If you're looking for hiring a freelance writer to handle your writing project, you should make sure that the writer you're dealing with is legitimate, reliable, honest, and qualified.
These four attributes are a MUST for any business transaction whether with individuals or with companies.
However, when it comes to freelance writing, things can turn both highly beneficial or badly disappointing because of its inherent strengths and downsides in today's digital world.
The most basic question is how to find a freelance writer in the first place? There are quite a few virtual marketplaces (agencies) like oDesk, Elance, GetAFreelancer, GetACoder, and writing companies where you can work with individual writers.
I cannot name any academic writing companies here because I do not want to sound connected to any of the companies. Secondly, online scam companies are growing in number as much as freelance writers; thus, I better not mention any.
Before we can move any further, I should ask you a primary question: Why on earth hire a freelance writer?
The answer is quite straightforward. Freelance writers have their own strengths that are not present with a big company.
Some of the strengths are:
Outsourcing your work to a company or agency keeps you from directly contacting to their writers because of such obvious reasons as concealing the commission earnings. This puts you at a distance from your writer and all you do is wait for a response from them. Company-mediated communication (mostly via the email) is full of semantic noise, barriers, and flaws.
Sometimes, this results in acute frustration for both the writer and you.
When you outsource your work to a freelance writer, you have every liberty to communicate with them: Email, Skype, phone, or any other means - you name it.
Almost ALL the companies, agencies, and related entities over the Internet require that you pay the complete project price upfront. Though you pay them in one-go, they do not and cannot guarantee to deliver most satisfactory work. In such a case you end up asking a writer (in case of a legit company) for multiple revisions!
Most of my clients hire me for these reasons.
If you google for companies and writers, you'll find countless results that lead to in the middle of nowhere. However, there still are place over the net that can help you find legitimate freelance writers who are also qualified (obviously many other people working in the same field.
Good luck!
These four attributes are a MUST for any business transaction whether with individuals or with companies.
However, when it comes to freelance writing, things can turn both highly beneficial or badly disappointing because of its inherent strengths and downsides in today's digital world.
The most basic question is how to find a freelance writer in the first place? There are quite a few virtual marketplaces (agencies) like oDesk, Elance, GetAFreelancer, GetACoder, and writing companies where you can work with individual writers.
I cannot name any academic writing companies here because I do not want to sound connected to any of the companies. Secondly, online scam companies are growing in number as much as freelance writers; thus, I better not mention any.
Before we can move any further, I should ask you a primary question: Why on earth hire a freelance writer?
The answer is quite straightforward. Freelance writers have their own strengths that are not present with a big company.
Some of the strengths are:
- Personal contact, communication, and collaboration between you and the writer.
- Smaller projects for quicker turnaround time.
- You don't need a business strategy to outsource your work.
- Good for limited budget projects.
- Timely response
Outsourcing your work to a company or agency keeps you from directly contacting to their writers because of such obvious reasons as concealing the commission earnings. This puts you at a distance from your writer and all you do is wait for a response from them. Company-mediated communication (mostly via the email) is full of semantic noise, barriers, and flaws.
Sometimes, this results in acute frustration for both the writer and you.
When you outsource your work to a freelance writer, you have every liberty to communicate with them: Email, Skype, phone, or any other means - you name it.
Almost ALL the companies, agencies, and related entities over the Internet require that you pay the complete project price upfront. Though you pay them in one-go, they do not and cannot guarantee to deliver most satisfactory work. In such a case you end up asking a writer (in case of a legit company) for multiple revisions!
Most of my clients hire me for these reasons.
If you google for companies and writers, you'll find countless results that lead to in the middle of nowhere. However, there still are place over the net that can help you find legitimate freelance writers who are also qualified (obviously many other people working in the same field.
- Once you shortlist a few writers (remember to do a prior research beforehand), ask each of them to provide you with an outline and or synopsis of your work.
- Follow the same precautionary steps I mentioned in my previous post.
- Soon will the things start making sense to you about who is the one you'd like to outsource your project to.
- Always follow an installment plan for paying the writer only after you receive the installments of your work.
- Always run similarity-index check on the pieces you receive.
- Pay only through a reliable and secure means.
- Be quick to ask for any revision, adjustments, or corrections on the pieces of your work.
Good luck!
