Been out of professional writing for a few months, recovering and restoring myself. It takes a lot to step up again after losing a reliable income asset one has taken two decades to develop to start all over again. And absorbing a monthly loss of $1,500-$2,000 income a month is no easy task either.
Fortunately, I benefitted from a cost of living bump in my day job, and I was able to reduce some recurring home expenses, especially no longer having to pay a hefty tuition bill for my oldest child now that she's off to college. So, picking up where I left off, I'm now re-establishing my marketing position while adding skillsets on the side while I want for client work.
Interestingly, I've found myself back in one of my original freelancing platforms, Upwork (originally E-lance). A lot has changed since I was in it last. Most notably, there's a lot more monetization going on, and its not to the advantage of the client or the service. The middle platform has made it costly to do anything from listing jobs to bidding on them to having any presence. And, of course, there is the constant push to boost, add labels and increase one's "appearance" on the platform, pitting freelancers against each other with cash to win jobs from each others' competition.
The Upwork platform is also heavily connected with partners, pushing their products for behind-the-scenes for use by providers. The strategy is interesting; unlike the early E-lance where providers had to figure out how to make things work and the platform only offered client connections, now it provides every tool needed to do every task possible. That said, each tool has a cost. A provider now has to be careful not to get caught up in the bells and whistles, losing all their income before it can be put in the bank.
The original E-lance was no ferry ride. You had to bid against each other in a reverse auction style, which drove price down to the advantage of the client. That said, it was the client that funded the system. They paid the fees, even if charged to the freelancers, because the cost came out of the job gross payment before it got to the freelancer. However, now, one has to pay just to be able to bid in the first place, with no confirmation of winning anything. Ultimately, I ended up leaving E-lance as it became flooded with international providers, driving the value down to 10 cents on the dollar. While the jobs might have still be fruitful for folks working from Namibia or Thailand, it was less than half minimum wage per hour for my perspective in some cases. So I moved on. That was some 20 years ago.
Now, I'm back. I just finished my first job after winning a bid a week ago, with what seems a recurring opportunity with the same so far. I can no longer see what my competition bids, so it's even more of a crapshoot, but the early success has been promising. That said, I'm not the same writer I was when I started. I never put all my eggs in one basket now, and I'm actively developing skills outside of writing for diverse income channels. I still have the same drive, just a lot older in my approach and analysis of opportunity. Hopefully that pays off better this time around back in the grind.
