You know that feeling you get when you see a freelance writing job listing that just takes your breath away — but not in a good way?
Writerly chum Mary Schneider sent this one over last week. Honestly, it took me a day to digest it, mainly because something this rotten can cause lots of intestinal upset. If you’re a follower of this blog, you’ve seen some of these bad postings that are laughably bad. This one has to be the worst I’ve seen.
Let’s present the top contender for the This Job, Not That Job Worst of the Worst Award:
Creative Writing
Hey there! We’re looking for a passionate and experienced writer for the topic of “Critical Thinking/Socratic Method”, who can write a 25.000-word book on this subject. We are a fast-growing publishing company focused on non-fiction books about improving personal thinking. Our mission is to help people make better decisions, achieve more success, and live a better life. The books we publish aim to provide practical, proven, and easy to understand information, combined with stories our readers can identify with.
WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU Financial Aspects – This posting is a featured job. If you are a top-rated freelancer or a rising talent on Upwork, your fee will be reduced from 20% to 10% for all projects we will work on together. And if you’re not there yet, after you’ve completed this project, the Upwork fee will be permanently reduced to 10% for you. It’s a pretty nice incentive already, don’t you think? – The payment can go up to 600$ (out of which Upwork fees will be deducted).
Support And Feedback – We’ll provide you with vast resources on how you can write great non-fiction books and improve your writing. Applying this information will make you a better writer, and you’ll be more valuable for other clients as well. – Our professional team will support you in creating the best book possible on this topic. Two editors will assist you and provide you with extensive feedback on the submitted content and the project manager will respond to your inquiries and offer you guidance throughout the creative process. Long Term Collaboration We would be happy to continue working with you on more than one book and build a long-term relationship. That is guaranteed if we and especially our readers are satisfied with the quality of our collaboration. We will publish books on a variety of topics related to improving your thinking, which leads to making better decisions and having more success in life: Critical Thinking, Cognitive Biases, Logical Thinking, Mental Models etc.
REQUIREMENTS – Deadline for final book delivery: 45 days – Please apply only if you are passionate about this topic and you have extensive experience or background knowledge on this subject. If you’re here to make a quick buck, this is not for you. If you wouldn’t buy the book yourself you’re writing, you’re not the right person for this job. – You must thoroughly follow our outline specifications, effectively research the topic, and write a unique, 100% original quality book that will bring value to the reader – A vast vocabulary, flawless English grammar, spelling, and punctuation – Attention to detail and commitment to the project – Open to communicating in a friendly manner and receiving constructive feedback from our team
BOOK CHARACTERISTICS – Storytelling – it is essential to have stories in our books because they are the best way to make information stick. If you’re not a great storyteller or don’t know what related stories to tell, don’t worry, we have you covered. We have plenty of information in our instructions file on how to tell stories and which elements to include to tell great stories. – Conversational writing tone and style – Just to fight the robots, please include the word „Blueberry“ in your proposal so we know you are actually a living, breathing, and real writer – Citing scientific studies and articles If you’re confident in your skills, honest and serious in your work, then there is no reason to postpone applying for the job. We are happy to receive you on our team and grateful to be working with you.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST Please have a look at our instructions and outline file to get all the specific details you need to know about this project: [GoogleDrive Link] Check out the FAQ file, where we tried to cover all content-related questions you might have: [Another GoogleDrive Link] Please provide up to three samples of your past writings. My team and I can’t wait to read your application and get to know you! Best Regards,
You may need some antacids before we get into this. Go on, I’ll wait.
Okay, let’s dig in. Hope you’ve brought a large, sturdy shovel.
Hey there!
Can we just stop using exclamation points to punctuate anything beyond “Fire!”? Nothing says “What I’m about to say is a wad of garbage” like adding an exclamation that doesn’t really belong there. And “Hey there” as the start to a job listing is another clue — someone doesn’t know how to post a job, which means they don’t know how to manage someone, which means they don’t know how to pay well …. paint me with a skeptic’s brush.
We’re looking for a passionate and experienced writer for the topic of “Critical Thinking/Socratic Method”, who can write a 25.000-word book on this subject.
Well, count me in! I can certainly write 25 words! (see how exclamations can convey a more sinister connotation?) But a red flag here — punctuation matters.
WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU Financial Aspects – This posting is a featured job. If you are a top-rated freelancer or a rising talent on Upwork, your fee will be reduced from 20% to 10% for all projects we will work on together. And if you’re not there yet, after you’ve completed this project, the Upwork fee will be permanently reduced to 10% for you. It’s a pretty nice incentive already, don’t you think?
I know nothing about Upwork except I wouldn’t personally look for work there. But if Upwork is charging writers to find work, then this company is exploiting that by dangling the “we’ll pay your fee” carrot. Only, the way they worded it, they’ll only pay for half of your fee. Wow. Generous bastards.
– The payment can go up to 600$ (out of which Upwork fees will be deducted).
Back the truck up. “Can go up to” translates to “never gonna happen.” And wait — you’re paying my Upwork fees, but not really? Huh?
[bctt tweet=”The more convoluted the math, the worse the #freelancewriting gig.” username=”LoriWidmer”]
This is the point where you, smart freelancer, walk away from this immediately. But we’re in it to learn what not to do, so let’s move on. Just for fun.
Let’s skip down a bit:
We’ll provide you with vast resources on how you can write great non-fiction books and improve your writing. Applying this information will make you a better writer, and you’ll be more valuable for other clients as well.
That’s a new twist on the “get great exposure” line. Same result — you work your ass off for someone who is making tons of money off your work, and you’ll become “valuable” to clients who think working for someone who underpays you significantly is a great career move for you.
Skipping down some more:
REQUIREMENTS – Deadline for final book delivery: 45 days
That’s right — you’ll be delivering a book in 45 days. A book on specialized topics. In 45 days. Keep that in mind.
Please apply only if you are passionate about this topic and you have extensive experience or background knowledge on this subject.
Okay, so you’d better be an expert in these areas. But something tells me this isn’t going to matter so much. Why? This line:
The payment can go up to 600$ (out of which Upwork fees will be deducted).
I come back to this because no expert would even be looking at this ad. They’re too busy writing expert content for a shitload more money than $600. Oh, and someone who presents your price as “600$” is clearly not from this country. Which casts doubt on your ability to collect at all should you have an issue.
If you’re here to make a quick buck, this is not for you.
No truer words have ever been written.
There is so much more wrong with this, but we’ve hit the low notes. Now, let’s see how to improve our income with just a few minutes of searching:
Needs: technology, ethical economics, design, and leadership articles. Prefers working with people familiar with the industry about which they are pitching.
Pay: $2-3 per word
Articles around 900 words (their maximum) would pay $1,800. Gee, how many books would you have to write to make that, I wonder?
Writers, what other red flags are you seeing in this one?
How do you find better-paying work? What advice can you give newer freelancers for finding the same?
Honestly, I didn’t even understand the terms of the payment under the pitch–which is a no go!
Checked out Fast Company because I’d never heard of it, and I found this:
We cannot offer to pay for contributed stories, but if they’re engaging to read and useful to our audience, we will energetically promote them, just like any other story that runs on our site.
I’m not looking for work, but do they really pay $2-$3 per word? I thought I’d bookmark that in case I suddenly found myself bereft of clients–which has never happened in 15 years of self-employment, but there’s always that fear, right?
Contributed stories are different, Gabriella. They’re usually written by companies and skirt the edges of promotional. But if they’re calling all stories contributed, that’s a no-go.
The guidelines I’d found are admittedly a few years old, so I would definitely ask before putting much effort into writing for them.
Upwork used to be called oDesk. A few years ago they changed their name and revamped the site a bit.
It’s basically a database of job offers, similar to Indeed. You can run searches and filter by specific types of jobs and pay rates. Both clients and freelancers are rated and receive reviews. Pretty straightforward setup.
At first, they charged a flat 10% of the agreed-upon price. They have a system by which the client has to have the money in a secured account, basically held by them, until the job is marked completed. There’s a period in which the client can review and refuse or accept the work, after which the money is released to the freelancer.
Then the system changed. They upped the fee to 20% of the first $1000 you make with *each client* – not just the first $1000 you make using their site, but each client- and you also have to buy points to use to bid on jobs. Each job, depending on the budget, costs a certain number of “points” to respond to.
To put a pretty bow on top, they also won’t let you take your contacts off Upwork without paying a pretty exhorbiant fee, or you get kicked off the site. So you can’t contact the client privately and arrange an off-Upwork contract. Presumably this doesn’t apply if the client has other jobs they want to offer you, but I wouldn’t count on that.
I used them when I started freelancing, and met several steady clients through them, but the rising cost and restrictions, coupled with their poor screening of clients just makes this a quicksand trap for new and unskilled freelancers.
One of those user-beware kind of sites.
Oh, Mary. I knew Upwork was bad for freelancers, but I didn’t know how bad. They make you buy points to bid on jobs? Yuck. Yuck. And might I add….yuck.
Yeah, they used to not be terrible, when I first started freelancing. Granted, you had to sift through the listing to find jobs worth considering, but it was worth the search for the few gems.
With the changes to their system and the higher fees, though, they’re just not worthwhile any longer. There are much better sources of higher-paying jobs. And a bonus, there tends to be a lot less quibbling over payment when working with higher-quality clients.