How to Manage Your Clients to Maximize Your Freelance Income

Freelancing, even today, is often misunderstood as a limited stream to earn one’s living.

This is the reason you will see many people pursuing freelancing as a ‘second source of earning’ and continuing with their illusion of a secured job and monthly checks as their ‘primary source of income.’

Did I just say illusion? Absolutely!

Your so-called full-time secured job is an illusion we have created in the last few decades. You never know when you will get the pink slip out of the blue…

A full time ‘secured’ job as an employee does not give you the right to control your earning whereas earning from freelancing is just the opposite.

With freelancing jobs of any kind, you get to choose the sources to earn money, control your money inflow and create multiple sources of income.

How to maximize your freelance income

(This is relevant to any kind of freelancer)

Managing Your Clients

One of the main hindrances to creating multiple online income sources is not having the ability to handle your clients.

You don’t need to have an MBA or attend online seminars to know how to handle clients. But know this; failure to handle clients means doom for your business as in loss of clients.

Now what does client handling mean?

(1) You must know how to communicate with them
(2) You must know how to stick to deadlines
(3) You must be clear about financial matters
(4) You must never be clingy

Again, failure to do so creates lots of problems. So how do you manage? Read my personal experience.

As a freelance writer, last year I had about 23 clients to manage simultaneously. In other words, I had 23 online web contents projects to manage and I didn’t have any clue on how to do that.

I didn’t have a team of writers, a day just had 24 hours, I had to update clients daily and most importantly, submit web content daily…I was going mad!!!

I couldn’t refuse the clients at the 11th hour because the money was good and I didn’t want to come across as unprofessional.

What did I do? (This is something I practice even today)

(1) I communicated clearly…

First, I divided the projects into ‘most important,’ ‘important’ and ‘not so important.’

By importance I meant the urgency to complete them. I contacted the ‘important’ and ‘not so important’ project clients and negotiated a different time frame for completion.

Note that before I did this, I was afraid to put this proposal in front of my client because it could have meant losing that client but I had to draw a line somewhere and this seemed to be the best idea…

I sent the clients an email requesting them to reconsider the tight deadlines. Out of 23, 15 received my email, 12 agreed and 3 dropped off. Not bad, I would say! You cannot please everyone…

Now I was better placed in terms of time and client expectations…this is so important!

(2) I kept deadlines…

While there are clients who are very flexible with deadlines and don’t mind numerous extensions, a freelancer should never take it for granted.

A website I write for cuts 10% off the fee everyday if any freelancer goes past the deadline. If you are working from home, I would suggest to maintain a time spreadsheet where you note down the number of hours you will spend everyday for each project and obviously, start with the most urgent ones first.

In fact, if you want more value for your services, you can multiply your income by charging higher for urgent services like in the next 24 hours or so…

Clients that are flexible can be charged less.

(3) I was firm on financial matters…

See, any kind of job that involves money matters should be communicated clearly. One of my friends is a web designer. Six months back he got a $800 project to build a customized website for the client.

He had 20 days to complete the project but my friend delayed and finished the work in 46 days, taking 26 days extra…

Now I must say that the client didn’t complain or threaten about non-payment.

However, when my friend asked for the project fees, (no advances were paid) the client dilly-dallied, became unresponsive and finally paid $600 (yes, deducted $200) after 26 delayed days.

Well, to me it seemed the client was teaching my friend a lesson here.

My intention to tell this story is to make you aware that if you want to earn money from multiple clients from freelancing, it is important to maintain your professionalism, that is, never take the client for granted.

Once you attain this professionalism, you can negotiate with the client on money matters properly.

For instance, you can draw up a contract stating the amount of advance to be paid, project milestones to be followed and the final payment date.

As a kind of guarantee, you can even write down the amount of money you will waiver off if you delay the project…some clients will readily accept such conditions.

(4) I never cling to clients…

In my freelancing career, there were clients with whom I did one-time projects spanning 10 days and there were clients I worked with for more than a year.

The point is a freelancer cannot assume that the client will hire his/her services every time. While it is good to send a follow-up email once or twice to the client, please refrain from using pressurizing tactics.

My friend, the web designer, used to send follow-up emails every 12 hours to those clients who didn’t get back to him offering more projects. This is a very negative and annoying strategy.

By doing so you will dash whatever hopes the client had in giving you a second or third project, thus resulting in your business loss!

It is a general misunderstanding among any kind of freelancing work that the more clients you have, the more you can generate money.

Financially, this is true and if a freelancer has a team then handling more projects becomes relatively easier…

However, when a freelancer is working alone, it is always advisable not to take on more clients at one time if you can’t handle it. Doing so will harm the quality of work done and thus, impact your income negatively.

Learn to manage your project clients and you can easily maximize your freelance income.

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Can You Earn Money Through Forum Discussions?

Forums are open platforms where users can sign up free of cost, start new ‘threads’ (discussion topics) and communicate with fellow forum participants through posted messages.

Some people confuse forums with chat rooms. Chat rooms are entirely different. In forums, you can hold both public and private communication and turn those discussions into a money earning source.

You can earn a few dollars to hundreds of dollars from forum discussions if you know how to make use of them…So, let’s get started.

Are forums free to join?

Yes, they are. There are no memberships fees asked later in any of the forums you will find online.

Can you have more than one account?

No, you cannot. If you have more than one account, all of them will be banned. The forums register your IP address and the area you log in from. If you are using more than one email id to access forums, you can easily be caught.

How do basic forums work?

Forums always pay for starting discussion threads and for receiving responses on your threads. One of the most popular discussion forums online today is MyLot.com. This forum pays its forum posters on the basis of quality responses, images uploaded and other website usage. At the moment, they have 234,800+ members, a huge number for any forum.

You also get to earn for referring friends. Not only this, a forum will pay you a share when your referrals actively participate in the discussions.

The payout…?

Every forum has its own payout threshold. It can be $5 or $50. You can also select your own payment threshold. The preferred mode of payment is PayPal. Most of the payouts are on monthly basis.

This is important…

You have to keep in mind that not all forums pay its members for discussions. Some forums are used in two ways – for discussions and for Internet marketing.

You can earn lots if you use online forums for the purpose of Internet marketing, including selling products, eBooks and creating back links. In fact, forums are a treasure trove for online marketers.

Read on to know how you should go about making money from forums

[1] Find the RIGHT marketing forum network. You have to research and select the forum you would want to join. Look for niche-specific forums where you can gain expert status and build a rapport with other Internet marketers. Also, forums are an excellent way to gain traffic to your website/blog.

[2] Don’t begin product marketing at the outset. Most of the forum moderators will ban the account if the account user begins to promote products and services immediately after joining. You will be considered as a spammer.

First, you create the account and spend around 3-4 weeks getting to know your fellow marketers and then you can start with your promotions. Assuming that you would have created a favorable and trustworthy impression on other marketers, you will have greater success with forum earnings.

[3] Use forum signatures. While you are waiting to promote your products and services, you can begin indirectly by placing your website and/or blog link/s in your forum post signature space. However, be sure to read the forum’s TOS because some forums do not allow you to post affiliate links in the signature line while others allow only those links that go directly to the users’ website/blog.

Take the signature thing seriously because it is also a chance to show up on Google search engine results, especially when you are posting on popular forums.

Google spiders crawl and index forum posts as well, which means if you have interesting and popular posts to your credit, it will automatically rank on Google, along with the website/blog URL.

In fact, if you are a clever writer, you can use targeted keywords in your discussions and post them on forums. Make sure the keyword insertions do not look forced or spam and the keywords itself should not be out of context or unrelated to the discussion topic.

[4] Be serious about posting. Don’t think that forum discussions are a quick way to build a client base online. You have to be diligent and serious about forum participation. Most of the Internet marketers registered on forums fail to succeed because they just post a few times and disappear. Instead… acclimatize yourself with the forum and create interesting discussion topics.

[5] Build relationships. Forums are a good way to build trusted relationships and to become a valued member of the community. Involve your time in forum networking.

[6] Give review copies. For forum marketers promoting their product or service online for the first time, it works when you create a promotion thread on the forum and invite others to review it.

By review, one means that you send the product or lend the service free of cost the first time and ask other forum users to read, use or apply it. Ideally, those forum users who have a good feedback score/rating and experience should be welcomed.

You can give away, let’s say, 10 review copies, and when you receive positive feedback, you open the product/service for sale, using the feedback received as recommendations.

[7] Use your feedback. Of course, the feedback you received on the forum will help you to make money but don’t forget to use those feedback to promote the products and services at other sites. In fact, you can link the forum to your website in the testimonials section as a proof for people who can expect value for their money in buying from you.

Or, you can send the forum feedback link to new clients that you contact outside the forum as proof of your authenticity and credibility.

To conclude, forum discussions are one of the best ways to earn money online. You can earn through discussions and promoting products or services, or both. It is a quick and effective way to create your business presence online.

And to answer the question asked in the blog title, you can earn a great deal of cash through forum discussions.

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Using the Traffic Exchange Method to Make Money Online

Getting traffic is a sore spot for Internet marketers. After all, what all can marketers do to gain traffic? Most importantly, how to sustain that traffic to create repeat business?

Over the years, Internet marketing competition has tripled…all of us are looking for easy and affordable ways to get traffic. We all know about paid traffic, but let’s tell you about another way to get traffic online you may not know too much about – Traffic Exchanges.

In the Traffic Exchange method, you sign up with websites that facilitates exchange of traffic. You are asked to visit other websites and in return, the facilitating website gives you credits. When you have earned substantial credits, the facilitating website will send YOU traffic equal to the credits earned. In short…

YOU visit websites

YOU earn credits

YOU get traffic

Again, as a traffic exchange user:

• You do not buy anything
• You have less attention span
• You are interested in traffic only
• You get to earn money

Advantage:

Internet marketers who are just starting out with their blog or website can use the traffic exchange method to get initial traffic flow or traction.

Disadvantage:

The process is time consuming.

How To Make Money with Traffic Exchanges?

Quite simply, you can earn money from the traffic exchange method by selling the accumulated credits.

It is not mandatory to use your credits to get traffic. Almost all traffic exchange facilitators allow you to SELL those credits to other marketers who are searching for ways to get traffic.

Should you sell all the credits you have earned? Definitely, NO!

Suppose you have 10,000 credits. You can use 5,000 credits to get traffic to your own website or blog, and you can sell off the rest.

The credit buyers are usually those people who do not have much time to visit other websites and earn traffic.

You won’t become a millionaire earning money from traffic credit sales but you can easily earn a few hundred dollars to fund your other Internet marketing components.

Other ways to make money with traffic exchanges:

• Cash for Surfing Websites
• Cash for Referrals
• Referral Contests
• Surfing Contests for Cash
• Paid to Click Ads
• Commission for Referral Purchase

Out of these, a marketer can focus on creating a downline (referrals) and earn money for referring them to join and commission whenever the downline makes a purchase.

Traffic Exchanges are not specific…

Another problem with traffic exchanges are that they’re not targeted towards any particular market. What we mean is that if you are promoting your “beauty” website, it is not possible to browse other “beauty-related” websites on traffic exchanges.

The traffic exchange websites are free to join and all kinds of websites are registered here. The administration or rather the software does not identify the websites in specific categories. You get to visit all and you earn credits.

Not All Websites have Value…

If you are a shrewd business person, you will use this to your advantage. When you browse other websites on traffic exchange links, you will not only come across possible competitive websites (if any) but you get to promote your business fiercely when you see that the pages you are being sent have no or very little value.

As long as a majority of people are promoting the wrong page and in the wrong way, use it to further your benefit.

What to Promote?

Even if the traffic exchange method is a good way to earn money, you don’t want to waste the opportunity by promoting the wrong products or pages.

It is NOT a good idea to directly promote a page that is trying to sell something to the surfer. A surfer does not have any intention to purchase at that time but only interested to earn credits.

Since the traffic exchanges are controlled by a time limit, a marketer can, let’s say, offer a freebie, some tips or ‘how to’ information, or ask the surfer to leave their email info. The time a marketer gets to impress the surfer is a maximum of 30 seconds or sometimes less.

How many hours per day to surf?

Some people surf 5 hours a day, some 1 hour per day and yet others surf when they feel like it. As a new online marketer, you can surf an hour daily to get some traffic to the site.

The BIGGEST Advantage of the Traffic Exchange Method…

You can use the traffic exchange method to build email lists and generate leads. In the long run, you can use the traffic exchange method to promote your own Internet marketing product rather than just an affiliate product.

The email list created through this method will go a long way. Create a goal of sending out 100 emails within a span of 3 months. With this list in hand, the marketer can promote his/her products.

Traffic Exchange Etiquette

Don’t be under the wrong impression that you can open multiple website pages, view them randomly and close the tabs. One could adapt this method 8-9 years back but not any more.

The traffic exchange facilitators have made their system cheat-proof, which means one has to remain on the web page for 30 seconds for the credit to show in the account. And, if you swap tabs, the timer will pause and only resume when you return to the webpage. This is the standard operational criteria adopted these days.

Since the same procedure works the other way round, make sure that your splash page is interesting and useful for the surfers to leave their email info.

With traffic exchanges, you get to earn money and receive website visitors to your online promotional activities at the same time.

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How to Set Up An Online Writing Business

Online writing is one of the most flourishing businesses of today. If you have basic technical knowledge, good grammar skills, ability to write for the masses and adhere to deadlines, you could become an online writer. Unlike other businesses that can have a saturation point in terms of market demand, a writing business will not go out of vogue.

As a writer, you will work for individual clients and businesses to develop  multiple varieties of content.

Now as much as this sounds to be fun, setting up an online writing business is not easy, primarily not because of the costs involved but because it takes time to create and maintain a steady source of clients.

Two types of online writing businesses:

1. An online writing business where you are the writer and handle projects solely

2. An online writing business where you get writing projects and outsource them to others

Both of the varieties above have its hurdles to deal with. We’ll  try to explain each aspect as clearly as possible. (If you think we missed any, kindly mention in the comments section or write to us.)

Online Writing Business Where You Are the Writer and Handle Projects Solely

In this first category, you work as a freelance writer from home and your task is to market your skills, contact potential clients, take assignments, complete them on a deadline and take payments. Sound easy?

Well, don’t jump to conclusions yet! Before jumping the hurdles you might experience, let’s see the advantages of such a work-from-home situation:

Advantages:

• There is no time barrier, that is, you work according to your own schedule. In a full time job, you have to work certain hours to justify your salary but with an online writing business, you take only those projects you prefer and can finish according to your own schedule. There is no pressure of deadlines even if you work a few hours daily.

• If you can prove your writing skills, there is no limit to the amount of money you can earn. In a full time job, your earning is restricted to your fixed salary. As a work-from-home freelance writer, there are no such limitations. With good writing skills and marketing attitude, you can easily make more than $3000 per month.

Now the flip side…

Disadvantages or Hurdles:

(This category includes technical and non – technical hurdles of online writing – explained with possible solutions)

1.Writer’s Block – This is when your mind draws a complete blank, not knowing what to write. Believe me; even great writers like Charles Dickens and Shakespeare had writer’s block.

Writer’s block can happen due to stress, overwork and inactive imagination. This can pose a serious problem as compared to other hurdles of an online writing business because when you cannot write, how can you earn even a penny?

Therefore, the best solution is to give your mind sufficient rest. Restrict your work to only 5 days a week and take weekends off to refresh your mind. Also, just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you have to burn the midnight oil and ridiculously tire yourself out. Okay, you are a workaholic! Don’t work 8 hours… but 10 or 12 hours daily but that’s it!

2.Experience – It doesn’t matter if you have written beautiful essays and poems during school or you could write a play for college cultural function; these do not count as experiences when you are trying to set up an online writing business.

It can help you to polish your writing skills, but does it meet your client’s requirement on writing content for web pages or articles about a certain product or service?

As a work-from-home freelance writer, you can come across work proposals for various kinds of writings such as – articles, blogs, product reviews, resume writing, personal statements, academic essays, thesis writing, technical writing, tutorial production and lots more.

While it is obvious that you cannot have experience in all fields of writing, it will be beneficial if you choose the fields where you do have expertise.

Moreover, since this is your first time as a professional writer, your lack of experience may not win you high paying writing projects at the start but that is something you have to deal with until you do.

This takes time  – patience and understanding…but don’t give up as difficult as it may seem.

There are clients who hire new writers but with much less pay. For the first few months, you have to settle for less payment and work hard to gain experience. If experience is not on your side, it will be really difficult to get your online writing business going.

3.Getting Clients – Even after you get fairly comfortable beating writer’s block and start to gain some experience, getting new clients is hell of a job!

You want to keep in mind there are thousands of other writers like you who are at par with your writing skills or maybe even better, so you have to work hard and be persuasive to win clients. Getting clients is a big hurdle if you don’t know the correct way to approach them. In the online world, it works in two ways –

In the first way, you have several online platforms where you contact potential clients on a one-to-one basis. You apply with a resume, cover letter and writing samples.

This is similar to applying for a conventional job. The employer evaluates your resume and reverts back to you if you suit their company’s needs and negotiate payments. This choice is comparatively easier than the second one.

In the second way, you have several online writing platforms where employers post their projects and requirements publicly and writers are invited to bid on them. The winning bidder is decided on three factors – writing skills, payment expected and turnaround time.

Many times employers sway in favor of those writers who charge less even when they realize that you are more suitable. Nevertheless, in a bidding kind of writing assignment, never take rejection seriously, it is all part of the process.

Payments – This hurdle ties up with the “Experience” and “Getting Clients” aspects explained above. There are two hurdles you need to cross if you want to remain in an online writing business for the long haul:

1. You need enough experience to get high paying projects. For instance, writers with 10 years experience can easily charge $300 for a 300-400 word press release but with no or little experience, you are not given more than $5 for the same press release. See the difference between the payments? Similarly, if an experienced writer charges $1 per word, a newbie writer is given $1 for 400-500 word articles in certain countries.
2. You need to stay away from biased clients. There are clients who can reject your writing just because you are not a Native English writer or pay you even less although you have outstanding writing skills. The same client can pay exorbitant if you are a Native English writer even if your quality of writing is very average. Stay away from this mentality – no matter whether you are a Native or Non – Native English writer. You should get paid for the quality of work you provide and not for your ethnic background. Unfortunately, it is really prevalent in the online writing business world.

Techie Savvy – An online writing business involves working with both technical and non-technical writing. Many writers prefer to remain in the non-technical writing domain because of a lack of knowledge in technical subjects like mobile technology and computer equipments.

However, as a writer, you have to acquaint yourself with the slightly ‘technical’ side of ‘non-technical’ writing. There are clients who not only expect you to write but also upload the content online.

You need to have sufficient knowledge of WordPress blogs, text hyper links, image insertion and SEO. SEO is another important aspect to know as an online writer. We will discuss this in detail in the next post.

Online Writing Business Where You Get Projects and Outsource Them to Others

In this business category, you essentially act as the ‘outsourcer’ or the ‘middleman’ where you get projects from clients, send them to a team of writers and earn your profit in between. Here, you are not essentially working as ‘writer’ (you can if you want to) but you won’t get any time because outsourcing and project management will take your whole day. A typical day is spent in marketing your services on various platforms, negotiating deals and collaborating with writers to get the project done on time. In short, see the diagram below:

Client —————— Outsourcing Agent —————— Team of Writers

The advantages of this working system are pretty much the same as in the first category – you have flexibility and no limit to earning profits. Let’s see what the disadvantages or hurdles are.

Disadvantages or Hurdles:

(This category explains the hurdles in setting up a client interface module and managing a team of writers with possible solutions)

Client Interface – Ideally, it will be helpful if you create an online writing service website where you can take orders from clients, complete and submit them.

Take for instance websites like kpwriting.com and asiawriters.com – these websites serve as a point of contact for clients and writers as well. Interested writers can sign up on your website, post their resume and writing samples and clients can become paid members and hire your writing services.

The hurdle here is the cost of setting up a website and managing it. As a starter in this business, you have to hire a web designer to get the site ‘live’ and functioning. Before that, you have to see what kind of writing you want to offer – web content development or academic paper writing.

You not only have to justify the cost of setting up website but also invest much in advertising the website. You have to provide favorable rates to clients and writers alike, and also make your profit in between.

Along with advertisement comes the hurdle of optimizing your website. This is all the technical aspect of web development; therefore, you need a professional web developer unless you are willing to take the time and have access to the resources needed to set it up yourself.

Here your primary hurdle is investment. Think twice before jumping into this kind of online writing service provider business. If you want, you can work along the lines of the first category of an online writing business for a year or two, learn the ins and outs of the writing market, develop client contacts, save for the investment and then go for it.

Team Management – Freelancer.com, Elance.com, Guru.com, Craigslist.com, ifreelance.com and yahoo network of writers are some websites where you have to search for new writers to join your team.

You are the ‘employer’ now and you have to exercise your judgment in hiring them. If you are a writer yourself, there is no problem in assessing writers’ applications but, if you are not a writer, perhaps an editor will help you.

Therefore, to begin with, you need to search for an editor and build a basic team, minimum of 2-3 writers. You can expand the team when work pressure increases.

Now, the main hurdle with managing a team of writers is to collaborate with them, getting the work done on time and dealing with unprofessional attitudes of writers.

When working with writers online, you have to consider the time difference. If you have projects with longer deadlines, this is not a problem but in projects due within a 24 hour deadline, checking the time difference is a must.

So when you take care of time and prepare deadlines accordingly with correct project instructions, you can safely get the work done on time for clients.

Many times in your online writing business, you will come across writers with an unprofessional attitude. Such writers will have no importance of deadlines, try to sell you copyrighted content or resell sold content, will constantly be after you for payment ahead of time, will not communicate with you, will not provide quality content, will be averse to revision and editing and will vanish one day suddenly leaving you holding the bag.

Now it is difficult to predict how every writer is going to turn out, so do your homework. It’s ultimately your reputation that is on the line.

If you want the best writers, you need to pay the best and simply weed out unprofessional writers. You are not under any obligation to keep them hired.

Summing Up – As a writer or an outsourcer, an online writing business is profitable. Setting up an online writing business needs patience, both as an author and outsourcer.

The core of this business is “writing”; evidently, either you have to be an excellent writer to handle projects singularly or hire a team of excellent writers. Either way, both writing businesses are extremely profitable.

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Can You Earn As An Academic Writer?

There is a growing demand in the writing industry of professional academic writers who assist in the research and writing of dissertations, thesis statements, essays and reports of students.

In this sector, students contact you with their requirement or if you are working with an agency, they outsource the work to you. You are expected to use your expertise in your chosen subject and complete students’ assignments.

The Moral Dilemma of an Academic Writer

Education boards and teachers are well aware of this evolving academic writing trend and they severely criticize it.

One reason of their criticism is they feel that by seeking the services of an academic writer, the student is putting to risk their learning abilities.

Clearly, if you are writing a thesis and the student passes it as his own and receives an excellent grade, does the student learn anything in the process?

No! This is what the educational administers are worried about – hiring the services of an academic writer will lower educational quality and the standard of the students.

This moral dilemma is the reason why many professional academic writers want to associate themselves with an agent or professional writing service company that does not allow clients (students) to pass off their work as their own.

In other words, the clients have to sign a contract where they agree to the condition that the academic content provided to them will be taken only as a draft / outline upon which the client will submit the one created by the client and not the one received from the agency or company.

Violating this condition may lead to plagiarism charges and reputed professional academic writing companies are strict with their terms and conditions.

Therefore, you have two ways ahead of you:

• As an academic writer, you can choose to work with an agency that follows the above working ethic – this way you get paid for your help and you get to retain the copyrights as well.

• As an academic writer, you can choose to work individually with clients (students) and allow them to use your work as their own – this way you get paid for your work but you don’t get to retain the copyrights.

Decide which kind of work you want to do first and then move on to the preparation stage.

How Should You Go About Becoming an Academic Writer?

Preparing Your Application – No matter if you have decided to work with professional academic writing agencies or directly with students, you need to have a resume, portfolio and samples ready. A resume and portfolio will show your writing experience and the works you have done in the past.

If you haven’t done any academic writing before, write whatever you have done in the past because employers are more interested in looking at your writing style than anything else.

Moreover, you have to keep at least 3 samples ready on the subject of your choice. Keep in mind that you will limit your income potential if you restrict your academic writing services to only one subject.

For instance, if you are qualified in English Literature, you can put Sociology, Philosophy, General English, Management, and History as your associative subjects, meaning you can handle assignments on these subjects as well – this will increase you income potential.

Remember to prepare three samples in different subjects. If you have written papers in your college years, you can use those too as samples.

Further, your application should be interesting and not boring. Write it in a manner that will interest people and make them eager to at least revert back to you.

The application you send will either make or break the deal, so devote a good amount of time to develop the application package – resume, portfolio and samples.

Applying Centers – AcademicResearch.com, Writers.ph, Allwriting.net, ResearchPaperWriter.com, BestEssays.com, SmartWriting24.com and Freelancer.com are some of the professional academic writing websites that need qualified and experienced academic writers regularly.

What you do is visit these websites and fill out their online form. Submit your resume and samples for their review. Typically, they take around three days to one week to review your application. If they are interested, they will contact you for a mock test, so be ready!

Taking another test is just their way to confirm that you can actually write as you have claimed in your application. They do this as a security measure to weed out fraudulent applicants.

In the academic world, you need to be aware of four types of referencing or citation standards – APA, MLA, Harvard Style, and Chicago Style. There are several online written and video tutorials for these citations.

Keep yourself up to date with current stylistic features because every academic write up needs to be appended with these citations. In other words, they are unavoidable so brush up on your knowledge before any company rejects your application just because you don’t know them.

Be Aware of Frauds –

While starting out with academic writing, you need to be aware of fraudulent activities that go on in this industry. Internet being the biggest resource engine will be of a great help here.

For instance, when you want to apply to a company, Google their name and check out reviews and feedbacks. You can type “(Company / Website name) is a scam” and see what response the search engine sends back.

Like this, bookmark all the companies before sending applications and do a quick background check. The main thing you have to see is the ‘payment delay.’

While writing this informative piece, I came across a critical review on AcademicResearch.com. Apparently, the 7 year old company is actually based in Ukraine but the address displayed on their website mentioned New York.

Again, there were several grievances from previous employees crying foul on non – payment for the works received by Academic Research. Moreover, they try to deduct payment with stupid excuses.

Another similar website with an equal reputation is EssayWriters.org. I don’t know how much the feedback on Academia Research is true but I can vouch for Essay Writers because I worked with them for one month in 2010.

In that one month, I got two projects – I did one and the second one was cancelled by the client. In all, they owed me $25 for that one project and believe me; I didn’t receive the money ever.

Their reason – $5 was deducted for account maintenance and $20 as a “fine” for the other project cancelled. Now, why should I be held responsible if a client cancels his project? It is beyond my understanding. My advice – stay away from EssayWriters.org!

You need to research academic writing websites before you apply – it will save you your hard work and money.

Earning Potential –

All things said and discussed, your earning potential as an academic writer can be like this per month:

• Less than 1000 USD – working part time (weekends and evenings)
• Between 1000 USD and 5000 USD – working full time ( 6 – days a week)
• Above 6000 USD – working full time, especially during peak season

If you don’t have one, create a PayPal account because most of the payments are sent through PayPal. You can also register with MoneyBookers or AlertPay.

Final Thoughts –

Earning as a freelance academic writer is definitely a career to think about. It is a job that gives you the convenience to work from your home any time or anywhere for that matter.

If you are lucky to get good clients, your monthly rewards will be good. Once you establish your credibility, you will get a constant flow of work and the best thing is, you have no pressure, you choose your subject and work in your own scheduled time.

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Earning Potential of a Professional Resume Writer

What are resumes? A Resume or Curriculum Vitae is the first point of interaction between an employer and a potential candidate. Right from the first day of job search, candidates needs to make an impressive resume to get that elusive interview call.

Now, everyone does not have the skill or knowledge about creating the best resume to make a positive impact on the employer. Right? This is where a resume writer is needed.

If you are a person who can write in a straightforward, clear and concise way, and also present information in a proper and acceptable format, you can become a resume writer.

Though there is no universally accepted qualification to become one, you can still check with your country or state. If there is, it will be to your advantage to do the short – term certificate course.

Internet gives freelance writers several opportunities to earn money online. If you have been following the online trend in the last few years, you will notice that a steady stream of freelancers is growing who specialize in certain areas.

For instance, while some writers cater only to the article writing market, there are others who write academic papers for students. Similarly, professional resume writing services are sought after by many candidates.

As with all our Income Insiders posts, the agenda is to lay bare the “income barrier;” here we will discuss the major problems a resume writer will face or is experiencing, along with solutions and a brief account of potential income opportunities.

Lack of Concise Information

This is a major problem with all 99% resume writers – clients simply don’t provide enough information about their career to write the resume and as a result, the clients find the end product half baked, which further creates problems with the writer because then they are expected to revise and restructure everything.

For a new entrant into the job industry, this problem is slightly less because they are entirely dependent on the resume writer’s output. But those who are working for even one year expect the professional resume writer to spin miracles and make an award winning resume automatically!

Now, as a resume writer, what you can do is ask for complete information from the job seeker by asking him/her to fill out a questionnaire developed by you.

This questionnaire will have questions which you would like the job seeker to answer so think hard about the details you want to know. Moreover, ask the candidate to send their previous resumes.

The previous resume will also give you a comprehensive idea about educational and professional background.

You should not invest more than 2-3 days working on a resume. At times, candidates want resumes written within 24 hours so then you can charge accordingly. (will come to the fees section a bit later)

Geographical Barriers

Should a professional resume writer restrict oneself to any particular country? Often clients complain that the resume writer could not understand the requirements to write a comprehensive yet concise resume. This situation arises when the resume writer does not know about the different education and professional formats acceptable in an employee application.

For instance, what is the difference between writing “English (Hons.)” and “Graduate in English?”  “Nothing essentially,” you would say as both the terms are talking about being an English literature graduate.

But there is a difference – while writing “English (Hons.)” is an acceptable format for Indian job seekers, candidates in the US will prefer writing “Graduate in English” on their resume. Getting the point?

These minor yet noticeable differences do have an impact on the employer.  The whole world knows that candidates prefer hiring professional resume services but as a resume writer, you must consider your skill and experience in writing globally diverse resumes. You may have years of experience to write any kind of resume but it is better to stick to few resumes styles.

Moreover, if you are new in this, our advice is to deal with one or two resume styles first to gain experience. If you are a US resident, work with clients from the US only because you will have more knowledge and idea about ‘what they want.’ As you progress, you can expand your resume writing and take on geographically diverse resume writing works.

Employment and Earning Potential

For beginners, it is advisable to approach reputable resume writing service agencies or job websites that require CV writers regularly. It will be too much of a risk to work independently in the beginning and working with job websites and agencies will help you polish your writing skills as their feedback will motivate you to keep on improving.

In this option, you will be under their payroll – getting paid monthly or per resume writing project undertaken and successfully accomplished.

However, once you gain experience and wish to work independently, provided that you have full faith in yourself and your ability to set up a business, you can start by developing and marketing a business resume writer website. With 1-2 years experience, you can easily charge $20 per page or more.

A job seeker does not need resumes written everyday, maybe every few months or years, so they are ready to pay well for high quality and professional writing.

To add to the value, you can also include “resume critiques” – a critical evaluation of the existing resume where you add your perceptions and highlight areas for change. Some clients only ask for “resume critiques” and not a new resume, so you can include this too in your list of resume services.

Finally……

It is essentially for a professional resume writer to be acquainted with several presentation styles. Some want resumes in .doc format or .pdf format. Not only writing, but the presentation and format gets due importance by employers.

While they should not look too ‘shiny’- ‘colorful’ or full of ‘bold and italics,” what they should portray is the professionalism of the candidate. If you can achieve that, you will be in the resume writing market for as long as you wish!

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