An outsider’s thoughts on Fiverr for copywriters

I haven’t made a dime on Fiverr. Yet.

But I have made money freelancing — thousands of dollars at a time — and I am fascinated with the potential of Fiverr as a key part of a writer’s marketing mix.

There are two ways writers can look at Fiverr.

One: Fiverr has destroyed the market for paid writing.

People write 500-word articles for five dollars. 100 words for ten bucks. The profitability of a whole host of other writing and editing services has been obliterated by starving writers and by foreign writers where $5 goes a lot further than a latte.

Two: Fiverr is a risk-free marketing partner.

It provides, with no upfront fees, a large, growing, and ready-to-buy market of buyers who need writing services. When services are priced and structured accordingly, Fiverr saves writers hundreds of hours of marketing and selling and can bring profitable volume to a writer as part of her career.

I have a little different perspective than a lot of writers. First, I’m new to Fiverr, so I’m learning on the fly. Second, I haven’t seriously freelanced in about seven years. A ton has changed, including the emergence of highly competitive marketplace sites like Fiverr, eLance, etc.

So I’m going to experiment with Fiverr as part of my “sidewriting” business. Today I live in Camp Two with the Fiverr optimists. Here’s what I like about Fiverr:

Fiverr is a place to practice

I’ve never been comfortable with my ability to write headlines, and I plan to use Fiverr as a place to practice.

My first gig will be simple: 3 headlines for five bucks.

Fiverr is a place to become a better writer, while adding value and making a couple bucks. What’s so awful about that?

Fiverr is a place to specialize

Yes, lots of popular writers on Fiverr offer to write articles for $5. No, I don’t know how they do it and I don’t care.

I don’t want to be like them. I believe I create value with my words and value should come back to me in exchange.

One thing writer can do is specialize. Leverage your industry knowledge and market services to that niche. If you really are an expert, and can deliver quality and value far beyond the “I’ll write anything for $5″ writers. Customers that care about quality will pay for that.

Fiverr helps you avoid the worst customers

Some buyers will always choose the lowest-cost option. That’s fine. Thank the $5 writers for clearing out that part of the market for you. In my past experience, the buyers most worried about price were usually the most difficult to deal with — unreasonable demands, unsure of what they wanted, always worried someone was out to get them.

So thank you, $5 writers, for dealing with that so the rest of us don’t have to.

Fiverr is a place to test

There’s no limit to the way you can slice-and-dice writing services and develop information products (such as e-books, audio files, etc.) on Fiverr.

And you can test things with virtually no risk — just the time it takes you to set up the gig or develop a small information product.

If something sells well, then you probably have an information product or e-book to write and sell. If a service is popular, figure out how to make it more valuable, more all-encompassing and sell it to others as part of your standard services.

Fiverr is a place to learn from your peers

Watch other writers. How you can apply their principles in your own unique way? And look at other services on Fiverr. What can you learn from the way top graphic artists market themselves? How about the weird services like people selling videos of themselves singing personalized versions of the “Happy Birthday” song?

Look at top sellers across Fiverr’s many categories and experiment using their principles in your own business.

Quit whining and just learn something already

Stop fretting about Fiverr. My gut says there has never been a better time in human history to be a writer. The need for good content is insatiable. The gatekeepers are dropping like flies, allowing writers more direct access to customers and markets than ever before. And sites like Fiverr give writers no-risk access to a market ready-to-buy.

Your upfront sales and marketing costs and time have been obliterated in exchange for a back-end fee after a sale.

Fiverr is amazing if you think about and address it the right way. Be optimistic. Be open to learning. Experiment.

I’m going to get into the fray there, and will share what I learn. We will see if the optimist going in comes out the other side in the same way.