How Do Y'all Survive!?

[lucycodex]

Ignoring the couple of writers who have been offering their work free of charge on this site for some reason, how does anyone make a living selling 400 words for 1$, or 1000 words for 5$?

I know in places like India the cost of living in many areas is very low, but I can’t even imagine writing thousands and thousands of words daily for 10-20$. That sounds like a sweatshop to me.

How do the people who do this pay rent? Feed their kids?

[lucycodex]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

No rent, no kids…

…😑

[zeus777]

I guess as long as Fiverr is just a second/additional income, I guess it’s doable?
I think a good number of people have another job which is their main source of income.

I am a TRS and I do get a nice number of orders but not like a dozen everyday, it’s more like several each week. Plus my average selling price is lower than $20 so I guess I won’t be able to survive on that.

Having that said though, Fiverr DOES provide for me up to a certain point, so I can’t imagine myself leaving Fiverr, not for a while…OK, I’m going off topic now 😛

[fonthaunt]

I think there is a core group that makes and living (and then some) just from Fiverr, but the ones I know still cultivate other streams of income because owning your own business is always a risk. They also tend to be workaholics who really pour themselves into their self-owned businesses.

I think that most people earn anywhere from a little pocket money to some spending money for luxury savings to a near-full-time income but not quite. They would have to have either another “regular” job or multiple freelancing income streams. Even the ones who do pay their rent and feed their kids from Fiverr often have a spouse/partner who also brings in money. The few who do try to subsist only on Fiverr earnings are mostly living week to week and will eventually run into trouble. That’s just my opinion based on people I’ve talked with over the years.

[uxreview]

You’re writing also short stories. You should think about writing a book and sell it for example on Amazon. You need to build a revenue stream outside of Fiverr that doesn’t require daily work (passive income).

[kha1ed]

I don’t think they completely depends on fiverr!

[lucycodex]

I understand what all of you are saying, but I am not talking about just Fiverr. I see it on several other sites too, whose names I can’t mention because it’d be against Forum rules. Yeah, they might have a second job, etc, but you’re still doing tons and tons of work for essentially nothing per word…

I just can’t imagine how such a thing would be sustainable, ESPECIALLY with a second job. That’s a lot of work!

[lucycodex]

You’re writing also short stories. You should think about writing a book and sell it for example on Amazon. You need to build a revenue stream outside of Fiverr that doesn’t require daily work (passive income).

I already do. Not under my name, but under a pseudonym. I get a small amount each month from that

[uxreview]

I understand what all of you are saying, but I am not talking about just Fiverr. I see it on several other sites too, whose names I can’t mention because it’d be against Forum rules. Yeah, they might have a second job, etc, but you’re still doing tons and tons of work for essentially nothing per word…

I just can’t imagine how such a thing would be sustainable, ESPECIALLY with a second job. That’s a lot of work!

I just can’t imagine how such a thing would be sustainable, ESPECIALLY with a second job. That’s a lot of work!

Sellers offering 500 words for $5 shouldn’t be your competitors in the first place. They come and go, very few last.

That’s not the market share you need. You should compare your gig with PROs and TRS. Try to figure out what is their advantage and what can you offer. I think Paul recently wrote an article that you can earn a decent income from Fiverr and his gigs are not the cheapest around here. Of course he gets more visibility and some other additional benefits, but you should figure out how you can get a share of his market 😉 You want clients who are able to pay 100+ per article.

I’m not a writer so I know very little about your market, but I couldn’t care less about sellers offering websites for $5. Every single month I get buyers coming to me and complaining about the quality they received. They learned their lesson and are willing to pay for my premium gig.

[writer99025]

I just can’t imagine how such a thing would be sustainable, ESPECIALLY with a second job. That’s a lot of work!

Sellers offering 500 words for $5 shouldn’t be your competitors in the first place. They come and go, very few last.

That’s not the market share you need. You should compare your gig with PROs and TRS. Try to figure out what is their advantage and what can you offer. I think Paul recently wrote an article that you can earn a decent income from Fiverr and his gigs are not the cheapest around here. Of course he gets more visibility and some other additional benefits, but you should figure out how you can get a share of his market 😉 You want clients who are able to pay 100+ per article.

I’m not a writer so I know very little about your market, but I couldn’t care less about sellers offering websites for $5. Every single month I get buyers coming to me and complaining about the quality they received. They learned their lesson and are willing to pay for my premium gig.

I’m not a writer so I know very little about your market

That’s fine, don’t let that hold you back from sharing your thoughts.

[rankinfinite]

Not only survive but some even thrive. Some people are blessed with superhuman powers to complete big tasks within no time.

[mae_creativity]

How do I survive in this situation?
I just realized that I’m over my overdraft, so my plan for this month:

1. Eat only beans and free air.
2. Ask my cat to pay the rent this month.

😕

[cyaxrex]

I wonder this every day myself. I don’t think this is a Freelancer question though, I think this is a buyer question. I once tried to get on board with the Amazon KDP bandwagon and in fairness, some of my early books need to be taken out to a firing range they’re so bad.

The thing is, you have some people who make a fortune on KDP by outsourcing writing to people who will work for these prices. What is more, every book they publish is complete and utter garbage. They’re so bad that even a fire would feel offended if you tried to burn them.

What I’ve come to realize, though, is that some people can project a brand identity and authoritativeness which their clients/buyers simply feel too embarrassed to question. In this case, they can pass off even the most insensible dribble as something like a literary masterpiece.

I see the same everywhere. A high flying SEO agency passes off the worst copy in the world as something worth hundreds. A supposedly top social media marketing company gets away with publishing unreadable tripe which simply doesn’t make sense.

Writing is an odd world which I will never fully understand. In fact, a lot of people who work for $1 per 500 words outsource content themselves. As for how end writers make enough to live, the only logical conclusion is that they are kept in cages somewhere and told that if they don’t get x amount of writing done in x amount of time, they’ll be fed to Danielle Steel.

[writer99025]

I will just end my contribution to this thread by saying there are no hard and fast rules to this. Set a price which will make you more money at the end of the month, not what you think you are worth or your writing is worth. That’s it.

[bhavleensingh]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

You are my inspiration, Sir. 😃

[renelisabreur]

I have a full time job, I use Fiverr on my spare time actually, it’s an extra income.

[rainny_writer]

To put it simply, Fiverr can be a launch pad or an addendum. It all depends on what you want. As a launch pad, it could provide some form of income which you spend cautiously until you are able to start up an offline business. This business could eventually grow to take you out of Fiverr or they could become great partners.

As an addendum, which it mostly is, it serves as an additional source of income to a main job. However, it could also grow so large it overtakes your main job. This obviously would depend on a wide range of factors of which pricing is one, but not ultimate. At the very least, I know of some who offer their services at a low price point, are ‘lucky’ to have tons of orders, satisfy them as best they can, and get others who are willing to work at much lower price points (there are many who are struggling to survive out there) to handle whatever tasks they can’t. It might even get to a point where they decide to completely outsource everything they get.

So to answer your question. Such low prices have their place in the world, even if they are difficult to manage with. Some may have somewhere to squat while they try to put one and one together. Others might be as lucky as @writer99025 to already have a roof over their head, and so on… A number of other factors will have to play out to determine just how these ones would survive and whether they come out of it more successful than they went in.

Whew! That was lengthy. Pardon me? :frowning_face:

[anon17757046]

I have a full-time job next to Fiverr. You shouldn’t rely on just Fiverr unless you get a decent and stable income from it. (Even then, you would like to have a backup plan though).

[writer99025]

To put it simply, Fiverr can be a launch pad or an addendum. It all depends on what you want. As a launch pad, it could provide some form of income which you spend cautiously until you are able to start up an offline business. This business could eventually grow to take you out of Fiverr or they could become great partners.

As an addendum, which it mostly is, it serves as an additional source of income to a main job. However, it could also grow so large it overtakes your main job. This obviously would depend on a wide range of factors of which pricing is one, but not ultimate. At the very least, I know of some who offer their services at a low price point, are ‘lucky’ to have tons of orders, satisfy them as best they can, and get others who are willing to work at much lower price points (there are many who are struggling to survive out there) to handle whatever tasks they can’t. It might even get to a point where they decide to completely outsource everything they get.

So to answer your question. Such low prices have their place in the world, even if they are difficult to manage with. Some may have somewhere to squat while they try to put one and one together. Others might be as lucky as @writer99025 to already have a roof over their head, and so on… A number of other factors will have to play out to determine just how these ones would survive and whether they come out of it more successful than they went in.

Whew! That was lengthy. Pardon me? :frowning_face:

…20 characters

[emeraldawnn]

I use Fiverr to expand upon my writing skills. I worked as a reporter for some time before my second (and last) son was born. Being a stay-at-home mom, I got restless and found freelancing. Now, I work two jobs - the school and writing. It would seem funny but my Fiverr gigs bring in more income than my school job and I only work 3 to 4 hours a day on the Fiverr stuff on the weekdays (unless I’m slammed like now) and around 8 hours a day on the weekends.

I absolutely love my jobs…

[loudandskittish]

I’m also confused by this. I’ve never written for less than 10 cents per word and that was for small town newspapers that operated on tiny budgets. Considering the time and effort required to produce that “content” (how I loathe that word), it’s not even a sustainable way to earn a living at that rate.

Granted, at least when I was doing that, I was usually writing about things I was somewhat interested in and didn’t have to cramp my style by stuffing in keywords.

I don’t even see it working as “extra” money, considering the time it would take just to make an extra $5, which won’t even buy me a pint of beer at the bar where I live.

Heh, and so far, the only honest answer in this thread has been deleted.

[denniswolfe]

I understand what all of you are saying, but I am not talking about just Fiverr. I see it on several other sites too, whose names I can’t mention because it’d be against Forum rules. Yeah, they might have a second job, etc, but you’re still doing tons and tons of work for essentially nothing per word…

I just can’t imagine how such a thing would be sustainable, ESPECIALLY with a second job. That’s a lot of work!

lucycodex

i am a buyer of fiverr services and I live in Mexico. In my city of 250,000 I am surrounded by extremely well educated people and highly skilled service technicians. The minimum wage is $4.25 U.S. per day. I know doctors who attended med school in Texas who make $50,000 per year. The man who repaired my 3 terrabyte computer hard drive this week (after recovering the data) charged me less than $10. In 1st world countries the hard drive would have been thrown away or replaced for $80. The charge for saving the data ranges from $150 to $400. Oh, one more. The lady who sells me tacos on the corner supports her family of four on $5 per day.

The point is that the rest of the world is not like your little share of it. Your little share is obviously in a first world country where the minimum wage for an hour is more than a Mexican head of household makes in a day…Let me repeat that. You can make more in one hour at a minimum wage job than a most people in the world make in a day. It follows that a man in Bangladesh or Nigeria or many other places can live quite well on the few dollars they make,

It is sad to see that people in first world countries are so naive. Get yourself a passport and travel somewhere

[cyaxrex]

lucycodex

i am a buyer of fiverr services and I live in Mexico. In my city of 250,000 I am surrounded by extremely well educated people and highly skilled service technicians. The minimum wage is $4.25 U.S. per day. I know doctors who attended med school in Texas who make $50,000 per year. The man who repaired my 3 terrabyte computer hard drive this week (after recovering the data) charged me less than $10. In 1st world countries the hard drive would have been thrown away or replaced for $80. The charge for saving the data ranges from $150 to $400. Oh, one more. The lady who sells me tacos on the corner supports her family of four on $5 per day.

The point is that the rest of the world is not like your little share of it. Your little share is obviously in a first world country where the minimum wage for an hour is more than a Mexican head of household makes in a day…Let me repeat that. You can make more in one hour at a minimum wage job than a most people in the world make in a day. It follows that a man in Bangladesh or Nigeria or many other places can live quite well on the few dollars they make,

It is sad to see that people in first world countries are so naive. Get yourself a passport and travel somewhere

It is sad to see that people in first world countries are so naive. Get yourself a passport and travel somewhere

Please don’t do this. @lucycodex is a very committed freelancer who offers extremely good writing at a price point which is already far below that of what it should be in the first world markets which she makes her services available in.

The OP wanted to understand how it is possible for people like her to work for less. No animosity or prejudice towards anyone from anywhere was present in this thread until you came along and told the OP to get a passport. Take yours and maybe think about taking your own advice.

[lucycodex]

It is sad to see that people in first world countries are so naive. Get yourself a passport and travel somewhere

Please don’t do this. @lucycodex is a very committed freelancer who offers extremely good writing at a price point which is already far below that of what it should be in the first world markets which she makes her services available in.

The OP wanted to understand how it is possible for people like her to work for less. No animosity or prejudice towards anyone from anywhere was present in this thread until you came along and told the OP to get a passport. Take yours and maybe think about taking your own advice.

Thank you Cyaxrex 🙂

the rest of the world is not like your little share of it. Your little share is obviously in a first world country where the minimum wage for an hour is more than a Mexican head of household makes in a day…Let me repeat that. You can make more in one hour at a minimum wage job than a most people in the world make in a day

I am actually very aware of this. While in my country I live far below the Federal Poverty Line and qualify for many benefits, I am well aware of my privilege living in a first world country. Even with my small paycheck I make more than 85% of the global population.

The aspects of global poverty is a deep issue that should be addressed. I am in no way trying to belittle or erase the experiences of people who go through these issues and struggle on a daily basis much more than I probably ever will. I am sorry if I came across as such, I did not mean to offend anyone.

[writer99025]

Thank you Cyaxrex 🙂

the rest of the world is not like your little share of it. Your little share is obviously in a first world country where the minimum wage for an hour is more than a Mexican head of household makes in a day…Let me repeat that. You can make more in one hour at a minimum wage job than a most people in the world make in a day

I am actually very aware of this. While in my country I live far below the Federal Poverty Line and qualify for many benefits, I am well aware of my privilege living in a first world country. Even with my small paycheck I make more than 85% of the global population.

The aspects of global poverty is a deep issue that should be addressed. I am in no way trying to belittle or erase the experiences of people who go through these issues and struggle on a daily basis much more than I probably ever will. I am sorry if I came across as such, I did not mean to offend anyone.

Wealth and Poverty are relative, not absolute. This is something people fail to grasp. I completely understand the struggle people like Lucy go through and empathize with that. But all of us struggle in one way or another. That’s what life is about. People who don’t have any struggle in life have never amounted to anything much. Life is a struggle from the moment you are born to the day you breathe your last. Don’t be afraid of the struggle, and don’t look down upon yourself because you are struggling, embrace your problems, and think your way out of them. That’s what life is about - never expect complete satisfaction or happiness. Just keep doing your work, and always be doing something.

[On a personal note, I suffered in my youth - between the age 14 to 21 because my parents were over-protective and did everything they could to make sure that I never had to struggle for anything in life. I was a very spoiled kid, lazy, arrogant, and stupid and that cost me a lot - I had to drop out of college. It was only when I started struggling that I found myself and my purpose in life.]