I got a couple jobs through Elance when getting started. It depends on what business you're trying to drum up. 95% of people on there are looking for the cheapest work possible. But occasionally you'll get someone that looks at your portfolio and accepts your bid....and isn't just bidding on price.

Nowadays I do not as I get clients elsewhere.

Just by personal experience...again it depends on what business you are trying to get.

Kevin

John Carlton describes it as the "shameless whore" stage of a copywriting career - where you're willing to take any job for any money just to get started, and to get practice.

A few years ago I had some success on rentacoder which is now called Vworker, I made $2400 my first month, then $2500, then mostly over $2k a month but I was working fairly long hours as most buyers are looking for a cheap job. (Although one smart guy did pay me $2k to ghost write a product)

I've never worked on elance but it might be worth paying for a month or two and seeing the results.

Yes it is! The free training as you put together what you're getting paid to do has (for me) taught me enough that I'm in like Flynn.

I'm now firing myself off Elance, though - because my passive income is such that I'd be an idiot not to.

As far as working online for any freelancing gig, there's a reason they're #1 on the planet. They do have the low-ballers, the imbeciles who try to "negotiate" by telling you they have a native English speaker working for $1/500 words or something completely retarded (is my opinion showing? Whoops!) - but the fact is that you do find solid people on there to work with.

There are some great clients - a ton of them - looking for high caliber writing. It's a small percentage, but you see that offline as well.

It's all in the art of negotiations, and the art of closing a deal. You don't need to take the lame low-ballers, at least not for long (it's good to get some street cred, the "work for referral" jobs) - but after a while, you can make 6 figures.

(That requires you become a broker more than the producer of the content, but it happens.)

Best of luck to you - ironically I'm here to adjust my username from "JamestheJust on Elance" to "JamestheJust".

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I found that the people who were looking for work were looking for very cheap work. It may be the services I was offering were in a highly competitive market, but I'm not going to spend time writing for someone else to put their name on it and get a penny a word . . . or less!

Hmmmm....good thoughts here everyone - thanks for sharing.

I do web design, logos, sites and maintenance.
I have my website and get clients through it, but it comes in cycles.

I have put a bid on a project, charging what I normally charge. I'm not going to do those cheap jobs - and I saw a few looking for them.

I used to make a full time living from Elance. I quit due to the lowball bidding of offshore providers, making it nearly impossible for USA providers to charge what a project is worth. If you want to do graphic design for India pricing, Elance is your place. If you think working for a week on a logo for $50 is unreasonable, better look elsewhere.

It's been awhile since I've advertised there, but from what I remember, it's difficult to get taken seriously when you have a free account compared to a monthly membership. Especially if you're hoping to get reasonable rates (versus all the offshore lowballing), it looks more professional to have the paid membership.

Set up a paid account with a nice portfolio of writing samples, placed several bids where I catered to the client's needs, got one gig for a big article writing job, completed the job and turned it in ahead of schedule - never got paid the money that was supposedly in escrow.

So, even though I switched to a free account, I haven't been back to bid. A lot of people looking for the cheapest, or they want you to have lots of ratings before they can trust you. Now I hate the idea of bidding on jobs.

The Warrior for Hire section is sooo much better than Elance IMHO. You'll do better by promoting yourself as an independent, but hey, it doesn't hurt to try it out. Everyone has a different experience.