What Three Years of Content Mills Taught Me

When I tell other writers that a good chunk of my income still comes through content platforms, I tend to get one of two reactions. Either a sympathetic wince, or a slightly too casual "oh, which ones?" from someone who's clearly doing the same thing and doesn't talk about it at parties.

I've been writing through Textbroker, Writer's Domain, Elance and People Per Hour for about three years now. Content mills have a bad reputation, and some of it is deserved - the pay at the bottom end is genuinely grim - but they've also taught me more about the practical side of writing than any course I could have paid for. Here's what I've picked up.

The single most common reason for a rejected or revised order isn't bad writing. It's writing that ignores the brief. The client wanted 400 words and got 600. They asked for British spelling and got American. They wanted the keyword in the first sentence and it turned up in the third paragraph. None of this is difficult, but when you're working quickly it's the first thing to slip. I now read every brief once before I start, once halfway through and once before I submit.

When I started, a 500-word article on a subject I knew nothing about took me the best part of two hours. Now it's usually under forty minutes, research included, and the quality is better rather than worse. That isn't because I've stopped caring. It's because I've learned to research efficiently, outline before I write and stop polishing sentences that are already fine. The mills are a bit like a gym in that respect: repetitive, occasionally dull, and very good for building muscle.

On Textbroker in particular, your star rating decides which orders you can see and how much they pay. It's tempting to treat rating reviews as arbitrary, and sometimes they are, but most of the feedback I've had has been fair. I keep a document of every piece of editorial feedback I've ever received and reread it every few months. It's humbling, and it works.

The open pool of orders is fine for filling gaps, but the real value is in clients who like your work and start sending orders straight to you. That's where the rates go up and the briefs get more interesting. Every one of my best regular clients on these platforms started as a single, unremarkable order that I happened to do well.

Elance is the obvious example. It's being folded into Upwork, and a lot of freelancers who'd built their whole client list there are now scrambling to rebuild profiles, reviews and reputation on a new system with new fees. I was lucky to have most of my work elsewhere, but it was a useful reminder that the platform is a landlord, not a business partner. Keep your own records of your clients and your best work.

Some jobs pay so little that you're effectively paying for the privilege of doing them. I have a rough minimum hourly rate in my head, and if a job won't clear it even when I work quickly, I let it go. That took me a surprisingly long time to learn. Saying no to bad work is what frees up time for good work.

As a way to start out, yes - with caveats. Content platforms are a brilliant way to build a portfolio, learn to write to order and get used to the rhythm of freelance life without having to find your own clients from day one. As a long-term plan, less so. The aim should be to use the platforms to build skills and contacts, and then gradually move as much work as possible to clients who pay you properly and directly.

I'm somewhere in the middle of that process myself. I'll let you know how it goes.