Problems With Finding Work

I know how you feel, but I was lucky just a few weeks ago. I am now a regular contributor to a magazine that will pay me for my writing. I have tried Fiverr, Upwork and a few others and I agree with you. I like both Vocal and Medium for now these two sites will be for extra money. Good luck in your search.

First of all, you need to gain experience

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The struggle. Wishing you the best in your search!

I just posted something expressing the same sentiment. It's nice to know others are working alongside me.

When I was 18, I was desperate to find a writing job. Unfortunately, it was incredibly hard because I lacked the practical experience, even though I'd taken up creative writing as a hobby since I was a kid. This year, I started writing on Vocal, and even used a website called Writers Work. The subscription for one year is $40 (I think I got a discount) and slowly started building up a portfolio of things I liked to write. This website posts jobs regularly and makes it easy to apply for them. I was able to get a job as a freelance writer for a website called CBR. I write about comic books and stuff, and it's amazing. It doesn't quiet pay the bills yet, but it's a nice side hustle to bring in extra cash. I wrote an article about getting the job on my Vocal page if you want to check it out. Keep working at it! You'll get there!

The online world of earning is like that only. However hard you find, you won't find a single site that promises to pay well and also really pays well.

Good article.

I completely agree with you. I can totally relate to everything you said. Although in my 40s, I'm going through something very similar with trying to be a freelance writer. I hope you find something soon. Good luck!!!

I absolutely agree with what you're saying, and can relate to it. I was a corporate writer for a long time, then I did other things, and 12 ears ago I started freelancing, using some of the sites like Upwork, and including what is now Upwork. You're right, the options are awful. They all say that if you take their tests to show how skilled you are, you'll be able to show how qualified you are for great gigs. And there are great gigs out there, but you're competing against writers all over the world, and what's clear is, a lot of potential employers will say they want the best, but if that means shilling out 5 cents per word for someone in the US or 1 or 2 cents per word for someone from India or the Philippines, they're going with the overseas worker because it will cost them half as much, and as much as they say they want the best, what they really want is "good enough." Meanwhile, that 2 cents a word goes pretty far in Manilla, but writing a full page 5 cents a word, if you can get it, gets you half a tank of gas, or maybe pays your internet bill this month. You have to crank out a lot of work to make any kind of living at it, and you likely won't get enough jobs from Upwork to make it worth your time. I learned to shoot for the bigger ones, Editing jobs, where I had to copy edit a whole book for 300-500 bucks, I can do it, I've done it, but keep your eye on time. You'll find you're spending more time writing on those little gigs or editing the big ones, and as you said, there's better stuff you can be doing. If you do the math on time vs. pay, you may be making less than minimum wage. Even 10 years ago I found that when I did that ratio, I was clearing $3 an hour freelancing, which is far less than current minimum wage. It was minimum wage 30+ years ago. It's depressing to see that you can make more flipping burgers and bagging groceries than you can writing, but it's true. As for your point about ad money on blogs - that may be wishful thinking. Typically on a blog you're using an ad placement app through the blog programming, like WordPress. You get paid for clicks. I used it on three different blogs. The first two had regular traffic of maybe 100 views a week. The most recent one gets regular traffic much higher than that. We make virtually nothing off of those ads. What makes money is if you can get a sponsor, someone who specifically wants an ad on your site all the time. And good luck getting that with a fiction blog. Then there's trying to make money doing fiction today. That's always been tough. It was a different world when the greats of fiction like Bradbury, Hammett, King, Ellison, and Chandler could crank out a story, send it off to a number of fiction mags, and make enough to pay some bills, until they developed enough of a following to get paid real money, have an agent, and get a publishing contract. Now, aside from contests, it's hard to get paid. Some places still pay for Fiction. They're few, and many of them only accept submissions part of the year, others don't have open submissions, they'll only take material they ask you for, or that comes in through an agent. Finishing your novel to publish that and make money? Good luck with that, too. it happens. My friend was an editor at Tor for years. He put it in perspective. A publisher will publish X number of books per year. They pay well for what they know will move, some hot new thing, or the new book from a hot author. Anyone else they're just trying out, those books aren't likely to sell. They lose money on those books, which they balance out with the money they make on the hot ones they paid more for. So then you look at self-publishing. First time out, you're not likely to make money. If you can do it all yourself, great. You probably can't, and whatever isn't up to par will be blatantly obvious. So you have to pay for someone to proof it, design a cover, etc. That eats into your profit. You may have already invested a few hundred dollars in the book, not counting your own time, before it even goes up for sale. And you may never make that money back on it. Or you could hit it big. The best thing to do, honestly, is to do your creative writing for the joy of it. Send out those stories, make a name for yourself, learn your craft. But write for money, too. Screw Upwork. Work for your local paper. Learn technical writing. Work up to being a ghost writer. That's how you'll make a living, and if you're lucky you can one day stop the dull professional stuff (that's still making a living writing) and be able to focus on your actual passion. That's what I do now. I get paid every week to write stuff that may not be my passion, but I'm good at it. Yet every time I sell one of my books or a story gets picked up, while the pay for it is small, it means a lot more.

I resonate with this. I have always loved writing and kept many journals as a child. I used to keep a log of all the new vocabulary words I learned. But life took me down a medical/healthcare path and now I'm trying to claw my way out of the field and into writing. I've looked into medical writing, copywriting, freelance, and I feel like I hit a wall each time. So I'm trying to relax a bit and just write for fun. Maybe letting the universe take over instead of gripping so tightly to the steering wheel will yield positive results. Best of luck, friend.

It seems the world of storytelling is becoming more like blogging. Try being in your late 50's with no social media network and see how many times your stories are even read. NOT ONCE!!!! I have been on Vocal for over a year and not a single person has even read one of my stories. I don't get involve with social networks because most of my life I was a manager or director in health care. The last thing you want is your employer seeing what your employees think of you......especially if your purpose was to look out for the greater good, and not the selfish individuals we have all become. I have learned by reading others stories ways to improve my writing. So I guess there is always something good to be said.

Been working independently for the last six months (I have worked as a ghost writer in the past for a meager payout), and I can say art of writing is extremely devalued and we are all basically screwed unless we are really lucky and/or connected.

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Don't think so, at first you do business with really low wages. But then it increases! That's why you have to agree to work for a low price at first :) Don't worry about money for the first 6 months, just focus on building confidence. If you build trust, customers will come naturally. Thus, you can work with higher wages. Definitely make a portfolio because this is a must!

PS I am published author with a number of books published and now I am releasing them on here for free. https://kirja.elisa.fi/kirjailija/james-pittaro

You are trying so hard to get to a position that suffering emerges from your frustration at not being able to get there. Try this instead; practice writing for the love of it in the moment and don't try to imagine your work is only successful if you get to a position with it. The true reality is that your work is unique and it is priceless as it contains the information form your unique position in the universe. Appreciate the position you are at and stop this misery emergent from not attaining positions that would make you no happier in reality. Good luck on you mission.

Great story-I struggle to find meaning in life without purpose. Sometimes I am too unwell to do a regular job so rely on writing. However it doesn't pay

Find someone interesting in your community, interview them and see if any of the local papers would like to publish. That's how I started my career 20 years ago and I'm still going

I feel you. I've been looking for freelance work only to find sites that look like scams. I've been using Vocal for the past five years or so. I don't make a living off it, just extra cash, which is fine for now. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to use this site to get your name out there. There are lots of Facebook groups dedicated to Vocal users. Check it out!

I completely understand you! Somehow it is normal nowadays to first invest (even if it is just offering something for free for a while = investing your time) before getting anything back...

When most people do freelancing or blogging, it often starts off as a side hustle due to minimal earnings. Freelancers and entrepreneurs have to work a lot harder to reach the phase of passive income. I understand your struggle which is why I always prefer to have a plan B. Although many platforms continuously ask for money, I do believe Vocal has something in store for creators to earn extra income along with more ways to receive engagement.

Thank you for drawing attention to this problem. I admire your persistence and grit at such a young age.

I can totally relate with you on this.