If you follow me on Twitter you got a sneak peak yesterday (and you get an early look at most new features here), but for everyone else the freelance writing marketplace from All Freelance Writing launches today!

It’s a very simple setup, fully integrated into the blog. Just visit the “job board” link in the black bar at the top of the site and you’ll be taken to the main page. From there you can view jobs that have been posted, or you can view writer profiles your colleagues have added. Then below you can click a link to either submit freelance writing jobs or submit your writer profile. (Right now the link to view jobs probably shows a no results page since it just launched, but there are a few writer profiles already, so you can check that page out if you’d like.)

As of now, your submissions become actual posts here, in hidden categories that are solely for the freelance marketplace. They therefore display like other posts, and the category pages show just the post title, in the order they were posted. All posts show on the category page, so you’ll never be pushed to a second page.

That said, I might eventually make some style changes to those categories. In the meantime I want to see how things play out and whether or not this solution will work long-term before customizing things even more.

Feel free to test it out. Note though that the minimum rate / pay requirements for our job listings also apply to the marketplace. There are enough places for people to find cheap content and plenty of places for people to whore out services by competing on price. This will not be one of those places. This marketplace is setup to a place where buyers can find higher quality work from more experienced writers and where those writers can find clients interested in what they have to offer.

Keep an eye out for even more news coming. Our next free online tool for freelance writers will be released shortly.

EDIT: A few things have come up already regarding the marketplace:

1. We had a couple of hourly rates posted. Since I can’t compare that to the minimum per-word / per-article rate requirements, we’re implementing a $50 per hour minimum. If you post less than that, it won’t be approved (the terms have been updated to reflect it). As was stated previously, this is still consistent with what we require for our Tuesday job listings.

2. Please do NOT include the “$” symbol when you post your rates! It’s noted already on the submission form, but I just had to remove someone’s hourly rate before posting because they did it anyway. When you do, the form automatically ignores it and anything touching it (meaning the rate disappears). So please, just stick to the numbers. I’ll have one of my coders take a look to see if it can be fixed, but in the meantime please leave it out.

3. I fixed the automatic parsing issue with links, so now when you add your URL to the website field you should automatically get a live link in your profile or job ad.

4. I will try to put together an FAQ page in the next week or so to cover some of these things a bit more clearly (as well as covering the new tools, free themes, etc.).

5. I had to disable one of our plugins here (which automatically linked certain keywords to certain pages) because it was adding links in your ads. I’m waiting to hear from the plugin developer to see if I can disable it only in those categories. If it’s possible, you might see odd links in your posts briefly as I made the adjustments.

6. There are currently related posts at the bottom of each ad. This is a sitewide feature and one I’m not willing to disable across the main blog. If I can find a plugin option or a way to tweak this one so I can remove the ad categories I will. In the meantime though, the related post links are going to stay put.

7. Comments on ads are intentionally disabled. I opted for a simple bulletin / classified-style marketplace to avoid issues of bickering, libelous remarks, etc. Private business disputes are beyond the scope of this marketplace and are for the writer and client to work out. This isn’t meant to serve as a complaint board or warning list. If, however, you see a job listing that says they meet our pay requirements, but when you apply they tell you the pay is actually less, please report it. I’ll contact the advertiser and remove the ad if deemed appropriate.

EDIT 2: A couple of other issues came up.

1. A job poster let me know that submission form wasn’t working. I removed the email address requirement so we don’t turn off job posters who fear spam, but in the process it broke the form. I’ve now fixed that, tested it, and it’s working properly. The writer profile submission form is still working just fine.

2. For the time being, I’m manually added “$” symbols where appropriate to writer profiles. I’m still trying to work out the issue that won’t let you post them yourselves.

3. I set the marketplace up so additions will NOT show up in existing blog feeds for the freelance writing jobs or the main blog feed. You may have seen a few test posts sneak through on the job feed before I fixed that. If you continue to see these profiles or ads, please let me know so I can look into it.