anniejenkinson

Hi pirateman, I am a copy editor here and I have never charged $5 rates. You can bill whatever you like and the clients will come. I’d wager that the higher the rate–commensurate with proven experience, of course–the more high-calibre clients you will attract. And there is no scarcity of these. Just because the site is called Fiverr doesn’t mean that clients don’t come here with thousands of dollars to spend on one project, same as anywhere. So, my advice would be charge what you charge and don’t even take time looking at what everyone else is doing. What they are doing is likely to have little correlation to your services, and the right clients will see through the mist and find their way to you. Annie

This is extremely similar to the PayPal Working Capital program that is offered to certain PayPal clients only (suspect Fiverr will operate similarly to minimise risk for Fiverr) and the benefits are super-fast access to capital for business purposes, and no impact on credit scoring. I used the PayPal Working Capital system twice and found it excellent. As this advance is likely only made available to those with good cash flow on Fiverr, it isn’t likely to lead people into problems but could be a useful stopgap in cash flow for a specific business venture, making the interest worthwhile. That was what I found, anyway, with the PayPal system. I couldn’t fault PayPal’s version and have enjoyed having access to it. Given that an individual is not assessed in the same way as for a loan, this should be seen as a working capital advance and the higher interest is due to no credit scoring assessment or impact. Some banks would take a week to assess me for £5k, and would want signed paperwork; the comparative ease of these schemes appeals to entrepreneurs with a need for fast funds. Repayments were swift and easy, and the faster you pay back (with the PayPal system) the more you’re offered next time. I think if Fiverr are careful in terms of making this available, it will be useful for many.

To you, @mjensen415. I have always been interested in having a Success Manager (had one and he was amazingly good). And so, I believed I had one already but had to chase this up only a few days back as I no longer know if he’s there or not–the comms have fallen off completely (could be an email issue, perhaps). Can you shed light on the following, posted below? 🙂 If indeed I now have no Success Manager, I’d be very interested in this initiative but I do feel somewhat confused and bemused… Whatever happened to the Success Manager I already had and greatly valued? I am very confused by this new initiative and agree with your point here (enunciator). I have (supposedly) a Success Manager already, given to me free by Fiverr some time ago. But only a few days back, I wrote to Customer Support as my Success Manager seems to have disappeared. No more messages, no updates, no personal emails, and no sign of him if I (to use Fiverr’s phrase) ‘reach out’. It could be an email blip somewhere along the way. So I wrote to CS asking did I even still have a Success Manager or was this a temporary thing, but either way, the access to the Success Manager–which used to be extremely good and productive–just fell off a cliff with no note or explanation. That’s what makes me think maybe something went wrong somewhere as we were getting along famously and I found him a massive help. A few days back, I had a reply from CS saying that a Success Manager would write to me directly in response to my inquiry. Since then, not a peep and no one did ‘write to me directly’ or indirectly despite my query being marked as ‘solved’! I feel taken aback to see this new initiative rolling out while some of us are wondering where our Success Managers disappeared to. 🙂 It’s really confusing. Annie

Hi Aisling, If you completed the order and the delivery was as specified in the gig description, send as much evidence of this as you can to Fiverr Customer Support; send it in one comprehensive document and try to be direct and succinct. In cases such as this, they will usually compensate you for your losses, possibly paying you in full. It’s at Fiverr’s discretion. Sounds as though the buyer may have filed a chargeback but even if it was cancelled by CS, they will almost certainly consider compensation because it sounds as if you did everything right and the buyer has been sneaky and underhand. Please keep us updated–this is horrible for you but Fiverr may well find in your favour if you present to them what you have said here. Keeping everything crossed for you. Annie EDIT: Oh, Aisling. 😦 I just saw your edit on your original post. This is awful–the person should have said to move to landscape! I don’t understand that Fiverr found in their favour after these discussions between you and the client. This buyer has really behaved badly and not given you a chance to revise the image even though you offered–doesn’t make sense. So sad.

“Fiverr doesn’t actually do anything”… eh, what? If Fiverr “does nothing”, tell me how I earned $53,000 inside 20 months from Fiverr, without having any other way to meet those buyers. It’s unlikely I’d have met these buyers without Fiverr and all the “nothing” that it apparently does, ha. Have you any idea what it costs to market Fiverr to global customers?

The problem is, if you start giving your contact details to buyers before the order even exists, how does Fiverr know you are not planning to take the work outside the platform? I have been here 2.5 years and never has there been any order for which it is necessary to speak outside the platform. But buyers do request this all the time; if they don’t choose me simply because I won’t chit-chat on WhatsApp or wherever, I am better off without them and would rather decline. So, just because a buyer suggests it, that doesn’t mean it’s necessary. Buyers can ask all they like and the seller’s answer should always be that it is against the Terms of Service. That’s the whole story–it’s not for us to bend the rules within which we agreed to work when we signed up.

Your final message to the client in the screenshot above is impolite and unprofessional. Based on that response alone, I would expect a negative review irrespective of everything else that’s happened during this project. You also should not use casual language such as ‘like more than’. That is not adult business language. You should treat your Fiverr clients with business acumen and not be casual with them. OMG is also teen-speak, not business language. You’ll need to be more respectful in how you address clients if you wish to avoid negative reviews.

To be honest, I’d avoid ‘course’ and ‘assignment’ with a ten-mile pole… these sound somewhat like academic work and I can’t see a need to use them. And as we all know, assisting people with academic work is banned. When drafting a gig, I’d want to be sure there was absolutely no room for misunderstanding–by clients, by Fiverr personnel, and by suspicious, sneaky weasel robots…

Indeed, and many people think they can write a children’s book but they tend to be low-level writers. There are many on Fiverr who want to buy a ghostwritten children’s book for five dollars, and who also want illustrations for five dollars! The quality is low, hence they go for the low-end gigs from illustrators. What I meant was that as people are not coming (at a professional level) for editing of children’s books, they also won’t be coming in vast numbers to buy pro illustrations. The category is small. Your work will appeak to high-end children’s book writers who are not copious here. I have seen many badly written ‘children’s books’ but those authors would not buy a professional illustrator’s services. They want a cheap gig! (Your prices look under-charged, by the way. So pricing will certainly not deter pro illustration buyers. I just know the buyers who will write a high-end kids’ book and support it with professional illustrations are few.)

I am a book editor and your work is beautiful, professional, and well-priced. If we were not in the middle of the Covid-19 thing, I would recommend you try removing the word ‘cute’ from the gig title, just as one thing you can change–since every word in the gig title needs to be a word on which buyers will search. Can ‘professional’ work? ‘I will professionally illustrate children’s books’ ‘I will offer professional children’s book illustrations’ etc. However, I do not recommend making changes during the low-staffing situation at Fiverr, since any new gigs need to be approved by staff–and they may just not get shown at all.** This is therefore extremely difficult. I have to say, a similar thing also happened to me when I first came to Fiverr. Thousands of impressions, no clicks. However, I deleted that account and set up on Fiverr again. This time, exactly the same gigs were ‘sold out’ every day…i.e. I had more work than I could handle. BUT again–I can tell you eight people saved your gig to their favorites–so the gig was being seen at least some of the time. Hmm. So being a detective and editor, I’d say the issue is that few people buy for children’s books… but they may buy this illustration style for a different purpose. Something else to consider is that a very low % of buyers here are writing kids’ books. As an editor who has had more than three thousand work requests on Fiverr, I can tell you only two of those were for kids’ books! And neither of those needed detailed illustrations so it is a niche segment on here. Your gig descriptions are already good, so that isn’t the problem either, i.e., you describe fully what you do… in great depth. So, you could try rethinking how to sell this amazing art without it being solely for kids’ books: ‘I will paint a stunning poster for your child’s wall’ ‘I will draw a magical child’s illustration’ ‘I will professionally illustrate your child’s dream.’ ‘I will illustrate your child in a magical wall poster’ (Can you do that–actually take someone’s photo and turn it into a poster, instead of always imagining the character–draw one based on the client’s images?) Be creative and create as many gigs as you can, focusing on keywords. Your work has massive potential here, so don’t give up. You will be a top seller in time–I know it! EDITED TO ADD: my advice to you, in summary, would be to leave the current gig and do NOT make changes to it, as that will damage its ranking! It appears it is taking off…give it time. :)… And create as many new gigs as you can, with different images, different headers, as stated above. I think this will greatly elevate you and you will be selling very soon. But leave the current gig untouched so you don’t end up needing to be approved all over again by customer support! Best, Annie

Hi there, Do you know for sure you are not being promoted? Have you received a message saying so? As customer support is very short-staffed just now, I wondered if maybe the manual review is still pending. I strongly suspect that if you are indeed not being promoted, communications with clients ‘may’ be the reason why not. From what my manager at Fiverr said to me, they will look at your attitude in messages, your spelling, presentation etc–looking for a very high standard of communications and great consistency. They are also looking for an attitude that is ‘can do’ and a seller who always goes over and above a standard delivery. So, I’d think about things such as: politenessfriendliness and accessibilitypunctuationspellinggrammaroffering the client MORE than they expected (added value)positivityapproachabilitybeing pro-Fiverr (not saying negative things to clients about the platform)immediate rectification of any issues the client has with the workbeing online more than offline…Things like that! There are so many, so this isn’t an exhaustive list. So, if you fulfil all the measured criteria but (as an example) have ever been short-tempered with a client, or have not answered a client, or have messages that are too short or full of spelling errors etc., that counts against you. I am only guessing, since I cannot see your client communications. 🙂

I entirely agree with you, worthforcheap. For people who consistently perform well and whose gigs were top-ranked anyway, this is a strange system that has no benefits. It will just push down the people who used to be at the top based on merit. I really don’t like systems that advertise us based on how much we spend. I was offered this a few months ago and have not used it–I dislike it.