Strange Conversations with Prospective Clients

After becoming one of the many Media Piston outcasts following its closure, I have been venturing back into the Elance and Odesk waters. Prior to the Media Piston closure, I had multiple Elance clients anyway. Some of them have been acquired recently, and others have been ongoing for around a year. However, I know that I am going to need more clients in order to get through the working week, especially during the dreaded summer period.

Odesk Client Drama

I was rather surprised on Saturday morning when a client I emailed on Odesk asked me to add her to Skype within minutes of receiving my email. I promptly did so, and began talking to her. I was all of about five minutes into the conversation before I realised that she was not going to be much fun to work with. Her demands were as follows:

1. $5 per 500 word article. With ME paying the Odesk fee.
2. A minimum of 10 articles a day, or 100 within the space of 14 days. Only at the end of the 14 days would I be paid.
3. All articles to be completed within three hours of the request being sent to me.
4. No days off.
5. A request to do a test article as fast as possible.

Okay, at $5.00 an article with me paying the Odesk fee I would be earning less than $0.01 per word. No thanks.

10 articles a day, every day, without exception? Again, no thanks. I do not mind doing a minimum set amount for clients, but when they are less than $0.01 per word, I need those articles to be the exception, not my main project.

Completion within three hours every time one is sent to me? I am a sleeper. Not a massive sleeper, but I am not operating my sleeping hours around a client who apparently does not sleep herself.

I also do not like to feel as though my test article is being judged by speed more than it is by my writing style.

Odesk and Elance Progression

Fortunately, there has been progression on the writing front. I have had a client on Odesk invite me to interview for an ongoing project which will allow me to have some freedom over the subjects I write about. I also completed a writing trial with a company I applied to a while ago. Overall, I may be eight days away from my Media Piston end, but I am also heading into a new era where I am less reliant on content mills, and more reliant on myself. Cutting out the middle man more is a bit nerve wracking, but necessary.