Supply and Demand

[crystalnici]

Does anyone have any advice for me here on the wonderful Forums.

I have two gigs in particular that have become extremely popular. Not that I am complaining you understand but it takes me at least an hour if not more to do these gigs. One is rewriting content and if I actually get the content it is easy for me to do, often the people ask me to just take their entire site and condense it into 1000 words which is a lot more work. The second gig, is to write an article on any subject again 1000 words. That takes a lot more time because I have to do all the research.



Now I have worked four 12 hour days on here with another one today, so my question is, how do the rest of you cope with the demand? I had to suspend my gigs the day before yesterday because I just couldn’t fit any more in. I have extended my deadline to 3 days and am contemplating making it 4. Even so, with the exception with a few of my customers who always give excellent material to rewrite for, I feel like an exhausted mess! I am getting hardly any sleep to get the gigs in on time and even so have had to stop the clock on a few gigs.



Any advice about how to manage this, I always over deliver and keep up excellent communications with clients which also eats into my time… aargh it is 08.30 am here, I have been awake since 5am, went to sleep at 1am and am struggling to keep my eyes open. I have still more gigs to do in the next couple of hours!



Would be ever so grateful for any advice!

Nici 😃

[prohelper27]

I think you should either extend your deadlines to about 5 days, OR, offer a little less work (such as 500 words instead of 1000) and offer Gig extras.



And, make it clear to your buyers what you can and cannot do at the base price of $5 if buyers keep asking for something that is too much work… and add it as a Gig extra. 🙂

[crystalnici]

That is okay them I am doing the same as you! My problems are that a) I am too nice, so I keep taking on additional order for my regulars that are outside the scope of my gigs! But they keep coming back so I must be doing something right. I have one regular who is a dream to work for, I had to set up a separate gig for him, he orders 8 gigs a week but only makes me work 7 so tipping me a gig and he gives me a whole week to do them in and provides awesome info! I seem to be getting a lot of regulars which is what I would prefer to be honest. So have extended the gigs to 4 days and when I get more than I can comfortable do in a week I will just suspend them. The second problem is that I am in the UK and $4 works out at less than £2.50. I need to reduce the amount on here that I do, to allow me time to write my own books to bring other passive income in to supplement this. Still I reached seller level 1 this week. I started properly in December, had a couple of gigs, but from the 4th of January I have had 27, so I should be seller level 2 soon! I was so excited when my first level came up!



Anyway thanks for your help, nice to meet both of you



Nici 😃

[crystalnici]

I don’t know what a tip gig is! One of my clients as I said pays for 8 per week but only give 7 lots of work so tips me the other one. What is a tip gig and how do I set one up Ang? Thanks so much for the advice, its nice to start becoming part of the community. Once I get sorted I will be on here more and more!

Nici 😃

[crystalnici]

Ooooh that is a good idea, I will set one of them up now! You never know lol. Also I am being tougher now, I have realised that for £2.48 an hour there is little on here that I can’t live without doing. I have a repeat customer who wants me to write an article about being employed by his company and the benefits you get. He has given me some titles but no information whatsoever about the actual benefits and the link leads to a blank page. He also puts Note: I will also need pictures put into the article for each of the subjects so 6/7 images. There is nothing on my gig that says I will do that and it will probably take me another half an hour to find and put those pictures in, so I have told him politely that I am not prepared to do it. How do you cope with the constant threat of negative feedback though. I am feeling all the time that I need to do more and more for these customers or I will get negative feedback and there doesn’t seem to be any way to protect sellers from getting this feedback without reason. My daughter’s first gig on here was a total, scam, ordered 5 gigs, she did 5000 words or writing and delivered to the first gig, turned out he hadn’t paid for the other gig and then left negative feedback. She has contacted cs daily and they keep saying the same thing, try to contact the customer and keep us posted. Poor lass is only 15 and while it is a learning curve for her, there should be something to protect sellers as well as buyers.

Is this a common phenomenon do you think?

😃

[crystalnici]

I sure hope they do for my poor daughter. She has been totally ripped off bless her. It surprised me to be honest the response. I have so far had only one experience with cs and it was wonderful. I have read lots of other people say how awesome they are as well so was a little surprised to hear her continually be fobbed off. I may need to look at the whole situation myself and see if there is something I can do on her behalf regarding contacting them through her account. I think the thing that most surprises me though is the fact that there isn’t a system up to protect sellers. At the end of the day a person doesn’t get paid for a long time after the gig is completed, so if a seller had done a bad job there is ample time to seek resolution. If a seller does a good job, but the buyer is one of the bad ones, they are stitched up though with no way of getting out of it. I am surprised if people keep using this platform to work under those circumstances. This is just idle speculation you understand as I love it here and have had no problems with customer or support, but it does make you wonder. Ebay has a similar system with buyers being far more protected than sellers. I find if someone rips me off there in a purchase I am resigned about it (I have a huge ebay shop) but there it is just stuff. Here it is my precious writing work and I think that would hurt more lol 🙂

[thetravelwriter]

Just a tip from a fellow writer/editor - in the field, a billable hour is around 250 words. For three quid… well…

[crystalnici]

I know, but I could never get people to buy the gig for that sadly. I don’t mind doing 1000 words an hour if it stays at that! 🙂

[aingham69]

If you want to make more per hour, I would suggest lowering the amount that you offer for $5. I’m a fellow writer in the UK and would never dream of offering 1000 words for $5 - it isn’t worth the money with the time that it takes to write that much. Rewriting 1000 words probably isn’t as much but I still don’t offer that much. I’ve never had a problem with buyers ordering my gigs with the amounts that I set.



I wouldn’t have taken the gig where is asked for pictures too. I don’t offer pictures at all within my gigs (I’ve ran out of gig extras to offer that but I prefer to say away from pictures due to the issue of copyright).



When I do get overwhelmed, my first instinct is to lengthen the delivery times. If I still have problems then I’ll suspend my gigs but I do that as little as possible.