Update: The offer for free writer profiles has now expired, and the $14.95 fee for future submissions is now in effect. Thanks to everyone who got on board early.

As you probably know, we’ve been running a special offering free writer profiles / resumes in our new job board for a while. That free offer ends tonight.

While the tool we’re currently using didn’t have an ideal way to handle payments for profiles, I’ve set up a basic workaround. When you visit the “add / edit resume” page (in your admin area when you register for free on this site), you’ll see a Paypal “pay now” button near the bottom.

Why Pay for a Writer Profile?

What makes this site different than freelance marketplaces where you might be able to post a resume for free? You see, we target a completely different type of market than most of those sites. When we begin promoting the new job board to clients starting next week, the big difference for them is that they’ll be exposed to a group of serious professional freelance writers — not amateurs or hobbyists or the $5 article crowd where anyone paying a decent rate can be bombarded by applications from unqualified individuals. We help minimize that by reaching out to the kinds of writers they want.

That said, many clients have already decided against advertising publicly due to this kind of application bombardment. They just don’t have the time. So we’ve introduced another side to the job board — the freelance writer profiles. Here we place constraints on writers advertising services that match up with the job posting requirements. Buyers don’t only rely on referrals. They also search for writers on their own. We’re giving them a professional database they can browse featuring writers like you — experienced professionals who can get the job done. What you pay for is a marketing opportunity in the ability to be found here among your peers rather than in more general marketplaces that don’t represent you well.

How to Submit Your Writer Profile

The first step to getting a writer profile in our job board is to register on the site. You can find a registration link in the sidebar of our blog or on our forum. (Note: registration also gives you free access to our writing forums.)

Once you are registered, login. You’ll then have access to your admin area. In the left sidebar there you’ll find a link that says “Your Resume.” Click this link to add or edit your resume / writer profile at any time. Alternatively you can access this page from our blog sidebar. When you are logged in you’ll see a link to your profile near your gravatar / photo. You can also look in the freelance writing jobs section for a link that says “Post a writer profile.” This gives you several ways to access your profile whenever you need to update it.

After you submit your profile, go back to the profile edit page and you’ll find the “pay now” button near the bottom. There you can make your payment. (You can actually choose to pay or add the information first. It doesn’t matter as long as the payment information is processed when I review the pending profile for approval.)

That’s it. You submit your information. You submit your payment. I check the pending approvals regularly, and I’ll approve any profiles as long as the payment is made and the profile abides by our terms (includes a real name, email address, meets the rate requirements, etc.). Easy peasy.

Additional Notes

Unfortunately this feature wasn’t built into our existing job board back-end as I thought it was originally. So I’m using a workaround in a basic Paypal payment button (for Paypal, credit card, and e-check payments — you do NOT have to have a Paypal account to use it).

Because of this, you’ll see the payment button on your edit page even after your payment is made. Just ignore it for now. And if you take advantage of the free offer tonight you can also ignore it. You do NOT have to pay again if you make edits. Just submit them and I’ll approve them as usual.

When the next version of the job board tool comes out of beta, it will allow you to post resumes / profiles from the front-end of the site which should be easier. My hope (which I can’t confirm until I use it) is that we can then use the payment button solely on that front-end submission and any back-end edits from your admin area can have that removed. I’ll update you of any changes when that happens.

Oh, and please, please, please — if your payment name and email address are different than those in your profile, please include a payment note telling me that. If nothing matches, I have no way of telling whose profile a payment is attached to. If that does happen and you forget, I’ll email the person at the payment address to verify. But including that information will help me get your profile approved sooner.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. And remember, basic site registration is completely free, and it also gives you access to our writing forums. So if you haven’t signed up yet, there’s no time like the present!

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