How do we stop the soul sucking

[fastcopywriter]

Well, I’m glad you have 9 positive reviews on this gig.
I will write a witty and engaging copy

How long have you been doing Fiverr? How many orders are you getting a week? I mean, if you’re happy making $10, $25, or $50 once a week, what you have works for you.

I need to make at least $50 a day to be happy.

[fonthaunt]

Depending on where you live and how you live, $50 can be a living wage. If you are the kind of person who would rather work shorter hours and live simply, it can especially be done. It gets you out of the horrible rat race. I know a guy who lives alone in a cabin, grows his own vegetables and hunts. I realize that isn’t typical, but he does it. He can live on $7,000 a year which he uses to maintain, buy staples and supplies, ammo, etc.

I don’t see what’s wrong with one person being happy with any particular amount per day. You can’t assume that a person works 8 hours a day (or any other number) to consider themselves successful and self-reliant. I sure don’t think @fastcopywriter was bragging, I think he was just pointing out that there was something quite off about what was said in the post he replied to.

There are quite a few people who do use Fiverr as full-time income, although the most successful ones I know of put away savings for the down times or have secondary sources of income. For me, Fiverr is a part of my income and is some days fun and some days pure work. Your way is not the only way. 😉

[ikaluara]

exactly 20 reviews is plenty enough i think too.but mostly buyers dig for more

[holledolce]

I price by work and time. If I were going to turn around 500 or a 1000 word article in a day or two, then I would charge more than I do now for the articles. It is the same with my story gigs (which I charge by the 1k). I give myself time so that I can keep my queue in order and minimize late deliveries. I’m not going to charge premium rates for a short story if I am not delivering it in premium time.
Also, charging stories by the 1k makes giving quotes to potential customers really easy. 🙂

[wordsfire]

Hey,

Thanks a million for visiting my profile and gig (and not coloring that heart red)! 🙂

I joined in mid-July to outsource some content, became a seller around 25th and posted my first gig. So it’s like two months so far. I’m still at level 1. And it doesn’t seem like anyone at level 1 makes anything close to $100 a month. I wish I was wrong, but am I?

Next, 5000 words a day??? I love my notebook. You know it’s really comfy and light. And I can’t even imagine my life without it. Plus I’d rather play CoD, spend my day writing secret poems, watching Netflix, or laying on the couch…, instead of abusing my keyboard.

#1. It takes me about an hour to spill mere 200 words. Writing 600 words then cutting it down to 200 ain’t easy. (Um…5000?)

#2. I’m active on Fiverr’s competitors as well. And all seem to attract similar numbers, 1-2 sales per week.

#3. I’ve sold just one basic gig so far.

#4. No one wants a 200-word copy, especially when it’s engaging and converting. So they always end up buying more. It’s $90 for 300 words (if you tried changing the word-count on my gig page).

#5. What about this kind of buyers as in the screenshot?

*****All my buyers are literate and go through samples to evaluate my services. Some do even have editors at their end. Of course, that literacy backfires as they always tweak my copy (for better or worse). No matter the number of revisions, tones, perspectives I try, there’s always something missing to be changed at the very last moment. Maybe, I should hone my craft first.

Well.

Someday, I wanna charge something close to this one (maybe, higher):

http://copyhackers-for-hire.com/company/email-copy-that-converts-and-feels-good-to-read/

(Search the page for $997 if you don’t have enough time to read it all.)

Duh. Did I just lose $130 writing this comment? I don’t care as long as people are finding it useful:

http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/the-power-of-the-forum/

P.S. I don’t have time to check it for typos or grammatical mistakes or exaggeration. So please, pardon me if there are any.

Jolly good,

Ash 🙂

[wordsfire]

Eh… I don’t know why I cannot upload the screenshot. Here it goes anyway:

[Album] Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Jolly good,

Ash 🙂

[fastcopywriter]

How expensive is your coffee? The most expensive coffee at Starbucks is probably $10. I see you live in Canada, are you in Vancouver? I understand Vancouver is extremely expensive.

I admit that my yearly wages from Fiverr are in the poverty level, $19,011 in 2015.

However, Fiverr isn’t my only source of income, and I’m fine with being poor for now. Have you ever read Young Money? It’s about Investment Bankers, they make $70,000 a year plus a yearly bonus that can be $20,000 to $50,000. Investment Banking can make people incredibly wealthy if you stick to it, specially if you get hired by a hedge fund on your second year. However, the first year you end up working up to 90 hours a week. By the time you’re in your 6 years, maybe you’re working 50 to 70 hours.

So is it worth it? Only if you love living at work. Me? I never did. Even if you work for Google or Facebook, a company with a gym, dry cleaning, and a ton of other services, you’re still at work, you still have a boss, expectations, drama…

What’s the point of that? Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there are people who are socially outgoing, get along with everyone, get energized from work and people, enjoy the challenges, etc. Me? I’d rather do Fiverr and a few other things.

However, I won’t be writing 5,000 word for $50 because I hate long copy, and 5,000 words is really long copy. That’s an eBook! Those writers that enjoy doing them should charge at least $100 for it unless you really enjoy the work.

As for the time it takes, that’s relative. The guy who’s great at writing books is unlikely to write radio commercials, TV, headlines, etc. All writers are not the same, even among copywriters, we have the ones that specialize on direct mail, pharmaceutical, aviation, agriculture, branding, SEO, etc, etc, etc. As for me, my experience is with automotive, real estate, banking, and retail.

You ask me to do SAAS (software as a service) and it’s like you’re speaking Chinese to me. I am not techie-inclined.

[fastcopywriter]

My first month on Fiverr I made $50. Of course, back then I was doing 10 headlines for $5 instead of 5 for $5.

You can charge and do pretty much whatever you want. The only question is, is it working for you?

I created an Excel document to track how I’m doing day by day. I suggest you do the same, it will help you with taxes. Remember, any cancellation or refund should be marked as a loss, then your accountant can probably deduct that from your taxes. Maybe you’ll get a bigger return!

[matureactress]

Absolutely correct!

[Guest deborah_article]

what becomes of new sellers who are still looking for reviews? you guys are all top rated and we don’t have match where you guys are!!! so we have to give more for less

[mariokluser]

Don’t get blinded by the stars. In comparison to other sellers who are new, you are doing good. Just let it grow and focus on solutions instead of problems.

[fastcopywriter]

So you’re buying all that coffee? Why not buy a coffee machine and brew your own? Well, I can’t judge, I used to smoke, you don’t want to know what I was spending on cigarettes. Now I spend a fortune on nicotine lozenges, c’est la vie.

So you work for an ad agency? Where are you in your career?

Advertising is great for certain people. My former boss, he drove a BMW. My Miami Ad School classmates? Some of them are making a ton of money, so much that for them $50 a day would be a joke. Of course, that’s their experience, not mine. The most I ever made was $57,000, that wasn’t enough. Now I make a lot less, but I’m happier.

Advertising just got boring for me. My first job featured a lot of free lunches with editorial houses, directors, visits to art galleries, the auto show, we had an awesome boss. They even flew me to Los Angeles and I got upgraded into a suite when the weekend came. My salary was crap, but the perks were amazing so I didn’t care. Afterwards, my salary improved but the perks went down while the office politics went up.

At one agency, they didn’t know how to live. They would fly the graphic designer to Las Vegas to meet the client (I was so jealous) and he didn’t even bother to go to Cirque du Soleil. All they did was work, we had a car account but never once drove that damn car. So what’s the point? You’re working 40 to 60 hours a week, you’re not winning awards, you’re not having fun, you’re stressed out, worried about getting older, where’s the glamour, the fun? It just isn’t there.

If I had a wife and kids, maybe I would have to suffer the rat race, but I’m 41, single, so I don’t have to.

[ninety9designs]

haha wow.

[stellar_pro]

Absolutely!

[stellar_pro]

I think price testing is important. But of course, the first few dozen sales and reviews are more valuable than the sale itself. It’s social proof.

[mariokluser]

As soon as I get to busy the prices go up. Period. I never came in the situation that I had to lower them. The results are better clients and the tire kickers are disappearing.

Just for the record: one can raise prices in two ways

• Raise the price for the same amount of work.
• Keep the price but offer less work

When I look at some sellers who don’t dare to raise their prices, I see that it is more a kind of being afraid to earn more money. In some weird way they value themselves way to low. As if they think that they don’t deserve it.

[Guest silkroute]

Soul Sucking is like the friendzone, it does not exist. All one needs to do is move away from a non-converting entity and spend their efforts on other suitors.

[writer99025]

@fastcopywriter My life is very much like yours. So I can understand where you’re coming from.

[mariokluser]

Exactly. I started on Fiverr in 2011 and after a view orders I decided that it was a waste of time. 4 years later I came back and tried it different. Actually because I needed a shotgun microfoon and an external sound recorder. Now, 1,5 year later I live from what I only wanted to do for some pocket money.

[Guest silkroute]

That’s a massive success story narrated in just two lines. I hope I am able to accomplish something like that. I was active on Fiverr in 2012, deleted that account to concentrate on studies, now, my financials have deteriorated and I am back to Fiverr.

Seems like I managed to narrate a lifelong failure story within one line, without even breaking a sweat.

Same but different.

[fastcopywriter]

Is it? I think your life is very different because you work because you want to, not because you have to.

Now if you’re saying that your mindset is like mine, that you’d rather work on your own terms than someone else’s, we do have that in common.

[mainularefin]

please keep writing … it will help us .

Thanks
Mainul.

[authoreva]

I love the frankness of this post! There’s so much truth in what the OP is saying.

[Guest wordlith]

Charging for $5 is not soul-sucking. It is called ‘luring’ prospective buyers. Once you have proven your worth, they will not hesitate to purchase your gigs at higher rates. Gig extras play an important role here, as they offer you the opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell your services. This is where you can make the most of your gigs. Please correct me if I am wrong. Cheers.

[iplusgraphics]

you are correct