Welcome to this, the very first HireWriters blog post!
We wanted to start this blog in an upbeat, positive way. We have here a thriving community of writers and media owners, who every day, log on to HireWriters and earn their living. Yes, that’s the one thing all of us have in common. We earn our living by the written word – either commissioning it, or producing it.
No matter how devoted we profess to be to the art and craft of writing, to helping others, to honing our skills, and to finding an audience, as writers, we want to be paid for our work, and preferably, paid well. So first we’re going to turn our attention to writers.
Five Money Making Tips For Writers
Say “Hi” To The Client
When you accept a job, you have the option to contact the client. It’s a great idea to do this as a matter of course. If you don’t have any special questions about the job, just say something like, “Hi, I have your job, I should get it to you later today.”
Not only is this friendly, importantly, it opens up the communication channel between the two of you and allows you to go back and talk to the client. For example, he or she might leave a kind comment, or a tip. The fact that you have messaged the client already enables you to say “thanks”, and of course to offer yourself for more work of the same kind. If the comment is positive, or the rating is high, you can ask the client to add you to their “Favorites”. (More about this in our next blogs, coming soon).
If you haven’t established communication like this, and the client doesn’t message you, there isn’t any way for you to subsequently contact the client.
Save Your Work
Stuff happens, right? Your computer crashes. A power failure wipes out your work just as you’re submitting it. And, yes, from time to time, the HireWriters site might throw a tiny wobbler.
On the whole, we can’t retrieve your work, especially not if it’s a failure on your end. So, please, please, please, save your work, put it in the cloud, write it down with a quill pen on vellum, but don’t, please don’t, just type it in to the work submission area on HireWriters and hope for the best.
Read The Instructions
It’s astonishing how many times writers just don’t read the client’s instructions. Even the most experienced writers occasionally make this mistake. Yes, sometimes the instructions seem tedious or vague, or the subject is so gripping that we just romp ahead, writing a terrific (we think) piece which doesn’t do what the client wanted it to do.
Nice clients will politely ask for a rewrite. More impatient people will fire you, leaving you out of pocket, and with someone who probably won’t ask you to write for them again. (Who might in fact have barred you from seeing any more of their jobs in the future.)
If instructions aren’t perfectly clear, get back to the client and ask for clarification as soon as possible.
If There’s An Issue, Send Something, Anything
One of the most common things writers complain about is that they asked for clarification from the client and didn’t get it, so they missed the deadline. This means you get fined, and your completion rate is affected. So our strong advice is, if the client isn’t responding, then submit something. Send the work you have got, with a message at the top saying something like “This is incomplete because I am still waiting for you to send me x, y and z. Please send me that info and re-submit the work for revision.” If you haven’t got enough words yet, and HireWriters won’t accept the job as a result, then Greek it (look that up if you don’t know what it means).
If you take a job and find you just can’t complete it for whatever reason, then ask the client for “Mutual Cancellation” – the client is able to initiate this.
Take Small Cheap Jobs
We are often asked by new writers, “Where are the high paying jobs?” Actually, the majority of jobs posted are at Expert level, and they go fast. If you are at any other level, these jobs aren’t available to you. But if you’re the great writer that you think you are, you can quickly get to Expert level. A good writer can do it easily within a week or two.
Instead of looking for 1000 word, $20 jobs, think how long writing a bunch of 150 word, $2 jobs will take you. I figure you can write 150 words on say, “The benefits of eating berries” in ten minutes, including a tiny bit of research. That $20 job might take three hours. Do the math.
I started life at HireWriters as a writer. My first job earned me $2.25. My husband scoffed at this miserable amount. I said nothing. At the end of the week, I told him, “I’m buying you a Kindle.”
“Oh,” he said, “got rich all of a sudden?” “No, but I earned $72.50 on HireWriters this week.” (Better weeks, much better weeks, were to come).
He was amazed; he hadn’t even noticed I was doing anything, just fiddling around for an hour or so on my laptop each day. Whereas what I was actually doing was taking every job I could find, and building my status. And this is what I encourage all new writers to do.
Coming soon!
Top Tips For Clients
How To Build Your Client Base Inside HireWriters
How To Find The Best Writers
and much more!