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You don't want a boss, you want to work for yourself, whether as a writer, programmer, designer and so forth, but you just don't know how to get started.
To start freelancing, you will need to develop a portfolio. This can be a website, printed samples or customer references, depending on your industry. A freelance website designer, of course, must have their own website, as should a graphic designer, but a writer may not need one.
With the internet, it is not so hard as you may think to locate potential freelance jobs. There are free and paid resources you can use.
The most basic thing you can do to market yourself as a freelancer is to network. Find discussion boards not only where potential employers are, but others in your industry as well. They might just pass work on to you. A good place to start is Ryze, which has both free and paid memberships. Paid is really only worthwhile if you need to search a lot or if you want to start your own network. Your Ryze page tells others about you and your business. Take a look at mine for an example.
If you are a writer, I strongly recommend Writer's Weekly, an excellent newsletter. Angela provides regular job listings, keeps up with the latest scams, and provides a generally excellent resource.
For other freelance resources, there are quite a few websites dedicated to getting freelancers jobs. Many of them work in a reverse auction manner; that is, you bid on the jobs. The bad part about bidding is that is drives the prices way down, so you may not earn much, but it is one way to get started. You may have to pay for membership, or pay a portion of your fees, depending on the site, or they may have free options. Below are a couple for your convenience.
Go Freelance
Elance
Guru
Craigslist
One advantage to having a website is that employers can quickly see what
you have to offer, so they may come to you, rather than you having to come
to them. Of course, it does take time to get well placed in the search engines,
so you might have to advertise your services. Google's AdWords and Yahoo Search
are two popular pay per click engines. It takes time to learn how to take
the best advantage of these; after all, who wants to spend $1 or more per
click to get customers?
Are you an Independent Contractor or an Employee?
This can make a difference in how you handle your taxes. Make sure you understand the differences.
How do work at home parents get health coverage?
When you don't have health coverage through a job, it isn't always easy to protect the health of your family. However, you can find a wide variety of options that might make health coverage more affordable.
Understanding Work at Home Ads
There are a lot of work at home ads out there that are just promoting scams. Fortunately, many are pretty obvious.
Go Freelance Review
This can be a good resource for freelancers. Try it out to see if it meets your needs.
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