reginapaulwrites

Okay, I’m hearing the protesting already from those who have had some success with bidding sites. First of all I’m not saying that it’s impossible to have success with freelance bidding sites, but my experience has been that if you want to make serious money as a freelance writer ie you want to make a living at it, bidding sites are not always the best choice. Here’s why:

1. There is always going to be someone who is willing to outbid you for a job. Meaning they are willing to go down to the lowest possible amount of pay in order to get the gig. I’ve even seen people who are willing to take $1.00 an hour. You can’t make a living on that, and there is no way to compete with people who will make the absolute bottom dollar bid just to get the gig. 

2. Most bidding sites want you to pay them a monthly fee in order to be able to make more than three bids a month. Both E-lance and Guru will give you three bids for free but after that you have to pay their fee. I see this as the same sort of thing that you see where websites offer you a list of freelance jobs but only if you pay the monthly fee like Go Freelance. While you dont’ openly bid on these, but simply apply it’s the same principle. There are a lot of ways to find decent paying freelance gigs online without having to pay an upfront fee that may or may not mean you find some work.

If you do decide that you want to try out a bidding site, the only one that I’ve found to be good and that doesn’t charge you is Odesk. Plus they have tests you can take to prove your skills and this increases the odds of your getting a job there. Keep in mind there are many low bidders on Odesk, but there are also some professionals there and it helps to keep the rates reasonable at least on some of the jobs.  Check out Odesk.

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