I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again; Kenyan writers are some of the best in the planet. But most of us are making a huge mistake.
I have been monitoring what people ask the most and realized that there is one big problem that is hindering the progress of most Kenyan writers.
It was funny to note that I was also once also making this mistake.
The Mistake
The mistake is avoiding what I call the direct client approach – where you have a real working relationship with a client, instead of just working in a site where you don’t really know who you’re writing for.
Here’s exactly how Kenyans are avoiding the direct client approach:
- Many ditch bidding sites (like Upwork) for sites like iWriter and Fiverr.
- Not cold-pitching
- Not setting up a blog
- Not looking for clients on social media
- Not checking out job boards
Is there a problem with sites like iWriter and Fiverr?
Yes and no.
These are great sites that have helped me and many other Kenyans to make a lot of money.
But the earnings potential is really low for most. There is a high rejection rate in iWriter. Fiverr orders can slow down all of a sudden and some of these content mills come and go (remember ArticleTeller and CrowdSource?).
My biggest concern is the fact that avoiding the direct client approach is only hindering us from making more money and having potentially great, long-term working relationships.
Reasons Why Kenyan Writers Avoid the Direct Client Approach
- It is tiresome to wait for bids to be accepted
- It is even more exhausting to wait for responses to cold emails.
- It takes time to create a good portfolio
- Creating a writer website takes time and money
- Getting featured in major publications takes time
- Some fear getting conned
- Sometimes you need to do tests (don’t we all just hate tests?)
- You may get interviewed (arrghh didn’t you start freelancing to avoid interviews in the first place?)
- You don’t earn immediately after starting. You have to create profiles, take tests, create a writer site, create a prospects list…
- Some people are plain lazy and love fast cash.
I believe you must be thinking of some more possible reasons right now if you’re a Kenyan freelance writer.
What I did
I started off with Freelancer where I made thousands of dollars. I was then conned by a couple of guys and life almost stopped… or at least that’s what I felt.
I then discovered iWriter and put all my resources there. After a while, I was making enough money with iWriter only. Later I joined Elance (now Upwork). I kept trying out many other client acquisition methods.
I also started blogging so as to ensure others don’t make the mistakes I did. I also bought AffiloBlueprint and started being an active affiliate marketer. It’s been great earning as a blogger for all these years.
After a while, iWriter started having fewer jobs than usual. Rejection rate increased and later Kenya was banned for a couple of days. Later on, Kenya was reinstated but some IPs remained banned.
iWriter is great but the major problems there include very few jobs in the Standard level, short turnaround times, and the fact that it is so easy for clients to reject articles. In fact, I think it is the site with the highest rejection rate.
What do you expect though? I was once a client there and rejection only takes the push of a button. There are no milestones set, clients don’t struggle to get writers and there is no room for a dispute unless a client uses a rejected article.
It therefore makes it the easiest site to reject articles.
After seeing these iWriter problems, I joined Fiverr and started getting quite some orders. The same story happened here, orders reduced at some point for all sellers across the world.
Fiverr is one of the best freelancing sites out there. It has the very low rejection rates since once the client makes an order, you get the cash, even if they give you a bad review. Most good writers there have 98-100% positive reviews.
After Fiverr, I started looking for local and international clients (who approach me directly and not through any broker site) for big time writing jobs.
Upwork is awesome and I still use it on and off to get clients along with job boards and Craigslist.
I no longer recommend Freelancer. Nowadays the pay there is extremely low, there are many scammers, and it has all these unwarranted charges.
What about the pay?
Yes, some people argue that you get paid better in non-bidding sites.
Is this true? Not for the smart writer.
If you are an Elite or Elite Plus writer in iWriter, you’ll earn between $8 and $30 per article. In Fiverr, you can decide to be paid whatever you want, even if you’ll say you’ll write 100 words for $10, meaning you get $50 per 500 words.
For some, the pay may not be as great because of the high rejection rate and low job count at some points. In fact, if you purely rely on iWriter, you’ll find that you will have a lot of $0 days, where you don’t get a good article to write about or the ones you write are rejected.
When it comes to Fiverr, orders are unpredictable. Therefore, even if you charge high, you’ll still have many $0 days when no one orders your gig.
In Upwork you can get jobs that pay between $30 and even $100 per article. You can get such rates in job boards, Craigslist and social media as well.
If you choose to do cold-pitching or blogging to attract clients, you can land clients paying $100 to even $500+ per article.
Therefore, you can’t compare the earning potential of content mills with the direct client approach, which pays way higher.
Reasons Why You Should Use the Direct Client Approach
1. Clients value you more
It is not as easy to get jobs but since both you and the client will have worked hard at it, clients tend to value you more and as long as you meet your end of the deal, you can easily get long-term clients. This is unlike the easy come; easy go clients on sites like iWriter.
2. Long term work
You can count on the approach for your daily bread and make plans with your expected cash. For example, one of the clients I once landed needed thousands of articles. We agreed on a minimum number of articles per week. As long as I met his minimum, the payment was guaranteed.
3. Lower rejection rate
As stated in point number 1, clients value you more in this direct approach. This is because you go through a rigorous interview before getting assigned a job. In fact, in Upwork, just completing the profile is a long story. But once you’ve landed a client, most of your work will be accepted. In fact, most times instead of rejecting, they will ask you to make revisions.
4. Milestone/Escrow and Hourly Payments
As long as you insist that clients pay you via milestone/escrow, you are guaranteed to get paid. This is because the money gets out of their hands to the site. Therefore most will not mess up knowing that they have no control over their cash.
In Upwork, when you get hourly jobs, you are paid automatically every week as long as the client approves your timesheets.
Both the hourly and escrow system guarantee you payment.
5. Bulk Work
Most entrepreneurs, online or offline will tell you that there is value in bulk work. In fact, due to my vast experience, some clients hire me to manage all their content. This means that I don’t have to write them all myself, but I can outsource it to my team of expert writers and cash in on the difference.
6. Upfront Payments
I always insist that my direct clients pay me upfront. If I’m getting the client via Upwork, they have to create 100% milestone. If they come to me via my blogs, they order by paying 50-100% upfront. This not only makes me feel secure that a client will pay fully, but it also increases my cashflow.
7. Higher Pay
We all love this. It does take hard work to get a single client, but you end up getting paid more (e.g. $50 to $500 plus per article) and having long-term clients (thus higher earnings per client). Here, hard work really does pay.
What to do now
If you have followed the entire story above, it should be now clearer to you that the direct client approach works.
I know it takes time to set up a writer website, craft great pitches, crawl through job boards and start getting jobs in using this method. I just thought of writing this post when I realized most Kenyan writers were wasting so much time and resources in sites that were not doing them much good.
Yes, you don’t have to use this approach, but you could be losing out on your big break. I always advise writers to spread their wings and have at least 4 streams of income.
Since most people hate bidding/pitching, just do two to five pitches a day and soon you’ll land your first client. Continue with this trend and you’ll always be getting better clients to replace the poor paying clients.
For more in-depth tips, join my free mini-course for writers.
See you in the comments section.
Hello, Walter
Talk about sites such as Writerdom, Studypool, Essay pro, and Writershub, Writersbay in relation to success in this industry. I am confused where to go. Give me direction please. I have Writerdom Probation, They have plenty of fines and low flow of orders, I have Elance (Upwork), I have earned here $400+, Freelancer failed me (they need money for tests). Have little knowledge about affiliate marketing, pitching and so forth. Please guide me through. Reply me with a direction please.
Hi Brian,
I do article writing. I don’t use all those sites you’ve mentioned.
Click here to see what I do and recommend: https://freelancerkenya.com/money-online/how-to-make-money-online-in-kenya-as-a-freelance-writer/
Thanks!
I’m interested in taking your course
Hi Robert,
I’ll be happy to train you. Here are the course details https://freelancerkenya.com/training
Thanks a lot Walter, each time I think of quitting you always give me hope that light is shinning at the end of my tunnel. Be blessed bro.
Thanks Dan. Never ever give up. Stay blessed.
Thanks Walter. I have always hated the time invested in bidding. I now see it’s positive side.
Most welcome Abby. Yeah there is a good side to it.
Thank you Walter for the energies you get into writers. I am trying to navigate through Elance but damn! It is difficult to secure a client!!
You are welcome Edwin. You can do it strategically. Elance has a university section where it trains freelancers on how they can make it. You can start by going through that and implementing the tips.
Hi Walter,
I am a new member in Elance and Freelancer. I really want to venture into writing now that am almost out of campus. I will keep track of you advice to propel me through.
Regards
Hi Edwin. Welcome to the writing world. Keep working hard and learning daily. All will be great.
Hi, recently Articleteller doesn’t work. I tried it sometimes back but after accumulating some funds, they didn’t transfer it to my account. I wouldn’t advise anyone to try it.
Thanks Tony. I gave a warning about it at some point on my Facebook page. Thanks for letting us know.
Hi Walter,
I just came across your site.Taken a few hours to go through your forums. Great work you are doing.Very informative. I must say about the best sites out there, that will differ as everyone has a preference. I actually started on Elance,got a job almost right away but it is true that supply isn’t always guaranteed. Landed a few clients,who offer me jobs out of escrow. So the best thing is to have accounts in all this sites. I’v been conned alot, but i’m in this to stay,its harder to land a job in the mainstream, and what online work offers is a just great.Lately as I was job hunting, which I stopped to focus on writing, got so many vacancies online on online marketing. Do you have a post on that or anything related. I sell stuff online via all the local online sites, but what really is online marketing and how can one benefit.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks a lot for your comment and humbling words about my site. I really appreciate.
Internet marketing is simply promoting stuff to customers on the web. There are millions of ways to do that.
If you work with local sites, then you could be talking about PPC, content marketing, email marketing e.t.c.
I don’t know how you specifically want to do it but you can click on the link below and sift through the articles on that category then feel free to ask more questions.
https://freelancerkenya.com/money-online
Hello Walter? Thank you for the insights. I am new at online writing. Recently I subscribed to your mailing list. I have created accounts with Iwriter, Elance, Odesk, Freelancer, Fiverr. Unfortunately for the days that I have worked, out of the 8 articles I have written on iwriter, only 2 have been accepted. I have bid for jobs on Elance with no success and Freelancer is asking for money to do a test. What am I doing wrong? Only on Odesk have I secured contracts. Is online writing worth the hype it is getting? Is it possible to get a job on freelancer without doing the test? I mean, it is the same tests I have done on Odesk and Elance. Is there way of linking the platforms so that I do not have to do the tests twice?
Hi Kennedy,
Sorry for what you’ve experienced. The truth is, it is not easy at the start. I don’t even advise people to quit their jobs in the first month. Your bids will be ignored, your articles will be rejected e.t.c. It’s the perseverance that matters. Also, you’ll have to do the right things and be good at what you do.
Check out this post on how this writer persevered and made it.
You do not have to pay for the tests in Freelancer at first. Just do the free Elance ones. The aim should not be to stay in Freelancer for long. It’s sort of a training ground of sorts.
Otherwise, you can also apply for my training and I’ll give you some more tips and tricks.
All the best 🙂
I’ve visited these sides that my fellow commentors have dropped here. Whatever is going on on that Warrior Forum! Of all the others it looks the scariest and most difficult to navigate. I’ll visited it in the morning when I’m fresher in the head.
Hi Naomi,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, you can look at the other sites and let us know how it goes.
I am an “Active Warrior” in Warrior Forum though I’ve not applied for any writing gigs there.
Hey Walter.
I recently joined your mailing list. I must say, when I first joined, I only did it because you are Kenyan. Shallow and stupid, I know. But I have been on a lot of mailing lists that send me stuff that couldn’t possibly apply to me. One such list has to do with Clickbank, but that’s a rant for another day. I am grateful for what you are doing here. You give great advice.
Coming to the topic at hand. I have been on oDesk, Elance, Freelancer, iWriter and a bunch of other freelance sites and I gotta say iWriter is by far the best for me. That’s just been my experience. I tried fiverr and the orders did come, unfortunately it coincided with a very busy time in my schedule so…that was that! I’ll go back and try it again. I don’t like the bidding sites much because of the time it takes to get the contracts.
I am yet to try articleteller. You should check out constant-content.com, it has great potential. Also join warrior forum if you are not a member already. It has insane opportunities for writers and affiliates like you. Do you have any other sites besides iwriter and articleteller you could advice on? Not bidding sites though….way too impatient for that.
Thanks a great deal man.
Hi Robert,
I love your comment! Just from reading it I can tell you’re a great writer. I am glad that you find substance from my emails.
I definitely am an “Active Warrior” in Warrior Forum though I’ve not gotten any writing gigs from there. I double as an internet marketer and get great internet marketing advice from there.
I have heard of Constant Content but haven’t used it. I’ll give it a try. If it’s good, you’ll see a full review here.
I had the same thoughts about iWriter as you, until Elance and Fiverr sliced it up into pieces. I’ll submit a screenshot of my weekly earnings from Elance soon to put some evidence as to why they are the best option. I understand the patience thing though, it can drive someone nuts! That’s why you need to continue with the iWriters and ArticleTellers while bidding till you get the good job.
Anyway, to answer your question, I hear that you can also make it big in PeoplePerHour. I am registered there but I haven’t done much since the other sites and internet marketing have been keeping me busy. You can check out the success stories article to see one of my readers who is making it big there. Feel free to contact him through his Facebook page for tips.
Feel free to ask any more questions.
Thanks for the quick response. Yeah, am registered on ‘People per hour’…I tell you, I’ve been at this for a while. But I’ll take you advice, take time off everyday to bid for projects while working on iWriter. You a fan of academic writing? Never did get the appeal, guess it’s the lazy student in me. But I have a friend who is earning like crazy from it. Maybe I’ll give it a second look.
Ordered my Payoneer card two weeks ago, sorry, it was from another friends referral. But of course only after they approve it does KCB come up with their awesome all purpose card. I guess getting them both would be the ideal option. Anyway, I mention Payoneer because I want to go into affiliate marketing as well. Can I count on you for guidance? Since you’ve been doing it, I figure you know what works and what doesn’t as far as our region is concerned.
Thanks again!
You are welcome Robert.
Good to hear you’re registered at PPH. I understand sometimes it’s difficult to combine all these things and have them all flowing.
Yes, one or two bids a day may land you on something huge…with 100% acceptance rate, mpaka you’ll forget iWriter existed.
I am not a big fan of academic writing. I do it on special occasions only.
No worries if you ordered the Payoneer card from someone else, that’s cool with me. My dream is to have as many freelancers as possible making it big online.
Affiliate marketing is awesome and you can always feel free to ask questions about it. I actually get 1/3 of my income from affiliate marketing.
Feel free to ask any more questions.
I have followed your article all the way and I must say its great and all the info is true. I also ventured into bidding sites and I must say it was tough getting started. I started at odesk and then elance. N to gerald710, its true about odesk paying less, but there are clients who pay well. I had a client a worked for for some months and payment was great. Just as Walter says you should have a minimum standard. Some works are just for starters seeking rating or first job. elance is also recommendable I have clients who have paid $10 per 700 article. You could also get like a permanent freelance job that pays well.
Thanks Kibe.
I agree that with Elance you can get paid very well.
Thanks for shedding some light on oDesk.
Cheers 🙂
Okay,Did someone say Odesk is Great??? You have to be kidding me!!!!I f you think iwriter underpays,then Odesk is a virtual version of a Hong Kong Textile Sweatshop.If you want to see bids that go for as low as $0.5 per article thanks to the Indians,Fillipinos and Pakistanis underbidding everyone else
What????????????
Ati 0.5 per article?
That’s just sad!
Anyway, thanks for letting us know.
Hi Water!
Your article is so true and real to us as Kenyans. I am one of those people who are even making worse mistakes. However now I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Remember it is at the end of the tunnel and right now am at the beginning of the tunnel and I dot know how long the tunnel is.
Writing is not a problem, typing not a problem, the problem is ” AT TIMES IT IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND THE INTERNET WRITING SITES ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE A COMMITTED UNIVERSITY STUDENT WITH MINIMUM TIME TO INVEST INTO UNDERSTANDING HOW THEY WORK”
Hi Muregi,
Thanks a lot for dropping by and commenting.
All the best in your new freelance writing career. It is very enjoyable and rewarding.
Walter
Hey Walter,
I used to have somebody from Kenya who wrote me a couple of articles. I found him on Odesk. That is a great site to outsource.
best
Akos
Thanks Akos. I hear oDesk is great.
The article is great Walter.Actually,am one of those who have been so discouraged by the whole bidding story am almost giving up on freelancer but after going through your article,am motivated and i will continue bidding.Thanks for the great insight.
Hi Elizabeth,
I understand what you feel. Personally, I had to bid on Elance for months to get the first real job.
Don’t worry, in the end it always pays off. Meanwhile, don’t stop working on the other bidding sites. Simply work out a balance between all these streams of income.
A great and insightful article, thanks Walter for the valuable info and support. I got on Elance and freelancer and trying to be consistent in my bidding. Thanks for the information once again. Bidding is tiresome but I also think the break comes when you land a job which case you have to continue bidding until this comes. Well some clients will invite you go to skype or gtalk, well do you think that is ok?
I am also trying the blogging thing you taught us and have made three posts , I guess this one also needs building up, thanks though I have learned a lot from you personally
Hi Edgar,
I know bidding is tiresome, that’s why I am recommending a few bids per day but continuously. It’s okay to talk to those clients on Gtalk and stuff but make sure you stay careful.
Always ask for milestone payments or work on a small threshold. For example, you can tell them to be paying you every time you reach $10 so that in case they run with your cash.
Yes, blogging needs building up and tends to take more time but once you get it together, you won’t regret it. Good to hear you made three posts.
Cheers 🙂
Eish! Walter,
Is this a mistake have been waiting for. I thought something like Kenyan, US and Uk English mixup, sleeping at 2-3am when work in iwriter and articleteller is so easy.
Anyway, one thing I have observed with bidding sites is training and tests they offer. When you go through them, you are sure that you are an experienced freelancer, there is no doubt about that. I am personally buried in oDesk, it is tiresome but it is the only way to acquire the experience I so badly need. Though you did not mention it here why? Tell me to ditch it for the ones you mentioned above though I have spent millions of minutes there and am yet to start bidding.
Ok Thanks for the ignition.
Hi Dennis.
Thanks for your comment as usual. Yes, it seems easy at iWriter and ArticleTeller but most people are not making enough there. In fact, most of my friends who pull 6 figures work in Elance, oDesk and the like.
That’s why I said meet you at the comments since I know there are many other sites out there. I believe oDesk is fine, just that I’ve not used it much, nor have I made any money from it. Don’t ditch it yet but just try the two I’ve mentioned and tell me how it goes.