If you’re looking for writing jobs from big companies, then this is for you. Sony, CBS, and Comcast are among the companies that post jobs here.
This is a great week to get tons of writing jobs completed. The summer is almost over and in many places kids have already gone back to school. This makes it a great time to dust off your keyboard and get back into the groove yourself.
I know how it is when you have kids at home during summer break. It takes so much time and energy to deal with them that little is left to go into your writing. Well now is a great time to get going and FreelanceSwitch.com is a great company!
Let me get started by telling you that it is a subscription site but it’s a great one so no worries. Let me tell you all about it and then you can decide whether or not you want to give it a try.
What is FreelanceSwitch.com?
FreelanceSwitch.com is a free range freelancing platform that links clients and freelancers together. The freelancers pay a small subscription cost per month and in return the site weeds out the garbage jobs and clients. The jobs all pay decent to very well and the writers who get their clients from this site have no complaints that I’m aware of to date.
The site is heavily focused on being great for both freelancers and clients and some of the clients that access the site include CBS, The Onion, Nokia, Alienware and The Cartoon Network. That is only a few but gives you a pretty good idea of the diverse nature of the clients and therefore the freelancers that use the site.
Getting Started with FreelanceSwitch.com
This is both really easy and a bit difficult. All you need to do is sign up at the site. After you confirm your email you can get to work on your profile. That is pretty much all there is to joining the site. The only issue is that you can’t get started applying for jobs without a subscription (more on that in a minute) so all you can do after setting up your profile is to look around.
Pay attention to the job boards and the blog. They are both well done on this site and worth your notice. Once you have looked the site over well then you can decide on joining, at least temporarily. I suggest you focus on the projects that you would initially qualify for and look at the budgets of those. Just a quick glance while writing this and I found that the first three had budgets of $500, $1500 and $2000. Do with that information what you will but it’s not bad for just a quick glance.
Your FreelanceSwitch.com Dashboard
If you are looking for a Dashboard with tons of bells and whistles then you need to look at another site. The Dashboard on FreelanceSwitch.com is fully functional and utilitarian. In truth, it’s perfect for this site. It has only what you need to use the site and nothing extra.
Because there is an email connection between you are the client, make sure that you have your Dashboard set up to allow your regular email to be notified whenever you get in-house email from FreelanceSwitch.com and your clients there. It’s just easier and it’s only a check box.
A quick look at your Dashboard and you quickly see whether or not you have new email, what jobs you are working on and for which clients. You will also see what you have applied for and any new jobs that have become available. The jobs change frequently so pay attention to this.
Filling Out Your Profile
If you are a regular reader then I probably sound like a broken record. You need to fill out your profile completely because that is generally the only way clients have to discern who you are from everyone else who applies. A completely filled out and eye-catching profile is often the difference between getting the job and losing it to someone else.
FreelanceSwitch.com has one interesting field that helps a lot for standing out from the crowd: the ability to insert a link to your own website. This is outstanding because the client can easily click on it and be taken to your writer website that has all of the necessary information and samples.
There is also a large writing block where you can include information about yourself. It’s not unusual for writers to copy the ‘about you’ portion of their website into blocks of this nature. It’s a great idea to do so because you presumably have an outstanding website and have tweaked everything to perfection there. Use it here to make your profile stand out from the crowd.
Finding Jobs on FreelanceSwitch.com
This is about as easy as it gets in our world. Just select a job type from the drop down menu. Then scroll through the list of great jobs being offered. Because this site caters to all types of freelancers, you will want to specify writing and miscellaneous as your choices. If you choose the ‘all’ option you end up with jobs for designers, development, illustration and flash. Of course if you are qualified then you might want to look at those jobs anyway!
Once you find a job that interests you, click on it and get more information. This is where it ends unless you have a subscription. You cannot apply for any job that is on the site unless you are a full member. You can get a pretty good idea of how much money you can make by reading the budgets of the various projects available. This should be plenty of incentive for getting the subscription.
There is no set time when new jobs are added to the jobs board. This is both good and bad. The good side is that you can find new jobs anytime you check. The bad is that you might miss out on some jobs because you didn’t check frequently enough. In general though there is plenty of time to check and apply for jobs provide you look regularly. At least once daily is good and try to aim for around the same time each day.
Writing the Articles
Because this is a true freelance writing site you can use whatever writing platform you are most comfortable with unless the client has a specific request. You write offline and then send the finished product directly to the client. This is by far the favorite way for most writers to work on projects as it makes formatting and writing easier when you are familiar with the program and platform.
Be sure to ask your client if they have a preference for the saved document.
The FreelanceSwitch.com Blog
This is one of the most entertaining blogs on the Internet. After you catch up with it you can keep updated in only a few minutes a week. It focuses on every aspect of freelancing and even has a weekly cartoon. It’s a great way to keep up-to-date with the outside-the-cubicle thinking and any new developments in the freelancing world.
Have something to add? You can also contribute to the blog if you like. Just send them an email and discuss the matter.
Getting Paid
This is a true freelance site. They set you up with the clients and you work out the payment with them. In most cases you can opt for the standard Paypal/WePay/Direct Deposit/Check payment but if you need another method, ask.
It’s been my experience that most clients don’t really care how you want to be paid as long as it’s as simple as possible for them. Sending an invoice through WePay and Paypal has become so standard that most companies actually have a billing code for it. In most cases it’s an electronic payment code so any form of electronic payment will be fine.
As for when you will get paid, that is something you need to discuss with your client. In most cases it’s upon acceptance; the client likes the work and pays you. In some cases there is a specific billing policy. This needs to be discussed before you start. The client expects it and then no one has to worry about miscommunication.
The Subscription Mode
Like most of you I hate subscription sites. That’s one of the main reasons I generally ignore them and move on to other sites. This site is different in that not only is the subscription very low at only $7 a month but it is also pretty easy to see what you are getting for your money.
How many of the free sites that you have visited have had tons of work but you had to slog through low paying clients to find the good stuff? How many times have you wished there was an easier way to search and to eliminate the deadbeats from the mix? That is essentially what your subscription pays for at FreelanceSwitch.com. The site has people who take on that task so you don’t have to do it. The amount of time saved is easily worth $7 a month. You can focus on picking and choosing from a ton of great projects because someone else took out the trash.
Setting up the subscription is really easy; click on the link and it will allow you to use a credit card or your Paypal account. You can set it up for a one-month subscription or a recurring subscription. I recommend the one-month deal just to make sure it’s a good fit for you. After that it is probably easier to go with a recurring subscription.
That’s pretty much it for this site. It’s a quick and easy site to get going with and you can meet some heavyweight clients through it.
Happy Writing!