Lately, a friend of mine has started a freelancing board. A couple of his friends also did the same thing, with subtle differences between their sites. The idea was to provide quality jobs, and also quality providers. The jobs and providers are hand-picked to ensure the quality. The client is charged a small fee ($20-$40) for posting his job details, and the jobs are delivered to your email box So, I have been thinking of that. Part of that, I want to get into this new market that they are trying to conquer. But I wonder about the feasibility: - Are there interested clients, and how to reach them? - What's the minimal budget for a writing gig you would take? - Your opinion in picking writers. How to identify the good ones? What are the criteria? So this is open for discussion, and it might become a quality job board for serious copywriter. No $5/article non-sense, and also no crappy writer trying to sell crap.
Well... to qualify your writers you're going to have to develop a really good test to screen them..probably will need to put an ad out inviting applications from writers and then proceed with screening and selecting the best bunch possible...
I'm thinking of doing it the same way a client does: How do you pick the right writer? Check their portfolios, some of their writings, their CV...
Heck, a lot of folks won't spend $20-40 for the work itself. You are going to have to be really picky about the writers you accept to be able to justify that investment. Have you checked out Constant Content lately? They require writers to take a grammar test before they are accepted and every article is professionally proofread. Even with that level of quality, I would say the average selling price for an article is only $20-30. Some pieces do sell for what they are worth but some are also selling for $7.
I checked Constant Content. They are like Odesk, but for content writing. Well, they are better (in quality). I'm not looking to create another articles directory. I'm looking to create a freelance board that is targeted for professional writer. The job might be to write an article, or a long term work, or may be to proofread a book. The point is, job and writers are both hand-picked for maximum quality. Do you want to waste your time browsing hundred of jobs to find the right one for you? No. Do you want to waste your time browsing hundred of writers application to find that no one can clearly fulfill your requirements? No. The board will separate the noise from the signal. The writers should be established, have a portfolio, and a decent track record. The board will just benefit them with more opportunities.
Constant Content isn't an article directory. All of the articles posted there are for sale and are being displayed as an image so they are not indexed. That is also part of their theft-deterrent system. There's also a place for buyers to put in specific requests. I'm not promoting them but I have signed up with them. It seems like their glory days may be on the wane. It almost sounds like you are building something more like a job recruitment and placement agency than a freelance board. Perhaps that might be a better approach - build up a cadre of writers and when someone needs a writer on a particular topic, you send them the 'list' of pre-screened writers working in that area. Your service would be something like a matchmaker - putting people in touch with each other.
Exactly. To get the writers and the buyers in touch, I'm using a slightly different approach that other freelancing board. You'll receive, based on settings you change, an email delivered to you every day or week with a list of jobs that matches your criteria. Once you find a job that suits, the job board connects you with the buyer. I wonder if there is enough traction to make this work.
I think it could work very well if you came up with a strong list of rules and were brutal about enforcing them. Things like minimum pricing, grammar skills and a zero tolerance on plagiarism or requests to plariarize/rewrite would be a good start. I like the concept that CC has with requests but I'm beginning to suspect that the buyers are not always following through with a purchase - they get to see the piece as a picture before they decide to buy. And while it doesn't appear the content is being stolen outright, I wonder how much of it is spun by the requesting parties. Of course, there does seem to be plenty of stealing going on as well. The trick will be attracting participants at a level you want to make it profitable enough for writers to pay you some sort of finders fee and buyers who are willing to pay more for quality. If you make it a free-for-all where anyone can play, you'll just end up with the sort of thing that can be found here on the BST forums.
@YMC It'll be definitively free for starting, at least in the Beta. The rules will be enforced, both jobs and writers are handpicked. I won't set a minimum rate. You can put a $500 job looking for 500 articles written. It's not a good measure. I'm going to handpick them, it means only good deals. I'm mainly targeting magazines, newspapers, parties interested in book reviews and such.
$500 for 500 articles is far from a good deal. That will attract the sort of writers that magazines, newpapers and other quality sites won't want. It's up to you but a minimum price will help to keep out the riff raff on both sides. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
That's what I actually meant. The minimum price requirements doesn't ensure quality. One can bid $500 but his project is crap. The projects need to be picked for quality.
You will have an uphill task of making a freelance copywriting site that stands apart from the other freelancer sites out there. The rates that online employers are paying for writers are in the toilet, so you would need to make your site interesting enough for good quality writers to come in and sell their services, and for employers to be willing to pay for a decent rate. With all the globalization being done to content writing, I don't see that happening for your new freelancer site.
Yes, I agree. I think I'm going to watch out how my friends are doing and how their boards are going The good writers are there, but only if there are enough jobs so they take the time to register and avertise their service. Finding interested buyers is the difficult part. I'll keep an eye on this.