Choosing a freelance writing job to bid on with Elance isn’t as simple as just logging on and placing a bid and there are a number of things that you should take into consideration before you do this. There are some tricks and tips that can help you make the most of your bids (connects as they are called on Elance) and not waste them.
Connects are explained in the previous post http://ghostwritinguncovered.com/Blog/elance-fees-and-connects-explained/
When you log into your Elance account and go to the Writing and Translation category to find jobs there are a few things that you should do. I always choose the show all category so that I can see a list of all the jobs that are available. Here’s a screen shot of what you should see:
Next I will start at the top of the list. If we take a look at the first project listed which is for a Creative Writer That Loves Food, we can see that there are no bids at this time. We can also see that the buyer has selected not sure for their budget (this can be a sign that the buyer is just putting up the project to get an idea of what it might cost them). If you mouse over the buyers name Ferntec you will see that they have posted 18 jobs and awarded 50% of them so that is a good sign. Next thing that I would do is to click on the + beside details to take a close look at this project. This acutually shows very little so I would click into the actual project itself to see what the buyer is looking for.
The job description is very poor:
Job Description:
Need a very creative writer that loves food, cooking, recipes etc..
Want ot to be very personal and fun…will only give slight suggestions – hopefully you can direct the newsletter yourself – self reliant, dependable
I have a few ideas for the newsletter – must promote products etc..
Please attach some writing that you have done – can be your choice
There is no indication as to how many words this buyer requires or exactly what they want. For me unless I was interested in writing newsletter I would leave off bidding on this project. The reason being I don’t want to waste my connects having to ask questions about exactly what the buyer wants.
Moving on, the next job listed is a featured project. You will see that this freelance writing jobs has been highlighted. This means that you will use double your connects to bid on it. It’s a translation job so I would skip this anyway. The next job I would look at is for 20 Articles. There are no bids on it as yet so let’s take a look. The first thing we can see is that the budget is less than $500. This is also the first project this person has posted and when we look at the details we see that this buyer has a very detailed description which is good, and it is also very clear, you are given the required layout for the articles and told that they are to be 500 words each. If I were to bid on this project I would bid a minimum of $10 per article so $200 for the articles and then include the Elance fees which are Payment Processing costs (2.75%) and Elance Service fee (from 4% to 6%). You will see these fees when you put in the amount of your bid as below:
There are a number of things to look out for when placing bids: If a buyer states “this project is easy for someone who knows what they are doing” this literally means I expect this to be completed for next to nothing so I would avoid bidding on this. Be sure to always check how many projects the buyer has posted and how many they have awarded. Elance insist that buyers award 20% of their projects which is one in 5. I mention this because if you bid on a project and it’s not awarded you don’t get your connect back.
Check out the buyers feedback too and always insist on using Escrow for payment. Don’t forget to include your Elance fees in your bids too as these are important. If you have any questions or comments on bidding on freelance writing jobs using Elance please leave them below in the comments section and I will answer them as quickly as possible.
Until next time,
Keep writing
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Hi Amanda,
Thanks for all of the elance articles. You’ve convinced me, I’m ready to sign up. As a freelance writer, would you recommend the individual (not free) for that?
I need to go read your previous article on connections because I’m not sure I understand.
If you have any other pertinent advice, I’d appreciate it!
George
Hi George,
Thanks for your comments and I’m so glad you found these Elance articles beneficial. I would recommend the individual subscription which is the one I use. You get 20 connects per month which should be enough although you can purchase more if you need to. Connects can be a little tricky to grasp but they are basically just bids and the higher the project budget the more connects you need. A small project under $500 is 1 connect, $500 – $1,000 is 2 connects, and so on. Featured projects require double the amount of connects in order for you to bid on the project.
There are a few things to beware of when bidding which I think I have also covered in the posts. If you see a project that says “this should be easy for someone who knows what they’re doing” it normally tends to mean that the buyer is looking for really low bids so I do tend to avoid these. I think when starting off on Elance you should bid on article writing projects as these are usually the easiest to get.
Let me know if you have any other specific questions and I will answer them here too.
Amanda
Good work! Thank you very much! I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog? Of course, I will add backlink?
Thanks for visiting my site. I find there is too much competition for jobs at elance and other similar sites. As a result a newbie there has to bid very low on jobs in order to win the job. This put me off. I know if you were to persist with it and gain positive feedback you could be onto a winner
Thanks for your comment Laura,
You are right there is a lot of competition and it was much easier when I started using the site back in 2004 and the standard rates for 300 word articles was $5 with 500 words fetching $10. There was really no low bidding back then, you might get someone bidding $8 for 500 words but that was as low as it went. It is only in the past 2 years that Elance and other freelance websites have become inundated with low bidders from India and other places and this is what is making things so difficult. I can only assume that the dollar is worth a lot more in these countries.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
Thanks Amanda for your article. This gives me alot of insight, as a provider, buyer, and even as a web services strategists. I am applying your comments as we speak. What you have taught me:
1. Contrary to popular belief: more bids are bad (for the buyer and provider)
2. More standardaization is needed in RFP writing
3. Minimum budgets of $50 is inappropriate for US-based providers, in most cases.
4. A “great” ghostwriting project has a budget of about $500 (US).
5. The incremental “connect” increase with budget benefits larger projects, but has nothing to do with the quality of the writer.
Hmmm, Outstanding Amanda… Outstanding…
Ron,
You are more than welcome and I am delighted that you found the information in this post useful.
Amanda