Bidding by game word rate?

Answer to a LinkedIn independent writer's question.
--------------------------------------------------------
Because like you said, in game narratives, you spend a great deal of time, brain, and emotional energy choosing the right single word or trimming phrases to keep the word count down; but still retain a coherent story with emotional and psychological depth, for more than one layer of comprehension for your readers.

You are charging for that, as well, your expertise in storywriting, not just word count.

I stress this in my bids and proposals, and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, just like with any bidding process.

But I've also been given praise for improving a game script by changing only a few words.

And there are too many stories of all kinds I've read with glaring holes and gaffs because materials aren't edited in NYC or anywhere else like they used to be "in the good ole days."

Your expertise includes not just twenty words here and forty there but intelligence and polish that will close those holes and eliminate gaffs like a baby's eyes and hair changing color or an adult heroine's height changing within about five pages. [Yes, these are real published, glaring mistakes editors and publishers have published.]

As a professional storywriter, you're holding continuity in your brain and making certain it's on the page. I can't tell you how many times I've check a thing in a story here or there, to be certain logic, continuity, reason, and emotion, and just common sense are lined up properly.

Check at Guru.com and Elance.com through past bids of the type you're doing, see who won and do the math, to see if you're in the ball park. Don't underbid unless you have to; an unhappy writer, who's doing a lot a work for a little pay, makes unhappy copy; and no repeat client.

Oh, and if you feel you're charging a little higher, say so and say what they get for that: expertise, continuity, and x amount of rewrites or tweaks. I usually keep the rewrites within the job but say I'll do a tweak, after completion, if needed. Since, those stray words and misspellings do trip us up.

This is just great customer service without getting into the groveling, I'll do anything for cheap cents. Because, if they're that cheap or poor, the client should write it themselves, that's how I learned to write, or hire their kid or their kid's friends.

Helpful?

Elance.com and Guru.com Question

hey,

maybe i'm too stressed or tired or whatever, but how the heck does that site [ELANCE.COM] work? i signed up for "courtesy" listings, but when i try to bid on something, it's telling me i'm not a member of that part and i need to sign up. is there anyway to do anything on there without paying? please explain to the dummy.

thanks

PS there are a lot of things on there that i think i could do. where's a good phone sex operator job when you need one????
=========
Yeah, you can receive notifications and look around but to actually place a proposal bid you have to pay into at least a month's membership of that division. So if you want to be as a voice person in the voice section, you'll have to pay that section's fee, and another's if you're bidding in another section like writing, too.

Elance is kinda tricky but it's been not to bad to me, and it's where I started, but it does have its own sense of rules. I've just seriously started at Guru and I don't really remember but I think you get like ten free bids with them so you might make some money before taking a membership, but also you have fewer opportunities than a member.

I went ahead a few months back and just got a quarterly membership at Guru and Elance, expensive but LOTS more opportunities, and it's an older site with more opps and fewer rules in some things. Like erotic writing is almost always pulled at Elance but not at Guru.

But even a month's membership can be paid for, do at it or your site fees of doing business into your proposal, don't be too afraid to bid high or higher than the bid range, if you feel it's truly not high enough for all the work you'll be doing, and explain that nicely but directly in the proposal. People are cheap sometimes or just don't know or need to be reminded that good service of quality needs more cash. Be personable, profession, and make certain you read what they ask for and address those concerns in the proposal or ask for more specific info in each project's message boards--some public, some private.