Freelancing

I've been looking for a while at freelancing, considering I am adept with photography, video and copy writing.

I started out on Fiverr, having sourced people to freelance for me in my previous job. As a Freelancer, I was less successful. Two gigs as they call them. One for some Arabic guy who was wanting to ask his boss for a raise. I could tell he wasn't happy with what I sent based on his pages of ramblings. He paid, I refunded, he paid again.

I earned £ 6.00 for over an hour's work. The second was no better. A brief from a charity. That made me feel guilty, taking money off a body when it should go to the people who benefit from the charity's activities. I offered to do the job for nothing, the insisted I take the £ 8.00 but I saw they never used the copy.

I decided to cast my freelancing net farther afield and happened across Bark.

To follow up any of the leads they supply, you have to buy credits and use a varying number per lead. For a week or more, I was receiving leads, but it appeared you only got enough information to make you ask more questions. I caved in and spent £ 80 on credits. The leads work out at about 6-8 quid a go and can go up to 20.

You've no guarantee of winning any business mind.

My first two people were fishing for ball park costs. They had no real idea what they wanted. So I've wasted money already.

Even the cocky ones who use media buzzwords, don't have a firm idea of what the goal is and I spotted a couple that were 25 credits to respond to.

Before I purchased the credits, I did write to Bark and suggest the leads were a bit poor. Received a very tactful response. Now having wasted £ 80 on this service, I am going to say that it's pants.

There's very little in the way of qualification in the leads they supply and yet they are charging a premium rate for each freelancer who responds.

So I'll make the expensive pun that I reckon I've been barking up the wrong tree.

Some years ago, a pal said to me that one of the downsides of trying to get small time work like I've described, is that the time you should be at your keyboard creating work to earn from, is the time you should also be out promoting yourself. This is why I hoped that the likes of Fiverr and Bark would be good platforms to land on.

I recall my sister in law some years back did freelancing secretarial service. She charged ten pounds and hour and wasn't really earning at that rate.

One day, she was literally getting in the car to go on holiday, when some Chinese lunatics she'd quoted for a job and heard nothing back, turned up at the house and demanded she do the job there and then, because she'd quoted it.

My brother, the kids and the dog and all their luggage, were packed all ready to go which she explained, but they wanted the job doing tere there and then. She didn't of course and gave up the business shortly after.

Returning to my experience, it does just show, that in the case of Bark charging over the odds for nothing more than a shallow introduction, there's just as mercenary an approach as I found with the recruitment industry when I was job hunting.

I can see that I'm going to just have to grab the bull by the bollocks again and do my own trawling like I did with the interactive PDF.

I'll be writing to Bark amplifying my feelings on what a crappy service they provide at such a high price.

As for the booty I reaped from Fiverr, I've still not decided what to do with that thirteen quid.