Snow Jobs

Did you ever take on an assignment and find out the boss men or women kept the truth from you?

Truth like: this job is only a pilot and we're only putting it up for bid to show the client our price;
this job has a lot more to it than we're going to tell you up front;
this job is so underpriced for the amount of work it entails, we are expecting 60 percent of the writers and editors to quit within the first week or so...etc?

Not every job is presented in a truthful way.

I'm seeing this more and more as clients attempt to get writers at such low fees, they are no longer hiring real writers but people who own a keyboard instead.

Oh yes, it's still snowing outside which is what inspired me to post this blog.

Cupcakes because they always make me happy when I see them.

Content Farms

I like the idea of a broker between myself and a client -- especially if it's a client I might never have had a chance to meet without that middleman pitching work for themselves and for me by extension.

I do think it gets a little absurd when clients think it's possible to buy a blog post that is well written, interesting and typo free for a few dollars. You do get what you pay for in life.

One plus of the content farms is being able to roam free on the farm, only pick up the work you want to write, and with luck, find a few clients who are willing to pay more competitive prices for your work through direct orders.

In most cases, direct orders come from taking one of the open orders, doing a bang up job on it and impressing the client enough they are willing to spend more money for you and your writing.

If I feel all the work has dried up, I go to my farms and pull out an open order to do with the hope I may be rewarded with a direct order in the future. It works frequently and because of that I don't mind sharing fees with the word broker at all.

Do you share your office space with a family member?

I'm all for intimacy, but I wish my husband would use the office space upstairs rather than plop all his work down on the kitchen table. You see, I like to plop all my work down on the kitchen table!

We end up having our computers about six inches apart, and along with that closeness, which can cause fights for lid space, we annoy each other. I read my writing out loud sometimes and he clears his throat more often than I like. There's more but I'll spare you. :)

But since he loves to cook, he's usually in the kitchen cooking and doing his work. Since I love to eat I'm usually in the kitchen waiting for something to come out of the oven, and I think neither of us want to be banished upstairs to the office space (that I call the litter box room.)

I have not figured out how exactly to make this work for us since he's only been working from home for a few months, but I'm looking for suggestions.

Right now I put on my headphones and crawl into my little word as I try not to notice anything around me and just get my work done -- unless the cat doesn't want me to get my work done and crawls up on the keyboard!

Spinning my wheels

It seems like I've been spinning my wheels since mid-February. This has been a bad earning cycle for me mostly because each job has taken much longer than necessary and much longer than I anticipated.

Time is money.

When we waste our time, we waste the opportunity to make money somewhere else -- or even relax and enjoy ourselves for that matter. That's allowed too!

When you feel you have been spinning your wheels and going nowhere fast, it's time to take a mental health break.

I am reading (for the second time) Tim by Colleen McCullough and am enjoying it. I read it years and years ago. It's an easy read and a quick one. It's exactly the short but important break I need between one job and the next.

I think I also deserve one easy client; one well-run project or one good paying job. Hoping March brings me one of the three!