so how are sales these days?

[Lysis]

In my experience, both catalogue sales and private requests have been steadily drying up on Constant Content for more than a year. I posted a few months back about this in the forums, and some of the top writers agreed with me. In my case, the final nail in the coffin was the scrapping of usage rights, which I've had a lot of success with.

It's really promising to hear that others are still getting somewhere here. Nonetheless, I quit writing for this platform back in December, other than the occasional private request that I take on. Unbelievably, I've found Upwork to be more promising at the moment, but I'll probably start cold-pitching potential clients in my niche in the coming weeks.

ugh this is depressing. lol

I am very successful at Upwork but need some other income streams. This place has always been my backup. December 2015-May 2016 I killed it on here and then things just died. But I don't upload like you do, so I don't know if it's just me or the site in general.

I never did much usage, so that didn't affect me. I just launched my own site and plan to target my own customers outside of the freelancing platforms. Just launched on Friday so I have a long way to go to see if it's a success.

CC is really attracting customers that I won't even give the time of day to on Upwork and they only take 10% compared to 35%. The public requests like the 5000 sneaker descriptions is just one prime example. Maybe this is their new business model and they are doing well with it. It's too TextBroker-ish for me. I just always found their public catalog decent for me since I can upload and charge what I want. It's kinda depressing to hear you say that it's in decline. :-\

[HiredGun]

Just did a little number crunching; up 11% over same 3 month period last year.

For me, it comes down to analysis. Analyze what is needed, analyze trends, combine what is needed with current trends for optimized sales.

[Lysis]

I've noticed when I write about things that haven't been done to death things work out pretty well.

[JessicaMayfield]

Upwork can be very fruitful. An excellent profile and long-term relationships with sensible clients is the key. The fact that you're a native English speaker already puts you head-and-shoulders above most of the competition over there!

PMFJI, but how on earth do you make any money on Upwork? I thought some of the requests on here offered unrealistic $$, but Upwork seems to be a race to the lowest possible price.

I've tried People Per Hour as well, but never got a proposal accepted. If you're not one of the first few to post, it seems as if you get nowhere, and the low-ball pricing is discouraging. I just can't sit there refreshing the jobs page and looking for work. They're going to delete my profile if I don't sell something soon (or pay to play, and that's not not gonna happen).

[Lysis]

PMFJI, but how on earth do you make any money on Upwork? I thought some of the requests on here offered unrealistic $$, but Upwork seems to be a race to the lowest possible price.

I've tried People Per Hour as well, but never got a proposal accepted. If you're not one of the first few to post, it seems as if you get nowhere, and the low-ball pricing is discouraging. I just can't sit there refreshing the jobs page and looking for work. They're going to delete my profile if I don't sell something soon (or pay to play, and that's not not gonna happen).

Ignore budgets and bid your rates. I have found that I can conceivably book 20ish hours on average on upwork and that is where I base my rates to make a certain amount each week. I don't want to bust out crap content all day. I have about 4-5 hours in me a day and I'm done writing. That's another reason for my rates. I'm also one of the truly experienced ones and not some "great researcher" or anything like that, so I do have leverage when I bid against the $3/hour shmoes.

The secret to upwork is knowing how to find people that will pay your rates if you're expensive. If you just churn out junk, it's really easy to find people but you have a TON of other people that do the same so the competition is pretty bad. You also need to be realistic and the reality is that you probably won't do 40 hours/week. 20 hours a week for me means bidding every week. I try to bid at least once a day. I've considered raising my rates to lower my output to 15-20 hours a week but I haven't tried it out yet.