You may remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I would be reviewing GetAFreelancer to see what type of service and projects they offered freelance writers.
Well I’ve reviewed the website over a period of one week and now I am ready to give you my honest opinion on whether or not you should look for freelance writing jobs there.
First off let me just say that registering wth GetAFreelancer is free so this is a bonus but probably about the only one as you will see.
Get A Freelancer Reviewed:
Day 1: Sunday 26th April 2009
- Placed bid for weight loss article project – budget $20 to $50
Project to create a 500 word piece using information supplied by client.
Bid placed $20
Other bids – 1 at time of placement
Received PMB from client stating:
as part of the project you will have to do a keyword reaserch (this is the reason for the high payout)
can you with the right keywords get this article to the google top 10?
Project awarded 2 hours after initial bid for the amount of $30 instead of $20 and escrow was funded immediately. Project was completed Monday morning and payment was received within 20 minutes.
- $5 bingo articles needed
Looking for someone to write 10 articles 300 – 400 words each keyword rich for $5 per article
Bid placed $50
other bids – 0 at time of placement
- Lawn Articles
Project for 10 lawn articles, UK grammar, 750 words each.
Bid placed $140
other bids – 4 at time of placement (my bid the highest, other bids were $80) – bid wasn’t chosen, project bidding ended 28th April.
Day 2 – Monday 27th April 2009
541 open copywriting jobs
- Quality Article Writer Required
Placed bid for 20 articles to be submitted to ezines, etc. – Budget is $30 – $250
Project specified native english writers.
Placed bid of $200 to be completed within 2 weeks.
Other bids at time of placement = 7
most of the jobs listed today were private jobs or articles for $1 for 500 words. There was even one offering to pay $5 for 1,000 word articles.
Day 3 – Tuesday 28th April 2009
543 open jobs in copywriting section today
Majority of jobs are:
$0.75 per 400 words
$1 for 500 words
One decent job listing today:
$6 – $8 for 350 – 400 word ayurvedic articles. Looking for people from India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh though so didn’t bid. Project was for 30 articles initially.
Day 4 Wednesday 29th April 2009
another really bad project – looking for really good english writers to write erotic stories. Stories should be 2 pages long at least and pay is $1.50 per story. Looking for 20 stories. 6 bids placed on this job.
No jobs to bid on today.
Day 5 Thursday 30th April 2009
Again a disasterous day, no jobs worth bidding on am I am really getting tired of wasting 10 to 15 minutes looking at projects that want you to write 500 words for $1. Why are people bidding on these jobs?
After 5 days I had enough. What started off looking good turned into a waste of time. Ok so there maybe a couple of jobs on this website but to be honest the amount of time you would waste looking for them really isn’t worth it.
My honest opinion: Until bidders stop bidding on $1 articles GetAFreelancer won’t be featuring in my list of websites to find freelance writing jobs again. I don’t know, would it be possible to start a petition going to ban $1 articles from these websites? Anyone with me on this? Could we educate new freelance writers and give them a mimimum amount to bid on 500 words?
Until next time,
Keep writing.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree with you. Apart from spamming my mail box with $1 project alerts, GAF hasn’t benefited me in any way. You were bang on target when you wrote that $1 writers should be banned. But the problem with freelance writing is that every tom, dick and harry can write something although every one isn’t a quality writer.
This is not so in other fields like graphic designing or programming, so the rates remain high, whereas quality writers have to wait perennially to land a decent paying job.
Only clients who understand the difference between chaff and the wheat are willing to pay more, rest just think writing is everyone’s cup of tea.
Many thanks for your comment, I’m glad to see I am not the only one finding GAF a joke for freelance writers. I agree that quality writing is a gift and an art and not everyone can do this well not properly anyway. I have come across so many websites lately where the content is pure dribble and it is clear that the person who wrote the content couldn’t comprehend what they were doing. There were sentences that made no sense at all, complete gibberish, and I know if I was a potential customer for this website owner I would run a mile after reading the first paragraph. I think what website owners need to realize is that if they are serious about creating a successful website and they don’t want to write the content themselves then they should be prepared to pay to have it done correctly and $1 an article is not going to get you results.
Couldn’t agree with you more, as my recent review also concluded. I was lucky enough to get one decent job from the site, but I haven’t been back to it, because most aren’t worth the trouble.
Thanks for your comment Sharon.
I think with GAF the only thing you really do is waste valuable time that could be spend looking for more appropriate jobs. The 15 to 20 minutes I spent each day was such a waste but it was necessary to review the site properly. I think the site owners need to set a bid limit instead of just focusing on making money.