International Trade

Time-consuming research tasks can be outsourced to personal procurement service providers in developing countries. A newbie freelance writer can use outsourcing for a wide range of personal assistance tasks, from cold calls for survey questions to accounting data entry to contacting prospective clients for the freelancers skills.

Using international outsourcers to edit written material has had mixed results, since professional, publication-ready copy is not always the strongest component in some developing countries education systems. There are cultural differences even within the freelancers own country; also, writing for a bank is different than writing for an engineering firm prospect. So outsourcing some tasks can lead to even more work for the freelancer. There is also the risk of outsourcers stealing ideas and methodologies, then re-selling them for their own profit. Service level agreements can contractually mitigate some of this risk, but enforcement in international arenas can be difficult.

Two international outsourcing firms are AskSunday.com and GetFriday.com. Both are based in India, where salaries are lower. Users can also Google keywords that closely fit the specific outsourcing services they need.

My best advice for newbie freelance writers? Join Suite101.com. I recently did a management study that shows that a freelancers can make upwards of US$70,000 on Suite101.com in 10 years, although it's easy to quit based on the extremely low initial returns. Find a topic that you're passionate about, then develop a system to produce articles efficiently.

By outsourcing mundane tasks at economical pricing, you can focus on producing the most profitable articles that will reach hundreds of thousands of readers around the globe.