This week’s question come from Brooke:

Hi Joe.  I have a somewhat unique situation in that my husband is a pilot in the Air Force which limits where I can find work. Working remotely is great, but it isn’t easy to find that type of work. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing freelance work, but I’m a bit stumped where to look for work and the best way to find work. My background is in usability and user experience.I can’t decide if I should try to go to local companies and offer my services to improve their websites or if I should try some of these freelance sites on the internet. Do you have any suggestions on where to find work?

Tags: answers, ask me, beginning, gigs, links, niche, questions, series, work | Posted in Ask Me About It | Comments Off

This week Cory, a designer from NJ keeps his question pithy:

How do you come up with pricing?

It’s a question that plagues most freelancers, especially when they are starting out. How do you value yourself? What if the client doesn’t like your rates? Just starting out, the key is about flexibility. Once you get a feel for your skill, and are able to estimate time, the key is confidence. Read on….

Tags: beginning, clients, price, rates, student | Posted in Advice, Lessons | Comments Off

Smashing Magazine’s Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer is the cliffs notes of almost everything I’ve learned about freelancing since high school. They cover everything from the leg work you need to do to branding, and of-course, pricing. Well worth the read, especially if you haven’t taken the plunge yet.

(link to post)Visit Smashing’s Roadmap to Freelancing

As per usual, FreelanceSwitch has published a great article, this time regarding college freelancers. As someone who up until a couple of weeks ago has been exclusively a student freelancer, this stuff really rings true. Especially this little number:

Try to keep your student status out of it

Words cannot describe how frustrating a client can be pre-contract when they find out you’re a student. I do feel however, that once you’ve developed a rapport it’s ok to mention- my clients have been very understanding, especially when it came to crunch time in the semester.

So go ahead and check out the other 4 tips. All really great adivce if you’re a student looking to freelance.

(link to post)Visit 5 Tips for College Freelancers

As a freelancer, a lot of my gigs come from referrals- friends, family, former clients. But, especially starting out, you can’t always rely on these. You should actively look for work on a regular basis. My first non-referral gig came when I responded to a gig board’s posting and the poster decided to go with me. Here is how I did it.

Tags: beginning, gigs, people, referrals, tips | Posted in Advice, Stories | 1 Comment »

I wrote a little over a month ago about finding my first niche. As I said, it worked out for my for a while, but MySpace got big and snatched that market right out from under me. To be honest, it was time for me to move on anyway. My skills were getting better and I was ready to create real business solutions for real businesses. So I had to figure out what my next niche would be.

Tags: beginning, clients, niche, people, skills | Posted in Stories | Comments Off