I recently wrote about how I made some decent money on iWriter at one point, and it reminded me that I used to run a Facebook page called Writers at iWriter. That was the most annoying thing I’ve ever done while working online and I will never do it again. It takes a lot of time to run a busy Facebook page where a lot of people are sending you messages and interacting.
There Were A Lot Of Unhappy People Writing For IWriter
At the time I had that Facebook page, there were a lot of people writing for iWriter. That’s why I had no problem building that Facebook page up. The writers were looking for help and answers and iWriter didn’t seem to provide many people with what they needed.
IWriter had their own Facebook page, but they never seemed to respond to people in a way that was satisfying, so many of the writers came to my page where there was more interaction and I always responded quickly.
People followed that Facebook page every single day. And the more people that joined, the more stressful it became.
Mostly because people were not happy with iWriter. And they thought that I was someone who actually worked for iWriter. So, I got complaints every single day from people.
They wanted me to check out something that had gone wrong for them or fix an issue or help them get back into iWriter, which obviously I couldn’t do.
I had a disclaimer in the about section on that Facebook page that I was simply a writer on iWriter, but many of the people didn’t read it or care.
I got a lot of desperate messages on that Facebook page from writers for iWriter begging me to help them. It was quite a testament to how many people were having problems while writing for iWriter.
There Were Some Good Things About The Facebook Page
I did enjoy being able to talk to other people who were experiencing the same issues that I was having.
For instance, sometimes iWriter would go down. When something went wrong like that, us writers would never get an email from iWriter telling us what was happening, so everyone on the Facebook page would quickly share that they were having problems and it became apparent that it wasn’t just an issue one person was having.
I also got to see how many people were having the same frustrations that I was experiencing.
For example, the iWriter editor was a pain in the ass. You couldn’t just transfer an article from Word into the editor. You had to write directly in the iWriter editor. For some reason, formatting issues happened in every browser I used. It was a matter of learning how to format so that your article actually went through in the same format you submitted it.
And, if you accidentally refreshed the page, all your work would disappear. That happened to me more times than I can count, and it taught me to copy and save my work in notepad as I went along. What a pain in the ass that was. I still feel a twinge of panic when I refresh a page.
Also, the word count was always off in the editor, which was so annoying when you were getting paid by the word count! I’m assuming they did that so the clients got more words than they paid for? I usually did overdeliver, but when I didn’t, it was obvious that the word count was off.
Here’s a screenshot I still have from trying to submit an article on iWriter. It says that there aren’t enough words despite the current word count saying that there are enough words.
Because of all this, I had people constantly asking me questions on the Writers for iWriter Facebook page.
I ended up writing an eBook called Writing For IWriter: How To Make The Most Money Possible (I just have it as a PDF for free now). I’m not sure how relevant it still is because I haven’t been on iWriter for a long time, but back then I sold it on Amazon for a while and people were buying it, so that was a small bonus to the Facebook page.
What Caused Me To Shut The Writers For IWriter Facebook Page Down
I would get alerts on my phone each time someone sent me a message through the Facebook page. That happened daily – morning, noon, and night – and it was disrupting my life. But I was the only one moderating the Facebook page, so I needed to stay on top of it.
Then one day, a writer from iWriter started constantly writing me and wouldn’t stop. She asked me every question under the sun about iWriter and complained about it constantly. This went on for weeks.
I remember trying to enjoy a visit with my parents and my phone was constantly going off. She was sending a message once every five minutes through the Facebook page to me and it was my breaking point.
I had already grown tired of spending more time on that Facebook page than I did on my own work, but she really pushed me over the edge.
For about a week I debated deleting the Facebook page. I felt bad about doing it because I had worked hard on building it up and people would come there to get answers. But I finally realized that I was putting too much effort into the page for what I was I was getting out of it. It was taking time away from things I needed and wanted to do.
I came to the conclusion that if someone else wanted to build up a Facebook page for the writers at iWriter, they could do it. I was done.
I Feel Like A Facebook Pages Take A Lot Of Work
Since then, I haven’t paid much attention to Facebook pages. I would be willing to create and maintain one if it were for a business I was running as a way to connect with customers. But, a busy Facebook page takes a lot of time to manage, and it can take away a lot of time from things you need and want to do.
Plus, the constant messages and moderating can be annoying. People want help, but people also want to complain, be rude, and send spam, and it’s all very tiring to deal with.
If I had another Facebook page become popular, I would hire someone solely for the purpose of taking care of that page.
