Within the last several weeks, two projects have been driving me crazy: something I needed written very quickly, and a PDF document of an ebook that I need to update. But the Word file that I used to create the PDF was corrupted. It’s possible to edit a PDF but it’s time-consuming and it would have taken me weeks.
I have found it virtually impossible to do either project, because I have a million other projects on my plate. Then I heard about Elance.com and Rentacoder.com, two websites where thousands of vendors are just waiting to bid on projects like the two I was dragging my feet on.
I went to Elance.com and posted the writing project. I specificed that I didn’t want the bidders to see each other’s bids. Then I left the bidding open for 10 days. When the deadline expired, I had seven bids to review, from a low of $400 to a high of $5,000. As it turned out, the lowest bidder had the best qualifications. He even worked as a newspaper editor and knew exactly what I wanted. The project was finished on time.
Here’s what happened with the project that involved turning a PDF document into a Word document. I posted the project at both websites, flagged it as an emergency and left bidding open for only two days. When bidding closed, I had about 10 bids from which to choose. I chose the lowest bid at—get this—$10! The woman who won the bid did a phenomenal job. Not only did she convert the document to Word, but she compared every page in both documents and reformatted the Word document so looked exactly like the PDF.
Is that a steal, or what?
Many vendors probably live in countries like India and Pakistan where a $10 project is akin to a week’s pay in other countries.
Both websites make it easy for you to communicate with the bidders if you have questions about the bids. They have also built in a variety of security measures to make sure the work is done to your liking before the vendors are paid. Those who do the work pay the fee.
I can think of all kinds of ways Publicity Hounds can use both websites:
–To have news releases written and media kits created
–To call in experts when you’re in a bind about a techie issue such as how to update your website
–To find editors and proofreaders
–When you’re having problems formatting documents
–When you have problems with software programs such as Excel, Quickbooks or ACT!
I’m sure you can think of lots more uses.
