Can anyone provide me some details of where to look for a freelancer job in content writing?
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I know this post is kind of old, but I see the OP responded recently.
I work as a freelance writer. I browsed through the old posts and I do what many people also suggested. I write for others for pay and I also have my own websites and blogs that generate income. I like to mix it up. My days are usually spent half and half. Income from a personal blog can sometimes be spotty when you first get started; therefore, having paying clients in nice for steady income.
I got my started doing projects on Rent a Coder. I believe it is now Vworker. I haven’t been back there in a long time. I always liked Rent a Coder because they did escrow so as long as you did the work and could show it, you would get paid.
While it is technically against their rules (they want you to keep using the site for your protection and so they can generate money from fees) if anyone wanted me to do another project, I would ask them to email me and then start working off the site. This meant I retained more of my money.
I am still working with a client I met there about 1 1/2 years ago. A few clients just ran out of work for me to do, but I worked for one for 2 years and another for a year with steady work each week.
So even those bidding sites have the potential to lead to long-term gigs. Just be sure to leave a “please let me know if you need additional article written.” message after uploading a project to these sites.
Good luck! It took me about 6 months before I was able to get into a good groove with steady pay and clients, but it was worth it!
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There is such a thing as escrow or milestone payment as freelancer.com is fond of calling it. You want to get paid, use the milestone, simple as that. There are a lot of good buyers at freelancer.com and you can easily recognized them. You don’t want the buyer to rip you? Then don’t give him any chance to do it, simple as that!
As a writer for one of the freelancing sites above, I’ve had nothing but good luck. As an employer for one of them, my experience has been mixed. Part of that may have been my own fault; I was hasty and wasn’t watching my back close enough. (One employee went out and subcontracted the work to another, less qualified, writer on the same site.) No matter you break into the market, and then build up your workload and portfolio, it will take time. I have previously posted that my very first writing job paid $2500. But that was not the norm for the first several months.
Hello friends, i tried working on Freelancer.com and unfortunately I have to say that my experience was dreadful. First I struggled a lot on how get bids for projects and when finally I got through the requirements of the employee were ridiculous. 
Having read through this thread and enjoyed the hilarious grammatical nitpicking I think I must agree with most people. The contract sites mentioned like rentafreelancer, rentacoder, odesk, etc are all sites that I would only consider using to purchase content that I was quite prepared to outsource to India or Pakistan for example. From my experience of the sites, the competition on price is absolute and unless you’re willing to compete solely on price with someone from the other side of the world whose costbase is non-comparable with western life and value, then you won’t succeed.
Another place that is good for advertising, besides CraigsList, once your website is built is:
You can place ads for free and Google actually loves the ads posted on the site well enough to index them. There is an upgrade for $9.95 for a years subscription that I do highly recommend as it gives you so much more of an advantage with your ads. However, if it is not affordable at this time, do take advantage of the free option to advertise your services.
Payperpost.com
Bloggerwave.com
Smorty.com
ReviewMe.com
SponsoredReviews.com
BlogsVertise.com
PayU2Blog.com
CreamAid.com
LinkWorth.com
InBlogAds.com
DewittsMedia.com
LinkyLoveArmy.com
PayMeToBlogAboutYou.com
BlogChex.com
LoudLaunch.com
Blogitive.com
BloggingAds.com
Contextual.v7n.com
check those out
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As someone who works fulltime as a freelance writer, I recommend what KonaGirl suggested. Set up your website and market yourself like a business. I have never worked on oDesk, elance, GetaFreelancer or anything like that. All my contracts have been through private contacts, referrals and through job boards like Craigslist. I’ve been lucky enough to get ripped off yet, but that’s just a matter of judging whether or not you can trust a client or not which is a whole other ball game.
As for finding jobs, I recommend http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/, ProBlogger and Media Bistro as resources.
I know only Odesk and getafreelancer. As a writer, I would reccomend Odesk. Getafreelancer is full of buyers who are out to under-pay and shaft writers. The general standard of buyer and service provider there is also pretty shoddy by Odesk standards. The Odesk way, I refer to the aptitude tests etc, is great, inasmuch the service provider is able to test their aptitudes and abilities, and the buyer is able to assess the quality of the service provider as well.
Bottom line, imho, forget GAF, and make the effort to get your Odesk profile sorted out.
Thanks for your suggestions webapprater and tonyflanigan however i am still confused over the payment issue with these sites…do anyone of you got any experience working with them.
I do NOT recommend freelancer websites like that, I used to do work on them and they always end up as bidding playgrounds for low quality junk being exported by the cheapest bidder from eastern nations. Sorry to say it but I’ve yet to find a freelancer website which really does a good job at maintaining the quality of job listings and professionals who take part. If you want to write content professionally, your best bet would be to start a blog and monetize on it (until you have enough experience to be able to get a job with an established blog, magazine or community). 
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Thanks for the suggestion AlexDawson, I will try to so start my own blog instead of doing some freelancer job. I know it will be difficult to generate revenue from the blog but still as per your suggestion it looks better then the job.
I am 100% agree with AlexDawson. Instead of writing articles for someone you can write for yourself. Learn SEO properly and then start your own blog. Once your blog started to get traffic, monetize it. Initially you won’t make money but in long term you will make more money.
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Heya chdutta!
I also, to a degreee, agree with dawson. There is a load of cr@p out on the web. I may step on a few toes here, but imho rent-a-coder and getafreelancer suck. They exist purely and solely to extort freelancers.
We are with getafreelancer and Odesk. We visit gaf regularly to remind ourselves of what is being done to freelancers. For pete’s sake, so what if they’re from India or Philipines, they ARE ONLY trying to make a living, yet buyers go out of their way to rip them off.
Fortunately, when starting at Odesk, we had a strategy, implemented it, and it is paying off. We have a few very satisfied niche clients providing ongoing work. We do also have our own blog, for which we write our own content.
I must add that the general work quality from RaC and gaf is pathetic.
kickstartyourforums.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=50
They’re sometimes looking for people. Apply to a bunch of those services. Ask them if you can keep the copies for your portfolio as well. Pay not be too great but it’s a start. If you really want to take this somewhere get a portfolio of your best work, get some stuff published by yourself and contact some local magazines to review your work.
tonyflanigan, not to aim this at you personally, but it worries me to some extent you recommend using oDesk (another one of the freelancer no-go areas IMO) and then back that up with a VERY poorly written response. For someone claiming to be a content writer recommending those kinds of websites (with such a poor use of the English language - spelling, grammar and even in readability) it pretty much backs up why I tell people never to use those kinds of services.
Hi, this is Rod from Rent a Coder.
I’d like to point out that our service protects online workers more than any other service available. oDesk doesn’t offer arbitration at all, which could prevent you from getting rightfully paid for the work you do, and (2) workers on Odesk cannot place more than 2 bids a month unless they take certain Odesk tests, or receive feedback on a certain number of projects.
We offer arbitration on all projects free of charge. We also prevent abusive buyers from stalling the start of arbitration. As a result, 45% of our arbitrations are completed under a day. 75% under a week. Plus we additionally publicize the detailed rules of how our arbitrators make their decisions. Some other services don’t make that information public. We also offer free and unlimited bidding.
I think if you compare us to oDesk and the other major services through this link, you’ll learn lot more about how we work hard to protect our workers: http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForSellers.aspx
If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp).
Rod
hmmmm…
Mr Dawson, sir, before commenting on my usage of the (British) Queens chosen language, I would suggest that you correct your own language. It is a fact, that those who profess the greatest familiarity with a language, are often the very persons who corrupt it the most.
Lol, not personal, but don’t criticize colloquilism (sp?) and slang if you yourself implement it. And I won’t hold it against you that you don’t dig oDesk. We have had great results from it, and possibly the biggest bonus there is that South Africans can use it.
Apart from the more realistic rates prevalent on oDesk