This is a little off topic but, for those looking for work, hopefully serves as a reminder that poor paying timeshare, telesales and teaching opportunities are not your only options when it comes to working in Cancun. There are a gazillion ways to make money online - here's a very simple one that pretty much anyone here could do. Webmasters and online marketers are always looking for quailty unique content. This often comprises writing short 300-500 word articles which they submit to article directories in order to gain high authority backlinks, which then aid in their sites search engine rankings and bring traffic too. Similarly, employers will list jobs to 'spin' articles. Spinning an article means you are given an article which you then reword (spin) to make it entirely unique. There are various software applications available that can make this a very simple task if you dont wish to rely on brain power alone. Pay for an article is around $4-$5 (dollars not pesos!). Anyone with decent typing skills could probably write at least 3 an hour. An eight hour day should produce 20 articles and earn you around $100. Spinning articles would pay less per article, but is easier and quicker. The current market tends to be saturated by Indian / Asian writers many of whom don't have great English skills. Therefore native English speakers with good grammar and literacy skills are highly sought after and command a higher price. From my involvement with various webmaster forums I know that there is a shortage of good, reliable article writers. Everyone here has reasonable typing skills, English skills and an Internet connection - why not give it a go? Sample articles How to Make Creamy Soups Without Adding Calories best fake tan: GoArticles.com Sample job advert 50 Articles for EzineArticles Submission: Elance Job Places to find writing work Elance | Outsource to freelance professionals, experts, and consultants - Get work done on Elance Freelancer.com | Online Jobs | Freelance Employment | Outsourcing Services | Programmers | Web Design | Freelancers ScriptLance.com Custom Freelance Programming. Outsource web projects to programmers and designers. Guru.com – Find Freelancers for Hire. Get Your Project Done.
Sounds quite interesting! I want to start slow & enroll myself in one of these sites, any recommendations on which one to start with that is newbie friendly? @Steve: Are you a member of any of these sites? I am interested in hearing from someone with first hand experience.
I get new job postings from Freelancer about every 2 minutes. A little much, and I am not sure on the whole bidding process. I know that one was free to sign up too.
Afraid I dont have any experience as a writer using these sites, I'm more likely to be looking for writers than offering. I do know that good, reliable writers are not always easy to come by though. If you can establish yourself with a good reputation for quality and deliver on time and to spec then you'll get people looking you up rather than you looking for them. Of the sites listed above I'd probably look at the first two over the other two. Here's links to the respective FAQ's. Customer Support : Frequently Asked Questions http://www.freelancer.com/faq/view.php Best thing to do, if you want to try it, is just jump in and learn the system as you go. It's free, you wont break anything and may end up with a regular source of income that far surpasses the usual 'jobs in Cancun' pay, it's working from home, the hours that you choose and no boss breathing down your neck. English skills are highly sought after, if you've got it use it to your advantage.
I just joined Elance, but cant seem to verify my phone number to completely activate my account.... i even had to take a test to verify that i understood the basic concept of how things worked... @Tori: What verification does Freelancer require? could you activate your account? @Steve: Hire us!! lol
I toyed around with similar outfits a while back.. for the most part its just not something worth while unless you don't mind working for less than $1/hour.. and having a lot of people "reject" your work.. and then use it anyway without paying or giving credit. I'm sure it is possible to make some money on there, especially if you are good with intricate details of programming or advanced web design scripting.. but as for the (re)writing work I think the idea of $100 a day is very wishful thinking... especially if you haven't already established yourself. That establishment period would probably amount to lots of work for less than the cost of the electricity and coffee consumed while doing it... The business idea itself of a site like freelancer.com is killer though, as they can sit back and maintain the website while the users do the real work and bring in the cash. I'll also mention my disagreement with the business of "rewriting" other people's hard work to pass it off as your own, as IMHO it's little more than theft.... like stealing a car and painting it a different color.. sure you've put a little work into it, but it's still not your car.
I have no experience with writing of this type, but aren't freelancers who sell their articles to publications like magazines paid more- something like $100-500 US/article, with $250 being the "norm"? __________________ Is there a publication for Cancun, similar to what I've seen in other Mexican cities, where information of interest to tourists is collected, and published, along with a lot of ads for local services? Can't say I've seen one, in a year of living here. __________________ People with really high language skills can work online as translators, and do reasonably well, I'm told. One of my best friends has an international translation service based in the City of London and he says he pays his translators 10 cents US per word- for legal translations, for example (documents are long, and the language convoluted). Once one has a lot of familiarity with this type of material, and has incorporated all he's learned into the memory of his computer I would think knocking off as many as 10 pages a day wouldn't be out of the question (just guessing).
