How to become a freelancer? Where can I get projects? Tell me a best site for freelancer please

Question

How to become a freelancer?

Where can I get projects?

Tell me a best site for freelancer please.

Answer 1

When I started freelancing, I found http://freelanceswitch.com and http://net.tutsplus.com/ to be really great resources.

Answer 2

Checkout answers here.

Answer 3

I know some people who have gotten some decent work through oDesk: http://www.odesk.com/

Description from Wikipedia:

oDesk allows employers (“buyers”) to create online workteams coordinated and paid through the company's proprietary software and website. Prospective employers can post jobs for free, and freelance workers (“providers”) may create profiles and bid on jobs, also for free. The company puts potential providers through “a rigorous screening.”[6] The company collects 10 percent of the payment. Payments are made through oDesk, which handles many bookkeeping tasks for the transaction. In addition to the marketplace aspect and the payment/bookkeeping services, the company uses collaborative software, “oDesk Team,” that allows employers to see a provider's progress while he or she is billing time. This aspect of the company's business model has drawn criticism.

Answer 4

There are many sites that provide freelancing. There are some books too for that. Start with some site like www.getfreelancer.com. Register yourself and start bidding for a project. If the person likes your bid and message he will contact you.

In the beginning you may find it bit odd to bid. But slowly you will get accustomed to it.

Answer 5

I would like to recommend oDesk.

Be very meticulous when you fill out your profile. This part is very important. If don't have any previous assignment, it's a good idea to start with a lower hourly rate.

Answer 6

Back when I was freelancing for a few years, I picked a completely different approach from checking out websites -- get reasonably well-known in a few fields, get a strong social network going among professional peers, get reasonably credible verbal promises about long-term renewable contracts, and only THEN resign from my full-time job.

I think my approach worked pretty fine -- I found I got to bill about 80% of my time at pretty good hourly rates, vs 20% of my time "selling myself" in various ways, while I hear the recommended rule of thumb is 50-50; as I had set my hourly rates to cover my previous salary and benefits on the 50-50 expectation, I made out pretty well (even not counting the stock and options I got from consulting for some startups -- some of it is now known to be worthless, but other might still turn out not to be;-).

I was nevertheless glad to leave the freelance consultant life for an opportunity as a full-timer at a very promising firm (Google, as it happens) -- spending more time in airplanes, airports, and hotels, than I did in either my office or the clients', grew old pretty fast (but as I consulted on management and business/technical interface issues, as well as plain SW development, I just couldn't do my job right without a LOT of face to face time -- and, my best tech qualifications being in then-marginal technologies, esp. Python, I could hardly get many contracts at my high rates without a lot of flying all over the world... at that time I had moved back to my hometown and there just weren't enough opportunities at close distance for such consulting, to keep me employed full time!-).

Maybe you can swing a good living freelancing without great reputation and a strong social network, like I had taken the trouble to build up... but, I honestly doubt it -- without some competitive differentiation vs a horde of other developers, how are you ever going to "stand out from the crowd"?!

On the plus side, with the explosion of open source and sites such as SO, getting strong reputation and some start of a social network is WAY easier today than it was a decade ago when I was doing it -- so why not just get going, start making your name right now as an OS contributor and writer (blogger?) and SO responder with excellent reputation, and get much better freelancing opportunities that way than any website will ever offer...?!

Answer 7

If you're just getting started and don't mind some small jobs, checkout the "computer" section of craigslist's "gigs".

Answer 8

I really recommend on FreelanceTraffic I received my payment always in time.