oDesk Diary

Step by step- how it happened for me.

In late 1999 I was convicted of felony drug possession. I did the crime and I did the time- a few months of probation. With my fines paid, I set about moving on- not in my professional career; that was out of the question. A drug conviction and a pharmacy degree do not mix well. But, I expected to parlay my education into something decent.

I found out over the seven years since then that ‘ex-felon’ is a category from which you never escape. As permanent as a tattoo- maybe more permanent. Whenever I marked yes in the little box- Do you have any felony convictions? – I was killing any chance I had for that job. I didn’t remain unemployed, but I was always under-employed.

Enter Freelancing.

The idea of freelance writing has been with me on and off, partly because I write well, and partly because there is no little box. Last December I started reading heavily about writing. And reading about writing for money. I got up enough courage to submit an article to a national hobby magazine. A how-to article. When I e-mailed the editor to find out how much they pay, I was disappointed to find out that they didn’t pay anything at all for articles. (I did manage to weasel a free subscription out of him in the end.)

The feeling of seeing my article in print was grand. Grander than grand. Here was something birthed from my own brain that someone thought worth publishing. It was enough encouragement to get me off my butt. I set a firm goal. Make money, any amount of money, in a month.

Here is that month.

The First Week- getting online.

Would this work for me? Could it work for me? I didn’t know. I had about twenty free hours a week to find out.

I spent my first week setting up a web page. I needed ad space to sell me. I put my one published article there and then started looking around. And I wrote.

I wrote for free sites. I wrote in writer’s groups. I wrote a few more things to post on my web page. I submitted a story to Writer’s Digest. I entered a contest at Twenty Questions.com. This wasn’t working. It didn’t look likely that I would reach my goal.

My problem was a lack of focus. The writing world was vast and I was a little boat tossed around in this great sea. I don’t know where I ran across the idea of selling at a freelancer hosting site. It might have been in one of the ‘Get Rich Now’ writing books. I found five right away through Google; five that seemed on the up and up.

The Second Week- Finding a home.

More site shopping. I wanted to find a freelancing site that wouldn’t cost me anything up front. I needed a ‘fee-free’ home base. There were two I found that fit. Elance and oDesk. Elance only allowed three free bids a month. oDesk let me have twenty a week!

So, I spent some time taking the tests at oDesk. I posted a picture on my profile and linked up to some of the articles I had written. And I applied for jobs. Jobs I really didn’t qualify for and some that I was too expensive for.

Here are the stats for that week: 13 jobs applied for, 3 interviews, no work.

The Third Week- work.

I scored at elance. One of my precious three bids was for a job writing magic articles. I happen to be an amateur magician, so it seemed ideal. I underbid to get it, but I got it.

The next day someone accepted my terms on oDesk to organize an e-book. Again, underbid, but I didn’t care. I had work. People were going to pay me to write.

This was enough for me to finally get a cable modem installed. I needed the speed and IM. I also found my old computer running Windows 98 was overworked. I happened to luck into a used machine running XP. With these upgrades cooking, I felt I was on my way.

The Fourth Week- Up and running.

Both projects were going well- 8 articles a week on magic and work on a 100-page e-book. I had the great pleasure of applying for a business license so I could open a bank account in my business name. I had to have an account to accept electronic money transfers.

I kept applying for other work, but now I started to really look carefully at projects on offer. I looked to see if I had the time, if I could do the job well, and if I could price it to fit my needs. Because I live in the US, my cost of living is substantially higher than some of my competitors. I decided there was no point in going after high volume- low price jobs. I had to make it by offering better quality work for higher paying buyers.

I took on no new work and only a couple of interviews. Until just after this week ended. I finally picked up a longer-term assignment with a decent rate of pay. The buyer is excellent and I like the work. You are reading the result now.

The Story Continues.

So what’s my goal for February? I guess it’s just to keep going. I don’t expect to make the hallowed 6 Figure Income- unless two of the figures are on the wrong side of a decimal point. But it’s a fine way to make a some much needed extra money.