Freelance Writing – ArcticLlama

Post by Brian E Nelson – In an email notice to freelance members of Guru.com (also here), the company announced that it was ending it Freelancer Rank system. The notice says that “upon closer examination,” that Rank is flawed and out of date. Further, it states that there is no legitimate way to rank the wide variations in skills sets that individual professionals bring to Guru when the bid for freelance projects.

As most of you are aware, I have never put too much effort in to Guru. After considering is Guru.com worth it, I came to the conclusion that there were too many ways for me to make money writing online that pay higher than Guru.com in most cases, without the extra overhead (Never forget that time is an expense, too!) that goes into finding projects to bid on. Certainly, I have found plenty of high paying writing gigs without going through the process of bidding on writing projects at Guru.com. However, I have recently had numerous people contact me about re-evaluating the bidding for work sites like Guru, Elance, ScriptLance, and the like. It’s something I plan to do whenever I get enough spare time. (Hah!)

What Happened To Freelancer Rank At Guru.com?

The truly interesting part about the announcement Guru.com will phase out the Freelancer Rank beginning on May 8, is the methodology that they have chosen to replace the way freelance professionals are sorted at Guru.com.

If you are like me, after reading that careful consideration the company realized that the ranking system it was using could not possibly do justice the enormous array of freelancing professionals – including professional freelance writers – that use Guru.com, you might wondering how freelancers will be listed at Guru.com in the future. Since the Freelance Rank was an arbitrary methodology that favored certain types of Guru users over the other, one might imagine that the company would be looking for an impartial way to sort the ever growing list of freelancers without giving favored treatment to specific Guru users.

Guess again.

Rather than some impartial, perhaps randomly sorted listing, Guru.com will replace the maligned and over-simplified Freelancer Rank with sorting the list of freelancers by earnings as the default.

Wha–?

For Professional Freelancers Volume = Quality

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the attempt to algorithmically rank freelance professional on Guru.com by their skill sets, feedback, completed projects, and the like is just not multidimensional enough, but sorting freelancers by how much they make ON GURU is the answer.

The Guru Freelancer Rank announcement goes on to say that “…earnings provides the best view of the health, vitality, and promise of Guru Freelancers..”

Wow. I understand what spin is, but YIKES!

Guess who the biggest earners on Guru.com are?

High-powered freelancers who command premium rates for top of the line work, or those who spend an enormous amount of time (often outsourced) generating an inordinate amount of bids in order to win a large number of projects that can be mass produced (also often outsourced)?

Now, before anyone freaks out on me, I understand that there are exceptions. There always are. That is what makes them exceptions. I am sure that with little effort one could point to high-earning Guru Freelancers who do not bid on hundreds of projects per month, and who complete most of the projects that they win with the in-house writers that are either owners, employees, or legitimate over-the-table contractors. Of course, I am equally sure that the high earners on either side of that freelancing professional fall smack dab into the middle of the previous category.

The good news is that sorting by earnings is only a default and going forward, Guru hopes to provide better sorting options for employers, starting with the ability to sort based upon reviews.

No word on what will count more, how MANY reviews a user has, or how high those reviews are. While the emphasis will be on the latter, look for the element that “corrects” the high reviews of those with “too few” winning bids and reviews to make them “more fair” with providers that have many more reviews.

While I have heard differently from other professional writers, until I see differently in the projects that are listed for freelance writing bids, it still seems that what one gets paid on Guru is less than what a professional freelance writer gets paid on non-Guru projects.

What do you think? Do you like Guru’s new methodology? Are you going to wait and see? Do you use Guru now? Let us know what you think in the comments or shoot me a message.

I got asked an interesting question. After answering the common "What do you do," question by saying that I’m a freelance writer, I got an unusual follow up question. "So, is that like a regular writer, writer, or is that like a technical writer."

There are two unusual bits to that question. The first is that this person has drawn a distinction between what they perceive as more traditional writers, those who write books, for example, and those who are technical writers. Secondly, if one were to accept such a distinction between "normal" writers and technical writers, where in that paradigm would a freelance writer fit?

What Does a Freelance Writer Write?

The thought turned around in my head for awhile, and I came to the conclusion that that person most know or have known someone who was a technical writer. In hearing about what a technical writer does, a judgment was made that doing that kind of writing wasn’t really the same as being a regular writer. Depending upon the type of technical writing being done, and depending upon how that job is structured in a particular company, I can see the point. One technical writing project I worked on involved taking the notes from the software engineers and pulling them all together into the product documentation. I never even saw the software. There was writing involved, but the real job was actually more like editing.

On the other hand, there are plenty of technical writers who produce copy that rivals that of the most "creative" types of writing.

There is, of course, the stereotype that most people who are not connected somehow to the professional writing world that there are only two kinds of writers, those who write books (fiction or non-fiction) and those who write for newspapers and magazines.

Which brings me back to where this all started. Is a freelance writer like a traditional writer or more like a technical writer?

The answer is yes.

I have long maintained that what separates a true professional freelance writer from others is that the professional freelancer can write anything based upon the client’s needs. So, yes. I am a writer, writer if that is what the client needs. And, yes, I am a technical writer, if that is what my clients need.

And, yes, if anyone is wondering, I also write books when I can find the time.

Happy Writing.

When Google released its Google Chrome web browser, it included a private browsing mode called Incognito Mode. When Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 it included a Privacy mode. When Mozilla released Firefox 3.0 it came with a Private Browsing mode. In all cases, these integrated browser privacy modes were met with almost universal derision. Most commentators called them Porn Mode, suggesting that the only potential use of private web surfing features was to hide the tracks of those who view pornography online.

At the time, I suggest that people dissing privacy modes were small minded and that, perhaps, if they themselves were not so obsessed with pornography online, there were actually numerous useful, and respectable, reasons to use the private browsing modes on these browsers.

It seems that I might finally be getting some company on my stance. The folks at the “life hacking” website called Lifehacker, for example, recently published a computer tip suggesting that using Google’s Incognito mode was a good way to use someone else’s computer without having to log them off of websites they are using. For example, if your friend Joe is logged into Google Mail, going to check your own Google Mail requires logging Joe off. On one hand, it isn’t that big of a deal. On the other hand, why should Joe have to get logged off for your benefit. Using Incognito Mode denies access to the cookies and browser sessions that are keeping Joe logged in, so Gmail must assume that you are not currently logged in. In fact, it has to assume that you have not been to the site yet. Thus, you can use Gmail and when Joe comes back, so can he.

Ironically, I use the same feature constantly for the same purpose, but not just when mooching some computer time, as the author puts it. In fact, there are tons of legitimate reasons to use privacy modes like Incognito Mode.

I use Incognito Mode or Firefox’s private browsing sessions (I actually use a Firefox extension that lets me use Firefox private browsing without my current session disappearing) to check Gmail on my own PC. I have numerous Google email accounts and sometimes I just need two seconds to see if something showed up in my inbox yet, so I don’t want to log out of my “main” email account.

The same feature can be used to submit links to Delicious or other social bookmarking websites on behalf of a client using the account setup for that purpose by the client, instead of having to log out of your own Delicious account first.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for private browsing modes. It’s nice to see some other writers noticing it too.