Helium Marketplace: A New Writer’s Job Platform

The freelancing world can be a messy one. Though the prospect of self-employment and the independent management of one’s career - whether it be focused on one thing (writing, photography, design, etc.) or many (all of the above) - is thoroughly enticing, and often an enjoyable way to scratch out a living, it’s sometimes a market of instability, extremes, and one with erratic ebbs and flows.

The Web has brought considerably more efficiency to the freelance world, of course, particularly when speaking of matters concerning writing. There are numerous message boards that individuals consult where jobs are given, advice is divvied, frustrations are vented, and communities of word crunchers generally commiserate when “off the job” or have encountered that always-gruesome and mysteriously amorphous thing called writer’s block.

With that said, we bring any and all freelancers (and more specifically, “citizen journalists”) word of a newly launched system created by Helium.com, a site that offers a whole range of writer services to people. It’s called Helium Marketplace. In short, it’s a job roll.

What’s particularly appealing about this new venue is its intelligent integration with Helium. In many cases, job rolls - or job boards, if you will - are simple constructions that essentially act as halfway houses where employer and prospective employees can meet and contact one another.

Helium Marketplace, however, takes its role as mediator one step further and organizes contacts and assignments directly through its platform. Consider Helium a sort of pseudo new-age writing agency, except instead of conversing regularly with a personal editor, Helium pulls the strings via the Web. This can make things far more convenient and potentially less time consuming than would otherwise be the case.

Some writers of course may not take kindly to Helium’s role as middleman. Some freelancers have had success getting gigs both temporary and permanent by channeling job sites to connect and negotiate fees and contracts and all the rest of that great stuff with employers. But for those who would enjoy some measure of automation and structure to the maintenance and sustainment of their careers, whether budding or longstanding, Helium, especially with the new addition of its writing marketplace, could prove a decent assistant to one’s freelance efforts.