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Subject:RE: Am I Off the Wall????? From:"Connie Giordano" <connie -at- therightwordz -dot- com> To:"'Deborah Hemstreet'" <dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com> Date:Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:04:05 -0400
Hi Deborah,
I can vouch for the "for realness", I see the same thing on a regular basis
from all three freelance sites that I subscribe to. These people really do
think you can get a great 70-page book from a writer for $250, and I imagine
there's a pretty strong shock waiting when they take a look at the final
deliverable. No matter where they say they're from, freelancers ARE
submitting lowball bids like that, and in the end it hurts everyone.
Your specific location doesn't have much to do with it. I live in
Charlotte, where life was good until the meltdown, and now unemployment
hovers in the 12 percent range. Like you, I can't live on $5 an hour, so I
keep looking for both on-site contracts (not likely for quite awhile I'm
afraid) and marketing where I can for good long-term clients.
I'm surprised, I've gotten nothing but junk from ODesk, plus that really
obnoxious memory hogging software that installs when you sign up. On the
other hand, I've gotten two excellent, long-term clients from Guru plus a
couple of decent multi-week projects, and see some good potential projects
from elance. No matter which freelance service(s) you subscribe to, you have
to cull through the junk to find the stuff that really makes for a good
project, and the clients that want quality work for reasonable prices.
I'm hoping for a Darwinian result -- I plan to survive despite the current
economic conditions, still doing what I love to do until they pry they
keyboard from my cold dead hands!
Regards,
Connie P. Giordano
The Right Words, LLC
Communications & Information Design
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." - Walt Disney
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+connie=therightwordz -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Deborah Hemstreet
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 7:48 AM
To: davec
Cc: TechWr-L
Subject: Re: Am I Off the Wall?????
Hi Dave, and everyone.
Dave to answer your question - yes this is for real.
And although I did not say it, this was from Guru.com - where they make you
PAY to join...
All I can say, is I 'm thankful I found some legitimate bids on ODesk.com -
and no paid membershp.... there I know I'm bidding against the world, but
amazingly, a sound company in Minnesota found me and I have a decent
contract with them now....
I just had to do a reality check with you guys. Living in the middle of farm
country, a farmer friend said they thought I needed to swallow my pride. A
job is a job. If they were offering $5/hour to take it.
My issue? All $5 an hour will do is maybe get a few gallons of gasolene, not
pay the mortgage, electric, and etc.... so what's the diff betwen 0 and
$5/hour? My sanity <grin>
Thanks all
Have a great weekend!
Deborah
On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 10:53 PM, davec <davec2468 -at- aim -dot- com> wrote:
> Deborah,
> Are you certain that the "other bidders" are indeed legitimate? Do
> you know this client well enough to know that those competitive rates
> are real bids?
>
> The story is so bizarre, I have to ask...
>
> Dave
>
> (I like Chris' suggestion of a premium if you end up fixing someone
> else's work...)
>
> -=-=-=-
>
> >Hi All,
> >
> >All joking aside, I bid on a project (details listed below). Based on
> >the fact that I would be responsible for research as well as writing, I
> >told the bidder I could do this in probably 4 hours per page of work,
> >possibly less. I gave a top bid based on 280 hours of work. It seems
> >they want 70 pages of writing done, and do not want to pay more than
> >$250. Even if, by some miracle I could get 70 pages written in 100
> >hours, I don't think I could do the project for $250.
> >
> >Now here is the killer, I cannot figure this out: He wrote back and
> >asked why my bid was so high? Of 5 people bidding for the project, 4
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