Affiliated Writers started in a not so unusual way that I’d like to share with you.
I started working at home many years ago for a large company and was an employee of that company. In 2005 I was laid off. Because of my volunteer work, I decided to take a year off and then return to work when that time period was passed.
Unfortunately, when I was ready to go back to work, I had a lot of difficulty finding work. After many months of searching and searching, I was unable to find ‘traditional’ work in a ‘brick and mortar’ office so as a matter of self preservation I started looking for ways to earn money at home.
I have a few marketable skills, though most of my experience at this time was in financial services. I had built a few websites (see my blogroll) and decided that perhaps this was one way to earn some money.
For the record: I have Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) and because of that I gave up my drivers license in 1991. I do not currently live in an area that is strong on the public transportation front so for me, working at home is more a necessity than a luxury.
In June of 2007 I completed an online training course that basically taught you how to market yourself successfully (though the goal of the program was how to market your skills in spite of a disability) and began in earnest looking for ways to earn money from home.
I am familiar with a number of MLM’s, pay per clicks and other offerings where people do make money online. I was in a position of being my own sole support and knew that I needed something that was (a) able to provide me with steady income, (b) dependable and (c) where I knew I could get paid.
Hence began my search through online freelancing sites. I was concerned because I was not sure what my ‘marketable’ skills were, I am pretty good with html, I was ok with building websites but, the fact remained my strong point was still financial services.
I tuned up my resume, began submitting it to all the usual ‘job boards’ and had some very interesting offers - MLM’s that people claimed were something else, offers to teach me how to sell insurance, offers to become a stock broker, you name it, I got it! Not for me. I’m simply not a salesperson.
Fast forward: I got my first ‘website’ development job. Now I don’t mind telling you that the job didn’t even buy my groceries for the first month, but that was fine with me, I was getting started. I continued to search through the freelancing sites hoping something would give. Most of them charged a fee of one type or another, depending on the types of work you were looking for. Frankly, I didn’t have the money to pay those fees.
September 2007: I found oDesk. I thought at first, this is too good to be true, can’t possibly work the way they say it does. But I signed up anyway figuring I had nothing to lose, there was no fee and if I got lucky perhaps I’d get something.
September netted me $26.73 my first ‘paying job’ online. I was frustrated but figured ok if I can do this I can do more. Persistence has always been one of my strong points. I worked hard on building up my resume, I worked hard on posting for jobs - even posting for some that were well below what I wanted to work for - I figured something had to give.
Some of my early jobs left me feeling a little out of sorts, but at the same time, I was beginning to see a stream of work come my way. I was feeling a little more confident each week and decided that I’d continue posting for jobs.
Once I was able to close out a couple of jobs and get feedback, my commitment to continuing on oDesk was strengthened. I was relieved to find out that not only was I getting paid regularly, but it seemed like every week I was making a little more than the week before. I was very pleased with myself.
I began raising my rates in December of 2007. This did not seem to hamper my ability to get jobs. Each job I did resulted in a new ‘portfolio’ entry. By January of 2008, I was no longer applying for jobs, clients that had used me early on were beginning to come back to me and ask me to do additional work. No more spending 3-5 hours every day searching through postings. Now I was working 30 hours a week with no problem and making fairly good money.
Fast forward to February of 2008. I now have more work than I can possibly handle on my own. I spoke with my client base and asked them how they would feel about my hiring contractors to assist with their work. They were very supportive. In March of 2008, Affiliated Writers was formed and continued to build a reputation on oDesk. As of today, Affiliated Writers has eight ( 
clients who were all my original clients and has accumulated more than 600 hours on oDesk in a mere 4 months.
We’re very proud of where we are today and looking forward to even more success as we move forward.
