Blog Archives

Cheap freelance rates hurt EVERYONE

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Cheap freelance rates hurt EVERYONE

Many of you have read my rants and raves about oDesk on more than one occasion and you have also read about my complaints about new freelancers who insist on lowering their rates to land that first assignment. My contention is that these cheap freelance rates hurt every freelancer. I have many times suggested that we (as freelancers) need to stop undervaluing our work and stop trying to compete with freelancers who are charging rates that our children would not work for. In fact, the lower you start off, the harder it is to increase your rates to  levels where…

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Next Battle: Taking on Google AdSense

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Next Battle: Taking on Google AdSense

Many of you may recall that back in November of 2012, I lost my blog for an indeterminate period of time.  At that time, I wrote the post “Con Artists Prefer Silence“.  My site was hacked into and completely disrupted for several days while I tried to figure out what was going on. Fortunately for me, I had much of my data backed up. Unfortunately, many of my screen shots, images and even some nifty keywords were lost in the shuffle. I’m still working on cleaning up some of these posts which now look like a kid posted them because…

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Moving targets: A scam is a scam

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Moving targets: A scam is a scam

Today, I decided to have some fun.  Theresa Andrews has been a target ever since I put up the Partner with Paul review several months ago. In fact, this one search term has generated almost 4500 hits on that blog post! However, there were a couple of names that kept surfacing in my Email and when doing “work at home” searches, namely Kelley (or Kelly) Richards and Melissa Johnson. I had to go and look for these names and see what happened.  What did happen turned out to be pretty amusing.  Now, you remember my writing about Work at Home…

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You can make real money online

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You can make real money online

One bright note in the ongoing financial recession in the United States is the opportunity to earn money online. Since more companies are cutting back on full-time staff members to save money, they are turning more and more to outsourcing work that used to be done in house. Before you decide that you are going to earn money working from home however, it is important that you understand that there is no method of “getting rich quick”. Work at home opportunities are numerous, provided that you know where to look and you can avoid getting scammed. For most people, the…

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April 2013: Goals attained and missed

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April 2013: Goals attained and missed

In my ongoing determination to keep up with goals I set, based on the original January goals I am not doing so hot but remember, I did change these goals in early April. So, with that said, let’s see how well April worked out. In fairness, I should disclose I did not work the last week of April (or the first week of May) regularly (which is why this post is going up today nearly 1/3 of the way through May) so that had an impact on my productivity clearly!  But let’s see how things stacked up! Blogs – April…

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Sometimes it is worth the fight!

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Sometimes it is worth the fight!

I am not known as someone who will sit back and take things lightly — in fact when I feel that someone is being treated unfairly I’ll jump right in and defend them. Sometimes, that does not always translate well into what I will do to fight for myself, but I decided to wage war against Twitter a few weeks back. Some of you will remember the post I wrote about Twitter Customer Service and how poorly they responded to my repeated emails regarding my account. I lost my password sometime between changing computers. Well, I promised I was going…

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Work at home scam: University

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Work at home scam: University

Yesterday, I received three emails in a fairly short period of time – fortunately, they automatically went to spam so there was no danger of mixing them up with anything that was even close to real, but even if that had not happened, it was fairly evident quickly this was yet another work at home scam. Frankly, because the emails are so comical, I feel like I should share them. Take a look at this crap:       Now, crappy grammar aside, this is clearly someone’s idea of making “original” content by spinning. Another failure but that’s neither here…

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The CMO – Chief Mediocre Officer

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The CMO – Chief Mediocre Officer

Most business owners want it all — A successful, growing business where they make the rules and the decisions. There is however a danger that the business owner may wind up being what I like to call the Chief Mediocre Officer.  In fact, many small business owners find themselves doing everything not simply because they are saving money, but because they want to maintain complete control over their business operations. Are you becoming a CMO? You might think that you are not a CMO and you feel that since this is your business, you have certain responsibilities that must be…

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Pardon our appearance!!

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I have reverted to an old platform selection and will be updating the site within 48 hours. I needed to go back to an old version of my original layout and that will take some time. Thanks for your patience! About Doreen MartelWell-rounded freelance writer who contributes to various blogs, paid to write sites and revenue sharing sites. Doreen is legally blind and has worked at home for more than 10 years. She uses the lessons learned from this experience to enhance her writing and share information with others.Mail | Web | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google+ |…

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oDesk: Another Epic Failure

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oDesk: Another Epic Failure

Several days ago, oDesk decided to roll out another “feature”. Now, I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea (or for that matter WHY they thought it was a good idea) but the overall failure of this feature is evident in reviewing the response from contractors (most, not all).  The feature is called “Similar Contractors” and it is placed in full living color on the right hand side of the users profile. The worst thing about this “feature” is the total lack of foresight oDesk displayed in implementing it. Failure number one: Communication Never, never roll out a…

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Subscriber Milestones: A total head fake!

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Subscriber Milestones: A total head fake!

Yesterday I was tickled to death to see I had reached 300 subscribers on my blog. Daily I am getting about 200 new views (wait until I tell you the most popular search term!) on my blog so this is exciting! Finally, after nearly four years, I’m seeing what appears to be some real movement. But look at that image!  I was actually DELETING the 300th subscriber from this blog! Why you may ask? Can you read that name? No me either.  I have a plugin called Ban Hammer on my site and when I added it I added this…

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Content Mills: Like it or not they are valuable

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Content Mills: Like it or not they are valuable

I recently read a very well written blog post from a freelance writer who made the argument that freelancers should not start off their careers using a content mill. The theory is these sites encourage poor writing, encourage writers to accept lower rates of pay and stunt the growth of most writers. However, in my personal experience, this is simply false in many ways. Experience matters For many freelance writers who are just getting started (myself included), they may have not written anything since their school days. While there is some truth to the fact that many graduates who have…

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Check it out: iPhone app for self-motivation

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Check it out: iPhone app for self-motivation

Some days I wonder if it is fate that sends me to find specific sites that are better left unexplored. Yesterday, I ran into a site on Twitter and later in the day, I ran into exactly the same site using another search.  What’s so ironic about this you might ask? I was actually looking for something LEGIT to write about rather than tripping across yet another questionable opportunity.  Yet, here it is.  I will disclose here I am NOT a fan of MLM shemes of any kind, but this one is more shady in my mind that others (like…

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Six or Seven Figure Income: Save your money!

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Six or Seven Figure Income: Save your money!

I just love running into things that smack of schemes that are designed to separate people from their hard earned money. This morning, I was “cleaning” my Twitter account (which is a disaster looking for a place to happen!) and ran across a site that promised me I could have multiple six-figure months in the next twelve months by investing in their program. Unfortunately, while I was doing my homework (which I’m wont to doing) I found another site that is promoting one section of this “worthy” program promising me a potential of multiple seven-figure months.  Go figure. Before you…

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Plagiarism: Even lawyers might not understand

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Plagiarism: Even lawyers might not understand

Generally I avoid writing about personal anecdotes for the simple reason that people don’t really give a crap what you’ve had for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I don’t care to be frank about it and in a lot of cases, when I read personal stories I sort of find myself glazing over. However, every now and again, something happens that really needs to have a blog post of its own.  Last night I ran into one of those situations and I was stunned at the ignorance of what I was hearing.  Here’s (in my own words) a conversation I overheard…

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