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What part of self-employed did you miss?

There are some days when I could just thrash someone – actually, that’s probably most days. One of the things that constantly baffles me is what part of self employment people miss. I always understood that being self-employed meant you were undertaking some form of risk. However, too many freelancers want to have their cake (e.g., be self-employed) and eat it too (e.g., not taking risks). This blows my mind! Now I have certainly discussed this before in the post “Freelance marketplace trap” and I have railed against “protections” for freelancers in “Why I think Freelancers Union is bad”...

Just when you think you have seen everything, something happens to really make you wake up and pay attention. Now before I get accused of not knowing my facts let me be clear about a couple of things: (A) I don’t work for low rates on freelancing sites and (B) I’ve never been “invited” to take part in one of these assignments. However, that does not change the facts that they are out there. I always have pointed out to freelancers that they are working mostly at odds with clients. After all, a freelancers primary goal is to make...

Generally I enjoy Squidoo but I’ve noticed some disturbing things that have caused me to pull back my submissions to the site. In fact, I have removed all of my lenses from the site. Earlier this year I had pursued putting a lot of my work up there as a way of highlighting topics that I felt were well done, provided solid information, etc. However, I quickly discovered I was really wasting time with no hope of recovering much at all from the time I invested. In January, I had only three lenses left in my “reserve” area because...

As most of you know if I am going to use a freelance site, I do prefer oDesk. While it does take some time to get your first assignment, over time, oDesk in my opinion is the best. This does not stop me from looking at other sites to see what they are offering. And for the record, Elance has an excellent reputation; I do not use them because I do not like their “buy credits” system as I believe that if I am going to land a freelance assignment I shouldn’t be paying for service until AFTER I...

We need to be honest with ourselves when we are self-employed and make sure that we are making the most of the hours that we invest in our business. There are some tasks that simply do not provide a good return on our investment of time and in some cases, they will never provide a good return for the time that we invest. In order to make the amount of money that you need to make, you need to make sure that you are managing your time well and investing the hours that you have well. First set income...

I tripped over a fascinating website today doing my usual perusal of online work options. I actually found a site that encourages companies to hire people to work from home but with a couple of fascinating twists included. First of all, they are not interested in freelancers, they are actually searching for people who are interested in being employees. The site is very clear – they do not contract out any short term assignments, they are ONLY there to provide long-term full-time opportunities. But then it gets squishy from there. Here’s why: First, I started going through the sign...

Freelancing: Financial goals and payment dates

One of the challenges of freelancing is budgeting your money and understanding when you are going to be paid for doing work. It is important to make a chart of sorts so that you can keep an accurate record of when you are going to be paid for work. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the sites we have reviewed in the past and how they pay writers. oDesk – oDesk has a unique payment cycle among sites that you can obtain freelance work, though chances are that other freelance sites work similarly....

Back in August of 2011, I wrote a highly critical post about oDesk when they changed their “terminology” to refer to those who were posting jobs on the site seeking freelancers. Originally, the accepted term was “buyers” and supposedly after “much research” they changed the terminology to “employers”. My post was not specifically aimed at oDesk but in general tried to spell out the “proper freelancing terminology” that I suspect most freelancers adhere to. Shortly after this “change” I stopped using oDesk because I felt that this was casting freelancers in the wrong light, after all, we are not...

Well, this will be my last Examiner blog post since I won’t be writing at Examiner anymore (remember yesterday’s post?) So I got this email yesterday from Examiner that said: “We wanted to send you a quick reminder that you haven’t published an article yet in March and you can earn double for any articles published this month! You still have time to publish multiple articles and increase your earnings potential. If you haven’t already heard, we’ve just announced the new Examiner Experience. Get ready for some awesome new tools and insights to help you succeed! Why wait? Publish...

Make Pennies and Disclose EVERYTHING – NOT

I complain about website users who fail to read the terms of service of websites where they elect to write. I have been a member (and in some cases still a member) of sites where the changing terms of service are very challenging. However, when a website posts their Terms of Service and their Privacy Policy and it remains the same for two years and they VIOLATE them then Houston, we have a problem. One of the websites that I contribute to is Examiner. I don’t contribute much as my “beat” is Boston Philanthropy. I have not been a...

Bloggers, freelancers and anyone else who owns a small business often have to wrestle with doing the right thing. In fact, it is often difficult to determine where “helping” others and offering guidance and assistance begins interfering with our paying work. Many small business owners are very particular about how they spend their time and how much of their time the “give for free”. However, not all of us are. Many small business owners are happy to provide information freely to anyone it will help. In particular, freelance writers often “band” together and share information with others. Some of...

I recently did some tweaking of my blog(s) to try to encourage people to submit comments. I am still not 100 percent sure that I have them set correctly but I can tell you one thing – spam is alive and well on the Internet. Thank heavens that WordPress has the feature of allowing you to “flag” certain urls and web emails and they go directly to spam. It is pretty good, I’ve had 782 page loads in seven days and almost 300 pieces of spam – that’s only on this blog. I wanted to share some of...

So, the first I heard of this was through my blogging buddy Marc on his hub “In response to Lisa Sommerlin’s Hub” which I encourage you to take a look at. I therefore of course HAD to go and visit for myself and this is what I found “Album Cover….” which was in response to someone else’s blog post! Well I had to try and this is what I came up with: Album: Aberdale Canal – “Generally avoid temptation unless I can’t” and the image is a real hoot: Interestingly enough I did a search for the image and it...

I had some time to review some of my posts both here and on my other blog No Scam Work at Home. In the process, I decided to take a look at some of the statistics of these blogs and I have to admit to being not only stunned but seriously disappointed! The first post on this blog was made in November of 2008 and it it now March of 2012. Over that time I have exactly 23 subscribers! Holy smokes! I have 20 subscribers on the other blog. Where did I go wrong? I try to write relevant...

Websites that accept donations for major charities Learn about legitimate options for making donations online. Understanding how causes spend money Every time you donate a dollar to a special cause somewhere in the back of your mind you wonder where that money is going. Here are some hints for finding out where your money is going. What role does a board of directors play in a nonprofit? Many nonprofit organizations board of directors do not understand their roles. The board of directors are crucial to the success of any community organization or non-profit entity. How to write meeting minutes...

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Blog Archives

What part of self-employed did you miss?

Cheap business owners

Writing Site Review Update: Squidoo

Freelance site to steer clear of

Smart Money: Time Management Tricks

Freelancers not welcome!

Freelancing: Financial goals and payment dates

Sensible changes by oDesk

Writing Site Updates: Examiner

Make Pennies and Disclose EVERYTHING – NOT

Spam is alive and well on the Internet

Album Cover Per Lisa Summerlin

Preaching to the choir

Financing community organizations

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