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leannelrivers

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Everything posted by leannelrivers

  1. I get really stressed out with action games and shooters, so stealth suits me perfectly. And yeah, the new freelancer patch is great and much more challenging.
  2. I'll always love Blood Money, but the combined games in World of Assassination are amazing.
  3. Snap. It's a blessing and a curse. 1. I like to eat raw garlic and cheese on toast, but only when I don't need to see anyone. 2. I'm an expert on IOI's Hitman. 3. I regularly attend silent meditation retreats, particularly after too many visits to the forum. 4. I used to be a pretty good pool player. Men would regularly challenge me and put money down on the table, money that they regularly lost, along with their pride.
  4. I'm curious too. Particularly as Pro is now being awarded to some top sellers without them having to apply for it.
  5. Considering the traffic Fiverr gets, the potential exposure it gives freelancers, and the ease of being booked for jobs, I think 20% is very fair. I do pay for additional benefits on Fiverr, but that's not a must to get work here. There are pros and cons to every site, as @donnovan86 said, but, in my opinion, Fiverr is one of the best to work on, regardless of some frustrating aspects. You always have the choice to take the 20% into account when you price your gigs. I had some success on Upwork 3-ish years ago, but decent voice-over work is now hard to come by. Freelancers in other fields may have very different experiences. A 10% commission on every job is attractive, but this has hammered the top sellers previously benefiting from a 5% commission on jobs from regular clients. The jobs I did have also came with an additional VAT charge on top of the commission fee, which I don't remember being very transparent (or I didn't check the terms thoroughly). On Upwork, you receive ten free connects a month - the bidding currency, and that is good for two or maybe three job applications because the higher the client budget, the more connects you have to spend to apply. After those ten are gone, freelancers need to buy more. You also need to spend a minimum of 7 connects a week to have an 'Available for Work' badge on your profile and to be included in client searches. On top of that, you have to pay for the privilege of your earnings being private. If you don't pay, everyone can see what you've earned and how much you took for each job. Not only do I find this an invasion of privacy, but it also makes it difficult to charge higher rates for new jobs. You can pay a monthly fee to cover all of this and get more connects, if you wish. In conclusion, I'm not out to slam Upwork, it's a very successful platform and I still apply for jobs now and again, but I haven't won a bid since last summer; there is usually a minimum of 50 applications per job, but people do find success there. Just don't assume that the grass is much greener. Every platform comes with additional costs to boost exposure and productivity for freelancers, and to increase profit for the platform.
  6. I just set it for all buyers now. I kind of wish I hadn't cancelled SP because it's $10 more now, but I think this feature alone is going to help us avoid headache clients. Smart move ...
  7. This feature has suddenly become worth the monthly fee. I have it on for new buyers now.
  8. Setting your profile to vacation mode will affect your visibility somewhat, but whenever I've been unavailable, I've had orders again within a day or two (the recent mass slump aside). If you set vacation mode, you need to select whether or not new buyers can message you, as any new messages still need to be responded to within 24 hours. The other option is extending your delivery time. This way, you'll still be visible, and orders can come in, but this isn't a holiday because you'll be dealing with clients. There's also a chance that someone could order and then decide they're not willing to wait for two weeks to get their delivery, resulting in a cancellation. Another option is getting Seller Plus premium for the request-to-order feature. I cancelled my seller plus a month or so back, but I'm away for a week this month, so I've signed back up temporarily solely for the request-to-order feature. $39 is probably worth it to stay visible and get order requests, and I'm not travelling for fun, so still being available to deal with work is no biggie. And no, I am not being paid by Fiverr to plug Seller Plus. 🙂 All that said, it's important to have holidays and completely switch off.
  9. Make sure your profile and gig descriptions are well-written and professional. They should clearly communicate your offer and what clients can expect (as much as possible with the given character limit). You can utilise the FAQs for each gig to provide more information. Try to remove any chance that buyers will misunderstand your service. Once you get your first order, it's not just about what you deliver but the client's overall satisfaction. Clarify everything when they order and provide them with your steps and delivery time. I always give myself enough time to deliver earlier than expected. If the work takes time, keep your client in the loop so they know you haven't forgotten them. It reassures them that they are in good hands. But don't hammer them with messages. If they're happy with your work and communication, they are more likely to leave a good review, and good reviews help lead to more clients. That's how you build trust and credibility over time. Be discerning about who you work with when possible. Don't ignore red flags like being pushed to drop your rates, extremely tight deadlines, insufficient details about the work and unprofessional communication. As for rank and visibility, that will improve over time if you get orders and happy customers. Don't worry too much about those just yet. Making your keywords and tags relevant will help.
  10. I don't want to kick an already raging bee hive here because some people are clearly furious with this change. But to ask your client why they rated 4 instead of 5 stars puts them under pressure to share something they perhaps don't want to share. They may have been fully aware they were leaving a 4-star rating. And that has always been a bit of an issue here: anything below 5 stars is negative. That's not how it is in the real world.
  11. Some people heading to Upwo*k (apparently a naughty word in the forum) might not have it too easy there, either. There may be an attractive 10% commission rate (the top sellers there are ranting and raving about that), but freelancers also have to apply for every job, pay to apply for every job, and pay to have things like their earnings removed from public view (yeah), and you have to pay for a badge that shows you're available to work. In my experience, the work there is thin on the ground and low paid. I'm not discouraging anyone from working elsewhere. We all want as many sources of income as we can get as freelancers. Go where you want, work where you want - I also have an upw profile, and the last job I got was in July 2022. That's pretty lame, considering my portfolio and skills. That site has only cost me money. It's still worth a shot with the free connects every month, but it has flaws, like this platform; and every other platform. I think this move by Fiverr is a positive thing overall, but the sheer number of sellers here means it won't work for everyone, and anyone with a high cancellation rate will need to think about how to avoid that in the first place. And before you all pounce down my throat, I know that many great sellers here attract buyers who have no idea what they're doing, provide minimal direction and good quality material, and then cancel, having wasted the seller's time and money. If they also leave a bad review, that's a kick in the teeth. Let's hope that CS will have your back in those cases. If any sellers are worried about this because they have a high cancellation rate, it's time to look at your offer, skills and communication. Cancellations now and again are inevitable. But regular cancellations can't only be the fault of bad buyers. If you're regularly attracting horror buyers, maybe you can change some things to attract different people to your gigs. Many of us have wanted a more realistic review system and things to change. Now they have. Let's see how it goes. It would be great if the next change comes in the form of buyers leaving public and private reviews at the same time. Then we can feel free to leave honest reviews for buyers without worrying they will slaughter us right back with private feedback. That would be fair, and the buyer insights feature might actually be worth paying for.
  12. And I know for a fact that the sun is a man from New York City - I've heard it talk! 😉
  13. I teach English to German to pensioners once a week, it's delightful. When they use German cases in English (they're at the basic level) it's far more endearing. The call flowers "she", the moon is "he" and little girls are "it". 😂 Little girl - Mädchen. Any time you "chen" onto a word in German, the word becomes neutral. Das Mädchen - es - it.
  14. The first time the German cases and gender assignment clicked for me, I felt my consciousness expand. I hear Finnish is a million times worse.
  15. I'm in the VO category, and bad experiences with my clients are rare, once in a blue moon, so I'm not worried about this (yay for me). I hope that Fiverr implements a more detailed set of review questions to get as much accurate information as possible about the reason for cancellation and whether a bad review is justified (if it is a bad review). My concern for the skilled sellers that could be unfairly affected by this change is that there isn't enough Fiverr manpower to investigate claims that the new review system has been used unscrupulously. Many of the changes to the platform result in sellers having to go through their offer with a fine-tooth comb to avoid anything that could lead to a misunderstanding - as in the case of first-time buyers. It's on us to make their entire process a breeze, including their overall satisfaction with the platform. Is it fair? Not when a lot of it is out of our hands. Do we need to get on with it and roll with the punches? If we want to sell on Fiverr, yeah. I am happy that this will prevent unskilled and scammy sellers from being able to cancel orders to avoid honest reviews about their shortcomings being shared publicly. And (if I understand correctly) buyers with seller accounts won't be able to use this to trash their competition. For every rip-off merchant snake of a buyer visiting this site, there is probably at least one slithering seller to go with them. I hope this does not unfairly affect talented, professional, honest freelancers and that CS supports them with cases that require a closer look. As for the cheats, good luck.
  16. Then maybe it's different on my gigs. My delivery time automatically increases depending on the size of the order. And if the client orders 1000 words but the script is 2000 words, they have to pay more, or I go to CS for a cancellation.
  17. Classic sting and most of us have been through this. Many people ask for a discount; some are very nice about it. But if a buyer's initial communication is demanding and pushy - run. Run for the hills. Because they will take your discount and then bleed you dry with revisions, no matter what they've agreed to.
  18. I'm not sure Fiverr could police this, and it's not their responsibility to manage everything for us. The platform can only do so much. If a buyer inputs an incorrect word count, it's up to us to communicate with them, adjust the order and add the additional fee. If they refuse to pay the right price and get shirty, then we can go to support. They cancelled an order for me ages ago when this happened with no reduction in my delivery rate. I suspect cancellations impact profiles for a short time, even if they don't put the seller level at risk, but that's still preferable to working with a rip-off merchant.
  19. I'd stay well away from anyone telling me to purchase something first. Sometimes buyers will ask me to find and provide background music to add to a voice-over I'm recording for them. I don't think there is any rule against purchasing something to complete an order, but I can only speak for myself and the VO category. If buyers want me to buy a music track, I usually direct them to a few options where they can buy the music and license themselves, which saves a lot of potential hassle. If my client purchases the music track, they have the invoice and usage rights in their name. It's also tricky to price this in because I live in the EU, so I'm dealing with fluctuating exchange rates between dollars and euros.
  20. You'll find a few posts about the spam problem. It appears to have significantly increased recently, particularly for new sellers. This is not the normal norm on Fiverr.
  21. Best Fiverr gigs for beginners with no experience. Classic.
  22. Unfortunately, yes, it does now seem to be the norm for new sellers. Even for certain well-established sellers, spam has become a big problem. It's certainly not a reflection of what it's like to sell here as a freelancer. Most freelancers with enough good reviews barely have to deal with it anymore.
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