Do you do well in freelancing?

You're right. Freelance writing online is very competitive. Here's an alternative:

If you're a decent writer, you'll probably do better with your own niche website. I imagine a site about health would be a profitable niche for you since you describe yourself as a health enthusiast. There are a variety of ways to monetize your own site, etc. Building and monetizing your own site is not as difficult as you might think. I use SBI for mine, and they have a lot of awesome tools and resources. Even a complete newbie can build and grow a profitable site using SBI.

I link to them in my signature. Check it out.

BF

Brandon,

Yes, it does take time to build up your reputation as a freelancer. But there are things that you can do to set yourself apart from the crowd.

First of all, you'll do well to set yourself apart by going above and beyond what the normal crowd offers. Offer to do a sample article for free, share your EzineArticles profile to prove your writing quality and if you're desperate, why not offer to do it at a lower "trial" rate until you prove yourself. The way I see it, a lot of people out there are just crying out for quality writers who are reliable, and are just putting up with substandard work because they don't know what else is out there.

Finally, if you want to establish yourself as a long term provider, create a website and market it. You never know how that may blossom into bigger and better things, after all Tiffany Dow started out as a ghostwriter and look where she is now. Who's to say that you can't achieve all that and more?

Brandon,
Many of us do both. Freelancing can help fund a multitude of projects.

It does take awhile to build credibility; but that's true of many businesses. If you deliver a quality product it's not hard to build a reputation. I think it's easier to do that here on the WF than on the bidding sites. But that's just my personal experience.

Rose

I have been in freelancing since 2009 and I can remember those days when I was a beginner and was desperate to get my fist job/project.

I think its all about building a good profile,giving exams and during messaging to your buyer make him/her belief that you can actually do the job according to his/her expectations.Once you get your first project and complete it in a good skill and quality ask your buyer to give a good review/feedback and then you dont have to look back and this is what actually happened to me.

No doubt being a beginner is tough.
You mention you might as well get a job.

Most of the jobs I had, I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

I don't know many people who started a freelance writing business and within a week had so many clients they couldn't accept any new clients.

Many writers start with fiverr, constant-content and several other article-related sites.

Writing for fiverr absolutely stinks. You only get about $3.90 for the article. However, it is starting at the bottom and by getting gigs, you will start to build a reputation. When a fiverr buyer likes your writing, they come back for more.

Spend $20 and take out an ad here.

Offer your services on the warriors for hire.

Writing cheap = starting a job at the bottom.

The key is to get clients and keep them.

I wrote several articles for a newspaper publication but I knew that if I wrote cheap in the beginning, I could hook them and they eventually pay me what I am worth. I figured if they were not willing to pay me what I was worth after the cheap articles, they could go back to hiring cheap writings and they'll get what they pay for.

You can also make some packages on your site aside from giving them free articles. Lets say you can charge a certain amount and in return you will provide them 5 or 10 articles and each of these articles will be submitted to 3 or 5 article directories.

You could use a site like elance.com

It is a lot harder to get started in freelance writing than it was just a few years ago.

So many people receive the advice to "write articles" when they ask how to start making money online that it seems everyone is giving it a go.

Set up a strong centralized portfolio backed by supportive articles in a few directories. You can do this while you are collecting the odd jobs from various freelance sites or here on the WF.

Writing has to be something that chooses You if you actually intend to stay in it for the long haul.

Know what though? There's a reason why so many people advocate freelancing.

It works.

Sure, you have to put in a little time and if you want customer testimonials, you may have to start at the bottom.

But the Internet is EXPLODING- new businesses start up every day, and most of them don't want to make the content themselves.

Freelancing isn't going anywhere, but if you want to be successful then you might have to do what the other guy won't. Maybe that's charging lower prices to get testimonials, or you can ask for a higher price to stand out, and then justify the price with your high quality.

The Warriors for Hire section is great for lower prices, and once you get testimonials from that you can move on to bigger clients (possibly by having your own publishing/writing website)

I've been freelancing for years and find it feast or famine. One minute there's so much to do you can barely handle the load, then suddenly it calms down again. During the slow periods I use my time to build my own products.

If you are going to live solely on freelancing, you are going to find that you will spend a lot of time marketing for a "job" more or less. With your own products you get some residual income, so my suggestion is that you do both.

I am only doing both (freelancing and selling products) only when I feel desperate for more money and my product doesn't seem to sell well. At the moment, I think product creation while maintaining quality seem to be the best way to go for me unless I somehow screw up or sales isn't good then I might turn to alternative plans like freelancing.

By the way, from what I have seen from elance. Since the place is so saturated with writers, I have only seen one person so far that has 30k+ worth of earnings from elance and he took years. So I am having quite a bad impression right now of freelancing but can anyone tell me your success on freelancing and the average income you earn per month from the number of jobs you get?

i'd say i'm doing ok, but there's a lot of competition around

i'm not doing bad and i'm not doing great, maybe in the middle, as long as i can live by what i earn i'd say pretty well.

I'm trying to position myself as a writer with a comparatively higher rate as compared to others but capable of doing a damn good job. It is kind of hard starting though, especially if you don't have much of a reputation yet.

I'm having a website built where I can show off all of my works and I plan to concentrate only in the few niches I'm knowledgeable in. I'm writing a few sample articles on these niches to show them off. I can definitely write about any topic but the amount research I'll need to pour in, especially for medical and legal articles, might be too much work.

Content mills are an okay place to start out, especially if you need the money. You can also try sending emails out to people who may need your service. I did this with a travel website and I'm now writing 400 word informational articles for $20 each. Not bad.

Well , I was doing well , until starting a new business online idea poped up in my mind and am now into that , anyway with both these experience , I have to say free lance is the best way to earn online with out investment