My oDesk Story

(or why you should sign up for oDesk)

I’ve been really busy today, but not with a manuscript, but with my day job. Yes, I do have a day job. I’d love to be a full-time romance author but since my muses can be fickle, I’d still need a day job to be able to pay the bills. But no, I don’t go to a normal office. I work at home, in my pajamas. And that is thanks to oDesk.

I found out about oDesk when I was working as a writer/editor for a company that provides editorial services for educational publishers in the States. While I loved writing, and was proud to be able to tell people that I AM a writer, I wasn’t entirely happy with what I was writing. We worked on textbooks for K12 students, and although it needed creativity, the topics that we were allowed (or not allowed) to work on were limited. And I believed I was a romance writer. So when we were on a lull, a rare occurrence during that time, I visited different blogs by people who were working as freelancers. One blog caught my attention, and the writer was talking about a site called oDesk. I read a bit about the site, signed up, and applied for a simple blogging job for $3 an hour. I was hired after three days, and I haven’t looked back since.

That was April 2008. I finally quit my day job on October 2008, and I’ve been freelancing for various teams and my hourly rate had been raised. Fortunately, I’ve been getting good feedback from my bosses.

Because of oDesk, I was able to focus on writing my books. I’m earning as much as I would, working in a full time day job at only half the time, which allows me to work on my manuscripts. Since quitting my day job, I’ve finished 9 manuscripts, 4 of them will be released in October, 2 have been approved for publication, and 3 are already with my publisher for evaluation (and I hope they get approved, too). And what’s really cool about it, is that one of my bosses is paying me to write a romance novel. Seriously. Can I say, “getting paid for something you love to do”? That’s like not working at all. And I’ve met and worked with a lot of awesome people from all over the world, it was like working in a global office.

Yesterday, another one of my bosses sent me an email telling me that he was bumping up my hours to 20 a week. That means I can work longer, but not as long as when I’m in a regular office, and earn more, even more than I was, working in my old job, for only four hours a day. That also means I can continue writing my manuscripts, and at the same time, earn enough money that I could actually help send my little sister to college (which I’m really determined to do and really excited about).

I just realized that I haven’t showed my appreciation enough, and I just realized that I owe oDesk a lot since signing up with them had been a life-changing experience, literally. Essentially, it was oDesk who allowed me to pursue my dreams. I hope I’m able to thank them through this entry. So, thank you, oDesk, for making my life immensely easy. And, hey! I really AM a romance writer after all

Please visit my portfolio to see my oDesk projects past and present.

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