Successful bid on Elance

I posted one bid yesterday on Elance and today I received feedback from the buyer. So I will get my second Elance project (worth $300) just seven days after starting my active search for projects on Elance. So far the membership has really payed off - I invested $9,95 and earned $350 (when you deduct the fees is somewhat less) and I still got 17 connects.

I must admit that I was suspicious about actually getting work at Elance, but it proved to be a wrong presumption. If you really put some effort in writing your bid and really address the needs of the buyer the result will come. In some of the future posts I will share thoughts on bidding on Elance.

Earning money on Elance

Yesterday I completed my first project on Elance. It was not anything big - a small project of rephrasing a recommendation letter based on the answers given by that person. And thus I earned my first 50$ at Elance.

So far, my experience with Elance was a positive one. I started with the Basic free plan in which you get three Connects a month for free (three opportunities to bid for projects) and I used all three by bidding on three small projects. When bidding for projects I really wanted to start with something small – around the minimum budget, just to see whether the system really worked. That is something I try to do with all the clients – I don’t want to earn 1000$ and then to realize that the buyer is not really a serious one, don’t have the money or whatever – you should beware of that kind of people if you are thinking about starting the freelance writing career. The good thing on Elance is that you have the Escrow option – the buyer has to fund the project first by placing his money into the Escrow so you know that you will be paid when you finish your work. Then when you complete the project and the buyer verifies that it’s done, the money from the Escrow is transferred to your account.

But let’s return to the story. I spent all three connects and was waiting for the buyers to award the projects. One project was immediately awarded to someone else, my second bid was declined because the buyer wanted a person from a specific location and I was still waiting for the third answer. At that moment I was wondering whether it is worth changing my membership plan from free to the paid membership. And at that time, I was contacted by the buyer of the first project (from above – which was awarded to someone else) asking me whether I would be interested in a similar project with a similar budget. I believe that he contacted me because I placed a good bid (I will write about the winning bids later). I answered positively and he invited me to a project. When I completed the work and sent the files to him, he confirmed that the project was finished and the money was transferred to my account. Of course, I upgraded to the paid-membership plan, which is only $9.95 and I got 20 Connects for that money.

So, I’ll keep you posted on what happened with the 19 other bids.

What is this blog about?

I have been a freelance writer and translator for some years already. I usually got new project by being referred by old customers or by working with agencies which provided that kind of services. Now, I am entering the new market – I have set up the account on Elance, Dailyarticle, Helium and a couple of other websites where freelance writers can sell their services. And at this blog I will write about my experience with those websites as well as about the other ways to get published and earn money form freelance writing. I hope that this remarks will be beneficial for you if you plan to start your freelance writing career yourself.

Furthermore, I want to say that I will try to present you my experience as it is – sometimes I may feel great about a service or a website, sometimes that opinion will change – this is not a blog which will have purpose to persuade you to join some of these programs or to discourage you from joining some others – these are just my opinions which should help you make informed decisions. I will note the developments, pros and cons and what I experience with these services so that you know what to expect. Please comment, either if you agree or if you disagree with me.

Apart from writing about my experience I will post various articles here. Usually those will be sample articles so that potential buyers can see the quality of my work. If you like the way I write feel free to contact me and use my writing services.

At the end, I just want to add that the writing is only my extra income – I am currently enrolled at PhD studies in Linguistics and the main reason why I am writing is to earn money to pay the tuition fee for my studies. Also, I work at a Careers Service, helping students of the University to develop their job-seeking and presentation skills.

I hope you will find this blog useful – and that we will be seeing each other a lot in the future (obviously, I suggest bookmarking this blog or adding the rss feed to your rss reader).