For those that may be out of work, and would like to try their hand at freelance work online (from home or wherever). I suggest that you try www.upwork.com. It took me awhile (as a writer) to finally "get it" regarding how to propose in the appropriate manner and set a firm rate, but once I got some work and performed above expectations, the offers from the original company and several others started coming in. FWIW, I use this to offset dry periods when my consulting business is not running at 100%.

This guy has a lot of tips/tricks that actually work. Once I started following his golden rules is when things started to happen.

All of his tips/tricks/hacks are free, and they actually make sense and even more importantly, they work.

Just like anything else you have to commit some time to the strategy, but if a dunce like me can do it, surely some A&M graduates can do better.

Any questions, just let me know. And no, I'm not affiliated with danny or upwork.com (except as a client/freelancer).

PS. And I'm only working from a free account in upwork. There are upgrades available, but I don't see the need to for the foreseeable future. I get oodles of free credits to submit proposals to clients.

Oh, and go to

www.freelancetowin.com

and sign up for the free hacks newsletter. That's where I got all of my helpful tips.

Glad this has worked well for you! Gives me hope. I'm hoping to use this to supplement my pursuit of a doctoral degree without taking away money from my family/kids.

AGGODDESS said:

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Glad this has worked well for you! Gives me hope. I'm hoping to use this to supplement my pursuit of a doctoral degree without taking away money from my family/kids.

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If you need any guidance along the way, is be happy to help. One golden rule is do NOT underprice your services. That was my first mistake. When I plugged in the actual going rate for the services I provide, along with not only submitting the proposal to a potential client, but also telling them in detail how I would handle their project in stages and how I would meet their goals, did I start to get hits.

Good luck, and again, if you need some help, just post questions here. I may not get to them right away but I will respond. I highly suggest the free hacks newsletter. That's where things started working for me.

Oh, and set up two or three profiles if you are offering different services. For example, I set up one for Technical Writing and another for Proposal Writing and Proposal Management, with the proposal work demanding a higher rate of course.

Also, you don't need to be a Writer, you can be an Engineer, a Graphic Artist, a Desktop Publisher, and a slew of other professions.

Is this legit?

BrazosDog02 said:

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Is this legit? What kind of money are we talking about?

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It's legit. I charge $130/hr for proposal writing. $50/he for tech writing. But you have to develop a good profile and submit proposals that show you are worth that (or more). It's all 1099 of course so you pay your own taxes.

I generally get a mistake of 60% tech writing and 40% proposal writing at around 30 hours a week. So I generally makes around $2500 a week, and I'm really just getting started. One customer has already signed me up for a more extensive project based on my previous work with them

I'm aware of the 1099. That's what I do now. I'm in this and that. Never heard of upwork and it looked interesting.

BrazosDog02 said:

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I'm aware of the 1099. That's what I do now. I'm in this and that. Never heard of upwork and it looked interesting.

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It's probably the only legit freelance website out there. There are a lot of others, but they want you to work for (literally) pennies.

Go for the specialty work, not writing articles or stuff like that. Or Engineering design, etc. That's where the better money is.

Edit. I HATE autocorrect on the mobile. I'm going to turn it off.

"This site asks for personal banking data to complete a profile - before it approves applicants. This is dangerous as they do not explain their data protection policies nor do they respond when queried about how they protect your personal information"

JamesPShelley said:

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"This site asks for personal banking data to complete a profile - before it approves applicants. This is dangerous as they do not explain their data protection policies nor do they respond when queried about how they protect your personal information"

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I just set up a paypal account for myself. But that is a good question if you are concerned about data privacy.

Synopsis said:

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JamesPShelley said:

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"This site asks for personal banking data to complete a profile - before it approves applicants. This is dangerous as they do not explain their data protection policies nor do they respond when queried about how they protect your personal information"

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I just set up a paypal account for myself. But that is a good question if you are concerned about data privacy.

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Sorry...

https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/upwork.com

I used Upwork and elance all the time but from the other side of things, when I have a project that either I didn't have the technical expertise on staff for or didn't have the free manpower I'd post a job on there and within a couple hours I'd have 20 different proposals.

It's legit. We hire out jobs here often.

Synopsis said:

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BrazosDog02 said:

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Is this legit? What kind of money are we talking about?

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It's legit. I charge $130/hr for proposal writing. $50/he for tech writing. But you have to develop a good profile and submit proposals that show you are worth that (or more). It's all 1099 of course so you pay your own taxes.

I generally get a mistake of 60% tech writing and 40% proposal writing at around 30 hours a week. So I generally makes around $2500 a week, and I'm really just getting started. One customer has already signed me up for a more extensive project based on my previous work with them

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Do you charge more so you can hire someone to proofread your own work? Based on what I've seen here, I'd be worried that anything you produce would be chock full of mistakes.

Is it worth spending hours only to not have someone choose your work? I'm trying to understand the TIME vs PROFIT situation ratio here.

I have not been in the corporate world for nearly 3 years. So, all of my income has been self generated via contracts or sales. In that time, while I was looking for work and had not landed a single interview in my field, I was bombarded with recruiters and BS schemes. So, I am HIGHLY skeptical of anything like this. One thing I that has held true in in experience is "If you can make 100+ bucks an hour doing xxxxx, why isn't everyone doing it?"

BrazosDog02 said:

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I have not been in the corporate world for nearly 3 years. So, all of my income has been self generated via contracts or sales. In that time, while I was looking for work and had not landed a single interview in my field, I was bombarded with recruiters and BS schemes. So, I am HIGHLY skeptical of anything like this. One thing I that has held true in in experience is "If you can make 100+ bucks an hour doing xxxxx, why isn't everyone doing it?"

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There have always been consultants and free lancers - this just gives them a world wide platform to market their services.

It's like short term home rentals - before Air BnB and VRBO people rented their homes out. But now, with these platforms, an enormous amount of people not only market their homes but more people rent them.

Both have this in common - they have accelerated and grown an industry through securely and efficiently connecting people.

RG20 said:

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Is it worth spending hours only to not have someone choose your work? I'm trying to understand the TIME vs PROFIT situation ratio here.

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... and their 20%.

When first independently I contracted my services I tried one or two of these outfit types. Didn't work for me. They either wanted an extraordinary cut ($$), or the offers for professional work were far and few. In my experience, "clients" wanted to pay peanuts. I opted: No.

Finally, and my wife will attest, I can't buy pencil without spending hours researching real-people reviews. My research of Upwork revealed it is an outfit with which I wouldn't associate.

I've had great experiences hiring people on Upwork. I imagine the most frustrating aspect for a freelancer would be competing with inexpensive foreign labor because I've found great people from outside the US for a fraction of what it would cost to have the work performed by an American. I suppose that is why writing and communication oriented freelancers do the best.

We use upwork extensively. A lot of what we need is manual and tedious in nature, as we are trying to evolve our business...so we find someone with the right skills for the right hourly rate and it works great for us.

For what we do, we are almost exclusively using resources overseas (serbia to be exact). We occasionally use US based resources when English transcription is involved as more of a data quality move than anything.

I am sure upwork isn't for everyone, and upwork isn't for every job or role either...but if you both have a fit, it works great.

I Am A Critic said:

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Synopsis said:

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BrazosDog02 said:

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Is this legit? What kind of money are we talking about?

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It's legit. I charge $130/hr for proposal writing. $50/he for tech writing. But you have to develop a good profile and submit proposals that show you are worth that (or more). It's all 1099 of course so you pay your own taxes.

I generally get a mistake of 60% tech writing and 40% proposal writing at around 30 hours a week. So I generally makes around $2500 a week, and I'm really just getting started. One customer has already signed me up for a more extensive project based on my previous work with them

---

Do you charge more so you can hire someone to proofread your own work? Based on what I've seen here, I'd be worried that anything you produce would be chock full of mistakes.

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I am a perfectionist when it comes to writing. I NEVER produce a sub par product. Never.

JamesPShelley said:

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RG20 said:

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Is it worth spending hours only to not have someone choose your work? I'm trying to understand the TIME vs PROFIT situation ratio here.

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... and their 20%.

When first independently I contracted my services I tried one or two of these outfit types. Didn't work for me. They either wanted an extraordinary cut ($$), or the offers for professional work were far and few. In my experience, "clients" wanted to pay peanuts. I opted: No.

Finally, and my wife will attest, I can't buy pencil without spending hours researching real-people reviews. My research of Upwork revealed it is an outfit with which I wouldn't associate.

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My experience is completely different.

JamesPShelley said:

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RG20 said:

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Is it worth spending hours only to not have someone choose your work? I'm trying to understand the TIME vs PROFIT situation ratio here.

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... and their 20%.

When first independently I contracted my services I tried one or two of these outfit types. Didn't work for me. They either wanted an extraordinary cut ($$), or the offers for professional work were far and few. In my experience, "clients" wanted to pay peanuts. I opted: No.

Finally, and my wife will attest, I can't buy pencil without spending hours researching real-people reviews. My research of Upwork revealed it is an outfit with which I wouldn't associate.

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Then up your price if you're any good. Nobody is stopping you.

I've looked at it some as a lawyer... most of the related jobs are specifically asking for legal advice which I can only offer in 2 states. Wouldn't mind finding a few drafting or research jobs on there.