iWriter and the better alternative: Upwork

byGabrielleWho

404 followers

10 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!