Well, thank goodness my job with EmpowHer.com has begun because my other job with EduBook.com has just come to a screeching halt.
Not sure how the situation came about, I was writing for them for about a month, made about $100 and things seemed fine. Then, with the last round of titles (4 in this last batch) the editor told me that my writing was full of errors. But he didn't have the time to go over them with me. I was supposed to go over all 4, because all 4 were full of errors (his phrase) and not acceptable.
This was after I'd been waiting for him for a week to get back to me on what needed fixing on one of those articles. Meanwhile, I am not making any money and not getting any more writing done, I am waiting on him.
And he has been throwing me offbalance this week (bad for someone prone to vertigo
) by blowing hot then cold in his correspondence with me. One minute I am a promising writer the next I am a pain in the neck with bad writing habits. He told me he is a busy man and doesn't have time for this.
But he's the editor -- shouldn't he be helping me ... edit? That's what my other editor would do, and she does it diplomatically without calling my abilities into question.
And that's what I used to do when I was an editor on my site before I got sick. If I wanted a writer to change something, I went through their article with them and detailed what changes, and why. How else are they going to know what you want from them? So you do that a few times, take the time and then they are usually all set. And without the patronizing undermining talk.
I sat down last night to see if I could re-write these 4 articles, made a couple attempts and realized, I have no idea what he wants. And each time he emailed me about it (3 times) he made me more and more unsure that I could even write. Plus now, the certainty that I write-They pay, was now gone.
And the question arose -- how many hours should I spend on a $5 articles -- and no guarantee I will see any money? I have no problem pounding out a penny a word. I've done it for a few different sites for 2 months. But, I can't see spending 4 hours on an article, doing numerous re-writes, trying to guess what he wants.
Talked with Al about it trying to decide what to do. Also posted on a writers' forum (don't worry, I'm still faithful here!
) with my dilemma. I didn't hear anything back from there till this morning, after I'd already made my decision and sent my farewell email to EduBook. The other freelancer who responded this morning, though, echoed my decision to leave and look for other work. That was reassuring.
So that's what I'ma goin' ta do. I need to shake this off.
