I’ve had a couple of people comment and email me asking things like:

• How Do I Make Sure I Get Good Writers?
• Where Do I Find Writers That Cheap?
• What Do I Put In The Job Description?

So I thought that I would take you through the process that I personally go through to find writers (both good and bad experiences), so that you can start outsourcing your niche sites, blogs and ebooks – giving you more time to focus on the tasks that you enjoy most.

What Is oDesk?

I talk about oDesk a lot on this blog, but I bet a lot of you are wondering what it actually is, and how it can help.

Let me explain who oDesk are (In their own words – from their ‘About’ page):

oDesk is the marketplace for online work teams, with the best business model for both employers and contractors. Our unique approach guarantees to employers that an hour billed is an hour worked, while guaranteeing to contractors that an hour worked is an hour paid.

This win-win approach attracts more work to oDesk than to any other online work marketplace. Each month, thousands of companies of all sizes post jobs on oDesk, representing more than $65,000,000. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of top-notch professionals, including web developers, software programmers, graphic designers, writers, customer service representatives and virtual assistants, offer their services through oDesk.

In other words, it is a massive pool of ready workers, with a wide range of skills and experience, ready to start working for you!

And the main benefit is that thanks to geoarbitrage, you can get work done for a lot less that you would expect to pay a local worker (or yourself).

How oDesk Makes Their Money
In case you were wondering, oDesk take a 10% cut from all payments made to workers. The good thing here is that you set the initial price – so the fee comes out of the workers pay.

So How Do I Find Article Writers To Work For Me?

Well head on over to the oDesk website, and the first thing I always do is pretend that I am looking for work (not an employer). This may sound a little strange, but there is some logic behind it all.

Start by clicking the ‘FIND WORK’ tab, and browse down to the ‘Blog and Article Writer Jobs’, start sifting your way through some of the current job offers on for article writers – so that you can see what people are paying and how their job descriptions read.

This will not only give you a quick overview to the oDesk platform, but it will also give you some great ideas for your own job descriptions and pricing.

Sign Up For A Free Account

Once you have a bit of an idea on how job postings work, the next thing to do is just jump in head first, sign up for a free account and start posting your first job.

The best thing here, is that there is no pressure on you, because if you are not happy with any of the applicants, you just decline them all and close the job listing (at not cost to you), but if it anything like my experiences with oDesk, you will have a hard time culling your list of applicants – but I have some tips for that as well.

Posting Your Job Application For An Article Writer

Before you go and start creating your listing and I give you the actual job application that I personally use, just remember that my listing is just that, my listing. You will most likely have different goals for what you wish to achieve – so feel free to use my listing, but tailor it to suit your needs.

Navigating To Post A Job

Since they are currently updating their website interface, I have decided to use their new version for this tutorial as it will help more people in the long run (if the website looks a little different o the image above, the links should be similar, but if you have any problems shoot me a comment or email.

So as you can see above, to poist a job, you first click on the ‘RECRUIT’ tab in the navigation and the a second navigation below appears where you click ‘POST A JOB’.

Now let’s get into the interesting stuff!

Setting Your Job Requirements

On the’Post A Job’ page there are quite a few different fields for you to fill in, so let’s go through each of them, one by one, so that we don’t miss anything out.

Category => Sub Category

This is where you specify where you want your job listing located in their marketplace.

For article writers, the best selections would be

Category = ‘Writing & Translation’

Sub Category = ‘Blog & Article Writing’

However, if you are looking for a writer for another task, then choose the most appropriate category for your job.

Job Title

This is going to be the first thing that potential workers are going to see of your listing as they browse through the marketplace – so make sure you use something that grabs their attention.

A few examples could be (pinched from current listing):

• Premium Article Writer Needed – $3 Per article (500++ words) - The One I Last Used!
• 10 x 400 word Guitar Articles
• Article Writer Needed(US English)
• Ezine Article Writer ($2/article) Build YOUR portfolio

Description

This is the big one, you need to convey your job is an easy to understand (remember a lot of workers use English as a second language) format, while including a couple of key elements that will help you when it comes time to start going through your applicants; such as:

• A Codeword – That applicants must use to prove they read your applications
• Samples – To prove that they know how to write fluently
• Set Requirements - Let them know upfront what you expect from them

A Sample Of  A Job Listing For Article Writers

Potential for ongoing writing work if successful!

I am looking for a premium writer to write article on niche websites.

I am will to pay up to $3 for each article of 500++ words.

You must have experience in niche article writing and be able to provide a sample of your previous work.

You will be required to write articles based on the keywords that I send you, and each article will need to pass the following requirements:

• Keyword optimized (SEO): Yes
• Article length: 500+
• Duration of project: 4 or 5 days

American English only, perfect grammar and broad vocabulary.

IMPORTANT:
-A sample of your writing within the same budget is required.
-Please post any references you have.
-Please bid only if you’re ready to start immediately in 2 days.

Your bid is on 10 articles (maximum bid of $30), and only bid if you accept and understand the requirements.

When contacting me for this job, please mention the codeword ‘niche articles’ in the first line of the message so I know you have read the job requirements carefully.

Terms:
1. All writing you create for me needs to be your 100% original work and free of any copyrighted or plagiarized materials.

2. I will own all rights to the completed articles. You may not distribute them in any way upon delivery.

3. While I am very easy to please, unlimited revisions will be expected until I am completely satisfied with the completed articles.

4. Completed articles shall be delivered in txt file or Wordpad format.

This job description worked really well for me, as I received almost 30 applicants within 24 hours.

I hope you noticed that I included the ‘code word’ near the bottom of the listing to make sure that they read the listing before applying.

Skills Required

This is the different skills that you require your applicants to have. These help people find you if they search the marketplace for certain keywords, so make sure you add as many as necessary.

A Few ‘Skills’ That I Mention:

• English
• Article Writing
• Writing
• SEO

However, feel free to use what ever skills you deem to suit your listing.

Job Type

There are two different ways that you can hire people on oDesk, either by the hour, or by the task. For article writing I perfer to hire ‘by the task’ or ‘FIXED PRICE’.

This stops any nasty surprises popping up from slow writers, and make sure that you only pay for what you have asked for.

So that you don’t have to keep hiring your applicants after each article is written, a good idea is to break down your listings into batches of articles. 10 is a good round number to test a new writer with and should not set you back very much money.

Budget

The ‘Budget’ is the amount of money you wish to spend to have your task completed. Applicants can bid above or below this number, but it gives them a guide to what you are expecting.

I am not going to tell you how much you should pay for an article, the easiest way for you to work out what a ‘fair’ rate is, is to browse the marketplace and see what other people are asking. However, one thing to remember is that you are the boss of the job – so set the price to what you are willing to pay, and if people are willing to work for that amount then they will apply.

The amount you put as your budget is for the completing the batch, so multiple your per article rate by the amount of articles you wish to have written.

Estimated End Date

You are not going to want to be waiting months for these articles, so make sure you set a due date for when you wish to received your finished articles. For a batch of 10 articles I like to give writers a week (as this allows them time so that they are not rushing).

Job Visibility

I want as many people as possible to apply for my jobs so I always set my listings as ‘PUBLIC’ as well as checking the ‘Get More Candidates’ (unless I am rehiring someone who has worked for me before).

The more people you have applying, the better the chance you have of finding the right writer.

Tips For Culling Your Applicants List

The first time that you create a job on oDesk you are going to love the experience of going through 30-50 applicants, reading their applications and checking their portfolios. In fact, if you are not careful you will end up getting stuck with a lot of applicants and not being able to choose which one to hire.

Once you start hiring people on a regular basis, heart goes out the window, and you start being almost brutal with the culling of applicants.

This may sound cruel, but you are running a business and you need to treat it like one.

Here Are A Few Things That Will Make The Application Review Process A Whole Lot Simpler!

1. Instantly Decline Anyone Who Failed To Include The Code Word
   Don’t be tempted to keep someone based on their portfolio if they did not include your ‘code word’. There will be plenty of competent writers who applied for your job and you don’t want one who cannot follow the most simple of instructions.
2. Instantly Decline Anyone Who Doesn’t Include A Portfolio
   This one is just common sense. As well as the fact that they cannot follow simple instructions, they are not providing you with any proof that they can complete the task. I want to know that their writing is not only readible but also fluid and well researched – and I can’t do that with no portfolio.
3. ‘Save’ The Ones That Fit Your Requirements
   As you work your way through the applicants, you will straight away start to find applicants that you think are perfect for the task. You want to make sure that you read every single application before you even consider interviewing anyone – so the easiest way to keep track of these potential employees is to ‘save’ them (so you don’t accidently decline them later).
4. Make Notes On Each Saved Applicant
   Applicants are going to start blurring together, and you will forget where one ends and the other begins. The easiest way to keep track of the things that you both like and dislike about an applicant is to make some notes when you ‘save’ them. oDesk have a space for you to make private notes about an applicant and I recommend using it.
5. Read Previous Employer Feedback
   I am not going to lie, there are going to be some incompetent workers applying for your listing. But the good thing is that with each job a worker completes, the employer for that job is able to leave feedback on the worker – and you can (and should) check this out before hiring someone.

These 5 tips should help you trim your applicant list down to a final 3-5, by this time the applicants qualities are usually pretty similar and I like to let personal preference and ‘gut-feeling’ help me make the final decision.

Interviewing Your Desired Applicants

To be quite honest, I don’t usually interview a couple of people for one task. I find the one person that I prefer and it isn’t really an interview, but more of a ‘I want to select you, but I am just making sure you understand what I expect’.

However, for the sake of being thorough, I would recommend interview for final 2-3 applicants, and give them a little more information about your task and simply ask them ‘Why should I hire you?‘.

Hiring Your Worker

Once both you and the writer are happy to work together and you have negotiated a final price (oh, don’t forget to take peoples bids into account when culling your applicants) you are ready to hire them.

So click the ‘HIRE NOW’ link on their application and follow the prompts.

CONGRATULATIONS YOU NOW HAVE AN EMPLOYEE WORKING FOR YOU!

Getting Your Writer Started

Now that you have hired your writer, you will be able to find them in your ‘work room’.

Click on them and send them a message with your article topics (keywords) and any requirements you may have – they just wait for your articles to get sent back to you.

I personally ask writers to send me half of the finished articles first (and make a 50% payment) so that if I find any problems with the writing I catch it early – but that is just my personal preference.

So How Did My Writers Work Out?

As I mentioned at the start, I have hired two writers (both on a 10 article contract) and I have had very differing results so far.

While one of my writers was incredibly quick to respond, produced quality articles (only required 2-3minutes editing, just to fix little grammar issues). In fact, she has already completed all her articles, been paid and I have just sent her a message asking to rehire her again for another 10 articles.

And my second writer? I am yet to hear from him. My End Date for the job was today, so I have sent him a message saying if I do not receive anything from him in 24 hours, I will close the job and hire someone else – so we will see. It won’t cost me anything to hire someone else.

But What About Article Quality?

I really didn’t want to share any of my articles, just because the way one person writers is completely different to what you may receive from someone else, but I will share one article that has definitely paid for itself over and above.

• 5 Ways To Find Work In A Tough Jobs Market

I used this article as a guest post  and was totally blown away by the response it received. 26 RT’s and a solid foundation that will provide both a solid backlink and nice flow through traffic.

The Next Move Is Yours!

If you are looking to free up some of your workload, then outsourcing is a great way to do it.

I’d love to hear your experiences with oDesk or any questions you have about the process that I use, so leave a comment below!

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If you are looking to get a custom Facebook landing page, I recommend finding a great designer (that won’t cost you a fortune on oDesk – the freelance marketplace.

Now that post was given a lot of love by my readers so I wanted to show you all how you can drastically improve you Facebook marketing by creating a landing page for your blogs Facebook page (and I have even included the final PSD file- so if you have Photoshop you can easily edit my design to suit your Facebook landing page).

Why You Need A Facebook Landing Page

When you create a Facebook page for your blog first time visitors are greeted by your wall (which is full of your latest comments), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is not ideal.

The best thing for conversion of fans is a Facebook landing page.

A Facebook landing page is simply just a page that gives new visitors a quick overview of who you are and what you do, and then directs them what to do next.

Here Is The Facebook Landing Page We Will Be Making With This Tutorial

(click to view full size)

As you can see it has a lot of information without being messy. I a couple of seconds new visitors can find out:

• Who I am (Picture makes it personal)
• What I Do (And why they should become a fan)
• Logo (Build your brand from the start)
• Call To Actions (‘LIKE’ the page, or sign up for your email list)\

And the best thing is, that if you have Adobe Photoshop, I have included the final PSD at the end of this tutorial so you don’t have to start from scratch (you can just edit the template and upload it to your Facebook page).

Facebook Landing Page Tutorial

Start With A Blank Canvas

I did the measurements and found that the best size for a Facebook landing page image is 770px wide x 450px high. Feel free to mess around with those numbers, but that is what worked for me.

So open a new canvas and start with a white background. (no need for an image for this step!)

Part 1. Creating The ‘LIKE’ Page Call To Action

Select The Rectangle Tool From The Toolbar

Create Thin Rectangle Across The Top Of The Canvas

Add The Facebook ‘Like’ Button

To get the Facebook ‘Like’ button, you can either go to a Facebook page and take a screenshot, then cut it out. Or you can do a Google search to see if you can find one (also, it is included in the PSD at the bottom).

Paste and resize the button to fit inside your rectangle.

Download Hand Drawn Arrows File

The whole point of the like button on the landing page is to encourage visitors to click the real button that is above. A great way to accentuate this point is to include an arrow. I found a great selection of vector arrows created by DragonArtz.net. Download them and open them in Photoshop.

Open the downloaded file in Photoshop and select the one that you like best. Cut it out (it has transparent background) and paste onto you landing page canvas.

Change Colour, Rotate and Flip Arrow Into Place

Now you are probably not going to want the blue colour for the arrow (it definitely conflicts with the dark grey), so go to blending options for the arrows layer and and select colour overlay. Select colour to suit your corporate colours.

Then press Control + T to transform the arrow to be the right size, and face the right way.

Add Text – And Space Around Button

I used the font ‘Aller’ at size 18, but feel free to try out different fonts and wording.

And that finishes off the top bar, let’s get into the rest of the Facebook landing page!

Part 2. Adding Your Branding

This next step is setting up the images that will show people what the page is for (and who is behind it). So we are talking about the logo and picture of you!

Adding Your Logo

Paste your logo onto the canvas and place it in the top left corner under the banner that you just created. Scale to a reasonable size.

Time For People To See You!

If your business or website relies or being personal then I highly recommend that you add a photo of yourself. If you are a bit camera shy, feel free to add a image of your website or your products or services.

1. Paste the image of yourself onto the canvas and resize to fit vertically between the bottom of your logo and bottom of the canvas.

2. Add a Drop Shadow – change settings to suit your preferences.

3. Rotate the image - this makes the image stand out better.

The Facebook landing page is coming together nicely! We will now move onto the main content which will tell people who you are and why they should connect with you.

Part 3. Adding The Content Box

Add Rectangle Shape

Just like the rectangle we added at the start but this time we are creating a much deeper one.

Choose a colour that once again matches your branding (I prefer a very light colour) and position the layer behind your photo.

Add Style To Your New Box

To the rectangle box I then go into ‘Blending Options’ and add a drop shadow (the same as on the photo) and a 1 px stroke. The stroke colour should be a darker version of the box colour.

Add Your Blurb

This is just basic typography, but to give you an idea of what I did, I used the font ‘Antipasto’ at size 18.

You will also notice that I left aligned the text blog, but tabbed the lines out to follow the photo.

Creating A Signature

I love the idea of having a ‘hand written’ signature at the bottom of my blurb as it just gives that additional touch of personalisation. I made the signature colour a dark blue to look like a blue ballpoint pen.

To get the scripted look I used the font ‘Jersey Stories!’ at font size 80.

Rotate The Signature For Effect

Now it is really beginning to look like a landing page, the only thing we have left now is an offer that will convert people to your email list.

Presenting Your Offer

I specifically left right hand side of the Facebook landing page free, so that I would have room to place an offer to help convert people to my email list.

Tell People What To Do

Obviously we want people to sign up to our email list, so let’s tell them to.

I simply used a font called ‘Kozuka Gothic Pr6N’ in bold at 24 point font (but once again select fonts that you like). I did the first layer in the same dark gray as the top banner, and then dupilicated the layer and made the second layer orange and lightly moved it up and to the left to show the dark gray layer as a stroke.

Detail What Is On Offer

Now they know what to do, you need to tell them what they are signing up for. So if you have a free product or service you give to new subscribers then detail that in a few words.

Show The Product

Most people are visually persuaded, and that is why I created a cover design for my ecourse. If you have something similar then paste and scale your image below your offer.

Add A Signup Button

All you need to finish off your Facebook landing page is a button to tell people to sign up for your offer. While the truth is that the whole image will be link to your sign up page, people need to be directed (you can’t expect them to know what you want them to do)

Now I don’t bother creating buttons from scratch because there are so many pre-made one already available online. I personally get my buttons from Button-Download.com – they have a huge selection I like their style.

Select the one that you want on your landing page and click the ‘PSD’ link to download.

Open Button & Edit To Suit

This will come to personal preference, but I changed the text on the button to ‘Get It Now’ because people want the product, they don’t want to sign up.

Once you have done that paste it into your design and you are done!

To learn how to install this image and link it through to your signup page please read my tutorial on ‘How To Create A Facebook Page For You Blog‘.

Download The Template PSD

To see this Facebook landing page in action visit the StandOutBlogger Facebook page (and don’t forget to ‘Like’ it while you are there!)

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I was looking at all my email lists and found out that I had 391 people who had unsubscribed from my email list – it that pushed me over the next price bracket it could be costing be an additional $10-80 a month (depending on which price bracket I was in).

But don’t start stressing, there is an easy way to remove all the emails that have unsubscribed and I will show you (with screenshots) in this tutorial.

(For this tutorial I will be using an email list for my brothers Architecture company Archilads which has 79 unsubscribers)

Removing Unsubscribed Emails From Your Aweber List

1. Select List & Search Subscribers

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have selected the email list that you you to remove the Aweber subscribers from. After you have done this, head to the top right of the page and put your mouse over the ‘subscribers‘ tab and select ‘search‘.

2. Select Unsubscribe And Save

From the drop down menu, select ‘Unsubscribed‘ and then click the ‘search’ button (but double check you have unsubscribed selected, because it would be terrible if you deleted the subscribers that want to hear from you).

3.Select All In The Erase Column

Now just clicking delete doesn’t work with this segment, so you have to select the ‘erase all‘ check box (which is the blue one!) and it will select all the subscribers on that page. Now if you have hundreds of unsubscribers then you may need to repeat this process a couple of times because Aweber only shows a maximum of 100 per page.

4. Save Selection (Delete)

This is it, once you click save, those unsubscribed emails will not longer be a part of your list! So click ‘save’ (because it is going to save you money – sorry for the bad joke!)

Just To Prove It Worked:

So there you go, quite a simple process but if you didn’t know about it (like I didn’t) then it could save you some money each month.

Don’t Use Aweber?

Aweber is the list building tool that I use and recommend.If you are not already building an email list, then head over to Aweber and take advantage of their special offer of the first month for just $1.

Download a free trial of Market Samurai the product that I use to find and rank my niche sites!

eCoverCreator 3D

eCover Creator 3d allows you to make sure of some fantastic free software and will definitely save you a lot of money in the long run. If you want to see it in action, make sure you watch my Youtube Video review.

Don’t wan’t to design your own? Find a cheap Ebook Cover Designer (For Under $10!)

However if you are looking for a free tutorial (that is quite old and bad (sorry, but I’m not that much of a designer), read my photoshop ebook cover tutorial below.

This is a simple tutorial on how to create a fantastic looking ebook cover for your latest project using Photoshop. For this tutorial I will be designing the cover for my forthcoming ebook series on how to successfully launch a blog.

1. Ebook Cover Template
   Why reinvent the wheel? The people over at EbookTemplateSource.com have created some free black ebook covers for you to work with.Here are their three options:

   	This cover is suitable for smaller ebooks, newsletters/ezines or special reports. (52 KB)
   	Standard “hardcover” ebook. This design is suitable for most ebooks. (33 KB)
   	Tired of the same old covers? This design will certainly set you apart from your competition. Optional: Set your page layout inside your ebook to “landscape” instead of the standard vertical layout. (27 KB)

   For this tutorial we will be using the first ebook cover template.

2. Front Page Design
   Once you have downloaded the ebook template that you want to use, unzip it and open the file titled ‘cover01_blank.psd’

   
   This will be the starting point of your ebook design. Now lets start creating our amazing ebook cover.

3. Your Cover Background
   I like to start with a simple gradient. I have chosen two blues that go with my logo for branding purposes.
   And then to make the design a little bit more unique we will find a great free stock photo from sxc.hu to blend into the background. There are many great stock photography websites around but I love sxc.hu because the photos are free and all it requires is a simple free registration.

   As the cover is for an ebook series on launching blogs, I started using the search term ‘rocket’ and came across this space shuttle photo that I decided fitted perfectly.

   
   The next step is to copy and paste the image into a new layer above the gradient background, and then in blending options set the opacity of the image to a desired level – so the gradient shows through. For this ebook cover I set the opacity of the image to 41%.

   

4. Creating Your Ebook Title
   This is where you need to think about branding. And ask yourself exactly what you want from your design. With this ebook cover I was looking for a title that looked ‘spacey’ almost a little ‘alien’ as the concept of the ebook is to launch your blog, and we were playing with the space shuttles for the image. So where do space shuttles go? Into space of course.

   That meant we needed a new font for the title, and there are a couple of great free font websites on the internet. I personally use DaFont.com.

   

5. Insert Your Subtitle
   Your subtitle is the main point of your ebook. The Phrase that will make your visitor want to buy or download your ebook. For this ebook we decided on ‘Planning Your Blog For A Successful Launch’. It tells exactly what the ebook is about and should capture the interest of anyone who is looking to start a new blog.

   For subtitles it is best to keep the font simple. We have used Tahoma, and made the phrase 24pt so that it spans over two lines.

   
   
   

6. Add Logo And Branding
   This is where you let people know who you are. Credibility sells, and people like to know who they are buying from. As this ebook is written for branding a blog I have added the words ‘A Free Blogging Tool By’ followed by the logo of the blog. Now we have finished with the front cover. Let’s see how it turned out!

   
   Just a few more steps to go before you have finished your first ebook cover. We now have to import the front cover into the ebook template.

7. Open File ‘cover01.psd’
   This is the other psd file from the folder you unzipped. And looks something like this:

   

8. Flatten Front Cover And Paste Into Ebook Template
   Now go back to the front cover we just created and flatten the images by clicking the ‘Layer’ menu tab and clicking the selection right down the bottom that says ‘ flatten image’.

   
   Now copy and paste this image into the ebook cover:

   
   So close now guys! Just two more steps!

9. Free Transform The Front Cover Layer
   Now we just have to make the front cover fit properly into the ebook template. You do this by taking the following steps:
   • Select The Front Cover Image Layer
   • Press The Control Button and ‘T’ at the same time – To transform
   • Right Click on the image and select ‘Skew’
   • Drag each corner until it fits in the corner of the blank front cover
10. Save Your Completed Ebook Cover

You should end up with something similar to this:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Make sure you subscribe to our feed or email updates.

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