Freelancing is it really worthy ? (Part 1)

This is one of the interesting topics that I wanted to discuss with many of my friends because everyone has his own version of the story. Some people say that it is waste of time and others say it is worthy and a very few are unaware about freelancing.

Let me begin assuming that at least of few of us are very beginners and aren't aware.

What is freelancing ?
First and foremost freelancing is a way by which you earn money by doing some work in your free time. It is not a regular 9 to 5 job so you have the flexibility to work as per your timing and priorities. You choose the work you wish and you dictate the billing. That is how it goes. Doesn't this appear great ? Yes there are a lot of good things about this but you'll have to overcome a few initial hiccups.

What all I need to get started ?
All you need is a computer, internet connection and some basic knowledge on the area you want to work on. If you are a programmer I have a decent information to share with you on the other hand if you are a data entry operator, I know that a lot of work is there on the internet but I haven't tried it out so I may not be able to pinpoint you to the resources.

How do I start ?
There are a plenty of work people are willing to get it done through professional freelancing websites. There are a plenty of such sites over internet. In fact there are greater number of dubious sites than the genuine ones so be careful while choosing your first site.

The easiest way you can assume a site to be genuine is whether they asking any money for your registration. Though this isn't applicable in all the cases, still as a beginner you can apply this rule and get started with some sites initially. Once you have decent understanding of the freelancing mechanics, you can try others too.

One of the websites I worked with is livepersons.com. There are others too like guru.com, odesk.com, rentacoder.com and a lot many. Try google search and it would return you a lot of good sites. You can followup about the genuineness by googling further.

How much can I earn ?
Congratulations ! You are not the first person to ask the question. When I tried it out initially, even I had the same question.

It all depends on your caliber, your patience , determination and consistency.

The obvious term I would repeat here is patience. In fact, many of us lose patience just after the first few days in which you may not get any projects.

Yes, I mean it. In the first few days you may not be able to secure any projects. I'll explain the reasons further in my next post about what helps you in getting better projects.

About the ability to earn, I tried it out but the only thing that kept me busy is my office work so I rarely worked for freelancing but I got a chance to understand the dynamics.

About how much you can earn, minimum is $0 (if you drop out after a few days) and maximum is unlimited. Yes, regular job holders have come out of their jobs to take up freelancing as a full time activity. They even started startups and have full time employees in their companies. Hope you now realize the potential of the revenues.

A couple of years ago, I read that the revenues earned by Indian freelancers is $1 billion.

While posting this, I tried google search and I got the url where I read the article

In my next post I would further take you through more details.