I Will not Quit Freelance Writing

The last two weeks have been unkind and turbulent to me. Two of my main writing accounts were closed indefinitely and this threw me off balance.

One of this was writelearnearn.com, an article marketplace owned by Spike Wyatt where I used to sell my articles as well as earn from referrals.

Spike closed the site claiming that since he was not getting much from it, it would only be idealistic to wait till it started giving him a profit. I had invested a lot of time and effort on the site to the point of writing online reviews and an eBook to guide newbies on how to earn by selling their articles.

Barely a week after this saddening announcement, my academic writing account on brilliantwritings.com was closed. The HR team emailed me saying that it had been deactivated citing the reason as fraudulent signing ins. On trying to reason with the HR, my emails went unanswered. I was exasperated and tired.

The two events have really thrown my freelancing career off-balance. After having been used to a steady flow of things, it is only impolite that life has to throw us into turmoil and uncertainty.

Honestly, I was on the brink of giving up and quitting freelance writing and focusing on my full-time job on ICT. My wife though intervened. She reminded me of when I was so wishing to have part-time jobs to supplement my income, the many efforts I had made to achieve that. Was I ready to say goodbye to all that?

“You have a nice blog, many reputable sites where you are guest posting and those newbies on the Facebook group. Are you really ready, darling, to give up on all that?” she asked.

Those words by a person who really knows me got me really thinking and flashbacking on how far that I have come.

Over the past few months, I have been obsessed about how to help newbies make really good money from their direct writing efforts. I manage this Facebook group of newbies who are really keen to get a breakthrough in their writing efforts but have not had someone to hold their hand all along. This has made me think about of 2013 when I started online writing.

Sub-contracted writing
My first paid online writing gigs were under a guy in Nairobi. By then, I was a third-year student and we had just broken for our attachment holiday. Figuring out that BSc Statistics was not my thing, I did not even bother to look for a statistical attachment. I was determined on looking for a writing gig. And I got it.

Every day, I would travel on a matatu to Embakasi and sit writing ‘seo pieces about Calgary dentist’, ‘Calgary optometrist’ and ‘Honolulu ENT’. Honestly, I was not getting much but hey, I was earning from my talent. It felt so good.
After a few months, I stopped going to Embakasi. It just occurred to me that I did not have to spend so much in fare. I could always write from the university using the free Wifi internet since I was still residing there (illegally). Working alone afforded me time to check my Facebook page and it is then that I saw a writing site being recommended.

Iwriter
I worked on iwriter and I remember clearly that my first article was on ‘star fibreglass’. It was approved and $2.44 went into my account. I was more than happy! I fired my Embakasi boss. After that first article, I continued writing on iwriter despite the many challenges such as clients who were scamming, low pay and negligent support staff.
Last year, I decided to break away from iwriter and venture into other freelancing efforts such as direct clients, academic writing and selling articles. These efforts landed me on writelearnearn.com, brilliantwritings.com and my blog where I market my works. The three have been very friendly until early this month when writelearnearn closed and brilliantwritings.com threw me out.

My Verdict

“If I quit now, I will be back to where I started,
and where I started I was desperately wishing to be where I am now.”
– author unknown

Yes, I will not quit. I will soldier on. Things are hard now yes but they were harder a few years ago and since I soldiered on, I will not quit. I will continue working on my blog, pitch direct clients and continue refining my writing. But come what may, I will not quit.