I just want to rant a little bit. I see so many people talk about how they make a sustainable living from writing and how they make $100 per article but yet, none of them can ever give me any details on how they obtained their first real gig or attracted high-quality clients.
Nearly every client I meet and everyone who contacts me is usually from Asia and wants me to work miracles for $1 per 100 words. I've stopped enjoying writing, I'm pulling my hair out and raging every time I hear the notification sound for a new email. I have people that speak broken English that demand "high quality" and from my experience, the cheapest clients have the highest demands.
The most recent person to contacted me wanted me to write their content, upload it to their blog, format it, upload pictures, provide sources and do a top 10 list in every single article. All for $20 an article. I'm always at the mercy of low-paying clients. When you tell them that you charge a higher rate, they simply say bye and go somewhere else. They will go through writer after writer and they always come back to you, begging for you to do their content for yet again, $1 per 100 words. It's an endless cycle and sometimes, you're just so desperate that you end up taking $1 gigs.
It's miserable, it's not sustainable and I'm giving up on it altogether. Not only is $1 per 100 words a criminal rate for anyone who can type coherent English, but most payment processors also charge about 4%, so a 10,000 gig or $100, would really only net you $96. It's absolutely pathetic.
I have tried my luck on sites like Upwork but literally, no one responds to their gigs after they post them. I have sent hundreds of proposals over months. I've only received one email out of ALL of the proposals I've sent. It was an email to tell me that someone else was selected for the job. Instead, every job is spammed with comments like this: "Hello I can has the job in done quick".
If you're someone who's earning a living off of writing, I have no idea how you're doing it but I'm happy for you. I spent months trying to build up a portfolio and reach out to higher paying clients, even at a mere $3 per 100 words, I couldn't find anyone. Everyone wants $1 per 100 words and if they have "bulk work", they want you to go even cheaper. It's disgusting and I'm just done with this business altogether. So, for anyone who enjoys doing $1 content; don't worry, that's one less writer to worry about applying for the same gig. I hope you make it but I clearly didn't, after years of full-time effort put into it.
I genuinely don't get these clients. They hop from freelancer to freelance and believe me, I've been on the hiring side. I've hired people for $1 per 100 words. You get nothing but incoherent garbage and stuff literally copied from Wikipedia. It takes a ton of applicants to find one that actually attempts to even write the piece. What are these clients honestly even hoping to accomplish with this low rate content? No one's going to read it and no writer is going to put in the time required to write a compelling article.
That's my rant for the night. I'm out.
