15 Best Marketplaces to Find Skilled Freelance Writers for Your Startup


skilled freelance writers

As more and more business owners turn to content marketing strategies, the demand for talented writers is rising. But finding the cream of the crop isn’t always easy.

To find out where other businesses are sourcing their content writers and editors, we asked 15 entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question.

“What is a great marketplace to find skilled freelance writers to support your company?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Stay-at-Home Moms

“Stay-at-home moms have been a saving grace to RTC. They are oftentimes highly educated, incredibly organized and looking for part-time work that can be completed on their own schedule. These women are a godsend.” ~ Corey Blake, Round Table Companies

2. LinkedIn Groups

“Try posting a part-time job offer in the LinkedIn Groups for your industry. While not everyone spends a ton of time in the groups, very often those looking for work are participating and looking for just this kind of opportunity.” ~ John Rood, Next Step Test Preparation

3. Textbroker

“I’ve used Textbroker many times to find writers for Web content. The thing that I like about Textbroker is the consistency of its service. Articles are always delivered in a timely fashion. The main problem I had with hiring independent writers I found from other places was that there was no level of redundancy. If a person was out sick, then my project had to wait indefinitely.” ~ Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers

4. The Local Business Paper

“The best freelance writers aren’t using freelance hiring sites. That’s because the quality writers won’t be the cheapest. If you can’t write 500 words, why would you pay just $5 for that service? Instead, look in the pages of the local business paper. A Google or Twitter search should reveal if those writers are freelancers. Then reach out!” ~ Rakia Reynolds, Skai Blue Media

5. Published Articles

“We actually hired a freelance writer because of an article we saw on her in Entrepreneur magazine. When we were looking for someone to help us with content, we kept our eyes open for blog posts, business journals, magazines and social media. All of these avenues can bring super talented people into the mix. We recently hired this writer and brought her on full time from contract work.” ~ Parker Powers, Millionaire Network

6. Content Runner

“Content Runner is a great service for finding freelance writing talent. The company maintains a “favorites” list of its top writers, and you can submit topic ideas to that pool of freelancers instead of tracking one writer down for every article you need. That’s an invaluable feature for time-strapped content managers. The administrative team is also highly responsive to client needs and questions.” ~ Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing

7. Guru

“Guru is our preferred freelancer marketplace because it’s easier to connect directly with real individuals. Many other sites are flooded with companies that turn around to re-farm your project. Our experiences are much better when we deal directly with writers rather than a middleman trolling a marketplace.” ~ Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

8. Zerys

“We’ve used Zerys for several years. It has a great selection of writers, and you can post either for bid or by a direct rate. You can also post jobs on Elance, oDesk and other job sites, but they are not as specialized.” ~ Gideon Kimbrell, InList Inc

9. Craigslist

“It’s amazing how many people I know have found terrific freelancers, collaborators and help via Craigslist. Don’t shy away from using a platform just because it’s ugly!” ~ Derek Flanzraich, Greatist

10. ODesk

“We’ve successfully used oDesk to find many capable and talented writers at affordable rates the past few years.” ~ Josh Weiss, Bluegala

11. The Local Honors College

“The local honors college in your town is an often overlooked and underutilized way to find freelance writers. Offering an internship to honors students ensures they’ll be decent at writing, eager to learn and willing to follow instructions. Plus, they will work for decent wages due to their lack of work experience.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Digital Marketing Company

12. Elance

“You can search for exactly what you need and do it all virtually. Elance is a great service for businesses that need support but can’t hire someone on a full-time (or even part-time) basis.” ~ Alexis Wolfer, The Beauty Bean

13. ProBlogger

“I like the writers on the ProBlogger job forum because they’re more trained in writing great headlines, organizing posts with subheaders and bullet points where necessary, and more. The prices are reasonable, and it’s been tough for me to find this level of quality elsewhere.” ~ Eric Siu, Single Grain

14. Contributor Blogs

“More and more high-end sites such as Forbes and Fast Company are publishing the work of (often unpaid) contributors in exchange for exposure. Pay attention to the bylines following your favorite columns to see if their authors are on the market.” ~ Sam Saxton, Salter Spiral Stair and Mylen Stairs

15. Scripted

“Scripted will deliver writing sourced from its vetted pool of freelance writers who have been approved to write for relevant topics. I am a big fan of Scripted because it helps minimize internal resources spent by providing you with account management services for creating writer guidelines, editing submissions and monitoring submission timelines.” ~ Ryan Stoner, Freelance

Writer Photo via Shutterstock

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The Young Entrepreneur Council The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

10 Reactions
  1. Sometimes it is better to hunt them out instead of going over to the nearest freelancing website. With that, you can be assured that you are working with someone who knows what he is doing before you even hire him.

  2. LCK Center is a website that connects freelancers and clients in, and around, a project’s Lifecycle.
    We are currently in Beta stage, and we are looking for freelancers that would be interested in signing up for free to the Beta site: http://www.lckcenter.com

  3. If anyone looking for freelance writing opportunities, try Text-Writers.Text-Writers.com is a great place to start & grow your writing career and to make extra living. It is the place where you can sign up as writers, write for businesses in need of content and get paid for your quality work .

  4. Thanks for the article, I personally prefer Textbroker however I completely agree that it is difficult to create on going relationships with these people due to how Text Broker is setup.

  5. Also, following the merge of Elance & Odesk I think you should update this article, Elance used to be a pretty excellent platform for both freelancers & those looking for freelancers (except for the swarm of proposals from people who obviously didn’t read the job description). However, now they’ve merged to create Upwork which for the most part is completely horrible…

  6. Hi! If your network is not big enough and you are looking for writers, but also translators, proofreaders, photographers and community managers, you should contact Edit-place. You can work directly with the freelancers or ask a project manager to set-up and lead a team for you, following your guidelines and your editorial calendar.

  7. dotwriter.com is an excellent content marketplace for buyers and writers. Starting at .02 cents a word to 0.6 cents, the writers are graded and the best part is that there are already ready to upload, edited articles for sales, besides the custom job requests.

  8. Write and Sell Articles

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  9. Write and Sell Articles

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