Jobs, Erotica and Tweets, Oh My!

The jobs I am currently working on are as follows:

• 1095 Twitter tweets about horses for an Elance client – a job I’ve been bitching, whining and boasting about since I won it. I was really surprised that I won it, too; I think mentioning in my bid that my dad is a farrier really helped. It’s a pretty awesome job – who knew you could get paid for writing tweets?! – but it’s also ridiculously tedious. My original bid said I could do it in a week, but the client said she just needs them by the end of the month. Thank gawd, too, ‘cause I think I would have gone mad doing them in a week. I’ve done 525 so far and I am pretty much thinking in 140 characters now.
• Finishing up the last ten 450-550 word diet profiles for a client I’ve been working for the past month or two. I found her on Craigslist and she pays ridiculously well! This has easily been the best gig I’ve ever had. I started out doing a couple dozen bike company profiles and then she had me do some environmental organization profiles and now I’ve been doing these diet ones. Unfortunately, these are the last she needs done. I’ll miss the easy money!
• I’m waiting to hear back from an Elance guy who is being vague. Clients who don’t understand how to use Elance really, really irk me. I think it’d be a fun gig because I’d get to do some HTML (which I love, regardless of how simple it is) and even upload them via FTP, but it’s in his court right now and I’m not actually expecting it to work out. Elance has a $50 minimum bid policy which seems to really confuse some providers.
• Just last night I won another Elance bid for writing the basic website content of a company who plants trees to offset carbon output. I haven’t said yes yet because I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed by the jobs I already have going. I work the job I do because I can’t handle any kind of stress – remember, leaving the house often counts as a debilitating amount of stress – so I’m super cautious about how much I put on my plate work wise. Again, I really didn’t expect to get this job…but I guess I never really do. For all the structure of Elance, there are still a lot of variables and it really comes down to what the client wants, which isn’t usually all that clear. Think about it this way: if someone is on Elance looking for a writer, chances are they aren’t writers themselves, which means that they aren’t all that great at communicating clearly in their job description. I don’t mean to be hard on the clients – I appreciate the work they give me and a lot of them are internet marketers which is something I know I would really suck at – I just am easily irked by vague job descriptions and a misunderstanding of the Elance system.

  So that’s what I’m working on. The most exciting thing about these jobs is that (1) I’m actually winning bids on Elance! Sure, I bid on 20 jobs and only win two or three, but it’s still exciting! And makes me really glad that I upgraded to the $10 month membership that gives me more monthly connects (those are the things you bid with). And (2): between the diet profiles and the tweets, I’ll have made enough money for the month! The tweet job is the biggest job I’ve ever gotten on Elance before. I think, before this, my biggest job was $100 one that I did for a client I’d worked with before. I’m getting $250 for these tweets (I aim for .125 a word), which is nearly half of what I need to live on each month. Hurray! Of course, there are things I’m saving for (a plane ticket to Placerville, new handlebars, a laptop, next year’s self employment taxes that caught me by surprise this year) and I get bored if I’m not working so I’ll definitely keep writing, but it’s exciting that making my goal was so easy this month. And to think just two months ago I was doubting my ability to make money as a writer!

  I also got a notice today from Suite 101 saying that since I haven’t published ten articles in the three months since signing up, my account will be terminated. I actually haven’t written any! I wrote one, but it wasn’t accepted…or something; I can’t quite remember what happened. I do remember, though, that the publishing tools were a pain in the ass and that the content I produced would not only have been accepted by an Elance or Text Broker client, but I also would have been paid more at those other sites. I tried to fix the article because I really wanted Suite 101 to work – so many people and forums have suggested it! – but, no, it was rejected again. I moved my unpublished article from my “Suite 101” folder (which I then deleted) and put it in my “samples” folder which is where I put all rejected content so that the time I put into it wasn’t wasted. And I haven’t thought about Suite 101 again, until today when I got the email.

  I think why Suite 101 didn’t work for me is because it is like Helium in the sense that the articles you write are just added to this massive database of content in the hopes that search engines will find it and you are paid accordingly. Maybe it’s like I said above: I’m not a marketer. I don’t want to find places to post links to my website or services etc. I’d love to work in advertising, but only to make the pretty pictures. I prefer to do the backstage stuff: I’ll write you the content you need and you can use it any old way you like, as long as I get paid up front.

  I’d love to hear from folks who have or currently do work for Suite 101. What are your experiences? Are you making any money? I have one job through Examiner.com that certainly doesn’t pay well, but I love it, so I understand keeping a job regardless of pay. But Suite 101 was pretty boring to write for, in my experience, and, like I said, the publishing tools were clunky, so I assume all its writers are actually making money over there. How, though, I’m not sure.

  In other news, another job from Craigslist got back to me recently. It’s for a women’s erotica site that sells live readings of erotica! I’ve written a little erotica, but I eventually backed out of the job because I other, easier work that paid more. The guy behind it hadn’t gotten back to me after I backed out about a month ago, but a few days ago he emailed and said they’re still taking submissions and gave me the above link. They’re looking for stories in third person, 2000-3000 words long, that would sound great read aloud. It pays $1 per download. Their website has free samples if you want to check it out! The narrator’s voice is kind of intense. I’m still going to pass on it, but let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in. I’d love to pass on his contact info.

  On a final note, I’m feeling awkward about my less-than-perfect use of punctuation in this post. I love dashes and parentheses; I write how I talk. At least, I write how I talk when I’m journaling or writing emails or (apparently) blogging. And, since I’m writing about writing, I feel like my sentence structure, grammar and punctuation ought to be flawless. It’s like designing the layout for a magazine about graphic design. One thing I can say – and perhaps this will help me put my mind at east – I write much more formally when I’m getting paid!