Okay, a little sneaky, but I did a bit of underground research. I secretly worked for a few well-known freelance websites like Need-an-Article (NAA) and Internet Research Associates (IRA) in order to see how they operated. It was actually a very interesting experience.

In all, I liked NAA much better, as their system was extremely easy to deal with, they had a lot of open projects, and the payments were always delivered on time. As for IRA, I didn’t like working there. The article delivery system wasn’t as nice, payments were a tad bit slower, and I didn’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling. Plus, other writers could review your submitted work.

Even so, I must say that working at places like this have some value to beginning IMers. Although you will have to work your fanny off in order to make decent money, that shouldn’t deter you.

Instead, you can use places like this to perfect your writing skills and use the income that you gain and turn them into wealth to support your IM efforts. Here’s how: Let’s say that you work a few hours writing 10 articles and you’re paid about $50.00 for your time. Let’s say you don’t spend this money on a new outfit. Instead, you reinvest this money into your Internet Marketing business and use it as seed money to fund another online venture.

With this method, you could take those meager earnings and turn them into something worthwhile.

To explain further, let’s say you take that $50.00 you made and buy a logo from a talented designer on eBay for $25.00 and obtain a domain name from namecheap.com for $9.00. Then you use blogger.com to create a free blog, create or purchase some articles, place them on your site, add a bit of AdSense, promote a few affiliate products, and boom, you have a website/blog with much possibility. In fact, you could even write additional articles and reinvest the money again to purchase some back links. By doing this investing, you will take a $50.00 investment and turn it into a cash cow.

In conclusion, websites like NAA and IRA aren’t likely to make you rich, but you can help them grow your IM business. The key is to use a bit of creativity and boom…you’ll be raking in the cash/building a sustainable business and your broke money-spending counterparts will be left in the dark saying…freelance writing is too hard and doesn’t pay the bills. 

About a week ago, I received a notice from a prospect that was referred from another client. This lady wanted to retain my services for a small “test project” in which I was asked to write two short articles of 500 words each for her newsletter.From the very beginning, I had a bad feeling that this client was going to be a royal pain in the rump. First of all, she was super cheap and kept complaining about my price of $50 an article. Then, she told me that she had previously hired another writer and had to rewrite all of her stuff because she honestly didn’t feel as if they were able to write to her standards.I listened intently, but had an uneasy feeling. I then told her my payment terms of 100% upfront (sometimes I offer 50% down and 50% upon completion but not when my intuition tells me otherwise). Well, she accepted. I was still hesitant because she was a friend of one of my favorite clients, but I committed myself to doing a great job.

Big mistake. My initial intuition was right. Not only was this client unclear about what she wanted, she complained the whole time. Two short articles turned into four once she didn’t approve of the first two. Then, to make matters even worse, she still wasn’t pleased with the revised articles.

Now, here’s the kicker. This client didn’t even have the audacity to tell me herself. Instead, she waited an entire week and then asked her “assistant” to email me. Her assistant then wrote telling me that she would no longer be utilizing my services but that I could keep ½ the payment. I couldn’t believe it. No note from her, no chance to redeem myself or even resolve the issue. Nothing but a note from her administrative assistant.

Anyway, I did what any rational person would do, I had my assistant write her a letter. I told her that I would be sending her a complete refund as I don’t accept

partial payments when clients are not happy with my work. I then explained that I wished her the best of luck in future endeavors and would keep the work and publish it as my own.

Next, I edited it and submitted the work to Associated Content, spun it and sent it to Ezine Articles, and you know what? I am very happy with myself. After all, I spent my precious time and energy on this lady’s project and the articles were darn good.

In essence, I made lemonade out of lemons and feel good that I didn’t have to sacrifice my principles for money. Thank you, Internet Marketing, for this. A year ago, I would have sold my dignity for $50.00 – now I know the value of my work and will use the work to my benefit.

So, I’ve been a member of Elance for over nine years now, and I typically receive my payments via electronic deposit. I stopped receiving them via check a long time ago because it took too long and I was always scared it would get lost.Anyhow, I recently noticed that I could apply for a debit card and decided to try it out.

Apparently Elance, through their partnership with Payoneer, now offers members the option of receiving their money through a paid debit card.It took about three weeks to get approved for the debit card, and I received it about a week after getting approved. The card was blue and had a fancy Elance logo.

It was pretty cool to see my name with Elance next to it. For a moment I imagined that I owned Elance and was a millionaire, and then I imagined that I was a corporate partner or an employee of Elance with corporate privileges. Heck, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Here’s what I found: Elance’s debit card deposit isn’t instant. In fact, it may be slower than bank deposits. Heck, it seemed to take longer for the money to credit Payoneer after Elance sends it to them. The delay is caused because you have to wait for Elance to send the money to Payoneer, then you have to go to Payoneer and release it to your Payoneer account. It then takes two to three days for the money to post there. This costs $1.50 extra that is debited from your account.

The only way to avoid this extra step is to make the release at Payoneer immediate. You’re then charged $4.50 every time, and the money is available within two hours.So, here’s what I think…the Payoneer Elance card is NOT faster than bank deposit and costs you more money, but I still like it for my IM business.

Here’s why: I use it to budget my IM costs. You see, every month, I set aside 30% of my freelance income to build my IM business. Therefore, I transfer 30% from Elance to Payoneer and then use the Elance Payoneer card to cover my IM costs. This way, I never go over my budget. I then transfer the remaining freelance funds for spending purposes. This method works for me and keeps me from overspending!

As a writer turned Internet Marketer, your talent is writing. Although you may want to give up ghostwriting altogether, you may find that you need to complete a few projects for clients in order to finance your internet marketing endeavors. If that is in fact the case, don’t fret. Here are five rules to ensure that you effectively deal with your ghostwriting clients and that you get paid well for your efforts. 1. Do not negotiate your price (especially for a new client). If your client attempts to negotiate at the beginning of a project for a lower price, you may or may not want to work with them. Often times those prospects who try to negotiate for lower payments at the beginning are the very same clients who don’t pay at the end. Therefore, if a prospect tries to negotiate your price, you may want to see this as a red flag and move on to the next client.2. Get a deposit. Always make sure that you get a deposit from your client or, better yet, get paid up front. This ensures that you are working with a client who not only values and respects your writing craft but is in a financial position to pay you for your services. Typically, I recommend that you receive payment up front for projects under $100, or 50% down and the balance upon completion of the project.3. Don’t give out free personalized writing samples. If a client requests a sample article or chapter, then make sure they pay for it in advance. As an Internet Marketer Writer, you are not in the business of doing free work. You must get paid for your efforts. There is nothing wrong with completing samples, just not free ones.4. Be clear about your payment terms. For instance, if you require payment up front, say so. If you require milestone payments, indicate this as well. In addition, clearly indicate if you’re selling all rights or only PLR rights.5. Secure your copyrights and only transfer those rights when you get paid in full. When you submit drafts make sure that you only send the client a PDF format and not an editable document. Also, make sure that you include your copyright information as a background. In addition, you may want to use the lock feature so that the document can only be viewed and not printed or copied. (This is available on Adobe Acrobat.) Trust me, this feature alone will encourage your clients to pay you quickly, as they will only be able to review the documents and not edit them.

Bidding websites like Elance can make you a lot of money, but only if you know how to work the system to your benefit. Take me, for instance, I win a lot of projects on Elance and have developed a good reputation there. However, I don’t just blow the money I make ghostwriting. Instead, I use ghostwriting to support my growing Internet Marketing business.

I have to be honest with you, though. It wasn’t always this way. When I was just starting out, I was so excited because I received an eBook project to write a book on How to Teach Your Parrot to Talk. I put my heart and soul into this project. I researched and wrote the heck out of that book, and you know what? I was ecstatic. I got paid $500 for 50 pages and spent it all. Woohoo.

What I only realized about a year ago, when I started studying Internet Marketing was that the guru who hired me to write the How to Teach your Parrot to Talk book then went on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars off my ghostwritten eBook.  And, to make it even worse, he boasted all over the Internet about how he could get cheap writers to write eBooks for him and make a killing using Internet Marketing strategies. In fact, he even created thousand-dollar courses to teach other Internet Marketers how to get one over on writers, too. Makes you cringe, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the key to succeeding on bidding sites like Elance is to realize that you are only ghostwriting as a means to an end. The end is financial security.  So, be smart and use the funds you make from bidding sites to build your Internet Marketing business. Use a portion of the funds to create more websites, build a membership site, or do something that will actually make you some money long term.

Don’t spend all your earned money frivolously. Instead, do something to build a sustainable business and don’t “piss all your earnings away.”

Here are some additional tips to ensure success when bidding on websites:

1.    Don’t lowball. You are worth so much more than the lowest bidders on those sites. Although you shouldn’t try and bid the highest bid if you don’t have the experience to demand that much, you shouldn’t bid $5.00 or so per page, either. Instead, bid an amount that you can make a profit with.

2.    Pay attention to your feedback. Feedback can make or break you. Although you should do everything you can to secure great feedback, don’t let clients bully you into free work in exchange for good feedback.

3.    Study your competition and do better than them. When you lose a bid, you should study the wining bidders carefully. Did they write a more convincing bid? Did they have more relevant experience? Did they offer better value for the money? Did they have better feedback?

4.    Build a solid online reputation. If you work hard to build a solid reputation for delivering quality work every time, you’ll always be able to make money ghostwriting to support your IM efforts.