It’s a hot topic in the freelance writing industry – the rapid decline of writing mills. For many established freelance writers, some – and often a large portion – of their income once came from writing mills like Freelancer, Textbroker and iWriter. These platforms give you direct access to writing jobs online. You simply browse through the offers and pick your next assignment.
Table of Contents
The Benefits of Writing Mills for Freelance Writers
For as long as I’ve been in the business, writers have griped about the painfully dismal rates offered by writing mills. The clients pay a healthy rate, but the writing mills take their share, leaving only a fraction for the freelance writers. Some writers swore off writing mills for this sole reason.
For other freelance writers, though, the ability to get easy writing jobs at the drop of a hat has been a blessing. Even if these freelance writing job sites aren’t your bread and butter, you could easily fill in the slow periods with these jobs. Essentially, they’ve enabled writers to stay busy at all times.
If one of your regular writing clients stops using your services, you can simply drop by the job boards on writing mills to smooth out your rough patch. If you need extra money one month or a client didn’t send you the usual workload, writing mills have always been there.
This has changed.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Writing Assistance
The rise of ChatGPT has been stunning, and it resulted in a rapid decline in freelance writing jobs on these writing mills. Essentially, some people have opted for cheaper online content by choosing AI over human-generated content. With fewer freelance writing jobs to go around, writing mills dried up for a while.
In fact, job boards that once steadily had dozens or even hundreds of jobs to choose from were completely empty!
You should be aware, though, that some of the writing mills have made a modest rebound. None of the writing mills that I use have completely come back to life, but they continue to offer work when you need it. Generally, though, you cannot rely on writing mills as your exclusive source of income. (Not that you ever should have in the first place.)
The reality is that artificial intelligence writing assistance is still not up to par with human-generated content. You can easily spot AI-generated content online. It lacks emotion and personality. It reads like a cold, dead fish.
More than that, the content is not always accurate. Artificial intelligence is not without its flaws, and some people have found that human-generated content continues to be worth paying for.
Keep in mind that many clients who pay for freelance writing services use the content for their websites. In many cases, freelance writer jobs are part of an SEO campaign. Google does not penalize websites with AI content.
However, Google DOES penalize websites that have low-quality content. It also penalizes websites with a high bounce rate. When website visitors aren’t engaged (by content that reads like a cold, dead fish), a website will undoubtedly have a high bounce rate and sink in search engine rankings.
Are freelance writing services still need? Absolutely.
Are Writing Mills Dead?
While freelance writers continue to be in demand, the reality is that writing mills have slowed down dramatically compared to only a few years ago. The good news is that some of the many writers that were barely scraping by on writing mills in their heyday have long left the platforms. This means that competition isn’t quite as fierce as it was a few years ago.
It is crucial that you understand how to take full advantage of writing mills. These websites offer more than low-paying writing jobs on their boards. They put you in touch with clients who often need ongoing writing services. More than that, they let you set your own rate for direct orders. These are orders that aren’t posted on the job boards. Instead, they’re sent right to you.
I’ve been using writing mills throughout my career. Why? Is my income suffering because of it?
I very rarely take jobs from the public job boards. Instead, I’ve established long-time clients through writing mills. I’ve set a more attractive rate with these clients than what the writing mills pay.
Now, you can’t ethically work for these clients off of the writing mills. Each writing mill has specific rules related to this. What you can do, though, is use the writing mills to ensure that you always get paid for your work.
How to Find Entry Level Writing Jobs Online
If you are looking for entry level writing jobs, relying exclusively on writing mills’ public job boards won’t yield a living wage. What you can do, though, is use the writing mills to establish long-term clients. I’ve been working for some of my writing mill clients for well over a decade now.
There are other opportunities to find entry level writing jobs and to establish a solid client base. Where else can you look for writing jobs?
Popular job sites, such as Indeed and others
Networking on Facebook and other social media sites
Through your own blog or professional website
Create a Freelance Writing Resume and Portfolio
Your professional writer’s resume will play a major role in your ability to land direct work. Whether you have no experience or are an experienced pro, you need a winning resume that highlights your strengths to a T. Keep in mind that many companies use software to weed out resumes without human eyes ever seeing them. Your resume needs to be properly formatted for these software programs. It also needs to be chock full of selling points and designed aesthetically.
Wondering how to create a writer’s portfolio? Check out this example.
Design a Professional Blog
A professional blog is your virtual presence. It can showcase your skills more thoroughly than a PDF of writing samples can. The website can be shared. Your posts can go viral. You can market yourself more extensively through your blog.
If you’re new to blogging, doing something like designing and managing a website may sound over your head. Rest assured, though, it is not. Places like BlueHost and WP Engine offer everything from domain services to design and hosting. These are both WordPress sites, so they have a plug-and-play type of design platform. You need to know no or very little code.
You can use one of their complimentary or for-purchase WordPress themes. Otherwise, you can access more themes through ThemeIsle.
Once you’ve designed your blog website, you simply have to keep up with writing blog posts and marketing them through social media. Use OptIn Monster to capture email addresses. By doing so, you can send newsletters and increase traffic to your website. With enough regular visitors, you can monetize your blog.