katakatica

It's not as frequent for me as it used to be but it definitely happens. I have a horror gig that sometimes attracts some very messed up content. Just a while back I also remember being asked to show my 'pet cat' (if you know what I mean.) I think VO likely attracts more because they get to hear your voice which is definiely a... turn on for some people I believe. I remember when I started out on here years ago I was asked to film videos with my feet and blowing up baloons (or something along those lines.) They were VERY insistent so I ended up just ignoring them. Had a few others but I think at some point I just mark them as spam too early (if they start with 'gimme orderses' or ' hyieie' so... I hope that it won't be so bad for you for too long though! (Ps.: Of course it bugs you. it bugs me online, outside, etc. it's not... supposed to be this way but it's just how it is and I wish it wasn't but...)

You have three reviews. Top rated sellers like @breals have completed a few (hundred) more orders. Being online could in theory work if only 10 people were doing it. Given that it's such a popular 'trick' it's basically useless. If someone wants your skill they can wait a few hours for your reply. Yes, even if you are a new seller. I get most of my orders during the day but I am NOT online chronically, most of my clients just happen to be from Europe right now. I do get messages from overseas at night but reply in the morning. The proof I have is that I had some of my highest clicks and impressions when I was really sick and did NOT have the energy to be online so...

Who said so? New sellers can absolutely be in the front (though search results change based on the person who's searching and other factors as far as I know.) I've seen several new accounts on the first page before and (albeit years ago)got my first order the first week or so when I signed up. It's definitely harder to sell yourself as a new seller now but not impossible by any means!

If there are 10 thousand people in your niche, and everyone is online all the time (because they were told to do so) what benefit do you think being online can pose to ALL 10 thousand people? They won't magically all be on first page in search (yes, search is fluid, but even then) or anything like that.

That is where being productive comes into the picture. You need to be able to learn/understand why you aren't getting sales. You might be a pro at what you do (or who knows, maybe you are just one of the tens of thousands who started on here because it is 'easy money', Fiverr won't know for sure until you have orders, BUT what is expected of you is simply being able to sell yourself, no matter which of the two you are. I had a quick look at your profile and you do marketing. I personally would expect you to know your target audience and where to advertise yourself to be able to get orders (since, you know your niche.) I am planning to run a blog/maybe a TikTok on the gripes (and joys) of being a narrative designer / writer to show the process. I also constantly hunt for new things I could do. Might only get a few gigs through those orders, but 1-2 extra over a regular monthly income (well, okay, regular-ish) that I already have is pretty dang welcome. Great post and I wish more people understood the difference!

'Mean' is probably a strong word. 4.7 isn't great, but it's OK in the long run - though of course it also depends on how many orders you get from this person. People don't know how reviews work on here (and telling them is NOT necessarily a good idea as it could be seen as 'manipulating them', so it's up to you if you want to work with them again or not. However, I would make sure to forget about the 'bad' feelings you might have for the client now. The truth is, you never really know if you made a small mistake (which happens to all of us) or seemed just a bit 'off' at some point, OR the person just doesn't rate people 5 stars because 'there is always room for improvement'. Knowing how to take (even seemingly unwarranted) criticism is VERY important when you sell your services on here (and just in general.) Take it all with a pinch of salt.

It took me two years (and 3 years of experimenting while I had another job) to get that much. I understand the need for flexibility (I love being able to write and then do what I want during my down periods) but at first, Fiverr won't really be a 'job'. It will be... a hobby that will take up more time and space than you want it to. Unless you have outstanding skills and actual experience (that you can prove with examples, etc.) you won't even be earning $500 in the first few weeks. From what I've heard/remember, there's only a small percentage of people who make more than that. Here is my question to you - please be honest. If you saw your gig in passing and needed a logo, would you trust yourself? Would you look at your gig image and think 'yeah, this person CAN make my logo the way I want it?' Why? When selling arts, keywords in your description will get you very little (sure, they will get you impressions, but people will likely ignore your gig.) (before anything - my pictures aren't any better, but I don't sell design...) The one scenario I can see someone purchasing from you right now is for a 'I got this for 10 bucks' video, which honestly isn't what you want, right? I mean, if you want to eventually earn a living... You need to have clients who are serious (and pay more than just that for a logo design.)

That's the hardest part! Maybe you can settle in the 'cheapest' country for a while and go for something like a co-living situation? I know that it's getting more popular (worked out for me for a bit) and it helped with socializing. However, don't expect it to be...amazing all the time!

So I'm not fully a nomad at the time (I have a permanent base - abroad) but technically I'm more an expat (depends a lot on the interpretation.) Anyway, so for me, packing up and leaving everything behind wasn't hard, I've done it many times. Last year WAS the first time when writing was my only job so it was a bit hard. Stockholm doesn't really seem like a very popular destination for digital nomads (where I was before, near Malmö mostly had people who worked remote) but there's plenty of apps like meet-ups and facebook/etc. groups that plan meetings (even between locals and travellers, or just foreigners, etc. There are quite a few co-working spaces as well (I'm hoping to get into one next year, it's absolutely luxurious!) which would probably also help socialize. The challanges for me personally come from the country itself - right now, the weather is.... beautiful, yes, but it gets dark really early (think 3PM or so it's almost dark) so going out to meet new people is a bit harder. However, there do seem to be lots of oppurtunities, if you do have the guts to brave the cold/wind! At the moment, I'm not sure I'll go back to being a nomad (for personal reasons) but I am planning a few longer trips (maybe South Korea next year?) where I'd be changed countries for a month or so, but a lot of it depend on what the future brings for me.

This is where personality/personal tone shines through. They might be SIMILAR (tags might even be the same), but there will be things that will be very different. It might be how formal one person is (and how informal the other is), or the structure of their descriptions/etc. The difference here is that when you look at the two gigs, they still won't be identical - Y's gigs might have different pricing, packages that are titled different, etc. Their description might have a different pacing of writing. Still the same tags and message, but different personalities. If someone (like many have done to me) just copies someone else's gig word to word (or puts a 'spin' to it) it will still feel like it was written by the original person! But yes, I do see your point!

Sorry - you forgot to quote the person you were writing to. Who did you mean?

Promotions have been crazy since October or so I think for me - maybe something changed to be honest! It's gotten to the point where at some point all of the orders in my queue were both Fiverr's Choice and Promoted gigs (which is also odd but I can't complain!) I'm glad to hear that it's going well for you as well! I've already earned a tad more than my monthly average so it looks like I might be able to double that by the end of this month (which is insane for me, to be honest!) but I'm trying not to push it too much since things will get crazy with the Holidays soon!

I wonder if my October would have been way better had I not gotten so sick ha! A huge difference for me now is that I've completed less orders but earned more (due to raising my prices and just scoring bigger deals!) which is pretty nice to be honest. I'm quite curious about how December will be! I'm working hard in Nov (since it's an awesome month) so that if Dec is 'eh' I'll just be able to enjoy the holidays without worrying much!

Out of all of these points - what is something that a non-new seller can't offer? I'm honestly curious because some of your points suggest that only new freelancers try their hardest / respond on time / etc. because all others are busy.

I will be honest - I don't think Fiverr will lose revenue. BR mostly had scammers and a few good gems who will likely just find what they want via briefs or the search feature. What - might - happen is sellers leaving, but there'll always be plenty of other options for people. My November is far better than I'd even dreamt of - it might also be that buyers who relied on BR are coming back to the actual search button. That being said, hope isn't lost for those who have talent. Buyers have a knack at finding them after a while.

So it's not really like me to ask about business but I'm honestly curious - we all know that with BR done, a lot of people seem to be struggling (which is honestly sad.) but I wonder how general business (so not BR-Brief generated, though that's interested as well) has been for everyone? I had a sort of 'meh' October, but I was away for over a week and then got rather sick for another, so I'm not surprised (I had enough orders to earn what I usually would, but not the energy to write as I normally would, and luckily had lax deadlines.) November, however, has been... insane. The first few days my inbox was blowing up! I've earned more than in October already (which, fine, isn't a huge thing) but I might actually hit a new personal 'high'! It's also been a lot of potentially big projects - some take time of course, others fall through, but it's been good! So... the question is, how has it been for you? Did you notice any change with the holidays being here? Or has it been normal so far? Also, holiday season and all - are you taking time off for the holidays? Going anywhere fun? I'm personally hoping to work until about... the 17th I guess? I'll still leave my profile 'on' because I can't go for weeks without writing at all, but yeah, that's roughly the goal. Will likely come back right after New Years properly!

It sucks, but it's common. Especially as a relatively new seller you look like an easy prey (everyone does.) Even as a TRS, I get a bunch of scammers. Fiverr DOES block them, but sometimes I'm guessing it's impossible to guess their intent before the first messages are sent through (and they come up with new ways to pass the filter like sending images with their contact info, etc.) It's... not fun, but it gets better as you get more orders! That being said, I hope that the filter will be upgraded to be a bit better (and to filter out other things as well that are spammy, but not sure if that will happen/or if it's even possible.

I know. I know. It's only November. Normally, it takes me much longer to even think about watching holiday movies but something went wrong with my brain this year I guess? Now I'm hyper-fixated on crappy Christmas movies and I love it! I have yet to start listening to the music though (we have a Ghibli concert to go to first so that's more what I'm listening to these days) but yeah. Cheesy romcons it is! Do you have any favourite Christmas movies? Or maybe any tips on something that's more fall than winter mood even to bring the cosy fall back a bit? This week I'm planning to work from town a little which I feel like will only get me more into the holiday spirit (decorations are up here already AND stores are selling everything from Santas to gingerbread house ice-cream.) So yeah - has the Christmas mood found you yet?

I'd love it if you elaborated a bit! My gripe is mostly with people who spam/scam their way through their online life (so those who lie about their achievements, etc.) I know that it's not easy to really 'get going' online anymore (people trust less, have money, bigger competitions) but I just feel like the way out isn't, you know, scamming in the end. Being a pro isn't enough because there's so many others who claim to be pros (and some who actually are). Thank you for reading my post on people who don't do their reseach/claim to be something they aren't/give bad advice! Your input is much appreciated. This is EXACTLY the advice I'm trying to preach against. Changing your gig MIGHT help, but doing it too often will hurt you in the long run (and being active does nothing but drive you crazy..)

I've seen a lot as well - and my inbox is often bombarded by fake writers, too (though many of them don't have gigs yet, I'm sure they figure it out eventually.) I think what tricks people into buying these scams (in all categories) IS the prices. Why pay, I don't know, $250 for an animation when someone else offers it for $5? Now, obviously, the second one WILL likely be free stocks (or stolen from someone else) but there will always be people who look for 'value'. Fiverr has always had this reputation of having 'cheap and just OK' products for the most part. I THINK they are working on, well, changing things (that's perhaps the easiest way to describe it) but it will be a slow process. That being said, what I notice lately is that scammy profiles are being promoted less and less (what pops up in one person's search results isn't necessarily a good indication since the results are fluid). They are getting less orders which must mean that Fiverr is starting to 'ignore' them. It would be great if they would be just deleted, but I'm guessing that's not so easy(?) unless every single person is reported manually! The one 'pro' to these sellers (please take this with a pinch of salt as I'm mostly kidding) is that buyers who want to pay pennies for huge projects get filtered out...somewhat, that is.

I happen to be doing pretty well, yes. While I realise that I sounded a bit gruffer than normal (I was sick all week and just getting my spirit back slightly) my statement still stands. And.. you know what? It's not necessarily fair, because people can lie and then give you a bad review. Or just skim through your messages and say 'yeah, yeah, great, amazing' and still get to rate you 'honestly', but there isn't much CS can do unless they are threathening you (the two cases are different.) I've worked a lot with busy people like that. Sure, you could argue that it all depends on the niche (and OP's gigs MIGHT attract some people like that) but the issue is still in proving it. I've dealt with people like this quite a lot before - they said they liked everything and then asked to cancel when I delivered. That was still the 'better bad' (in my opinion), but I still lost a lot of money. Because I agreed to cancel too soon, CS couldn't do anything. Had I pushed for them to accept it... I would have gotten a similar review. Would it be fair? It's hard to say. Could have been a bad writing day and I actually messed up. Could have just been clients who wanted something different (in one case, it was revealed that they thought they were getting a much longer story?). Mind me, I was VERY clear about how long the story would be in my gig but... miscommunications happen. CS couldn't do much in that case, which I grumbled about, yes, but understood (and didn't bash CS or the site for it.) Basically, the issue here for CS is being able to understand the reasoning behind each and every bad review/cancellation. They can't. If you look at sites like say, airbnb, yelp, booking.com and so on - you'll see LOADS of bad reviews as well. Some honest, some weird. However, they remain there because it's hard to prove that they were just messing around. Now, COULD CS look into every single report (from sellers about bad reviews in this case)? Sure. They could also contact the buyers to understand them a bit more - but I don't think they have the capacity for that (and...it would ruin the user experience quite a bit.) It's far from a perfect system and I have suffered from it myself, too, but there's little that can be done but try and accept it - and try to see where WE can improve AND notice the warning signs of something not being right (e.g.: if a buyer curses you out, report, contact CS and cancel the order without losing out on your order rate. Imperfect solution, but works.) (just PS.: That's a totally different case unfortunately, but I can see why CS would be able to help you out with that since it goes against the TOS. Leaving a 2 star review (for whatever reason, even if not really caring much about it during the order itself) doesn't.

I selected something to reply to to make sure you get a notification - and started replying with that. However, that doesn't mean that I picked certain things to reply to. I see that my messae perhaps upset you - and I apologise. But as someone who HAS been through similar situations, I just know that there's no reason getting worked up about it. It IS annoying when a buyer isn't very communicative - I just had a cancellation with someone who approved ideas only to take their word back days later. I was mad for a bit - but that's it. Fiverr feels unfair sometimes, but other times it's our fault. Who says i couldn't have realised that the buyer wasnt happy earlier? I will leave you a tip that helps me a lot as a relatively popular seller who's had a lot of negative experiences. People who seem enthusiastic first and become brief / leave one worded answers through the process are likely to be displeased and don't know how to express it. People who don't communicate to start with might be just in a rush but it's hard to day. CS can't remove or change reviews because from what I assume, they don't have the right to do so. People being unclear / trolls is an issue and that IS what you likely encountered, but unless they leave offensive comments (or really lie) reviews have to stay. PS.; Who says I will stay on Fiverr forever? While yes, being a TRS on here is awesome, I have many other projects in progress. However, you kinda need money to fund an indie studio...

Is the platform really disgusting just because they allow people to rate you honestly? Here's the thing - some people ARE trolls. Some people have expectations that only their own work can meet and that feels so bad sometimes. But in the end, there's absolutely no way for Fiverr to tell whether he was in a bad mood or actually wasn't satisfied with something. I do prefer constructive criticism if I get a bad review (which is rare) but many don't really have the time for that. Getting that first bad review hurts but it's still thanks to the platform that you're able to do it - and you still got paid. It's totally fine for you to vent by the way (healthier than keeping it inside) but I do think it's unfair to blame the platform. Maybe there WAS something that the buyer didn't like? Maybe they just didn't want to be talked to - honestly you never know. It's tough but you'll get used to not always being able to understand people.

I'm wondering if it's just the shift from 'ranking' to a more fluid marketplace that they are starting to notice (which WAS a while ago). The changes are major, at least in my opinion, but probably for the best, however I can see people who were told that this is easy money raging when they can't even make gigs at this point. I also had another influx of spammy messages - which might be that someone started telling people to do so again because it's the 'only way' now?

I have a question for you! (genuinely!) When you say 'trying your best' - for you, what does that mean? What do you do to be able to work online/etc.? For me - it means research. Trying to understand WHY something works, why something else doesn't. New gig wasn't a hit - why? I try to see myself from a buyer's perspective AND try to identify my flaws. (on top of that, of course, I deliver on time, etc, etc.) So for you, what does trying your best mean?