Who the *BLEEP* is Applying For These Jobs?!

[Tiffany S]

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@Melanie M wrote:

Who is writing that many articles per hour?  I want some of what they are taking or drinking!  I guess it's just the perfectionist in me that won't let me do that.

Well, being a perfectionist when working on a low-paying project for a client whose priority wasn't perfection (or even quality) would just be bad business, wouldn't it? 

That said, I often write 500ish word blog posts in 20 minutes or so if I am already well versed in the subject matter. As a colleague of mine is fond of saying, "It takes how long it takes." If one can produce a high quality post in 20 minutes, it's not perfectionism that inspires spending additional time on it.

I still think that allowing these kinds of job postings makes UpWork seem less than professional.  What they allow on their site creates an image.  Perhaps there should be a separate "room" on the platform -- a bargain basement, if you will.  These  low ball jobs could be posted there with a mutual understanding between freelancers and clients that the pay will be low, but the clients are aware that the product quality may be sub par, as well.  If a client doesn't mind doing some of his own revising on a job with some defects in it, he may see it as a way to pick up a good deal.  It just looks bad to allow them in with the "general population," I think.

People new to Upwork get in a fuss about this a lot. Usually, they calm down and go on about their own business and stop worrying about what others are doing.

If a client wants expert work, he should expect to pay expert prices.  If a client gets poor quality work from a freelancer, he can give poor feedback.  Too much poor feedback, and a contractor can get sent to the bargain basement to find work.

Who determines what is expert work? Who determines what is an expert price? Is it adjusted for local economies, the skill/type of project involved? Why do you feel that you (or whomever it is that you'd put in charge of enforcing this) have the right to tell a grown-up professional that he or she can't provide expert work for lower rates if that's what he/she chooses?

Just thinking and typing aloud here.

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[Kat C]

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@Tiffany S wrote:

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@Melanie M wrote:

Who is writing that many articles per hour?  I want some of what they are taking or drinking!  I guess it's just the perfectionist in me that won't let me do that.

Well, being a perfectionist when working on a low-paying project for a client whose priority wasn't perfection (or even quality) would just be bad business, wouldn't it? 

That said, I often write 500ish word blog posts in 20 minutes or so if I am already well versed in the subject matter. As a colleague of mine is fond of saying, "It takes how long it takes." If one can produce a high quality post in 20 minutes, it's not perfectionism that inspires spending additional time on it.

I still think that allowing these kinds of job postings makes UpWork seem less than professional.  What they allow on their site creates an image.  Perhaps there should be a separate "room" on the platform -- a bargain basement, if you will.  These  low ball jobs could be posted there with a mutual understanding between freelancers and clients that the pay will be low, but the clients are aware that the product quality may be sub par, as well.  If a client doesn't mind doing some of his own revising on a job with some defects in it, he may see it as a way to pick up a good deal.  It just looks bad to allow them in with the "general population," I think.

People new to Upwork get in a fuss about this a lot. Usually, they calm down and go on about their own business and stop worrying about what others are doing.

If a client wants expert work, he should expect to pay expert prices.  If a client gets poor quality work from a freelancer, he can give poor feedback.  Too much poor feedback, and a contractor can get sent to the bargain basement to find work.

Who determines what is expert work? Who determines what is an expert price? Is it adjusted for local economies, the skill/type of project involved? Why do you feel that you (or whomever it is that you'd put in charge of enforcing this) have the right to tell a grown-up professional that he or she can't provide expert work for lower rates if that's what he/she chooses?

Just thinking and typing aloud here.

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Agreed!

Once people develop their writing niche or genre, then it becomes easier to pass by the lower end clients. 

[Robert James R]

Bottom feeders. Let them feast on left overs so long as we get the full plates.

[Miroslav M]

And what some people think is that WRITING = TYPING so they can drop random words.at their highest typing speed. 

How much time do y'all spend crafting a 500-word article or one page at your average rates?

[Jennifer M]

I'm having a hard time getting 1000 words out these days. I'm either getting lazier or taking more time to get it right idk

[Kat C]

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@Miroslav M wrote:

And what some people think is that WRITING = TYPING so they can drop random words.at their highest typing speed. 

How much time do y'all spend crafting a 500-word article or one page at your average rates?

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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Thank you, Miroslav.

As to your latter query: It depends on the topic. 

Five hundred words are easy peasy for me in some aspects. For example, if I'm constructing a test question passage, then this could be mere minutes.

However, if I'm writing on an academic topic, say, Systems Thinking, which is a convergence of several different academic disciplines, this could take much longer. 

[Tiffany S]

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@Miroslav M wrote:

And what some people think is that WRITING = TYPING so they can drop random words.at their highest typing speed. 

How much time do y'all spend crafting a 500-word article or one page at your average rates?

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 Depends on the subject matter. Almost never more than an hour. 45 minutes is pretty average, though on certain topics I can easily do 3 500-word pieces in an hour. But, I tend to write only in areas where I already have a significant amount of expertise, so the only research involved is usually to check the precise wording of a statute or look up the statute of limitations in a particular state or that sort of thing.

A friend recently calculated that I write an average of 16 words per minute when I'm in the straight writing phase. I type 104 words per minute, so nowhere near maximum speed.

[Miroslav M]

I usually spend 30-80 minutes on a 500 word blog post in English. Since I am not a native speaker I need to dedicate much more time to proofreading. But even in my own mother tongue I end up with same timing as its grammar is less word-consuming. Work which requires references from journals or niche/subject authority sites take 2-3 hours regardless the language.

I wonder if some of those ultra cheapos perhaps use speech to text software to speed up  the whole process.

[Kat C]

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@Miroslav M wrote:

I usually spend 30-80 minutes on a 500 word blog post in English. Since I am not a native speaker I need to dedicate much more time to proofreading. But even in my own mother tongue I end up with same timing as its grammar is less word-consuming. Work which requires references from journals or niche/subject authority sites take 2-3 hours regardless the language.

I wonder if some of those ultra cheapos perhaps use speech to text software to speed up  the whole process.

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You're pinging my brain big time today Miroslav (for clarity, that's a compliment!).

I think I need to break out of my old school ways of just typing what's in my brain and try this method.

Though, if it produces anything like what my phone does when I try to talk "type" I think I'd become frustrated at something close to light speed (hahah!).

[Miroslav M]

Wouldnt' you accept $3 gigs if you had a "secret weapon "enabling you to deliver 20 of such within an hour? The economy of scale. The fact that a Mars bar costs .35 or so doesn't prevent its makers from being multimillionaires. Yet I was wondering all this time how someone in the States can charge less than I can afford here (where the AMI is mere $10k annually or South/East Asia where it is $3k).