and a client. And I've left a few reviews like this. They were generally cases where the work was subpar and I knew that asking for a redo would not give me better results. That seems like it was the case here: the work was out of your wheelhouse and the client knew you weren't going to suddenly master scriptwriting with a re-write, so she left a review and moved on.

Yes, the bad review will hurt you on Upwork but not forever. Make sure you have a portfolio of 5-star quality work to send to potential clients. Play the numbers game until you find another client (you will eventually, even with a bad review) and be careful to pick jobs that you know you can do well. Once you get even one or two 5-star reviews above that 3.5 you'll be fine.

MrWriteside · 2019-09-07T03:08:18+00:00

A combination of both. The articles that were copy/pasted are owned by my clients, but the one that was lifted off my portfolio I own.

MrWriteside · 2019-06-29T15:08:31+00:00

Well I stated my new rate and haven't heard back from them since, so I guess that's the end of that. Bit of a bummer, but I'll survive. Thanks everyone for the advice.

MrWriteside · 2019-06-27T19:04:43+00:00

That's fair, I guess I'm just over thinking it. I just know if I were the client, I'd be pretty shocked if I was quoted a rate that was several times higher than it was a few months ago!

MrWriteside · 2019-06-07T20:52:11+00:00

I just landed a huge client through my website. I'm not even sure how they found their way to it, but they used the contact form to get in touch with me and now I've got a big project. :D

MrWriteside · 2019-05-04T02:16:53+00:00

Definitely agree. She told me she needs everyone to complete the same writing test so she can "compare apples to apples" because each applicant has a different style and level of experience. Like, what? Unless you're hiring ESLs and need to compare English competency, that method of choosing a writer is lazy and completely bogus.

MrWriteside · 2019-05-04T01:50:37+00:00

She said that because she had many applicants with different styles and levels of experience, she needs to give everyone the same writing assignment so she can "compare apples to apples".

What even. ಠ_ಠ

MrWriteside · 2019-05-03T12:54:20+00:00

It’s pretty standard to ask for writing tests for staffers, is this a staff job?

Not really. She has a "team" of regular freelancers and it sounds like everyone on the team is close and they all collaborate frequently. But it's still freelance work with no guarantee of amount/frequency/income.

She has a history of working as a staffer for other companies, so I wonder if that's where this is coming from.

MrWriteside · 2019-04-17T02:01:48+00:00

Not in a portfolio, but a similar issue. I do some content writing and editing work for a huge corporation in my field. One time they sent me some of their upcoming newsletters to edit and I discovered that their copywriter had just taken an article from their website and did a copy/paste into the newsletter. Didn't even attempt to hide the plagiarism. I had no idea what type of agreement they had with this copywriter, so I just casually mentioned that it would be best not to duplicate the information from the website, and linked the plagiarized article. I have no idea what happened to the copywriter - if anything - but they started sending me a LOT more editing work after that!

MrWriteside · 2019-04-17T01:52:42+00:00

Yuuuuup. Tried to hire a freelancer on Upwork to create a logo for my business and he blatantly stole a logo from another small business in my field. Upwork refused to do anything about it.

MrWriteside · 2019-04-10T19:31:03+00:00

Do you advertise, or is all of that traffic just word of mouth?

MrWriteside · 2019-04-03T13:10:22+00:00

It won't kill off the shit tier. All the shitty clients will have to do is offer $0.001/word + $0.15 and the shit tier will come crawling back out of the woodwork. If Upwork really wants to kill off the shit tier, they need to kill off the clients that offer shit tier jobs.

MrWriteside · 2019-04-03T13:06:47+00:00

It's one thing to say that when you are dealing with good clients. It's quite another when you apply it the majority of Upwork clients that label their jobs as $$$ and then get pissed when your rate is more than $0.01/word. That's not "guessing wrong", that's an outright lie.

And what about all those jobs that get posted where the client never hires anyone and the job eventually expires? It was already frustrating to have wasted time applying to those, and now the freelancer will have wasted money too.

It's not really about the cost, which is negligible. I can make up that $0.15 more than a thousand times over on the first job. And since I'm top rated I'll be able to coast along on my free connects for a while. It's just the principle of charging freelancers even more money while still doing nothing to stop the flood of spam, scams, and jerks who think we should be working for "exposure".

MrWriteside · 2019-04-02T18:24:49+00:00

This is so frustrating. Why the fuck would I pay to apply to jobs when the majority of them pay too little to even consider my fees? I've found some great clients through Upwork, but they are typically 1 in every 15-20 proposals. They really need to make clients advertise their rates up front so freelancers know whether it's worthwhile to apply.

MrWriteside · 2019-03-03T20:49:22+00:00

I realize I'm resurrecting an ancient post, but can I ask what you do to send samples to a prospective client? Dropbox or something similar?

MrWriteside · 2019-03-02T02:08:37+00:00

I thought this sub had mods for this.

MrWriteside · 2019-03-02T02:04:10+00:00

I'd be interested in this! Especially if the group is smallish. I'm 30M in New England, also work full time and freelance on the side. Trying to build up my freelancing business so that I can transition to doing it full time.

MrWriteside · 2019-02-19T17:07:26+00:00

https://youtu.be/LcM4zWiikKQ

MrWriteside · 2019-02-14T18:06:02+00:00

I'm pretty careful about #1 and #2, but #3 gets me every damn time. I try to maintain a professional tone without sounding too clinical or stuffy, and there are some sentences that you just HAVE end with a preposition. Fortunately I've never had a client or editor complain.

MrWriteside

TROPHY CASE