Pinckney D Rivers, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Pinckney D Rivers
Freelancing is not freeloading 4/15/2010 9:35:41 AM
signing up to do online work through a referral service I decided to write about the online freelancing business. These days there is a service for everything. If you need a plumber you go to Cindy's list. If you want a prostitute you go to Craig's list (well, that wasn't very nice was it?).n If you want to find a mate you go to Match.com. I wanted freelance work and my niece was working through elance so I decided to try it.
My niece is considerably younger and she is part computer so the fact that she gets a lot of jobs is not surprising. I was just hoping I could pick up a few for myself and maybe my daughter-in-law (she's my writing partner in our fiction series). So, I signed up for the free membership and waited for the thousands of replies to my proposals.......NOT! Discouraged, I took their skills tests and added information and finally a photograph. Bingo! My first job! The buyer was new to the service, too, so he probably thought there wouldn't be any harm in trying me out. I did a sample article for which he paid me quickly and then we began an association that still continues. I hope it lasts a long time because the things he wants written are interesting and I don't mind doing them at all.
After getting the first job I was asked to bid on several and finally got involved with a buyer who wasn't very clear on what he wanted me to do. I think he may be having a language problem since he is in Italy and I am not. Anyway, eventually I expect to get it all worked out and be working for him on a full time basis, also.
My husband is getting a little worried because it seems like this is working like when I am looking for something on eBay and bidding on several things at once; I get them all. He says I am going to over-run myself. I say that as long as I am home he can't complain.
I am one of those rare females who hates to feel like she is freeloading. It is sort of an obession with me. I HAVE to have an income that is generated solely by ME. It's like Scarlett O'Hara said in GWTW."I swear I will never go hungry again!" We closed our business 8 years ago. We operated a small strip shopping mall in a coastal environment. Tourist were our bread and butter. We had a car care center, a grocery store (the only one on the island), a hardware store, and I had a high end gift and collectibles shop with a book store in the rear. We worked our tails off 365 days per year. So did our son. He learned early on that money does not come from a tree in the back yard. Now we rent the properties for our income but I just don't feel like I am doing anything (although I manage the rentals). I like freelancing. I don't feel like I am freeloading. So I am hoping this service and I can live together happily ever after.
