Fiverr And Swimming With The Current

This is going to be a controversial post, I think. The reason is that for people like me, who’ve been in the creative fields for a lot of years, the Internet has not always been a good thing. There was a time before the Internet when freelance writers could make a princely sum for their work. You gained experience, put your articles (called clips) in a portfolio and showed them to clients, and the clients gave you work commensurate with your ability and experience. It was a great system, right?

And then the Internet came along. The Internet allowed clients to vastly expand their pool of freelancers. Anyone with a computer and a modem could call themselves a writer, and the clients could make all these millions of freelance “writers” compete against each other to offer the lowest bid for the job. That’s why you have writers making $5 or less for a blog post. 

For awhile, I held my nose up like a lot of other experienced writers, and I said, “There’s no way I’m going to stoop to those kind of rates. I’m too good for that!”

But, you know what? I’ve seen the light. I’ve realized that the Internet is like a mighty river, and it’s better to swim with the current than against it. 

I joined Fiverr. Fiverr is a site where people advertise that they’ll do all sorts of odd jobs for five bucks. Really, you can find someone there who’ll do just about anything. 

It’s outrageous, right? Why would a person who’s got decades of experience writing for companies and publications, who has a Master’s in English and is a published novelist, why would he sell his services for five bucks?

Here are five reasons why I’ve done it.

. If you price the job right you can make decent money. People aren’t giving away the store for five bucks. You can structure your offer so that your time invested is equal to the payment you receive. The ones I’ve posted, “I’ll brainstorm 12 ideas for $5,” and “I’ll write a 250 word blog post for $5” are things I’ve decided I can do profitably. Sure, it’s not top dollar, but it can lead to bigger and better things (see below for more about that). 

. You get paid without a hassle. In my career I’ve had to wait months to get paid, and sometimes I got stiffed for my fee, when a magazine or business went bankrupt. With Fiverr, you get paid within a matter of days after completing the job. Every time. 

. You get lots of work. If you have a good offer, you’ll get work. Tons of it. Your email inbox will be filled every day with people buying your gig.

. You get bigger jobs in time. When you move up the ranks of Fiverr sellers, you can multiply your income. If someone wants a thousand word article, I can tell them to order more gigs, so that I’m not writing all those words for five bucks. 

. You do something different every day. I like the thrill of tackling different jobs every day.  I’ve done brainstorming gigs for videographers, game designers, novelists, business owners, and much more. I never know what to expect when I log on each day, and I love it. 

I’m not going to get rich working for Fiverr, and I know that. My main gig will still be writing fiction, and that’s the way I want it. But Fiverr has added some variety to my writing life, and it’s stimulated my brain cells in ways you wouldn’t imagine. Also, it’s a nice way to pick up some extra cash. 

I guess I’m a traitor to the venerable freelance writing profession. Oh, well, it’s better to adapt than to become a dinosaur. 

Speed Write!

Can you speed write?

"That's not writing. That's typing," Truman Capote said when he heard how many thousands of words the young Jack Kerouac wrote each day (I'm paraphrasing that quote, but you get the idea). Sometimes, though, you need to just type. The best cure for writer's block is to just sit down at your keyboard, turn on an alarm or timer, and type till the buzzer goes off. You don't edit, you don't correct misspelled words, you don't try to choose the right turn of phrase, or metaphor -- you just type.

If you do this I guarantee you'll turn out a lot of words. Some of them will be utter dreck -- in fact, a lot of them will be utter dreck -- but you'll get your creative juices flowing, and usually you'll find the germ of a good idea in the middle of all those words. Sometimes you get lucky, and a really great idea, or sentence, or paragraph comes out of what you wrote.

When you speed write you turn off the internal critic, that little gremlin inside who constantly tells you you're not good enough, and that the sentence you just typed is stupid, wrong, and will damn you to hell forever if you let anyone see it.

Here's a great site to teach you how to speed write: Write or Die by Dr Wicked. You can set a time limit and a word count, and then you just start typing. If you stop typing before you reach your time limit, there are visual and auditory cues to get you writing again (try the kamikaze mode!).

More Money From EBooks?

Here's a good story about how eBooks are changing publishing. Why Indie Authors Will Break Traditional Publishers actually has some hard numbers from an author about how much money he's made from eBook publishing. I was especially interested to see how much more he's made from self-publishing his eBooks.

101 Best Websites For Writers

Writer's Digest has been the bible of freelance writing for a long time. I started reading it in college, and I devoured every article in every issue. I also sent away for some of the books put out by their publishing company, and I thought they were useful, to varying degrees.

Art Spikol, an ex-boss of mine, wrote a column for Writer's Digest for years. Art's column, like the magazine, was full of practical advice for freelance writers.

I don't subscribe to the Writer's Digest magazine anymore, but I do visit their Web site. And this particular page, The 101 Best Websites For Writers, is one I have bookmarked. It's got some very useful resources in categories like Agents, Jobs & Markets, Writing Communities, and Fun for Writers (every writer needs to have some fun!). It's worth checking out this site.