Guru.Com - Part II

So I'm thinking it's time to leave Guru.  Aside from the low-quality jobs being posted and the frightening low rates being offered, the other point weighing heavy on my mind is that it's a time waster.

Jobs are posted frequently on Guru and aside from a good resume and low bid, speed counts when bidding. If you don't bid within 48 hours of a project being posted, there's a good chance the employer will assign it to someone else before they ever see your bid. So I log on to Guru twice daily and read the postings. This takes about 10-15 minutes. Then if I decide to bid, that's another 15-20 minutes, as I try to tailor my cover letter to meet the employers needs. That's all well and fine if I'm getting work, but makes me feel like I'm spinning my wheels if no work comes in.

And also, I've just felt it's time to let go. Guru, I told myself, has served it's purpose but it's time to let it go to make way for other things to come into my life.

This is where the Universe has decided to test me. I still think leaving  Guru is the right thing to do. But I just landed a huge project through  them--what will in fact amount to the most I've ever been paid for a single article.  So emotion kicks in and now I'm like, "What? Leave? Are you mad??"

Sooooo..... do I hang on or go? One thing I forgot to mention with Guru is the rating system. Every time you complete a job, the employer rates you on a five-star system that determines your "Guru Rank." Plus, Guru posts how many jobs you've worked on and money earned and employers consider all of this when looking to hire you. A freelancer with 30 projects and a solid 5 star rating from all employers is a much safer bet than a newcomer with no rating. And if I leave Guru, my almost 3 years of 5-star ratings disappear. And this new project will really boost my rating. Ack!

I still think I should let it go. I've been thinking of cutting back on my magazine writing work, Guru is a huge time waster for me and this last job aside, I haven't had work from Guru in almost 8 months.  But aaarrrghh--it's hard to walk away from something that just panned out big time for me.  Even if I only get one or two jobs a year from Guru, it's new clients and I more then make back my membership fee.  Yet this must be balanced against how much time I spend "surfing" guru and spend time bidding on work that never pans out.

I can't decide. You all tell me. What do you think I should do? Stay with Guru or ditch it? 

Guru.com - Part I

I've been a member of Guru.com for a couple of years now. Guru advertises itself as "The largest online marketplace for freelance talent." Freelancers such as myself pay a moderate fee to belong to Guru and post our resume, profile, and skills online. Employers post jobs and freelancers bid on the projects that interest us. The site isn't just for writers--there's graphic design, programming, illustration, engineering, photography, legal, accounting, fashion, sales, etc.

When I joined 2+ years ago, the site was a goldmine. I wasn't yet sure of my skills and was willing to work cheap. I got to work on some great projects and made some lasting contacts.  Lately though, Guru hasn't been panning out for me and I've been thinking that I'd let my membership expire in September.

For one thing, the quality of the writing jobs posted has gone downhill. The last year has seen a glut of keyword writing projects, which is basically when an employer hands you 30 keywords for SEO (search engine optimization) and they don't care if you use the words in complete sentences or in any way that makes sense. They're just trying to up their site's rating. I've never worked on one of these projects and don't want to.  They're considered rather sleazy in the writing world.

Then there are the employers who think writing skills are apparently one step up from flinging mud. The job postings from these people read something along the lines of "This is an extremely easy project for anyone with a brain." Riiiiight. I really want to work for you.

 But the most discouraging part is the prices employers are willing to pay and even worse, that freelancers are willing to work for. It's common to see a job posted that asks for twenty 300-500 word articles, all original content and turning over all rights, for $5/article.  And people are bidding on these things! I can't begin to imagine how they're turning a profit.

I have been bidding my little heart out these last 6 weeks, making one last run at Guru to see if it's worth hanging on.  It's understood I have to bid lower than my normal rates, but even at what I consider deep discount prices, I'm not getting work. Someone needed an article about cats, for God's sake, and I didn't get the job. And I bid as low as I could.  I've bid on probably 4 jobs a week for 6 weeks and got zero offers. Zip. I figured it was time to go.  

Continued tomorrow in Part II... 

Promo for Upcoming Events

8:30 AM. I'm in my office, sipping coffee and enjoying the morning sun, easing my way into what promises to be a busy day.  It's days like these that I'm so grateful to do the work I do. Got cats, coffee, and a computer--life is good.

I have a few upcoming events I thought I'd mention.

Saturday August 26th at 1030 AM, Pam Cable and myself are presenting a letter-writing for social change workshop at the Making Your Voice Count: Our Collective Power celebration hosted by the Greensboro  Commission on the Status of Women. We're speaking on behalf of NOW and the administrators there picked a workshop title for us: Southern Charm for Social Change. Pam and I added to the title a bit and now the workshop title is "Southern Charm for Social Change: Bless Their Hearts, The Politicans Won't Know What Hit Them." Makes me laugh every time I read it. (For you Northeners, "Bless Your Heart" is big down here. It's almost always used to lighten an insult as in, "Bless her heart, she's just dumber than a door.") Click here for details on attending the breakfast and workshops.

On a lighter note, I'll be at the Mayodan Public Library on Monday, September 11th from 6:30 - 8 PM for a "Meet Your Local Author Night." Myself and 3-4 other local authors will give a brief talk, answer questions and sign books.

The coffee is gone and the cats have left me for better sleeping quarters, so it looks like it's time to start the day. Happy Friday, everyone.

And the Work Comes Pouring In...

I don't know what magic make-the-work-appear fountain I drank from but dang, it's done the trick.

Literally on Monday I remarked to Blair that, ho-hum, work was slow for me and I didn't have much on the horizon. WARNING: Never let the work gods hear you say this as they consider it a challenge.  48 hours later and AACK!--I'm trying to figure out how in the heck I'm going to get all this work done.

My radio interview this morning was GREAT fun. Jay Stephens was the perfect host, putting author Gail Langley and me at ease and Gail was the perfect co-guest--fun, informative and her fiction was a good balance for my humorous non-fiction. The station manager asked for my card as I was leaving and he left me a voice mail that he'd like to explore the possibility of my joining the Community Accents team with an occasional show of my own. Cool!  (NOTE: No longer is this a tiny AM station with limited range. Now it's a major broadcasting opportunity for me. Changes in perspective are such fun--it's a miracle I don't get whiplash). Anyone who knows me know I can talk the ear off an elephant so I can't wait to see what Mike has in mind for a possible show.

Other work that's come in includes a 10,000 word article with an extremely tight deadline, a new Message on Hold assignment, a web site rewrite (big project), and a former editor called about a new weekly publication that he's interested in having me either write for or write a column for.  I'm also trying to cram in two big assignments due by the end of the month. It's like, did I blink or something? Where did the ho-hum go?

I love it though. Thrive on the chaos. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my radio voice.  ;)