Quick fact: there are clients in ODesk who will try to enlist your service by tricking you into writing for them outside the ODesk platform without the intent to pay.
This has happened to me.
I am a ghostwriter with two years experience in writing books for a company in my country. The said company takes in orders from clients from the UK and the US and distribute them to the writers. The company has a group of editors and sets a high standard for quality.
When I started, I thought writing for the rate they offer ($2.5/1000 words) was lucrative. I found out later that you cannot compute for your potential income in a month by assuming that you could write a ridiculously large amount of words in a day. (I initially though I could finish a typical book of 4000 words in a day).
For two years, though, my company never failed me. Whenever I request for payment, they pay.
Venturing on ODesk
A year after I started writing for my company, I have already created an account on ODesk. A friend of mine tried to convince me to write for them because they are writing for a client. I saw ODesk on his Facebook account and visited the site. However, because of the ease of payment in my company and because the payment process in ODesk seems complex and daunting to me, I decided not to dedicate a lot of my attention and effort to it. Nevertheless, I tried to update my account and take some tests on the site even though I have not sent any application yet or planned to send one during that time.
After two years, though, I began to understand the concept of ghostwriting. Thinking that I have been trained enough, I tried venturing out to ODesk.
ODesk is teeming with opportunities. I sent a number of applications to clients and received invitations for interview. Most of them, though offers the same rate with my company so I declined.
One day I received a message from a certain Oscar Bradley welcoming me on his team.
I was skeptical because I was never invited for an interview. I responded, though, and added him (or his VA) on gmail. The reason why I entertained him is because of the prospect of finishing a job for him and receiving my first (positive) feedback. I was upfront about it with him and told him that I would want him to accept my application on ODesk and start a contract. He told me that he has issues with his account and that if I insist with that, he would be forced to find another writer. I was hesitant but because I thought would not lose anything much, I agreed to writing a test article. The test article was reviewed and I was informed that it passed. He also told me that I would get payment for the test articles.
As my first task, he assigned me to 10 180-word articles. I write 500-words or more in an hour so I submitted the articles, proofread and perfect for submission, in less than an hour and a half. He was pleased and assigned me to 120 150-word articles and gave me a 24 hour deadline. That was 18,000 words and in my writing speed, I can finish that in 36 hours without rest. I wrote for it and submitted each article that I wrote every time I finish them. It took me three days.
He then assigned me to reviews of 5,500 words. Reviews are fine. As long as you have access to user reviews and the features of the product, you can write a decent review about it. I finished it in 8 hours.
He then assigned me to a 4,000-word article. The instructions were clear—it was an e-book. Unlike other articles, e-books have higher standards. The contents must be based on facts which can be verified and the book must be proofread thoroughly and checked for grammar and spelling issues before submission. I know this because I was a ghostwriter for e-books for two years. E-book clients for ODesk generally give 7-10 days for a book. He gave me 24 hours. I wrote the book as fast as I could, proofread it and submitted. I received no feedback so I thought I made a good job.
He, then, assigned me to another book. A technical one (about Physics) which is difficult and expected me to finish it again within 24 hours. I wrote the book, finished it and never even tried to proofread it. Still, I received no feedback. This got me wondering.
On the next six days, he assigned me to more books and I accepted it without hesitation.
Payment
Payment
During the initial chat via Google+, payment method were discussed. I asked him about his payment method and schedule. He told me that payment will be twice a month. In other companies, payment schedule is fixed regardless of the amount of work you did or the number of days you worked. I started on the 16th of January and was told that payment is scheduled on the 30th.
On the 30th, he just accepted my submission and assigned me another task. So I asked about the payment. This is when he started acting weird. He typed in capital letters and gave excuses. That was when I understood that I was not going to receive payment for the work I did.
I wrote 70,000 words and received nothing. That was the most tiresome lesson I have learned.
