GAF Writers is a Joke.

I do not mean to generalize them into one category. There are some great writers coming from those countries. Sorry if my comment offended any of them.

I just feel that the majority of the ones that post projects are just looking to make a quick easy buck with some sub standard work.

 

Hi

No no...

No offenses at all. I understood it was not meant for all of the writers. I am an Indian and am proud of the fact. But, there are people who try out writing without any knowledge. I mean obviously there are room for starters but one should research well before writing.

I also do proof reading. Once, I was given a piece of text from my client. My client generally does not even open the write ups and send them directly to me. I opened the article and was checking. The quality seemed to be good at initial level. Then, suddenly, I saw at some places there were [citation needed] in brackets. I understood it was copied from Wikipedia.

This is just an example to prove that some are indeed disgracing the other Indian Writers who are experienced and know how to do the job.

 

Well.. You need to be little smart to get genuine providers at GAF. Check their profiles and it'd give you an idea if they're working individually or outsourcing the projects further. Check their samples and rather go for a small paid sample. The proposal or bid text gives you enough idea of their quality and standards (See if they are writing "i" instead of "I", sms text, general punctuation errors in their bid itself . If that's written correctly and specifically for your project and not a generic one, communicate further. 2-3 communications will help you gauze their quality. It just takes little time to get a provider you're looking for. And of course, you can get good writers for $4-6 per 500 words projects. Anybody offering their services at less than $3 needs to be given double thoughts.

 

GAF, what did you expect from the site which works 6 years!!! and have 1mil+ of coders (holy fuck!!!!) which earn only $40mil over all this time!

Go with Elance and pay more.

 

Thanks man! I am proud to be from India. I might not be a Salman Rushdie but I have been writing content in UK for a few years. No major bias so far because of the color of my skin. No major prison sentence for grammatical fumble as yet!

I also agree with you that a lot of below-par quality writers offer their work on freelance sites. Makes us ALL (writers, and Indian writers) look silly.

 

ODesk or ELance are supposed to be good. If you have the budget, I would hire a part-time writer. You get much higher quality articles that way.

 

Seriously, the writers on those sites are DRASTICALLY underpaid for the most part. I was earning $40 per article (spun 2 times) with a company for SEO in the article marketing division. Anyone who takes a dollar for 100 words is a moron.

Big magazines pay a dollar up to 4 dollars PER WORD. If you're not earning 25 cents a word as a freelance writer, you're getting screwed. THAT'S PROVIDED YOU'RE ACTUALLY WRITING YOUR OWN CONTENT AND NOT OUTSOURCING TO SOMEONE WHOSE FIRST LANGUAGE ISN'T ENGLISH.

 

Wow, those are the rates that I want to make. But, I have not written for any magazines yet. Just joined writersmarket.com and will hopefully be getting a gig or two soon.

 

gvannorman, I wonder how you survive in new New York or Newark writing articles for $0.01/word.

 

well, you see survive is all I do. I can write enough articles to get about $300 a week and that is working 8-10 hours a day. If I could land a gig with a magazine or something then I can probably make it a little easier. Still working on that. Also, I did up my rate to a tad, but I am not even close to $0.25 a word.

 

Use other sources of work, not only DP. Try to call/e-mail that magazine by yourself and sell yourself (obviously not on $0.01/word, they will think you are a joke if so).

 

You don't have to write for magazines to earn rates in the $1.00 and up range per word. There are plenty of online sources that pay that much. You just won't find them by looking for advertised gigs in most cases. Think about it. Every magazine that publishes an online version, every major niche site, news sites, corporate blogs -- they all need content. Many pay very well. If you're capable of taking on commercial writing gigs, you can earn that $.25 per word and much, much more fairly easily. People pay well for writers who are actually qualified to create things like press releases, email marketing copy, sales letters, white papers, etc. You won't make $1.00+ per word starting out, but if you have business or marketing credentials it will help you earn decent rates from the get-go.

 

With GetAfreelancer, I have been on both sides of the fence.

I started writing some articles just to test the waters.

$1 or $1.5 per 500 words articles. Not much but then again, the
topic wasn't that hard either.

As a buyer, I met some excellent writers mainly from India.

More than people writing for me, I consider most of them my
new friends.

I live in Costa Rica and we have a third world economy, and maybe
that's why I understand the reason of such low rates.

I want to warn all the people I can of something that some
shameless people are doing:

Some time ago, I bought one cheap ebook from a warrior forum offer.
It was some guy offering some "black hat" secrets to make money
fast and on demand.

It included ripping off GAF providers by asking them free original
unpublished samples and then, changing them a bit and selling them
on $19.99 packages in forums like this DP here.

I honestly felt like sick after reading that piece of crap.

I wanted to ask for a refund but I prefered not to deal with
such a croock.

I just thought of all the honest hard workers trying to find
a real way to finally make it online.

I have been ripped off online many times. Maybe more than
what I would like to tell, but for the same reason.

If you are true and honest, you are prompted to believe
everyone is like yourself. I have discovered that online
just as it happens offline, there are some "wise guys"
with no sense of honor at all.

Just to prove my self here, I have even paid in advance
to the people I had chosen on GAF.

I payed them with a 10 % of the job done. Why? Am I
a Saint? Not at all. I still believe in people. I believe
but not that much.

In your case, if you are a writer, you need to be careful
with your material. If you see that the person hiring you
is asking you for samples and takes a lot of time to define
the contract, he/she would probably be one of those.

Take care and be honest with yourself and with the people
around you. And if the author of that crappy eBook is
reading this ** Read Between lines with my hand Open Wide. **

 

I just wrote a post about this same subject. This is why writing fresh articles for your clients is not a suggested way to do business. Let me tell you my story.

About a week ago I was offering a "free review copy". Then a package of 5 articles all for $20. The person ordering this package decided that because I have a lower iTrader than he I should submit the articles first, then get paid. I agreed with him, and he never paid. Well, I then left a negative iTrader on his account, he in turn did the same to me. Now What?

Well, now I require at least 50% upfront prior to beginning work. This hopefully keeps this from happening again.

 

That is a great way to solve the problem I think.

You take those willing to pay the right price and
let the others be scammed. Sometimes, we learn
better with pain than with someone else's advise.

We human beings are weeeiiiiirrd creatures.

 

Can someone please tell me what GAF is? I looked through the thread and couldn't find it, so maybe I missed it or something.

 

Sure,

GAF stands for Get A Freelancer and you can find their site at www.GetAfreelancer.com

 

@ferpol72 Thanks for the help. I was wondering what it stood for. Is it good or not? What are other sites like it?

 

It's not good.

Good sites - Odesk.com, Guru.com, Elance.com

Bad sites - Getafreelancer.com, Scriptlance.com, Rentacoder.com

 

I second that. GetAfreelancer is more adquate for the benefit of buyers because providers are very cheap.

If you are a Freelancer, look for the best value of your time and efforts. i.e. The sites mentioned above by DPParadise.