I used to be a writer. I thought I was anyway. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, I’ve yet to publish anything. But I thought it would happen eventually. I knew I needed more experience, so I decided to freelance. I stumbled into the world of ghostwriting purely by accident, and boy was I sorry. I learned the hard way that my writing IS worth something. I have value as an individual and a human being. But, in the early days of being an unemployed writer, I was naive and had doubts about my self-worth. Attempting to carve out a writing career was never going to be easy. But after 6 months with Elance, I’m ready to throw in my keyboard. My experience was humiliating, exhausting, and so soul-crushing that I’m tempted to give up the career altogether. Why?
Elance may be a good way for a fledgling writer to gain experience and to add to their portfolio. But if you’re ghosting, the work will not be your own. Clients want an NDA, so you sign away your rights to YOUR stories, or rather, their stories. So you can’t add it to your portfolio. Also, most clients are based out of the country and are notorious cheapskates. Even if you have a going rate, they won’t honor it, so be wary. I wish someone had told me. But this was my first paying job, so I was grateful for peanuts. More like pebbles, really.
I also learned some clients like free stuff. Some will ask for a writing sample before considering your bid. Don’t do it. They’re just fishing for free material and won’t hire you anyway.
Budgets are not absolute. It’s just to tempt the fishies clamoring for the worm on the hook. It may say$500-1000, but what they really mean is "I’m too cheap to hire you for that amount, so I’m going to pay you 100$ for the first 20k story and if I like it, I’ll hire you for more work."
Most of these ghostwriting jobs are posted by people too lazy to write their own stuff. Some are incapable and keep asking YOU for story ideas. They may provide an outline, but usually it’s so bad you have no choice but to deviate. They say there’s room for creative freedom. That’s only because their story sucks and they need a talented writer to fix it on the cheap. They like naive, inexperienced writers with no knowledge of the industry. It may a good way to earn pocket money, but Elance takes their cut. So a 20k novella earning you$100 becomes 91 bucks.SIGH
The ratings system is made to destroy your soul. Five-star ratings mean nothing. They will attract nothing$80 dollar jobs intended to send you to the ER. Too much work for too little pay. I’ll pass.
Most jobs are pitiful, pathetic excuses to tap into the cheap E-book market. Horny vampires and inhuman Amish robots(a client ripped me a new one for daring to instill human emotion into her Amish androids) seem to be the steady diet of Kindle owners. GET A LIFE!
Too many 20k Amish novellas WILL destroy your faith in humanity. I get they’re Amish and used to certain behaviors. But having no character development, emotion, or humor of any kind is sure to induce your readers into an incurable coma. Apparently, readers want women who are butter churning nuns who spit out a kid every other year, and the men are as about as much fun as barn siding. Okay, I QUIT!
Clients are nit-picky and demanding. "The customer is always right" should not be spoken in my presence if you want to live to see Christmas. One client was great until one day, months after the work was finished, she sweetly requested ALL stories to be re-edited with an expensive online editing tool and to write up 200 word summaries. This was after the initial stories were sent during the writing process and delivered with no complaints. For the extra work, she was kind enough to tack on an extra 100$ onto the initial price. That’s 100$ per 20k novella. This was five I was to complete. She’d leave you alone for a couple of days, freak out out of nowhere about why you hadn’t gotten back to her, and then ask why you were doing such and such. I had to explain the character’s motivation. I felt I was speaking to a five-year-old. If the character doesn’t do it, it won’t make sense. She also thought she’d just won me at an auction; always asking who I was writing for, what I was studying.
I just write for you. I don’t answer to you!
Months drag by. 20k a week becomes mentally draining and physically exhausting. You don’t sleep. You’re not eating. You spend hours on editing and re-writes. But you CAN afford a few luxuries like an premium Oral-B toothbrush, but it’s just pocket change when you think about it.
The shine starts to wear off when you’re being tapped for 80$ jobs that are clearly not worth your time. Another client shows up wanting you to write 8k word erotic paranormal novellas.for 55$ apiece. She gets her quota and you never hear from her again.
Some clients don’t care about the writing. It’s just content. The more the better. They seem nice in the beginning. They assign you a 3-story Amish romance. You have full creative freedom. You send an outline, the first few chapters, but they’re not interested until it’s finished. You’re quickly tiring of Amish and tell them so after the last assignment is complete. YOU NEVER HEAR FROM THEM AGAIN!
Good riddance.
Towards the end of a 5-story vampire novella, you’re coming to the startling realization that you HATE writing this stuff. Your work begins to suffer. There’s no motivation. It’s just mundane story after mundane story. You lose the will to live. By the way, that unfinished novel you sent in to a publisher just got rejected. Have a nice day.
You make the difficult decision to quit Elance because it’s quickly becoming apparent that you’re being used. You wrote all this stuff and can’t use it in a portfolio because you signed the rights away as a ghostwriter. The clients don’t want to pay your going rate. They’re demanding extra work that you didn’t agree to. One flips out and curses you out over her Amish romance story. They were young. It’s the 90s. She also saw no problem with her studly widower farmer hooking up with his widowed sister-in-law. Hypocrite much?
"How dare you make them seem human! I hate you! Delete everything I sent you. Why does this keep happening to me?" says this client.
I’d tell you, but I don’t use that type of language. But apparently YOU do. And I thought you lived in nice Amish neighborhood.
Depressing days ahead as you cancel your account, delete clients’ stories, and come to the realization that working on Elance has made you HATE what you used to love.
This is the most I’ve felt compelled to write in the few weeks since I quit.
Big deal.
And just try cancelling a job. That’s a slow trek through a desert full of red tape quicksand. The client has to agree to it! If they don’t, you have to finish or they’ll threaten to escalate and take legal recourse.
All of this for 20k Amish novella with no redeeming qualities. Go figure.