As writers we are always wary of getting scammed by people that are trying to take advantage of us.  We hear about it all the time and it has happened to many of us.  It hasn’t happened to me yet so I don’t know if I’m just lucky or if I’m just good at picking out the bad ones.

Knowing that there are scammer out there shouldn’t stop you from applying for jobs though.  You do need to watch for the red flags though, and those little flags can prevent you from doing a lot of work that you won’t get paid for.

“Send Me an Article on This Topic”

Watch out for people who want you to do the first article on spec or they want you to do the first one for free.  This is how they get their content for their sites and they likely are not actually paying many, if any, writers for actual work.  Why should they when naïve writers will send off their hard work with a hope and a prayer?

You should expect to provide samples, but work that you have already written should give them enough information to tell them what kind of work that you are capable of.  Have samples online at places like Bukisa or Associated Content that you can direct potential clients to.  Make sure your samples are good!

Note that test articles are not always the same as free.  Many companies will ask for a test article or even several to see if you can follow through with their directions.  Verify that you will get paid for the test articles before completing them.

“Up to $100 for 500 words for easy work”

Now before you get excited, I will admit that there are companies out there that do pay $100 for 500 words but I’m pretty sure that the work is not easy.  If they claim that the work is easy and that it will only take you minimal time to do it but say they are paying a lot more than you know it is worth, look around for other red flags.

Sometimes they use this as a lure to get writers to write for low fees first, and promise that if they are good the real money will come.  It rarely does but by the time the writers figure it out they have already gotten loads of content from them and there are other naïve writers waiting to make their millions.

“For a small fee you get access to millions of unseen jobs!”

First, you should never have to pay to get work.  Does a doctor pay to get a listing of sick patients?  Does a mechanic pay to find out who needs their car fixed?  Of course not.  People come to you or you apply for jobs but you don’t pay out money to get jobs.

Many places write an ad that looks like a job and then they direct you to a site where they encourage you to sign up for the first week for free and only “this much” after that.  They act like they are service providers because they know damn well that they can’t promise you work.  In fact, even if you do pay the “small monthly fee” you still have to apply for the jobs and compete with all the other people that are paying to get access to the jobs.

Sometimes it is really hard to tell but you think it is worth checking out.  If this is the case, read the email that you get in reply very carefully.  They should give details about who they are, their websites, the name of their company, and other information that will identify them.  If they don’t give that information, ask for it – the scammers will try to dance their way around your questions.

Keep applying for jobs but be smart.  Watch for those little warning signs and if your gut is telling you to back out there is likely a good reason.  Follow your instincts.

How To Avoid Getting Scammed When Applying For Writing Gigs is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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August is almost over and I feel like I’m starting to get the groove of this whole work from home thing.  Not completely, but starting to.  I want to finish off the month with a bang so here are some goals (and I’ve only chose 5 because there are not a lot of days left!):

1. Complete at least one blog entry per day – reach for two though because that is what I’ll need to finish the Ultimate Blog Challenge.
2. Get up early enough to treat myself to a nice walk before I settle down for the day and start writing.
3. Write one article per day for myself to submit to Triond or Bukisa.
4. End each day with a list of things that I am going to do the next day.
5. Track time – the time tracking thing needs to get a whole lot better!

5 Goals for the Remainder of August is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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When I first started this blog I gave myself a 30 Articles in 30 Days Challenge.  Well, I ended it because I didn’t think it was really worth it.  But I’ve been reading a lot about others’ successes and I think I am going to give it another try.

I’ve mostly been doing passive income at Bukisa and since I last talked about it I have hit payout twice.  Only $20 but it’s better than I was doing before.  I know I need to be a little more focused.  I was just randomly putting up articles before and that doesn’t work.  So, I’m going to put a little more thought into it by being more niche specific.  I haven’t decided on the niche I want to work though so I obviously need to get to work on that.

I’m also going to try Triond.  I’ve heard some good and some bad but mostly good.

There are other ways to make a passive income though.  I still have plans to work my e-book plan and hopefully some of you will be joining me.

So, if you have advice about building a passive income leave me a comment.  And yes, you can leave links to your blog posts or e-books or articles in my comments.  As long as you’re contributing to the discussion links are good.

Exploring Passive Income Streams…Again is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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After reading Deb Ng’s post on Make Sure the End Justifies the Means I started to think about the time I was putting into writing articles for Bukisa.  Now, I didn’t write loads of them like others have – I think I had 26 up all together.  But was/is it worth the effort?  For me, I decided no.

The first reason was that several of the articles that I published there at the beginning were gone.  I emailed customer service and got no response.  I noticed that they are finally back but it would have been nice to have a response saying it was fixed or that they were working on it.  The second reason is that I logged in today to find that my earnings have actually gone down by about a $1 since the last time I was there.  Perhaps just a glitch but still…

And the bottom line?  If I have nothing better to do I can write articles and sell them on Constant Content or I can sell them as PLR content or I can sell them exclusively at webmaster boards.

So, the 30 articles in 30 Days Challenge is officially over.  I’ll leave my content up that is already there because it is good for samples when bidding on jobs but I won’t spend more time writing there.

I’m Done With Bukisa is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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I’ve heard of other writers doing similar challenges – writing a certain amount of article over a small period of time so I decided it is time for me to do a challenge of my own.  It’s an experiment in article marketing I guess.  And also to try to build up my casual income.  I’m going to use Bukisa.com because I’ve already got some articles up there and I’d like to see what might happen with a lot of them out there.  I want to see if it can turn into a nice little income stream.

So, 30 articles in 30 days.

I’ve already put together a list of articles I can write.  I was originally going to send them in to Constant Content where they could be sold but I’ll leave that for another time.  I’ve had two articles rejected there and I was looking at the forum and it seems like that is pretty common.  I’m not going to sumbit articles and then guess at what was wrong with them only to have to re-submit them over and over again and potentially not get very much for them.  Maybe I’ll put a bigger effort into that at some point in the future but I think for now I’ll see what I can do with Bukisa.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with Bukisa you can check it out here and join my network (yes, you will be me if you join my network so that’s up to you.  If you would really rather join without helping me just type in bukisa.com in your browser, but I really think it would be more fun to work together.) .  Perhaps you’d like to take part in my challenge with me?  If you do, please drop me a line and I’ll check in on you from time to time.   In a few words, the way Bukisa works is you submit articles or topics on your knowledge and every time someone clicks on your article you get paid.  Not a huge amount.  Right now the Bukisa index is 3.42 which meanst that you get paid $3.42 per 1000 views.  With the articles I have on there now I am sitting at $5.68.  So, my first goal is to hit payout ($10, which is not bad considering most of them are around $25).

So, today is the first day of the 30 Articles in 30 Days Challenge.  Join me and leave me a comment to let me know.

BTW – I can’t take credit for the idea.  I’m borrowing it from Dana Prince at The Writer’s Blog.

30 Articles in 30 Days Challenge is a post from: The Social Freelance Writer.

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