5 online gold mines for finding freelance writing jobs

So you are all ready to put your writing skills to business but you have no idea on how to contact clients? Well, you should thank your stars today because I am here to help you. These are the websites that can help you get clients initially. Though it’s difficult to start on most of them, mainly because of the review system on most of the websites, when you are new with no reviews or previous clients, people don’t tend to trust you so easily.

But don’t let that bring your spirits down, everyone has to start fresh at some place or the other. Here is the list of websites to find freelance writing jobs online

1. Elance

This is my personal favourite, probably because of the clean and neat interface. Elance gets multiple writing jobs posted every hour and I actually feel the clients here are pretty high paying. Not just that, the commission is cut by Elance is the lowest when compared to all of its other competitors.

Clients either hire by the hour or at a fixed price. The only thing I don’t like is the time tracker for hourly jobs that takes random screenshots of my screen, it makes me feel like my privacy is being taken away.

Payments are simple and neat, you can connect your paypal account to this and withdraw the money whenever required. There is no minimum payout and no charges for withdrawing from elance, though paypal does cut its own part.  You can connect it to your bank account too, but I couldn’t figure it out because it was asking for some swift code and all and I got all confused

2. Upwork (Formally odesk)

They changed the name to Upwork last month, I don’t know why but I liked odesk better.  It has actually been acquired by Elance but they still run separately.  It’s a little difficult to get jobs here as compared to elance. The clients ask multiple questions and not just the proposal. My advice would be to go through the project description neatly and then let them know your views honestly. Do not try copy pasting, it will never work. It also has a tracker quite similar to Elance.

The commission rate of Upwork is a little higher than elance ( Upwork takes 10% of the amount earned while Elance takes 8.75%). This might look small right now but makes a huge difference when you are dealing with a huge project.

Payments here are simpler, you can directly connect your bank account details with just account number and IFSC code and you are done. No minimum payout but it cuts a processing fee of $1.99 every time you withdraw cash. The payment takes about 3-4 days to reach your account.

UPDATE – Elance and Upwork are merging into one website from 1st September 2015. I will do a detailed post on this once I have all the information about their transition.

3. Fiverr

I love this website and the concept! Basically fiverr is all about doing things for 5$, whether it be a SEO, graphic designing, writing or even tarot reading and finding out what you were in your past life !

I get so heavy hearted whenever I transfer my fiverr earnings to bank account because I literally want to spend all my money on the amazing gigs it has ( Including the ones that claim to ‘spiritually heal your heart for 5$).

Fiverr is about being specific and telling people what you can do. If you like fashion, then you could create a gig called ‘I will write a fashion piece in 5$’ . A lot of the people hate fiverr because they think its cheap, fiverr is not cheap its just about how you use it. You don’t have to do everything the client says for $5. May be you could write 200 words for the first 5 and then keep on increasing the price as then number of word increases.

Fiverr gives you an option of custom order to quote to the clients who have some specific requirements. Payment is through Paypal, once you connect your

READ MORE ABOUT HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BUSINESS ON FIVERR IN A DETAILED POST

4. Freelancer

This website has been long in the business of providing a freelance jobs. The only plus point of this website is that it can connect you with Indian client. But that’s that.

There is no other good thing about this website, the interface sucks, it charges you for everything (Literally each and every thing ) and the jobs are generally very low paying.

Also I have seen a lot of fake clients here.

5. TaskMitra

This is a newly launched website and is an Indian version of all the other websites listed above. The concept is pretty similar, except it is more localized. You get to see the freelance jobs available in your own city.

I really like the concept and everything but the down sound is – It doesn’t have a specific writer’s category yet and the number of writing job here is pretty less. But I have a feeling it is going to bloom pretty quickly.

UPDATE – TaskMitra has finally launched a separate category for content writers where you can search all the freelance writing jobs near your area. Check it out HERE

And if all else fails, contact me. I would love to help you out and show you the right direction.