GetAFreelancer.com has too many rich writers

By Martin ~ December 19th, 2008 @ 9:50 am

You know, just when I thought I had it all figured out, I then come to the conclusion that I actually haven’t figured it out at all. Or have I?

Take getafreelancer.com for instance. I wish GAF would set up an Indian or Philippines domain and be done with it. Many Indians which, because of their country’s expenses and collective lifestyles, may not have the type of economy that the Western world has, can live with writing an article of 500 words and only want $1-$3 for it, whereas in respectable places in the western world, the fee would be more like $0.40-$3.00 per word.

So if there are members taking up these writing jobs, they must be so well off financially, so rich, with so much free time they can take up these scraps just for something to do. Write compelling and long essays for just $2. If they are not rich however, then it must be slavery!

Now excepting the Income Tax Act with no enabling clause, I thought human slavery was abolished! Seems not. Okay, granted, some of those projects might come from Indian service buyers as well. Fair enough, they’re supporting their own on prices their market can accommodate. But then I found one or two projects by Americans, and another I am embarrassed to admit, was from an Australian, demanding the same conditions, writing the world down onto paper for $1 for a 1,000 word article. I hope they are not looking for quality.

It’s also pretty funny, because when you place a bid, you have to give a brief description of what you’re offering. Many people just type “Please see PMB”, and not even spelling “Please” right! No, I don’t mean online slang, text/sms language or anything, but plain outright mutilated word constructions. From supposed freelance writers with years experience and excellent grammar. Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense!

So please, work with one another to increase the reputation of this industry. No more wanting 10 or 100 articles a day, human beings are not writing machines. I have seen some samples submitted by these so called expert writers and let me tell you, I wont need sleeping pills to help with my insomnia, I’ll just read one of these droning, long winded, padded out and monotonous articles. I’ll be gone in a minute!

If more and more freelancers who respected themselves and their industry started placing bids on these types of projects, they would hopefully drown out the time wasters who don’t even read the project description and say things like “Dear sir! we have 1 hundred years experience, are experts in everything and can write a million words a day. We can do this. Plese see pm.” (spelling mistake intended) Does anyone seriously think they read the project description? Does anyone seriously consider the fact that they may be just time wasters?

If an Indian wants to take advantage of another Indian to work for “cheap” (in comparison to Western value) then by all means, but please, those Americans, British and Australians who also say “I want 10 articles a day at 500 words at $1 each” should wake up to themselves. It’s just downright embarrassing.

So there you go, here’s a FREE 500 word article you can spread around in unaltered form. Please give it to all your freelance writing friends. Cheers.