Quick money as freelancer

Here’s the basic problem with the “quickly” mentality: In freelancing, as with any startup business, when you take the quick fast buck, it robs you of the time you need to find the big-money assignments and to do those better gigs.

You have to believe in your skills and have financial resources to be able to say “no” to insulting offers. But it’s the key to building a healthy freelance income.

It also means finding out how to identify great clients and market your services to them. And possibly a willingness to find creative ways to make ends meet in the meanwhile.

That’s the quickest way to build your business beyond the starvation level, to earn a healthy, sustainable living as a freelance writer.

Freelance Projects

Even as companies are laying off workers left and right, that work still need to get done by someone. Often times, companies will turn to freelancers on a per project basis as a way to save money and get things done quickly. Further, for smaller, one-time projects, it doesn’t make sense for many companies to hire a full-time employee, so frequently they will turn to the freelancer marketplace. There are many places to look for freelance jobs, but the large bid-based job boards are a good place to start. eLance, Guru, ScriptLance, and sologig are some of the best known.

Cash in on Your Photos

Amateur-produced stock photos are a huge business. Last year iStockPhoto paid out $20.9 million in royalties to contributors. So selling your photos is indeed a possible way to make some extra, passive income, and there are a number of places where you can try to sell your pictures. We recently published a list of 15 such stock photo web sites, many of which give bonuses for exclusivity.

Offer services through online classifieds and freelance sites

Use your existing skill as a freelancer or something else you’re good at, and offer your services online. Classifieds sites like Craigslist and Elance are places to place ads and to find people needing your services.

Do local, physical jobs

Put up an ad in your local area for services you can offer like cleaning, washing cars, raking leaves and walking dogs. You could also go around knocking on doors and asking.

Create a small downloadable product to sell

Put together a simple guide or ebook using pdf software, your knowledge, and/or even use previously written material with no copyright (known as ‘Public Label Rights’) that you can recreate into your own material. Sell the product via your blog or site, or partner with someone else who has access to followers, newsletter followers, and more.

Resell stuff online

There are some great profits to be made on buying products for cheap somewhere and reselling them elsewhere, namely online.

Advertise affiliate products on your blog

If you have a good means to market products, via a blog or to Twitter followers, or a mailing list, for example, you could sell affiliate products and earn a commission on each sold.

Create basic sites for businesses or make basic sites and sell them

If you are good with designing websites, you could have a look for websites of companies that are relatively poor and suggest you redesign them for a fee.

Or, you can figure out what sites people are willing to buy as potential sources of income, build them (or buy them cheap and redesign), add some affiliate products and some content, perhaps a logo, and sell it on a site like Flippa.

Write For Markets That Pay $1 Per Word

An exciting challenge for freelance writers is to break in to high-paying writing markets.

A thousand words, a thousand dollars. That’s what you could earn if you sell your thousand-word article to the right publications. But before you send off that manuscript there are a couple of things

you should know.

First, most high paying publications prefer to assign articles after receiving a query, rather than receiving unsolicited manuscripts. So you will need to sell your idea and your ability

very well. Which brings me to the second point.

It is very rare for an unpublished writer to break in directly to top magazines. These publications have built their reputation with readers over the years by publishing only the finest writing. The editors are unlikely to give you the time of day if you have never had an article published previously. You need to work up gradually.

As with many other careers, it is important to work your way up, proving your ability as you climb each step. So if you want to write for high-paying publications, plan your strategy. Start by building up a few clips with local publications. Next, work your way towards regional publications and medium-paying markets. If you already have your heart set on being published in a particular magazine, try to identify local and regional magazines that will give you appropriate and relevant clips.

Finally when you have built up a good portfolio of published clips, and a reputation as a writer who is reliable and great to work with, you’ll be ready to pitch to the editors of the high-paying markets.

Freelancing is a way of life for many small business owners. Plus, in today’s market, many employees moonlight as a way to earn extra income. Getting started and spreading the word about your services when looking for freelance jobs is not always easy.

The big three contractor/freelancer sites are Guru, Elance and Odesk.

Guru offers a wide variety of freelancing jobs and allows you to create up to five different profiles. Their commission is variable, but they handle tax reporting so you do not have to give out your Social Security number to every employer.

 Elance -There are five major job categories on Elance: Programmers, mobile developers, designers, writers and marketers. But you can drop down into a wide ranging list, too. As one of the top freelancing websites, they maintain a great site and service. The commission is higher than most. They offer escrow payment and dispute resolution, for those jobs that don’t go right.

Odesk is designed for freelancers who prefer hourly wages as opposed to flat fees. They are a little more expensive in their commissions, but they cover employer tax costs if the employer wants to hire you through their payroll service. You need to log in to the website while you work so it can record screen shots.

Freelanced is a job posting site. You have to register to use it, but memberships range from free to $7 per month based on the features you want. Once you find an employer, Freelanced bows out of the relationship, so you will need to arrange for payment through Paypal

Aquent has a unique business model that works as part freelancer connection and part international temp service. You have to apply, be tested, and go to one of their many locations for a fact-to-face interview. But they will match you up with temporary employers that pay decent wages. It primarily has jobs in design and marketing but caters to many types of jobs.

FlexJobs is one of my favorites. This site is an aggregator, of sorts, collecting jobs they find all over the Web. But they have real people research, sift, and sort telecommuting, part-time, remote jobs of all types. It has a monthly subscription fee or $14.95 or $49.95 for an annual subscription.

Pitch Me reverses the concept of a job-posting site. Here, freelancers pitch the articles they want to write and editors select them. To sign up, you have to click on the sign-in icon, fill in the information, and be accepted. It looks like the website takes care of payments and charges a flat fee plus commission to editors when they accept your articles.

Computer Assistant is an interesting website for tech freelancers who are willing to work onsite. You register with them as you do on other freelancer sites and are then screened by them. When jobs in your area come available, based on your availability and skill, you will be notified and can bid on them.

Arise directs work toward tech support, customer service, and sales representatives who have obtained certification in their fields and adhere to Arise’s standards. (For example, you cannot have a generic email like Gmail or Yahoo, and you must incorporate). They pay per call, per minute, or per hour.

Fiverr is a well-known online service match-making provider. Everything from graphics to marketing to sign-holders (people who will hold your sign and snap a quality photo of it for you to use). There are people who will run an errand or transcribe an audio file.

oDesk

oDesk will fore

Here are the best places online to find work as a freelancer.