Freelancing: Working Out of the Box, with Help from the Web

FreelanceSwitch is perhaps the best freelance resource on the Web. Here you'll find a list of archived columns full of advice for beginning freelancers. This site always points freelancers in the direction of useful online sites and tools, and provides insightful and often humorous advice about the freelance world.

Phil Gyford (a Londoner who has been freelancing since 2003) put together a beginner's guide to freelancing that is quite comprehensive and very easy to read. He covers issues like marketing yourself, dividing work and personal time, and billing clients. Although some advice is specific to those workers in the United Kingdom (tax advice and the like), the greater part of this guide will be useful to any freelancer.

Entrepreneur.com has an article called  "How to Freelance Your Expertise," by Andrea C. Poe, that has some quick tips about how much money to save before you begin freelancing as well as how to generate business. Poe also provides a list of some common areas in which people find freelance work.

The Riley Guide is a useful resource for any jobseeker, and the "Telecommuting and Work-At-Home" section is particularly interesting to a contract worker or telecommuter. You'll find a list of a few job posting sites as well as some tips for avoiding work-at-home scams. This section even suggests some less conventional home-based businesses, such as organizer or professional pet sitter.

Garrett Dimon has some resources for those thinking about going it alone. This U.K.-based writer has some good, brief tips about what to consider before going solo. Another article on this site is specific to becoming a Web developer but can apply to anyone considering freelance work and provides more concise advice.

Matthew Stibbe is a freelance journalist in the United Kingdom who has some very useful tips for those considering freelance writing. This blog entry is specific to writers and doesn't go into much detail about the logistics of general freelancing, but provides hints about battling writers block, sending story pitches to editors, marketing and business development, and more.

Coroflot is a fast and free way for creative professionals to put their work online. You are allowed to upload an unlimited number of files to your portfolio (so long as they are not larger than 200KB each). Coroflot also serves as a job posting site and networking community. Even if you are not in the creative field yourself, it is worthwhile to browse the portfolios on the site from architects, designers, illustrators, and artists of all kinds to see the large spectrum of creative work featured here.

Carbonmade allows creative artists to put together an online portfolio for free. If you sign up for the free account, you'll get to upload 5 projects and 35 images. If you pay for the service (around $12/month) you can upload up to 500 images and even high-quality videos of your work. This is an easy way for an artist to get a nice-looking portfolio without having to design a personal Web site.

FigDig is a free portfolio-posting site that allows only eight images per user, but has file-size allowances for widescreen and high-quality images that other portfolio sites do not. Knowledge of how to resize your images to fit FigDig's requirements is a necessity. You can browse other portfolios and rate other users' work, upload a PDF version of your résumé for potential clients to view, and assign keywords to your portfolio to make finding it easier for employers in need of someone like you.

Portfolios.com spans a wide variety of creative media: photographers, musicians, artists, Web designers, and more. This site offers a free portfolio option that includes a very minimal five images, but you can pay (from about $10-$50 per month depending on which package you want) to display more material and to have the site showcase your portfolio on its partner sites. Unlike Carbonmade, which is really just a place for you to keep a portfolio and direct people to it, Portfolios.com will, for a price, show your work around the Web.

VoodooChilli.net is a portfolio service for artists. You'll get a few "upload credits" to start with and if you want to upload more images, you can buy the credits individually (rather than buying a monthly or yearly package like most other portfolio sites). This is a U.K.-based site so purchase prices are in pounds, but the site will convert to U.S. currency if you like.

LinkedIn is a networking site that allows you to set up a professional profile, then connect with colleagues (past and present), old classmates, or search for other people in your industry. LinkedIn is a pretty useful tool for freelancers because it enables you to see who your friends know and where they work (thus giving you an "in" with a company you might want to do freelance work for).

WhoToTalkTo is a place to post job leads and to get job leads from others. The site works on a point system so that you have to post your own leads in order to request one from someone else. It's a new way to get your foot in the door, find out who's doing the hiring, what they're looking for, and how you can contact them directly.

Ryze (pronounced "rise") can help you create networks with past contacts or others in your field, search for jobs using their "Classifieds" section, or check out what career-related events are going on in your area. Ryze is free and offers a video tutorial to get you started.

Ning is for you if you'd prefer to develop all of your networking contacts yourself, or if you have a niche skill that doesn't fit into any categories on some of the more traditional professional networking sites. Most social networking sites allow you to create a profile; Ning allows you to create your own social network. This is definitely not the way to get exposed to the greatest number of contacts, but by creating your own network you control who joins it. If your network is a success, you might even gain some expert credibility in your field.

Sologig has a huge directory of projects. Try sorting your results by date rather than relevance because often the older opportunities have already been filled. You can also post your résumé so employers can find you.

FreelanceSwitch has a job forum that is very straightforward, has large text, and makes looking for work a breeze. Search the jobs in categories like Design/Illustration, Programming, Writing/Blogging, or Miscellaneous.

37signals has programming and design "gigs" (otherwise known as short-term projects). You can subscribe to the job postings via RSS feed so that you don't have to keep checking the site every day. The job board for this site is also worth checking out.

Krop is an incredibly straightforward job-post site for creative and tech jobs. Either look at the list of recently posted jobs or search for keywords (for example, type of job or location). You can also subscribe to get the job feed via RSS.

Guru is an online job posting community for freelance professionals and companies that need them. Basic membership is free but you have to agree to receive all your payments through the site. Create a profile, upload a copy of your résumé, and start looking for jobs to bid on. If you decide to only use the free service, you are limited in what jobs you can apply for. Upgrades cost anywhere from about $150 to about $200 annually depending on what features you need, and there are discounts for upgrading more than one of your profiles at once.

Elance.com lets you develop an online portfolio and then place bids on projects listed on the site. The basic free membership greatly limits your ability to get work (as you can only bid if invited by the client) and minimizes your ability to maintain a strong presence on the site. Paid subscription allows you anywhere from 8 to 120 bids a month and can cost from around $10 to $200 a month depending on your profession and the type of membership you'd like. Elance also takes a cut of your project fee.

oDesk will help you find and bid on technology jobs, or simply post your hourly rate and take a few skills tests to let potential employers find you. oDesk is free to join and helps you track and receive payment.

Craigslist isn't technically a job search site; it is a classifieds site that has job postings. Find your city on the list of cities on the right side of the homepage, then look for freelance work in the "jobs" industry of your choice, or take a look at the "gigs" posted (these are almost exclusively contract, short-term, or freelance work). If you don't mind sorting through the sometimes adult-themed content and occasional ad post, this is a great place to look for short-term work.

Indeed's advanced job search allows you to search by job type ("contract" is one of them), location, keywords, and when the job was posted. This site searches all job listings on major job boards, newspapers, associations, and company job pages so it usually produces pretty comprehensive results and is a good place to browse the general pool of job listings.

Mediabistro.com is not exclusively freelance but it does provide a good amount of listings for contract and freelance work for those in the media industry. You'll find the most job listings in larger cities but if you plan to work remotely, this won't really be an issue.

FreelanceSwitch has an Hourly Rate Calculator that asks you to enter all of your business, personal, and other expenses in some detail. The calculator then prompts you to figure out how many days and hours you'll be working over the course of a year. It then gives you an estimate of what you'd need to charge per hour to break even, and what you'd need to make per hour to achieve a profit margin of your choosing. This calculator won't accurately give you an exact per-hour rate (as you may encounter more or less financial need during a particular year, or pay more or less in taxes than anticipated) but it does give you a good starting point. These calculated expenses may help you think about how much your actual expenses are so that you are charging a fair rate for your service.

Blue Flavor has an article that tries to take the mystery out of pricing a project for both client and vendor. Although the actual pricing model has more to do with pricing for an agency than for a freelance worker, there are some fundamental tips here that are helpful to anyone setting their own price. These tips include: "You can't negotiate up," things to consider when setting an hourly rate, and complications that may increase the cost of a project.

Elance provides some sample documents including nondisclosure agreements, buyer/service provider agreements, and an engagement letter to assist you in developing contracts and agreements with your clients.

eHealthInsurance covers the basics of different types of insurance and health savings accounts. Take a look at the "Help Center" (located at the top of the homepage) to find answers to some frequently asked questions about health insurance. You can compare plans, get quotes, and apply for insurance here.

HealthDecisions is one of the Web's premier portals for health insurance information. Users not familiar with how insurance works, or what their options are, should start by visiting the "Learning Center." It's here that you'll find definitions to acronyms like HMO, PPO, HSA, and HDHP, a beginner's guide to insurance, and a useful FAQ section. The "Insurance Locater" can help you find insurance in your area.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has information about health savings accounts (HSAs). On this page you'll find links to PDF documents, downloadable brochures, and a link to frequently asked questions about HSAs that should help you understand what HSAs are, how they work, and whether one is right for you.

SmartMoney has a "Tax-Free Retirement Accounts for the Self-Employed" article that provides a chart of the different types of retirement accounts you can set up as a self-employed individual and the yearly contribution limits of each. Not sure what the difference is between a Roth IRA and a SEP? No problem, this page also explains in further detail what each account is and how it might benefit you.

FreelanceSwitch has a list of more than 100 resources for freelancers. You'll find links to job boards, legal resources, and tools that can help you keep track of your time spent on a project, back up files, and much more. Try reading the user comments at the bottom of the article to find even more links to resources. FreelanceSwitch also has a list of interesting blogs about photography, writing, translation, programming, and a few other categories.

Codswallop is a blog written by a Web programmer/consultant that lists Web applications that are useful for those in the freelance industry. Here you'll find organizational tools, money trackers, security tools, storage applications, marketing tools, and many more.

Side Job Track is a free tool to help you track your work. You can keep track of invoices, clients, project notes, hours worked, and more on this site. When you sign up, the site walks you through its various features.

Strongspace gives you a secure space to back up or share your files. Upload, download, and manage your files using secure FTP. You'll pay about $15/month for 5 gigabytes of space or you can upgrade for more space (up to 100 gigabytes for $100/month).

Jungle Disk is powered by Amazon.com and allows you to back up or store files from your computer for about 15 cents per gigabyte per month. You can store as much or as little information as you like, and can access it from any computer.

Sendspace is a free service that allows you to send files to a client or to yourself that are too large to send as an e-mail attachment. You upload the file to Sendspace, send a link to the file to the recipient, and they can then download the file to their own computer. For a fee, you can upgrade to Max or Pro levels and take advantage of enhanced features like greater bandwidth and advertising-free downloads.

FolderShare is an application that allows you to share files with clients by dropping them into virtual folders. Download the free program and then create folders that you can share with clients as if they're on a network server. As long as you're online, you can update files or move them in and out of the designated folders from your computer; they'll be instantly updated on the computers of everyone else who has access to that folder.

YouSendIt allows you to "send, receive and track files, on-demand." This service streamlines and facilitates the process of sending large files to multiple people at a time, making overnight couriers, FTP transfers and bulky e-mail attachments a thing of the past. The program can be used for free, but you can pay for more advanced features.

FreelanceSwitch has a blog that's filled with great advice for freelancers of all types. Here you'll find lists of Web resources, advice about different working conditions or client relations, tips about how to better manage your time, and more.

Monster.com has career advice personalized for the contract or temporary worker. Here you'll find articles about trends in the freelance industry, profiles of jobs and industries, tips about appropriate salary and benefits, even suggestions of good places to look for contract work.

Authentic Boredom is a blog that provides some insight for freelancers based on the first six months of author Cameron Moll's freelance career. This is by no means a comprehensive guide for beginners, but the tips he provides (like considering check delay and keeping your work separate from your free time) are useful even to some veteran freelancers.

Freelance Lounge is a forum where freelancers can ask and answer questions of each other, or just post messages of support or advice. Browse the forum by topic to see if anyone is posting messages that are of interest to you, or post your own question to see if you get any useful advice from the other forum members.

The Freelancers Union was started in 1995 in New York. Although this organization is still very New York-centric, membership is open to freelancers everywhere. Check out the "Resources" section to find links to sites with information about insurance, other unions, taxes, and even other activism organizations. Basic membership in the Freelancers Union is free, but if you want to access the group health, dental, disability, or life insurance, you have to pay for it.