Freelancing is it really worthy ? (Part 2)

Im back with the continuation. I have answered a few question in the previous post. Now let me answer a few more.

What all I can do ?
Anything. Yes, I mean it. It could be programming, tutoring, data entry, blogging for someone else, writing articles, photography... the possibilities are endless. Try google search and you will see a lot of such things. There are a lot of internet scams so you have to be slightly careful in figuring out the right freelancing projects.

Advantages and Disadvantages
Let me start with Advantages so that you feel comfortable.

1. The biggest advantage as I already pointed out is the flexibility. Whether you work from 9 AM to 5 PM or 5 PM to 9 AM is your wish ;-)

2. No one would ever question you for going late to office, no one would call you for team meetings, you don't need to work under someone who doesn't know what the problem is but keeps suggesting solutions , keep on bugging you about the status for every half an hour(often a manager).

Let me emphasize that Im not quoting my situation here.

3. You decide what you do. If dislike some work, you need not do that. Often, in freelancing work, you bid for the projects that you are interested in so there is no one who forces you to do the work you hate.

Now coming to the disadvantages

1. Its often hard to predict the revenue you generate so sometimes it could frustrate you in the initial stages. In the initial stages you may feel that the 9 to 5 job with lesser but an assured pay is better than a fluctuating revenue.

2. You have to be a Jack of all trades. If you restrict yourself to a specific skill set then making a decent life out of freelancing may be difficult unless there are a lot of projects around your skill set.

3. Once you work through a few days and have earned some money, you might feel like taking a break. You have to keep yourself motivated... that obviously is a challenge.

4. Often, people tend to identify you by your company. When you are a freelancer its hard to get the same recognition and sometimes its hard to explain what you do (unless the other person is from a similar background).

As always there are Pros and Cons in this situation too and you are the person who have to decide.

What would I do if I were you ?
I knew you would have this question in mind. As a matter of fact, I am a fan of dual pack (Work on 9 to 5 Job + freelancing in part time) and I would suggest people doing it until they get work enough in freelancing and get projects for the next 1 year.

Though I don't focus much on freelancing, whenever I work on projects I get paid around 15 to 20$ per hour which I think is decent number.

Im willing to pay you $$ can you host my bot ?

Yes, Im looking out for someone who can host a bot that I have written. Its a program written in Java. I wish to get it running 24x7.

For this help, Im ready to pay some money. If you already have an account where you and if you can host java bots, Im fine in hosting it through your account (if your service provider allows it).

Anyone willing to offer me bot hosting service can post a comment here with their mail address. I'll revert back with the details.

Im available on twitter - http://twitter.com/sbblogger

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.