It's Smart To Have A Backup Plan For COVID-20
Right now I'm hiring a new writer for a temporary writing position on my website. Just 11 articles. Normally I like to work with writers long term, paying on a week-by-week basis, but this new series of articles I want to publish just has 10 iterations. Anyway, it's a short term project.
I use UpWork.com to hire writers. I won't mess with places like Textbroker, iWriter, HireWriters, or CrowdContent any more. I tried them. They pretty much suck. Some of the quality is okay, but it ends up being a lot of editing work I have to do on top of what they write.
Because I want these articles done well enough to "just hit publish" rather than go through a bunch of editing, I'm aiming for expert writers.
You know what - experts are not cheap! You can hire writers on a per article or per word basis, but for this project I posted it as an hourly job just to compare prices with what I normally hire at. Check out what the experts are bidding so far:
$20 - $70 Per Hour
Most writers are not bidding below $20 per hour for this type of job.
Could you do this same job? Yes. The paramaters of the job are as follows:
- research content topic
- write article according to template
- upload to WordPress
- insert imags, video, text formatting
This is the stuff you're learning right here inside Wealthy Affiliate. In fact, that's the basic part of the training. Not even the advanced stuff like image SEO, website structure, plugin/theme management, SERPs meta, and troubleshooting!
Freelance Writing Is A Great Backup Plan
Right now there are a lot of people out of work because of COVID-19 quarantine orders around the world. Though there is no such thing as COVID-20, the message is that there will be a next time. It might not be a global pandemic, but it could be something else with puts your current income stream in Jeopardy.
What are you doing to prepare?
I'm not writing this to fearmonger! I'm just saying that right now there are tens of thousands of online jobs being posted, and if you have an in-demand skillset, you could be applying for these jobs and making a decent wage. At the very least, it could be something to tide you over for a while.
Wealthy Affiliate is about building affiliate websites. For most of us, it's about being able to work for ourselves, start a business, and make some incredible money. The end-result is not the only benefit though!
What you're learning to do in Wealthy Affiliate is worth money. So if you're stressing right now because your business isn't progressing as fast as you like, keep in mind that you're also learning valuable skills along the way. Every time you sit down to do some training, or watch a webinar, or tinker with your theme, or update your content, you're doing on-the-job training.
You're preparing for the future, and creating a backup plan for yourself.
You Decide How Much Your Time Is Worth Online
The great thing about the bidding system of UpWork, and about online work in general is that you get to decide what your time is worth. The examples above were pretty much median results for bids I received on the project.
Here was an outlier.
$195 per hour. $2500 for 11 articles. Wow.
That may seem like a shocking price tag, but this person has worked 105 jobs, 583 hours, and has earned over $80,000 on UpWork. Clearly, there are a large number of clients who value this person's work and are willing to pay the price he's asking.
The concept of how you value your time is not just limited to how much a freelancer charges per hour or. per project.
Every time you sit down to work, you are also giving a number value to your time. Are you working on your business or watching Netflix? Are you focused writing for your website or flipping between tabs checking Twitter and YouTube?
Are you preparing for an unknown future by investing time and energy into yourself?
You get to decide what your time is worth!
Have a great week everyone, and invest in yourself!
Recent Comments
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Hi Nathaniel,
Great food for thought. When I discuss the benefits of Wealthy Affiliate in some of my posts, I mention this option of earning money on the side. I'm not doing it because right now my time is too valuable to sell to others. I'm investing my time in writing my own articles.
Once I start earning a regular income from my website, I'll be revisiting outsourcing.
If I had to pick one of those writers I'd go with the $20/hr. writer who earned $20k with an 85% Job Success. How is Job Success measured?
Thanks.
Edwin
That's a great post Nathan.
I see a lot of people coming back to Wealthy Affiliate since they've lost their jobs due to the Covid19 situation.
I understand that they need immediate cash flow. I help them realize that affiliate marketing is a long game - but they still should start their site and work on it on.
However, they should also pick up a skill or two and start freelancing it to businesses that are still thriving to get some active income going on.
I actually recommend this to everyone, whether they've been affected by the Covid19 situation or not. And that's how I got my content writing & marketing business up & running to get some active income rolling while I work on the passive income.
People usually said that they don't have time - but it has never been a better time to start freelancing.
Regarding your content quality issues - did you think of posting a job ad on some of the most popular writer job boards such as the ProBlogger's job board? It's not free - but it can give you exposure to some pretty great writers.
I'm also a writer so if you need any help - feel free to reach out!
Here's my portfolio: https://dariowriter.com/
Awesome post. I too believe we all need a backup plan, no matter what you are doing.
I found this post particularly interesting as I am looking at doing some freelance writing myself. I have never done anything such as this, but I find it fascinating.
Thank you for sharing the info.
Absolutely fantastic home run Nathaniel, you couldn't have said it any better. Self development is the key here and will pay off in the near future. Who knows how much time he spent to worth $195 an hour?
I tell people for you to be great, you just have to do the things you fear most. Just 7 months ago, I coughed out $1500 and paid a web developer to build a CBD website and just 2 weeks ago I got a client I built a website for after coming back to WA.
Covid-19 has given me time to put all my energy in learning how to build a website in no time.
Thanks for the wake up call.
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Thanks for sharing, Nathaniell. Indeed, it helps to have multi-multiple income streams at this trying time.
I'm already on Upwork as a writer, since I started WA 4 years ago. I've got a pretty good profile and thankfully, landed some long term clients.
2 websites at WA is bringing in a stable income that covers some expenses. Most of the writing has been outsourced to other writers, so I'm having some free time slots.
Right now, I'm hoping to build a Shopify dropshipping store, leveraging all the automated tools that I can get.
Cheers,
Kenny