Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

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Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

I wouldn't take that article to heart. It's up to you, and the platform isn't for everyone, but at this point I project upwork will be feeding me a 6 figure salary this year. Where I live, that's a really nice comfy place to be. I'm really happy with the platform, and they've been good to me. My success on the platform has given me the ability to be really picky about the jobs I take there and on here. I pass jobs up a lot because budgets are too low. They have millions of freelancers but only a fraction of that are competent. You need to be able to sell, do the work, and keep the clients. The real bread and butter there are the repeat clients.

I wouldn't take a Medium article too seriously. You can post anything you want there. There is no editorial control.
HiredGun
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by HiredGun »

Lysis wrote:I wouldn't take that article to heart. It's up to you, and the platform isn't for everyone, but at this point I project upwork will be feeding me a 6 figure salary this year. Where I live, that's a really nice comfy place to be. I'm really happy with the platform, and they've been good to me. My success on the platform has given me the ability to be really picky about the jobs I take there and on here. I pass jobs up a lot because budgets are too low. They have millions of freelancers but only a fraction of that are competent. You need to be able to sell, do the work, and keep the clients. The real bread and butter there are the repeat clients.

I wouldn't take a Medium article too seriously. You can post anything you want there. There is no editorial control.
A six figure salary from writing or from programming?

The impression I got after viewing the data in the Medium article was that it might be tough for Upwork to raise any more venture funding until they turn things around. Upwork is also facing increasing competition from other cloud labor platforms, so all in all it might be a rough business clinate for them going forward. I agree with you regarding the noisy complainers; they're often the last ones to leave any platform. I just posted the article as a reminder to never get complacent with any one platform as your main source of income.
Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

6 figure from writing =D Programming is too stressful.

I just landed a contract there where I will be working with an enterprise client that has promised me 25-30 hours a week at my $75/hour rate. Normally, I'd question that but this company is well known and I doubt they are bsing me.

There are some big players on there. I landed Adobe from Elance that now migrated to Upwork. Google is there too. I've worked with a few smaller companies that I know just from tech circles.

The one graph the guy uses where all of the posted jobs declined is from Elance after Elance announced it was closing its doors and shut off the ability for new clients to register. OF COURSE jobs declined after that.

Thanks to Upwork, I no longer eat the 35% here. lol I add it to my price. I've found that I've been too cheap in the past now that I'm getting $75/hour. I just raised my rate to that after the fee increase and only got 1 contract on it so far, but I had 0 issue getting $65/hour. I publicly show my income too on the site, so it's verifiable. I raised my rates to $65/hour January 1st and decided I would no longer eat the CC 35% fee and I'm super picky about private requests I take. It's paid off. I had a 5 figure month in March and April isn't too far off. I'd say that month 85%-90% of that was Upwork and the other portion from here.

So, I would take the author's article with a grain of salt. There are a lot of losers on the site. They also no longer accept just anyone and turn away the crappy providers. They claim to have 10 million freelancers and 4 million clients, so there are far more losers than winners. The winners love the site. I'm one of them, and I'm not alone. Upwork is friggin awesome. I get to bank on their huge marketing budget, set my own rates, sit in shorts and a tshirt all day, and watch Netflix while I work. =D

There are smaller platforms, but they don't have the Adobes and Googles, so I stick to Upwork where there are big players. I write here when things are slow or just to upload some content to keep a few hundred bucks a payout coming my way.

Don't get me wrong. It takes a lot of work, and there are stressful moments. It took me a good 6 months before I really got comfortable (I was originally on Elance). But, you can make an excellent living there if you have a specific skill and know how to sell yourself.
Pellucidean
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Pellucidean »

Lysis, do you think your success on Upwork is because of the subjects you write on, or would people writing in other areas or on other topics be able to find similar success? Because presumably companies like Google and Adobe only want certain kinds of articles, so I'm wondering if the market in other niches is as strong.

I should probably look back into Upwork again, though. What you're accomplishing is very impressive indeed.
Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

Well, Adobe is true for me and what I write about but I know a translator working with Google.

I'm not a generalist writer, so I specifically target a certain type of customer. Generalist writers do make less, but I think $35/hour is totally doable for a generalist writer. It's true that to write at a higher hourly rate, you should specialize in something. I sell off of my background since I was a dev for 15 years before I started doing this. Sales writing is extremely lucrative too but of course you have to be good. Business, finance are two others. I'm sure there are others making great money as an expert in their field. But you have to truly be an expert. I don't really know what else is really strong there because I only do stuff where I'm an expert and ignore the rest.

I do have someone who just likes that he can rely on me and pays me my $75/hour to write about things outside of my expertise. Normally, I would decline anything like that but he's been a customer of mine for 6 months. I prefer things that I can just write off the top of my head.


tldr - Upwork is great but you really need to be an expert not someone with no professional experience or skills.
drearden
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by drearden »

Lysis - do you apply for work there, or let other people come to you? If you were starting over there, how would you sift through the garbage?
Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

When you first start, you will have to bid a lot and you'll likely run across some real losers. Once you experience them, you know how to avoid them. lol
drearden
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by drearden »

Oh geez. Ok. Sounds crazy.
Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

It's kinda frustrating but then you get repeat customers you no longer bid a lot. I hit the jackpot this year with an awesome contract that should last until January. There are some awesome contracts and some real trash too.

I finally raised my rates to a point where I can do 2k words a day and be done. I have about 2k words in me and that's it. None of this "OMG I HAVE SO MUCH WORK FOR YOU I NEED 10k WORDS DAY FOR $.02/word." Yeah, no.lol
drearden
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by drearden »

I know what you mean. I see project posts that say "I need 400-500 word articles. Perfect grammar. Perfect spelling. Professional quality. Must pass copyscape!!!!1 Pay is $3. No spinning" and I think...where is this person's head at? At some point, they were convinced that they would be able to hire a topic expert for almost no money. I see that here too and I always thought those requests were weird. I also noticed the elcheapos are always the ones who put something to effect of "no spinning" and "must pass copyscape" in their ads.

It's like they know they're running into a wall of crap and are hoping somehow to get away with something.
Lysis
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Re: Promoting Your Constant Content Portfolio - Yes or No?

Post by Lysis »

The site is definitely frustrating even when you have a handle on it. It's just like anything else.. you get some great clients and then you have that 1 terrible one.

but, I've never NOT been paid unlike CC's private requests and I like the fact that I can kinda drive my own freelancing career. I love CC for the open marketplace, but there are too many low quality jobs here now for private requests plus too much risk that you won't get paid a dime. I'm getting much better at weeding them out though. Like the job post in the other forum for 30k words a week. You just know that person has 0 budget lol. Nobody of value needs 30k words a week.

and all the "we have so much work for you at a terrible budget." Avoid. I don't want to work. I want to relax, so I'll take the expert level prices and pass up the junk content so I can work a few hours a day and go to the doggy park.
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