iWriter and the better alternative: Upwork

byGabrielleWho

404 followers

8 years ago

Here is what I'm calling "part 2" of my iWriter story and my experience with Kindle publishing. I've had an interesting past few days!

When I last blogged about this crazy adventure, I had a 4.5 star writer working on a 4000-word piece for an ebook.

This is what happened, in short - the writer, within 30 minutes of the 5 hour time window to complete the job, dropped the project. It was then picked up 3 more times. Each time, within 30 minutes of the 5 hour limit, the project was dropped. Talk about discouraging!

The last writer to pick up the piece had no stars, no reviews, nothing. Because I hadn't specified a particular writer, iWriter lets anyone pick up a job. When you ask for "premium" writers only, the price per article goes up almost double the amount. For my 4,000-word story, I was paying a minimum of $28. Minimum! Imagine that doubling or tripling depending on the article length + experience you request.

So, ultimately, this final writer finished the story according to my requests. I won't give too many details, but I wanted a short story about college graduates experiencing the real world for the first time. The story was... okay. It wasn't awe-inspiring. It didn't shake the foundation of the earth. But it was... okay.

My writer followed the prompt, and I couldn't see anything that she could edit. I wanted to outright ask her to do something about the style of her writing, but even I could see that she had already put in her personal best. So, I paid her for the piece (and her time).

You get what you pay for, I guess. That was my take-home lesson. Or... do you?

At this point, I felt pretty deflated. I had a piece of writing that now belonged 100% to me. I could edit it myself, make it something great, and begin formatting for Kindle. But even as I sat down to edit, I found myself completely uninspired with the product.

Right around this time, I was poking around WA, and I found a review for oDesk. A quick Google search told me that oDesk had been purchased and renamed Upwork. I investigated further.

Let me say one thing: WOW! Wow, wow, wow! The last time I was blown away by a platform was when I first found WA. The site is gorgeous, and the authors have their prices AND custom-tailored portfolios available for all the world to see. Some even include samples of their writing (which you can also request, if you think you want to hire a writer but aren't 100% sure about it).

I wrote an advertisement (completely free), and within 24 hours, this AMAZING writer with almost 15 years of fiction-writing experience reached out to ask for the job. She included a sample of her work, and it was perfect. Her tone, style, and depth of writing are exactly what I'm looking for. AND she is willing to do the job within a few weeks, for the same price as my iWriter author.

So, where am I right now? I hired this writer for the ghost-writing project, and she's currently working on the piece. I gave her a May 12 deadline, so I will know by around May 12 if I'm going to have the writing piece that I need for my ebook.

Then I'll write a part 3 to this story. :)

Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for reading!