How do you angle your non-writing past? Pretty much everybody has some kind of experience they can turn into a specialty. Just quit your ten-year job at Auto Hut? Looks like you’ve got a specialty, pal. Cast yourself as the auto-parts (or auto-anything) writer, and you’ve got an edge over more experienced generalists who apply for the same job.

“But wait,” you’re saying. “I quit Auto Hut so I’d never have to think about autos or huts ever again!” Well that’s okay. You don’t have to write about huts forever. But if you can use it to wedge your newbie-self into three or four projects, well, that’s three or four projects you didn’t have before. That’s a list of recent projects you can put on your profile/resume. And, hopefully, a good testimonial or three as well.

Content-specialty isn’t the only way to angle your past experience. Ever work in sales? Customer service? Waited tables or worked behind a bar? Let your potential clients know this, let them know it taught you how to connect with people and make them happy and sell to them. Let them know it how it helped you develop that warm, winning personality everybody loves you for. Then, show your client that warm, connecting, “I can sell pies to a pie-factory,” personality of yours by writing a an actual profile–and not just a job-list or “please pick me, I speakie good English,” paragraph or three.

(My first profile on eLance bascially said just that–”Hi I’m a native English speaker and I cost more than those guys from India but not too much more.” So don’t feel bad if yours is the same…just be sure to change it!)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go check some provider profiles and check a few things NOT to do. Thank you both very much for reading this–I’ll try to provide a little bit more in the future.

Brad

“They have 800,000 currently registered “professionals” and 300,000 or so “employers”.

However, the HISTORICAL TOTAL of jobs awarded is about 22,000. Over about 6 years. So let’s say maybe 5,000 this year or so.

Now, do the math. One “employer” in 60 actually awards a project. One “professional” in 160 actually gets a project. ”

Also an interesting article on Guru.com at Associated Content

Guess it’s a good idea to concentrate on other freelancer sites…

They do give very conflicting messages sometimes about the articles you submit. One of my articles got a “your headline is too long” followed by a “we’d like to offer an upfront payment, but first you need to follow our suggestions” message. Great! I’ve been studying headlines for two years now, no problem making a shorter, searchable headline. It took me all of about twenty seconds to shorten and re-submit the article.

Two minutes later, I get a “we’re sorry but your content is something people won’t search for.” Waitaminute…ah well. It only took me an hour to write…(yes, I do need to work on that speed).

All the same, they are an up-front paying market (for some things…), and you can get paid within the week. Which, for those of us who quit our jobs two weeks before the rent is due, is pretty important.

So far I’ve been offered between $3.02-$4.26 for my articles (the $4.26 one was for my first one by the way. Don’t know what my decrease in skill is all about). If you’re the kind of writer who’s determined to make it no matter what, and who actually enjoys spending 8-12 hours a day writing (like I do), then you can certainly get the bills payed with Associated Content.

Then again, it might help if you live in a low-rent area.

There are definitely better ways to make money for your writing, if you can write well and use Wordtracker (or whatever keyword tool you like). Most of them seem to take a little longer to pay, though, and paying the rent on time…well, it’s just one of those things I’ve always done. Well, almost always…