a break from the string of socio-political posts I'm writing
This week, I find myself tapping my fingernails on the table top I'm frequently on now while browsing sites for work. For the time being, since resigning from my last job as an online english conversation tutor for the Japanese (I'm looking to go back as a part timer but I don't think I'm really ready yet after the last sort of burn out), I've gone back to blogging again mostly on twitter, some on tumblr and just recently, here and also, I'm looking to go back to freelance writing for a bit. I'm aware I'll be back to dirt cheap pay or salary as one but I'm not really ready to go back to teaching yet when I'm also considering career shifting to my original one which is as a SpEd teacher, hopefully, in the public school, hopefully. I wrote hopefully twice. Yes, I know.
I have a busy next few months to January and February 2022, yes. Although my socio-political, political and current events commentary blogging sort of op-ed-ish series here is keeping me just as busy all the way to our national Philippine elections in May 2022, too.
So yes, after so, sooo long a break, I'm taking myself back to the freelance writing, editing and proofreading work scene again after soooo long.
This is my current workspace, by the way. It's close to the stairs because this is where the wifi signal is the strongest and the white wall is good as a background for interviews considering I had one last week. (Photo taken from my twitter at @kg_0917.)
It's been a good...what? 4-5 years or so since I quit freelance writing? SEO writing, specifically? I feel like, coming back into the industry now, things have become harder and more demanding for freelance writers, editors, and proofreaders. There are definitely some new web tools I've come across now like the paraphrasing tool, Quillbot, that I've never used before. I always toiled on the articles, writing everything from scratch because well, they end up being checked by plagiarism detectors like copyscape anyway. That one, I'm a tiny bit familiar with, at least. Last week was the first time I got to use Quillbot for the third part of the hiring process. I botched that one for a plethora of reasons and never for the position because...I dunno...it was really late at night too and my brain wasn't working well anymore sometime between 12:00 midnight to 1 a.m. I did the third stage of the hiring process in a haze daze.
I'm just going to say this, though, the formats for freelance writing or content writing projects sure seem harder now than they were before. We used to just write, say, about 5-10 500-word articles in a day with some keywords required by clients here and there and go. That's still tough work and at the end of the day, you feel your brain is fried but at least the format was easier then, I think? Now, it feels like so much research needs to be done, a lot of writing and revising according to how the client wants the articles to look and feel like and yeah, sometimes it feels like $1 per 100 words per article just isn't enough.
For one, it was my first time in a long time to try for a SEO writing and article producing company. It's actually pretty cool that I made it to step 3 of the hiring process. I kind of thought I wouldn't make it that far. I just knew somehow that I blundered the last step of the hiring process and that was a bummer. And two, it was going really deep into the night when I started working on the trial article.
An Admission: Late Nights not for Me Anymore
I try harder not to stay up late anymore. Staying late to work on stuff isn't really all that ideal to me because my brain literally stalls around 11-12 midnight and that usually means I need to go to sleep already. Nowadays, sleep (in bisaya and filipino: tulog) is life to me. It's precious. 6-7 or more hours of sleep for me helps me function better early in the morning the next day. I have originally always been a morning person even during college when I would wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning just to read my textbooks.
Usually, it's the afternoon towards the evening that's the most sluggish for me so I've never been the kind to study or do anything productive during those times. Not only am I sluggish during this time but my ability to do anything creative unless something hits me or something, also goes down the drain at this time. I guess there's a limit to my being creative and motivated on a daily basis and it's this. lol. Me = works fine in the morning, stalls after lunch and all the way to sleep time, then comes back better the next morning. Is anyone else like this? I might be the only one...
I'm also currently trying to live healthier by keeping caffeine from coffee out of my system. I can function without it, a cup of coffee anytime of the day originally and can even stay up soooo late at night without it. My eyes, mind, and body just needs to get over the sleeping time my body's bio clock has set up for me (usually, it's between 10-11 at night but it might have adjusted until 12 midnight now) and I'm good to go until the next morning. This usually happens when I have something I'm obsessed about and I'll try to break the habit of staying up so late when I work or...get work, at least. I'm setting a strict work time for myself and then, still get the appropriate time for sleep I direly need, yes.
I know, I know. A cup of coffee is good in the morning and it's a decent energizer and probably even safer than energy drinks but it's...just not my thing. I'll try to shift to tea these days. I do like black teas, green teas, and lately, berry teas. Teas, especially the black ones like my favorites that are earl gray and english breakfast eas, still have caffeine but at least some of them like chamomile have calming effects on the body, mind and more unlike coffee that keeps you buzzed up after just a cup of it in the morning.
Back to the Need for a Writing Gig and Stuff
I still do need a writing, editing and/or proofreading gig reaaallllyy SOON! But nothing I've come across with yet on either yonipp or upwork except maybe 1 or 2 feel like a fit for me yet. Or maybe I'm just not used to this kind of work anymore.
I used to be able to write, say, 5-10 300-500-word articles a day before but that got tired very fast hence my burnout after working in the SEO writing industry for about 5-6 or even 7 years with some of the later ones had me working part time. I don't think I'm cut out for working to a quota of 80, 000 words a month anymore or even half that, 40, 000 words a month as a freelance writer. I do have zero problems whatsoever stringing words together to craft some coherent blogposts on my 2-3 personal blogs here and there but for ghostwriting, SEO? I'll have to test myself again regarding how much is too much for me where that goes, if you know what I mean.
I feel like one thing that remains constant in the industry though is that writers are still paid dirt cheap for every article they submit to employers, especially those who work in content creation, SEO article writing like me. I found one employer from India on upwork charged 5$ for a 2000-word article and that's just...too low, to be honest. They should pay higher if they want a quality article with that many a wordcount.
There's one I'm eyeing that pays $7 for beginners or freshies-ish writers for a 2500-word article but that's just too...I don't know...cheap for an article with that many words so I'm just going to keep that gig an open option until I find something better. I'm currently on two sites, one that has people looking for freelancers worldwide and the other, that's just for Filipino freelance writers like myself. I like both for different reasons or...it depends on the kinds of clients they have, really, and the projects said clients offer.
I still wish I could somehow monetize my blogs or at least the fashion blogs and I've been trying my hardest to for that one but it's just...its hard. I think there're still too much competition where fashion, personal style, and lifestyle blogging is concerned so yeah, you won't succeed there unless you have a niche you've mastered or something similar down to pat. I am trying to get back to frequently posting on the fashion or more like, personal style and lifestyle blog, though, so there's that. Especially now that I have something to do on wednesdays that have to do with wearing anything pink---something Philippine politics-related because the national elections is coming, it's on May next year, 2022---yeah, my blog is busier than before.
Just a rant on dirt cheap paying content-mill freelance writing etc. >_< /sigh.
I have a busy next few months to January and February 2022, yes. Although my socio-political, political and current events commentary blogging sort of op-ed-ish series here is keeping me just as busy all the way to our national Philippine elections in May 2022, too.
So yes, after so, sooo long a break, I'm taking myself back to the freelance writing, editing and proofreading work scene again after soooo long.
This is my current workspace, by the way. It's close to the stairs because this is where the wifi signal is the strongest and the white wall is good as a background for interviews considering I had one last week. (Photo taken from my twitter at @kg_0917.)
It's been a good...what? 4-5 years or so since I quit freelance writing? SEO writing, specifically? I feel like, coming back into the industry now, things have become harder and more demanding for freelance writers, editors, and proofreaders. There are definitely some new web tools I've come across now like the paraphrasing tool, Quillbot, that I've never used before. I always toiled on the articles, writing everything from scratch because well, they end up being checked by plagiarism detectors like copyscape anyway. That one, I'm a tiny bit familiar with, at least. Last week was the first time I got to use Quillbot for the third part of the hiring process. I botched that one for a plethora of reasons and never for the position because...I dunno...it was really late at night too and my brain wasn't working well anymore sometime between 12:00 midnight to 1 a.m. I did the third stage of the hiring process in a haze daze.
I'm just going to say this, though, the formats for freelance writing or content writing projects sure seem harder now than they were before. We used to just write, say, about 5-10 500-word articles in a day with some keywords required by clients here and there and go. That's still tough work and at the end of the day, you feel your brain is fried but at least the format was easier then, I think? Now, it feels like so much research needs to be done, a lot of writing and revising according to how the client wants the articles to look and feel like and yeah, sometimes it feels like $1 per 100 words per article just isn't enough.
For one, it was my first time in a long time to try for a SEO writing and article producing company. It's actually pretty cool that I made it to step 3 of the hiring process. I kind of thought I wouldn't make it that far. I just knew somehow that I blundered the last step of the hiring process and that was a bummer. And two, it was going really deep into the night when I started working on the trial article.
An Admission: Late Nights not for Me Anymore
I try harder not to stay up late anymore. Staying late to work on stuff isn't really all that ideal to me because my brain literally stalls around 11-12 midnight and that usually means I need to go to sleep already. Nowadays, sleep (in bisaya and filipino: tulog) is life to me. It's precious. 6-7 or more hours of sleep for me helps me function better early in the morning the next day. I have originally always been a morning person even during college when I would wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning just to read my textbooks.
Usually, it's the afternoon towards the evening that's the most sluggish for me so I've never been the kind to study or do anything productive during those times. Not only am I sluggish during this time but my ability to do anything creative unless something hits me or something, also goes down the drain at this time. I guess there's a limit to my being creative and motivated on a daily basis and it's this. lol. Me = works fine in the morning, stalls after lunch and all the way to sleep time, then comes back better the next morning. Is anyone else like this? I might be the only one...
I'm also currently trying to live healthier by keeping caffeine from coffee out of my system. I can function without it, a cup of coffee anytime of the day originally and can even stay up soooo late at night without it. My eyes, mind, and body just needs to get over the sleeping time my body's bio clock has set up for me (usually, it's between 10-11 at night but it might have adjusted until 12 midnight now) and I'm good to go until the next morning. This usually happens when I have something I'm obsessed about and I'll try to break the habit of staying up so late when I work or...get work, at least. I'm setting a strict work time for myself and then, still get the appropriate time for sleep I direly need, yes.
I know, I know. A cup of coffee is good in the morning and it's a decent energizer and probably even safer than energy drinks but it's...just not my thing. I'll try to shift to tea these days. I do like black teas, green teas, and lately, berry teas. Teas, especially the black ones like my favorites that are earl gray and english breakfast eas, still have caffeine but at least some of them like chamomile have calming effects on the body, mind and more unlike coffee that keeps you buzzed up after just a cup of it in the morning.
Back to the Need for a Writing Gig and Stuff
I still do need a writing, editing and/or proofreading gig reaaallllyy SOON! But nothing I've come across with yet on either yonipp or upwork except maybe 1 or 2 feel like a fit for me yet. Or maybe I'm just not used to this kind of work anymore.
I used to be able to write, say, 5-10 300-500-word articles a day before but that got tired very fast hence my burnout after working in the SEO writing industry for about 5-6 or even 7 years with some of the later ones had me working part time. I don't think I'm cut out for working to a quota of 80, 000 words a month anymore or even half that, 40, 000 words a month as a freelance writer. I do have zero problems whatsoever stringing words together to craft some coherent blogposts on my 2-3 personal blogs here and there but for ghostwriting, SEO? I'll have to test myself again regarding how much is too much for me where that goes, if you know what I mean.
I feel like one thing that remains constant in the industry though is that writers are still paid dirt cheap for every article they submit to employers, especially those who work in content creation, SEO article writing like me. I found one employer from India on upwork charged 5$ for a 2000-word article and that's just...too low, to be honest. They should pay higher if they want a quality article with that many a wordcount.
There's one I'm eyeing that pays $7 for beginners or freshies-ish writers for a 2500-word article but that's just too...I don't know...cheap for an article with that many words so I'm just going to keep that gig an open option until I find something better. I'm currently on two sites, one that has people looking for freelancers worldwide and the other, that's just for Filipino freelance writers like myself. I like both for different reasons or...it depends on the kinds of clients they have, really, and the projects said clients offer.
I still wish I could somehow monetize my blogs or at least the fashion blogs and I've been trying my hardest to for that one but it's just...its hard. I think there're still too much competition where fashion, personal style, and lifestyle blogging is concerned so yeah, you won't succeed there unless you have a niche you've mastered or something similar down to pat. I am trying to get back to frequently posting on the fashion or more like, personal style and lifestyle blog, though, so there's that. Especially now that I have something to do on wednesdays that have to do with wearing anything pink---something Philippine politics-related because the national elections is coming, it's on May next year, 2022---yeah, my blog is busier than before.
Just a rant on dirt cheap paying content-mill freelance writing etc. >_< /sigh.