Jim: In this episode, we’re going to talk about how you can use Fiverr (Affiliate Link) to develop better books faster while staying on a tight budget.
Everyone has been asking about Fiverr, so we’re finally doing our definitive episode. We answered it in a Patreon Q&A, but there’s more to it than we could handle there, so we’re devoting an entire episode to it.
What is Fiverr, and why the weird spelling?
Thomas: You might be wondering what Fiverr is. It’s a website, and the name is slang for five bucks in the UK.
This is 2018, so why spell something correctly on the internet when you can spell it weird? It’s Fiverr with two r’s.
It’s a marketplace that connects authors who need work done with people who want to do that work for as little as $5.
Jim: If you’re wondering where to get a book cover, a voiceover, artwork, or a video done, we’re suggesting Fiverr is an excellent place to start.
Is the quality on Fiverr any good?
Thomas: Fiverr isn’t the highest quality, though it can be. You have a range of professionals, and the higher-quality people are more expensive. You get what you pay for, but often you get a lot more than you pay for.
What can you actually buy on Fiverr?
Thomas: What kind of things can you get on Fiverr? The most common purchases are probably book covers and animation. You can get book covers for as little as $20, along with Photoshop retouching or voiceovers.
I buy voiceovers on Fiverr. I’ve launched a third podcast on politics and culture called Liberty Buzzard, which I don’t think I’ve announced here yet.
For the intro, I wanted a guy with a deep, gravelly voice, which isn’t Jim. He’s got a beautiful, smooth voice. I went on Fiverr and spent about $10 on the intro from that guy, and I was very happy.
Jim: Think of Fiverr almost like a garage sale. A lot of the stuff is okay, but every now and then you come across something really high quality that you pay pennies for.
There are a lot of people out there with special skills you might not have, and you can access them this way.
Thomas: You’d be shocked at the number of things you can get on Fiverr. One is translation. When we wanted MyBookTable plugin translated into other languages, I hired people on Fiverr, and for $20 or $25 they translated it.
If you’re building your website and want search engine optimization analysis, one of the big services that does a review costs $200 or $300 a year. If you only need one report, you can go on Fiverr, and somebody who owns that software will generate it for $5.
It hardly costs them any time, and you get a great report. You can do the same with typesetting, interior design, and getting your books set up on Kindle. The publishing area on Fiverr is robust, and lots of people there will help you out.
Why would anyone work for $5?
Thomas: You may be wondering how these people make money offering services for $5. For one, it’s easy money. It’s the sort of thing you can do from home, and it fits around your schedule.
Somebody might need a little extra for a bill that month and use Fiverr to supplement their income. Sometimes they’re freelancers making lots of money elsewhere who need work in the meantime. It’s feast or famine, and Fiverr helps them through the famine. Earning $5 is better than the nothing they might be getting otherwise.
A lot of people on Fiverr are from other countries where the U.S. dollar is very powerful. While $5 in America buys you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, $5 in Indonesia might buy a whole day’s worth of food. For them, the strong exchange rate makes the same $5 worth a lot more work.
For those of you listening in the future, the exchange rate may be weak. The U.S. dollar goes up and down, but right now it’s soaring with the eagles.
Everyone wants U.S. dollars. It’s strong against the euro and the pound. If you’re buying, it’s great, but if you want to sell, it’s the worst. No one wants to buy from Americans right now because of the dollar. For more about economics and trade, listen to Liberty Buzzard, my other podcast.
Jim: It’s brilliant. I’m loving the podcast, and that’s not just because I love Thomas. It really is an interesting show, so please check it out.
What can authors specifically use Fiverr for?
Thomas: Let’s talk about what authors can use Fiverr for. If you want quick edits, you can hire editors, and you can hire beta readers. You can even hire people to be beta listeners for your podcast.
We’ve hired people to listen to Novel Marketing and give us feedback on how to improve the show. If you’ve noticed the show quality getting better, some of that came from feedback we got from beta listeners on Fiverr.
You can also get back cover copy, typesetting, and transcription done.
Let me zoom in on transcription. Say you want to dictate a book but don’t want to figure out Dragon or turn that transcription into something useful. You can hire somebody on Fiverr for 25 cents, 50 cents, or a dollar a minute, depending on who you hire, and they’ll turn your audio into really clean text. That’s even better than using software.
Thomas: What I’ve found is that people who are good and cheap are slow, and people who are good and fast are expensive. We can’t use Fiverr transcriptions for our podcast because getting it done quickly is outside our budget, and the good ones are too slow for our current workflow. Otherwise, I’d totally use Fiverr to create the transcripts for each episode.
How do you use Fiverr without getting ripped off?
Thomas: Let’s talk about how to use Fiverr without getting ripped off. Spending money there can be intimidating, and a lot of people in the Facebook group worry about hiring somebody and not liking the result.
Here’s what I recommend. Buy something fun first. Researching this episode, I found I’ve spent about $400 on Fiverr, and I looked up the first thing I ever bought. It was a caricature.
I sent them a photo, and they drew a caricature of my face for $5. It was fun, even though it wasn’t a great caricature. Caricatures are never great, because they always accentuate something you don’t want accentuated.
They gave me a huge neck. I didn’t care for it, but it was still fun. I sent it to my family and posted it to Facebook.
There’s a whole category on Fiverr of just fun projects, and it helps you learn how Fiverr works without the pressure of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my book cover and it has to be perfect.’
Jim: Here’s an example of something fun. If you’ve never been to Fiverr, you’ll go there and think, ‘Somebody’s willing to do that?’
A friend of mine who has a sub shop in town hired a guy who dives into a swimming pool, writes the name of the sub shop underwater, and turns it around for the camera to see. It cost $5.
It’s goofy, and he used it for promotion, but it’s the kind of thing where you can sample what’s possible for $5. Like Thomas says, you’ll get used to the process and understand how it works without putting it out there for something critical.
How do you get the best work out of a freelancer?
Thomas: Another tip is to be responsive and give the person as much information as possible. If you want a book trailer, tell them as much as you can about your book and help them out.
Don’t expect them to read your whole book for $5, because they won’t. If you give them the work on a silver platter, maybe the script ready to go, they can turn it into a video, because they know video really well.
Don’t assume the Fiverr person knows you or will do research. Do the research for them. You know yourself and your book far better than they will, which is a good rule of thumb for all freelancers. Be very clear about what you want, and you’re more likely to get it.
Should you hire the cheapest freelancer?
Thomas: The cheapest people on Fiverr are cheap for a reason, but that reason isn’t necessarily that they’re bad at the work. Sometimes they’re just new to Fiverr.
If you’re on a tight budget, a great deal can be someone who’s very experienced at what they do but new to the platform. Fiverr shows you how many projects someone has done and their customer ratings, and a newcomer doesn’t have that yet, so they have to price themselves low until they build a reputation.
If you’re willing to take a risk on a new person, you can get a really good deal. On the flip side, sometimes people aren’t any good and don’t know it, so going with a newer creator is riskier. The other reason people are cheap is that they take shortcuts or simply don’t do good work.
Does everything on Fiverr really cost $5?
Jim: Let’s clarify something. Not everything on Fiverr costs $5. When Thomas mentions something cost him $25 or $30, remember that $5 is just the entry point.
Somebody might do something quick, like one character drawing, for $5. If Thomas then asks to touch it up, they’ll do it, but that costs extra. Not everything costs $5, depending on the extent of the work.
How can you tell a Fiverr seller is legit?
Thomas: When you finish a Fiverr project, you review the creator, and then it asks if you want to tip them. A lot of Fiverr people work really hard to thrill you so they get tips, because that’s where at least some of them make a lot of their money.
Creators with videos of their faces explaining what they do are more trustworthy, and they typically have a better command of English. If somebody is willing to film themselves, it’s more likely they’re a real person protecting their reputation.
Some people on Fiverr put up stock photos instead. I once saw a woman who was suspiciously beautiful, and I wondered whether this person was really doing translations on Fiverr. I did a reverse image search on the photo, and it turned out to be a Ukrainian model. Some guy in India was using a photo of a Ukrainian model as his own to try to suck people in.
Reputable folks typically don’t do that. They have a video, and I’m willing to spend more money on a creator who has one explaining their typesetting or their book covers. That way I know it’s a real person and not somebody running a dozen different Fiverr accounts.
Another way to find a good fit is to read the reviews and look at their past projects. Good Fiverr creators have done hundreds or thousands of projects with very high reviews, so you really are getting what you pay for.
Is it worth hiring several people for the same job?
Thomas: Be okay with losing $5 here and there on projects that don’t work out. Sometimes I’ll hire four or five people for $5 to do the same project.
If I need a photo retouched, I’m willing to spend $20 hiring four people to retouch it, and I’ll use the one who did the best job, maybe hiring them again in the future. I still pay everybody else their $5, because $20 still isn’t a lot of money. Then tip when you’re happy, especially if you plan to come back.
Fiverr has been a beneficial asset to my business, not just as an author. Here’s a good example. Say I have a book cover and need it made into a 3D version.
Learning to do that yourself is complicated, and you have to buy $60 or even hundreds of dollars’ worth of software. If you already have that software and the know-how, it only takes two or three minutes, and you’re happy to make a 3D version of someone’s cover on Fiverr for $5. If you need your book turned into a 3D image, go on Fiverr and somebody will do it for you.
Is there a way to save on your first Fiverr order?
Thomas: If you want to try Fiverr, they have an affiliate program that I signed up for. If you use the link, you’ll save 20% on your first purchase, and I’ll get a little something for sending you there.
It’s just credit for my next Fiverr project, which is probably going to be another podcast review for Novel Marketing so we can improve the quality. Help us by helping yourself, and use our Fiverr link so we can buy more podcast reviews and get feedback.
Could you make money on Fiverr yourself?
Jim: If some of you are thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I have a skill. I’ve got a good singing voice and could sing happy birthday,’ or you have another skill, try it. Go to Fiverr, sign up, and experience it from the seller’s side.
You might find you really enjoy it, and it could be an extra income stream.
Thomas: If you want income to cover your writing, lots of people on Fiverr are looking for writers. We have an international listenership, but many of you are native English speakers, and your command of English will be really good compared to a lot of people on Fiverr around the world.
That’s a competitive advantage. You don’t have to charge $5. People will pay you $20 or $40 to write a blog post. In one of my jobs, I hired all kinds of bloggers on sites like Fiverr to write on all kinds of topics, so you really can be paid to write this week.
If your spouse keeps getting after you that your writing hasn’t brought in any money, or you need to show the IRS some income, sign up for Fiverr and you can get paid this week. It really can be that fast.
As you browse, you’ll think, ‘I can do that.’ Then you look at the quality and think, ‘I can do that better, and they’re charging $50 for it. I’d be happy to do it for $40.’ Suddenly you’ve added a revenue model. I haven’t sold anything on Fiverr, but I know Jim has looked into doing voiceover work there.
Jim: I have, and I signed up for it, but I’m getting a lot of voice work coming to me these days, so I didn’t pull the trigger. If you have something you’d like to try out, it’s a great place to start.
What’s the most creative way to use Fiverr?
Thomas: Here’s one last example. There’s a guy with a podcast-review podcast who gets people to pay him $5 to feature their podcasts, so he gets paid to do his own research. There are a lot of creative ways to use Fiverr.
We hope this episode has been helpful. If you’ve used Fiverr and had good or bad experiences, or you’re making money on it, go to the Novel Marketing Facebook group and let us know. We have an official discussion thread for every episode.
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