Elance Takes It All In Stride

 

The Elance membership plan saga goes on, one week into the new changes that had writers outraged. After tripling fees, pay-per-bids and extra charges for gold stars, I don’t blame them. Many freelance writers face fees of $1,500 a year. They also pay an 8.75% commission fee on all projects they win.

That’s a lot of peanuts, folks.

Rumors of strikes rumble over at Elance’s Water Cooler. There are threats of the same strike potential mentioned at the Yahoo Groups for Elance Providers.

I’m not worried.

Initial fury fired high when Elance released their membership plan announcement. The backlash was vicious and it seemed the whole Writing and Translation category blew up in Elance’s face. I thought, “That’s it. That’s the end.”

Well, Elance handed out a few cookies and gave a few pats on the head, and the writers’ grumbled back down into muttering complacency. Some even thanked Elance for making life wonderful again.

The flaming situation looks like it’s simmered back down into embers. There is potential for an explosion, sure, but there is also the potential for everything to end up in ashes that are cold and that blow away in the wind like dust. All talk and no action, it seems.

Interesting.

It’s business as usual at Elance. Writers are vying for jobs. Proposals are going up. The projects posted don’t look any different than before (Blog posting at $2 for 500 words, anyone?) The guidelines of the projects aren’t any more precise. (“I need good writers for my project. I’ll reveal the details to the winner.”) The nationalities of bidders don’t seem to be any different than previous to the fee hikes, either. Canadian, U.S., Australian, Indian… everyone’s still there.

A few names are missing, sure. (A few comments are missing from Elance’s Water Cooler forum, too.) There are less bids per project, as writers hoard their valuable “connects”. After all, no connects means no bidding unless the writer buys more.

But this is what Elance wants: Less bids per project. Jon Diller has said as much, that less bids is better for buyers and better for providers.

I agree. Having been on the buying side, sifting through 5 or 10 bid proposals is a lot better than sifting through 35.

(One side note: When I did business through Elance, two thirds of bid proposals had spelling or grammar mistakes, didn’t address my project or had terrible, terrible portfolio samples. Writers, hear me. Get a grip or get out of the business.)

From the provider’s point of view, competing against 5 or at most 10 others is far better than competing against 35.

The strike is just rumors, it’s business as usual, and high fees or not, Elance isn’t crumbling. Did Elance get what it wanted? Less bids, less providers, more money… Sounds like a winning deal to me.

Well done, Jon!

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