I wish to earn money online as a disabled/mobility limited person.

January 23, 2020 7:45 PM

I wish to earn money online as a disabled/mobility limited person.

Hi there. I get disability income from a couple sources, but it's just not enough lately. While I'm relatively smart, I have absolutely no control over when my maladies are going to kick my ass and make it impossible to think coherently, much less get out of bed. I simply can't know if I'll be available tomorrow, next week, or next hour.

What I'm looking for are ideas to earn money that are completely off an imposed schedule, whether physical or online. I generally know if I've got a couple hours of gumption to get out and about and look like a normal person, so I've started giving plasma, and would be interested in other legitimate medical experiments [mad scientist cackle] for pay. Some things I've seen I'm not good at are transcribing audio, but copyediting would be a good fit. It looks like there are copyediting organizations and specific certifications out there, and would be able to afford accreditation soon, I just don't know which are good and which to avoid. I hate talking on the phone and have a bad history with sales, so call handling is out. Mostly I have no idea what kinds of work is out there online, and get overwhelmed trying to sort it all out.

What say you?

posted by Evilspork to Work & Money (9 answers total)

Best answer: Virtual Vocations is a job board for remote and telecommute work. There might be something there that would meet your needs.
posted by brookeb at 7:49 PM on January 23, 2020 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Lionbridge has "rater" jobs which are helping Google get better at being Google. Not complicated, but fiddly, pay isn't great, but it's simple work if a little dull. If you have a computer and a smartphone, you can do it. Here's a page of opportunities and here's one blogger's experience (there are many online you can find) with the work.
posted by jessamyn at 7:55 PM on January 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

Best answer: The UC San Diego copyediting certificate program is legit. https://extension.ucsd.edu/courses-and-programs/copyediting My wife was one of the instructors for a time and she's a real-life editor of books and dictionaries, which I hope says something about the quality of the program. For a community of people doing similar work, join the Editors Association of Earth Facebook group. You'll read plenty about getting work, calculating rates, billing, doing the work, etc. There's also the private EAE Backroom FB group where sensitive matters are discussed privately such as bad clients (who tend try their nonsense on multiple editors, so it's good warn others).
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:59 AM on January 24, 2020 [8 favorites]

Best answer: In addition to copyediting, you might consider looking into book indexing. The American Society for Indexing is a reasonable resource for finding out more, as is the chapter on indexing in the Chicago Manual of Style.

In my experience as an academic author, indexing does have some urgency, but it's manageable. I did the index to my own first book, and I had about 2 weeks to get it done. The actual task took me about 20 hours of solid work, if memory serves. So if your disability makes work difficult or impossible for weeks at a time, indexing (and also copyediting) might not be a great fit, but if you can generally count on having several good days in every 2-3 week period, they might be good for a detail-oriented person who is good at written communication.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:10 AM on January 24, 2020 [10 favorites]

Best answer: r/workonline and r/beermoney are always my recs at least to look up feedback about any opportunity you find, since it'll probably be talked about there. and they're good for specific questions. beermoney is the more work for less money side of things, but if you do get into that, they have monthly Who Paid You threads so you can see what sites are currently best to work on.
posted by gaybobbie at 8:58 AM on January 24, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: WeWorkRemotely.com leans tech but also has other types of jobs. Some are part time; some can be done outside the US. There’s no charge for job applicants, only for employers. Good luck!
posted by Bella Donna at 9:08 AM on January 24, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I found some work at home jobs for those who are disabled on this page marked job leads for 1/16/2020 with the title Several work at home jobs. You can also try NTI, Appen and others. There are a few companies hiring people to work from home for all ages.
posted by mommyof4 at 5:19 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Learn to code at freecodecamp.org and then work remotely?
posted by my-username at 4:56 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: As it goes, my ass was kicked for a week of mostly being in bed, and you all gave some great answers in my absence. Thanx much!
posted by Evilspork at 8:49 PM on February 6, 2020