Job Boards for High-Paying Freelance Writing Jobs

Dear Jodee,
In my experience, most online posting sites for writing jobs are dominated by high-quantity-low-pay offers. I’d immensely appreciate any hints you have on finding job boards whose mission involves *emphasizing* high-quality opportunities that pay accordingly, rather than mixing them at random among pocket-money article databases and small businesses with small budgets.

Katharine

Dear Katharine,

Looking for higher-paying freelance writing job opportunities is a bit like panning for gold – you are going to have to look closely and discard a number of things before you find the nugget you are looking for. Indeed.com has a neat feature that filters your search results by salary, and that may be an option for you.

You could also consider buying a subscription to TheLadders.com. It specialized in 100K+ opportunities and it does include work from home jobs. The site offers a free trial before you subscribe.

Many of the higher paying opportunities are never advertised. That’s why you should always be open to expanding your network of contacts and avoid burning bridges wherever possible.

Figure out who your target market is and find a way to make contact with people at the companies that fit in with your plan. Go to conventions and trade shows, become a regular on discussion boards that are focused on your niche market and use tools like LinkedIn to expand your circle of professional business contacts.

Keep in mind that the small business owner you are talking to today may not always be a “small” business owner with a small budget; if you develop a good working relationship from the outset, they will come back for more work and over time will be able to pay higher rates.

These strategies will take time to pay off for you; it may help to picture yourself planting the seed of an idea (hire me!) in a potential client’s mind. You can’t rush the process, any more than you can tell a flower to hurry up and grow faster. Just keep talking to people and developing your contact list and you will see results.

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4 responses
  1. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    From my experience, it’s rare you find the higher paying gigs waiting for you online. I did find one on Craigslist once, but that’s about it. The better gigs typically come from marketing and referrals. And obviously the referrals are a result of some form of initial marketing.

    I’ve found the best way to get quality, consistent work is to contact SEO/SEM firms.

    Reply
  2. allena Avatar
    allena

    I disagree somewhat. I found a job in my first year from Elance.com that paid 80/hr proofreading curriculum materials. I got one of my trade magazine writing gigs from this very blog- and that magazine was owned by a company that owns many magazines- so now I write for a couple of them! It’s true that some of my other jobs come from word of mouth though.

    Reply
    1. Chris Avatar
      Chris

      I’ve done very little with elance. Seems like people usually bid to bottom dollar. Maybe I need to give it a better shot.

      Reply
  3. Carol Avatar
    Carol

    My joke is if there really were a mass, free online job board with high-paying jobs, you’d never get one, because thousands of people would be applying. The reality is most good-paying jobs come from personal contact.

    That said, there are some specialty job boards for particular writing niches worth checking out. I got a pretty awesome gig I made more than $12,000 on this year off a listing on Gorkana’s financial job alerts. They do a healthcare alert, too. Professional association job boards often have more happening jobs, too.

    To me, anytime you see a company placing a Craigslist ad, I’m kind of suspicious. They’re clearly dysfunctional — they have no personal network they could ask for a referral? Something about the situation smells from the start. Every once in a while it’s a great company that just wants to find someone fast, but it’s really rare.

    Reply

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