The Art Of Bidding For Freelance Jobs

How to Start Bidding

Once you have honed down certain projects to bid upon, it’s time to roll up

your sleeves and get ready for some action! Bidding is a three-step process.

1. Understanding the Bid Request

The key to successful bidding is to understand what the buyer is asking for.

Try to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and ask yourself what the buyer really

wants to accomplish. Has the buyer indicated a tight deadline and if so, can you

reasonably meet it? In many cases, you will be able to convince a buyer to extend

the deadline. The best way to do this is to talk about the quality of work and the

time required. Tell them if you cram 10 days into 2 days, quality will suffer.

2. Researching Past Bids

Most of freelance exchange website offer ways to research the history of a

writer or a buyer. Use it extensively!

The first step is to look at the buyer’s rating and any past projects the buyer

has accepted. This will give you a wealth of information about the buyer’s typical

price range, past problems and how quickly the buyer accepts projects after they

were completed.

3. Preparing Your Bid

If in the bid the buyer has requested samples, don’t forget to mention it in the

bid. If you don’t, there’s virtually no chance you’ll win the bid because you’re

basically telling the buyer that you can’t be bothered.

Never criticize the buyer’s bid request or appear judgmental about what the

buyer is asking for. This is the surest way to NOT be the successful bidder.

How to Write a Bid

Your bids should include the following information:

Salutation: Always personalize your bid. Right away, this tells the buyer

that you’re a cut above the others because you’ve taken an extra moment to write

the bid. You’d be amazed just how important this is!

A salutation is simply a greeting such as, Dear Mr. Edwards, Hello Jim, or, if

the buyers screen name is impersonal, even a simple “Greetings,” is equally

effective. Avoid using “Dear Sir” unless you are 100% certain the buyer is male.

1st Paragraph: Introduce yourself in the first paragraph.

2nd Paragraph: This is where you go into the detail of the bid request, e.g.,

ask any questions and give suggestions to let the buyer know that you’re interested

and that you’ve actually read the bid request.

Last Paragraph: In your bid, tell the buyer why you're qualified to handle

the project and direct the buyer to your portfolio where he can see samples of

previous work. If your ratings are good, invite the buyer to look at what others have

said about you and your work.

You can say something like: “If you have a few moments, I’d also like to ask

you to review my online resume and past client comments regarding my

performance on their projects.”

Warning: Do this only if you have a good rating!

Closing: It can be as simple as:

Best Regards,

{Your Name}

After writing your bid, make sure you do a spelling and grammar check. If

you have MS Word available, this is a good choice for preparing your bid. You can

copy and paste it into the bid comment box. Lastly, always remember that your bid

is a personal statement about yourself and your abilities.

The way you write a bid can have a great impact on howmany bids you

win. Take the time to personalize your bids; it’s worth it.

How to Price Your Bid

Writers use an hourly rate to calculate their fees. Some charge $10 an hour;

others charge $250 an hour. For example, if you take a project of writing an e-book

on dog training and estimate it would take you around 25 hours to finish it and if

you have an hourly rate of $20, you could price the e-book at $500.

The hourly rate is determined by:

• Your experience

• Your expertise in a niche. Writers who specialize in a particular niche are

paid more than others. For example, if you are an expert at writing email

follow up campaigns, you can charge much more than other writers for

such a project .

• Your reputation. Are you known to deliver what you promise? What are

others saying about you?

• Whom are you charging (Corporate and business clients generally tend to

pay higher than others).

The whole game of increasing your hourly rate is increasing your reputation

and expertise in a particular niche.

If you are a newcomer, there’s no magic number you should set as your

hourly rate. Look what others are charging with your experience and copy them.

Jennifer Mattern , a PR consultant based in Pennsylvania and owner of the

popular website allfreelancewriting.com gives some excellent advice on setting of

rates the right way in the following article:

Setting FreelanceWriting Rates the Right Way

Common Freelance Writing Rate Strategies

• Per word

• Per project

• Per hour

What They Have in Common

Whether you prefer to charge your freelance writing clients per word, per

project, or per hour, you’ll still need to account for an hourly rate. Finding the most

appropriate hourly rate is really the key to setting freelance writing rates. Once you

have that number, you’ll simply charge accordingly. If you charge by the hour,

that’s easy enough to do. If you charge by the word or by the project, you’ll need to

estimate the amount of time a project would take or how many words on average

you’re able to write (not just how quickly you can type).

Working Hours vs. Billable Hours

In order to find the best hourly rate for yourself, you’ll need to understand

the difference between working hours and billable hours. Working hours include

every hour you work (assuming a “typical” full-time work week, we’ll say that’s 40

hours). Billable hours, on the other hand, are the number of working hours that you

can actually bill out to clients, minus the hours spent marketing and on

administrative duties.

Billable hours are often approximately, or a little more than, half of your

total working hours if you’re not neglecting anything on the admin and marketing

side. To simplify the numbers, let’s round it to exactly half, and say that out of a 40

hour work week, you would have 20 billable hours. Now we have something to start

from.

Salaries vs Yearly Freelance Earnings

It’s easy for a freelance writer to say “I earned $50,000 at my old day job and

I got by fine, so I want to set a goal to earn the same amount from my freelance

writing full-time.” What’s harder is understanding that the two numbers truly aren’t

comparable, and they can’t be interchanged as easily as that.

To get a more realistic number, you would need to figure out your real “cost”

in your former full-time job. Think of it from the company’s perspective instead of

yours (because as a freelancer, you’ll be playing that role). For example (assuming a

US-based writer)…

Your full-time gross salary would have included your portion of taxes,

benefit payments, retirement savings, etc. on top of the net take-home pay. Use that

as a starting point. Now add on any Medicare and social security taxes the employer

had to pay for you as their employee, any contributions they made towards benefits

or retirement, the cost of any supplies or other expenses they covered that made

your work possible, etc. Now you have a more realistic number regarding what you

would need to earn as a freelancer to be in a comparable situation. That number can

be significantly more than your gross salary - in this example, let’s say it works out

to around $70,000.

You Won’t Always be Working

We’ve already covered the full-time working hours versus billable hours and

the real salary you would need to earn to live a comparable life, so you may be

thinking that setting an hourly rate is now as easy as dividing $70k by 52 weeks in a

year and then by 20 billable hours (which would work out to a little over $67 /

hour). But you would still be missing a vital part of the equation.

It’s highly unlikely that anyone is going to work 40 hours per week, for a full

52 weeks in a year. I always suggest deducting a minimum of two weeks to cover a

short vacation and a handful of personal or sick days. So at a maximum, I would

suggest you factor your hourly rate based on 50 working weeks rather than 52. In

my own case, I prefer to take more time off when possible (for short trips, seeing

family, getting things done around the house, etc.), and try to account for extra for

holidays, so I base my own goals on 45 working weeks.

You Will Have Slow Times

It’s highly unlikely that you’ll never have a slow period in your work.

Because of that, the rest of your billable hours throughout the year need to account

for any possible lapses. I’d personally suggest that you tack on 10-20% to your

income goal we established earlier, or subtract another few weeks from your

expected working weeks to get a more realistic calculation that won’t leave you

scrambling for extra income later.

Let’s Crunch the Numbers

Given the example we’ve been talking about, we have a freelance writer

who’s looking to set their freelance writing rates based on 20 billable hours per

week to earn $70,000 with an expectation of 45 working weeks (using that rather

than 50 to account for the slow periods instead of adding a percentage onto the goal

gross salary). So the hourly rate would be calculated like this:

$70,000 / 45 working weeks = $1555.56 per week

$1555.56 per week / 20 billable hours per week = $77.78 per hour

or

Salary Goal / Working Weeks / Weekly Billable Hours = Hourly Rate

Adapting Your Hourly Rate

You now have an hourly rate established which you’ll need to earn to reach

your yearly income goals as a freelance writer. Now all you have to do is adapt that

hourly rate to fit the pricing model you prefer (per word, per project, etc.).

For example, if you want to charge per project, and you know that it takes

you an average of ten hours to research and write a comprehensive business plan for

a client, given this scenario, you would charge $777.80 per business plan. I would

actually suggest that you round it up to $800, not only because it makes for easier

billing and marketing, but also because rounding up a bit helps to account for any

“problem clients” who may take an unusually large amount of time to get you what

you need for a project, or who may demand excessive edits compared to others. In

this case, if you really wanted to round up more to account for those things, you

could charge a flat $1000. Keep the risk level of each type of project in mind when

you figure out your per-project rates.

As another example, let’s look at setting a per-word rate with the above

scenario. Let’s assume that you know you can write about 1000 words per hour

within your niche specialty with proper research and editing. Simply divide the

hourly rate by the 1000 words you can write per hour on average, and you’ll get a

per-word rate of approximately $.08 / word. Again, I would suggest that you

increase it slightly to account for any slow periods where you may not be able to fill

your full 20 billable hours - so in this case, let’s say $.10 / word. So if someone

hired you to write a 500 word article, you would charge them $50.

Keep in mind that these estimates are going to work much more effectively

for a freelance writer who’s a specialist in their niche (because they’re intimately

familiar with the best research sources for the topic and how much time the research

on top of their existing knowledge would take) as opposed to a generalist who can’t

always know the amount of research needed or where to go for it, who won’t be

able to write as quickly because they’re familiar with a topic, and who will likely

have to spend more time editing and fact-checking. It would seem then that a

generalist should charge even more. However, clients are rarely willing to pay more

for a general writer than an expert in a niche (meaning niche specialists can choose

to charge a premium rather than just what they need if they want to). It’s just

something to keep in mind, and another case for specialization in your freelance

writing career.

Article By Jennifer Mattern , allfreelancewriting.com

Pricing on Freelance Websites

Bidding on freelance exchange websites has certain intricacies that need to

be understood. It goes beyond simply setting up an hourly rate.

While working on these websites, you would be working in a global

marketplace. Your competitors would be writers from Romania, India, Pakistan,

United Kingdom, Australia and more.

While in the United States an annual income of $36,000 can be considered a

middle level income, in South Asian countries, the middle income starts at around

$5,000 per year. This is because the cost of living is much less in these countries

(manpower is very cheap because of a huge mismatch in demand and supply in

these economies). You will often find yourself competing with equally qualified

and talented writers willing to work at 1/5 the price of a writer based in the U.S.

The truth is freelance exchange websites can be a very easy way to find

assignments but to find boat loads of work you need to build a reputation. In the

beginning, you probably won't be able to charge the rates you'd like to charge.

Instead, you'll have to lower your bids, possibly quite a bit, just so you have a

chance at getting a fair share of the available work.

For most buyers, getting the work done is the first priority and second is the

price. Many buyers report frustration over the quality of work given by lower fee

freelancers.

Not all freelancers are bad, but some are just not serious about what they do.

They want to make a quick buck without giving a great service. They will simply

cut and copy content from web pages and give it to the buyers.

If you can build your reputation on a freelance exchange website with good

rating and past client testimonials, you can easily increase your hourly rate. But to

do that, you will have to pass through a phase of working for lower fees.

Lowering your bid and providing compelling reasons why you're the right

person for the job usually is the best way to increase your chances that some buyer

will accept your bid. After several projects done, great ratings and comments, and

an impressive online portfolio, you can increase your bid and buyers will still come

to you.

To help price your projects visit your competitor writers profiles and see how

much they are bidding for.

The First Bid

Getting the first bid is a major hurdle for new freelance writers. Buyers are

often reluctant to award a project to a writer with no testimonials and past record

because they do not know what to expect. I got my first bid by bidding so low that

the buyer was shocked! Even flea markets are better! Here are a few strategies to

win the first bid:

• Bid low but explain to the buyer why you are bidding low. Many buyers

will award you a project if you can convince them that you would do a

good job at lower rate because you want a good ranking.

• If you are desperate and things are not working out for you, here’s my

proprietary trick. Call a colleague/friend or even your mom in another

state and ask them to post a project on the website. The project need only

be $25. Let them award you the project. After a gap of 3 or 4 days, send

them the articles and tell them to post a specific and suitable testimonial

at the website. That’s it; you’re in business.

Make sure the computers from where you accept the project and from where

project was created are different. Similar IP addresses could alert the system.

Getting the first bid is aminor hurdle you need to cross. Don’t feel

disappointed after a few unsuccessful bids. Remember, you will be

racing forward soon.

To give you a better idea on the bidding process, I posted a small project on a

freelance website and invited some bids. This is the screen I see when I have to

select a writer. (Names have been edited out to protect privacy)

Imagine a buyer sometimes have to select from 20- 30 writers. Make your bid

powerful!

After Winning the Bid

Once many freelance writers have posted their bid, the buyer will select one

of them. If you follow the guidelines outlined in this guide it won’t be long before

you receive the following message in your e-mail:

“Congratulations, your bid was accepted.”

Yippee! But wait. You didn’t get the dollars; the buyer accepted to work

with you on this project. In the background unknown to you this is what has

happened: The buyer accepted your bid and placed the amount of money you bid in

escrow with the freelance website. The money will remain in escrow until you

deliver satisfactory work to the buyer.( Some freelance websites such as Rentacoder

even call up first time buyers on their telephones to confirm the identity and prevent

fraud !.)

Once you have received the email notification of the bid acceptance, what’s

your first step? Nope, it’s not to start work. It’s to open a dialogue with the buyer.

Send a message to the buyer thanking him or her for the opportunity.

Acknowledge the buyer's deadline and then let the buyer know when you intend to

start working on the project. If you have any questions regarding the project, you

can also clarify it during this time.

Why is this step important?

• It lets the buyer know he is dealing with a responsible person.

• It gives a personal touch in a virtual environment. I would definitely

never feel comfortable if I give $500 to someone and hear nothing from

him. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and dispel all fears they may have.

• Let’s you clarify any specific requirement of the project

The Importance of Communication

Apart from delivering good work, the second most important factor in how a

buyer will rate you is how you communicate. Remember: Communicate,

communicate, communicate.

If you have a small project such as writing 5 articles, you don’t need to

communicate often. However, if you are writing an e-book or numerous articles, it’s

always good to keep the buyer informed about your progress on the work.

Some buyers will post in their bid request that they need frequent updates on

the status of the project. It might seem as a hassle, but always pay attention to it.

They want to see for themselves that progress is in fact being made. So show them.

If you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, this really shouldn't be a problem.

When communicating:

Remember your manners: Don’t get overtly personal with a buyer until

you develop a long term work relationship. Be courteous and friendly, but keep a

formal environment to your communication.

The buyer is always right! Never ever get angry with a buyer. Like real life,

you would come across many types of people on these websites. Some keep on

complaining. Your job on freelance exchange websites is not to get into human

altercations. Earn a bid, do good work and get a good rating and move on.

When I was a novice, a buyer gave me 20 articles to write on a topic for

which very scarce information was available on the Internet. I, however, spent hours

and hours researching, gathering all tidbits and wrote the articles as best I could.

After sending the articles to him, he wrote: “I have never seen such low quality

work in my life.”

When I read the statement, this is the uncensored instant thought that came to

my mind:

“I will take the healthiest fleas from the most stinking camels of the Atacama

Desert and shove it in your armpits.”

And this is what I wrote to the buyer: “I apologize if the articles didn’t meet

your expectations. I will rewrite the articles. Please let me know what I can improve

upon.”

I rewrote the articles and after the project was closed, the buyer rated me

10/10. Hola ! I was glad I didn’t send the camel message across.

You will be amazed how buyers give you a constant top rating if you are a

good communicator.

The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been

accomplished.

~ George Bernard Shaw

Doing the Project

Okay, you got the project, now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get ready

for some real action. If you can write at a basic ninth-grade level, this won’t be a

problem. That’s what online writing demands. It’s like writing research reports in

school.

A few tips you could use during writing:

1. Don’t fall in the perfection syndrome. A big mental block that prevents

writers from earning an explosive income online is that they become prey to

the perfection syndrome. They want to write the perfect article. It can cost a

lot of time and frustration. Instead of writing a perfect article in 4 hours,

write a good article in 45 minutes. A rule in writing is that don’t go back.

Once you start writing, don’t stop. Never hit the back button. Let the ideas

flow. Once you have made a basic outline then go back and edit it.

Perfection is a byproduct of experience and writers naturally pick it along the

way as they write assignments in different fields.

2. Never cut and copy. Buyers use programs such as CopyScape to find if

sentences in an article have been copied directly from other websites and

what percentage of the article is original. They do this because if an article

has the same content as that on another article on the internet , search engines

such as Google , Yahoo and Msn devalue such articles and do not include

them in their search listings. If you do copy from another website, make sure

to modify each sentence so that it’s not 100 % same. So a sentence like

“boxer dogs are known to be affectionate and intelligent” can be modified as

“boxer dogs are affectionate and intelligent.” This way you may copy the

sentence and still remain under the radar.

3. Always time yourself. Before sitting down to write an article or other

assignment, make sure to time yourself. Having a clock in front and working

with deadline jumpstarts productivity.

4. Cross check your work prior to submission. You may have spent 20 hours

writing an e-book, but if the buyer sees a grammatical error on the first page,

it lowers your rating. If you use word processors like Microsoft Word with

spell checker on, spelling won’t be an issue. What needs to be taken care of

are grammatical mistakes and formatting.

Project Completion

Once you finish the project, it’s time to send it to the buyer. A buyer may

take anywhere between a few hours to a few days to approve the project. In the

meantime don’t forget to bid everyday on other projects!

Once the buyer has gone through the work, he may contact you with simple

modifications or may be delighted with your work. If you have worked hard, expect

it to be the end.

After he accepts your work, the freelance exchange website automatically

delivers the agreed bid amount into your account. Believe me, those numbers look

magical once you see them for the first time.

The buyer would also rate you during this time. You don’t have to worry on

this issue. If you have done a decent job, expect good ratings.

If somehow a buyer gives you an unexpected very poor rating, don’t worry.

Most freelance exchange websites allow you to post your side of the story.

However, in your explanation, never criticize the buyer. Other buyers would read it

later. It would reflect the kind of person you are.

Write something like, “I respect {buyers name}’s decision to rate me poorly.

However, I feel I deserved a better rating. We had a little misunderstanding on the

scope and the end deliverables for the project, which led to…”

Increasing Your Rankings

Most of the freelance exchange websites rank writers on a simple scale. The

scale is the amount of bids you have been awarded multiplied by the ratings given

by buyers.

So if you have been awarded $1000 worth of writing work and your average

rating is 9.5 you will have a score of 9500.

Getting a good rating is crucial if you want lots of work on freelance

exchange websites. It’s simply a two-step process:

• Getting as much bids as possible

• Getting high ratings for the bids

Higher rankings generally attract more buyers fromfreelance

websites. A high ranking boosts the number of bids you win by a large

factor.

Can You Make a 6-Figure Income with Only Freelance Exchange

Websites?

To answer this answer this question, we need to understand the working

dynamics of online freelance writing. Writing online content is a little different

from offline writing.

In an offline environment, a reader usually relaxes and holds a book or a

magazine in a relaxed position. On the Internet, a reader is sitting on a chair and

leaning to read content on a bright screen which causes strain to the eyes if done for

a long period of time.

Therefore, the attention span of a reader reading online is much less than the

attention span of an offline reader. It is for this reason you would find most articles

on freelance websites are in the range of 300 to 500 words.

Online articles are not written with the purpose of winning a Pulitzer or a

Nobel Prize; they are written with the purpose of giving a reader the information he

is looking for in a brief, step-by-step manner.

If you have the knack of writing clear, to the point articles at a fast speed,

freelance exchange website can make you a good income.

Some writers naturally write fast and can still maintain a good quality of

content. They can complete articles and bid at very fast speeds and still get good

ratings. Top earners usually finish a small article on a known topic in about 30

minutes, and if it involves research, in about 1.5- hours.

However, most writers are slow in articulating their thoughts into words. If

you are a slow writer, there are two areas you could work on:

1. Improve your writing speed.

2. Start looking for higher paying assignments. (Discussed later.)

But even if you are a fast writer expect to have your income to be around $2000 -$

3500 if you settle for writing articles at cheap /medium rates. If you go to many

freelance websites you would find some writers make around $ 2, 50,000 per annum

writing articles at medium prices. These writers however, do not go solo and have a

writing team under them. A few pages later you read the concept of leverage, if you

want to take this approach to make a six figure.

Going solo… bidding, researching and writing articles all alone will drastically

limit your income. You would be too overloaded to work efficiently.

In my opinion Freelance websites is not where the gold is. (Please remember this

whole manual is geared towards making a six figure. Many writers still make a

good income on freelance websites)