I hope that this article will help you to stop work for an employer and begin to work as a private individual, freelancer.

I'll not tell you about advertising, sails, email and affiliate marketing. Of course, all these ways can help you to earn money. But all such kind of jobs just will force you to look for another employer. I propose you to try the way where an employer will look for you. Exactly in this case you and only you make a choice what to do.

• Programmer
• Designer
• System Administrator
• SEO guru
• Technical writer, editor, translator
• Photographer, painter, advertiser or just intermediate PC user
• And someone else

then you, undoubtedly, will find a lot of useful information for yourself in this article.

As a rule, after a few years of work in the sphere of your interests, you get necessary experience and become quite qualified specialist. While your experience increases, your salary expectations and wishes of new post grow. And usually to achieve this you have to work harder and harder. The problem is that you are not the only one employee in your company. Your co-workers (read: competitors) also want to achieve the same goals. Especially this is an urgent question for large companies.

Of course, there are some advantages in this situation. You have stable salary, social benefits and team buildings.

But there are a lot of disadvantages too. Boring colleagues, stupid chief, low salary, lack of free time, stresses and etc.

There is an alternative variant. And it will allow you to solve all these problems. It's time to make your own business! There are a lot of advantages here. And the main advantage is that you become the master of your own life. You and only you make a decision when, where and with whom to have a deal. You are the boss for your self. And you don't need to go to office every day. Are you tired? Do you want to have small vacations right now? No problems! You can pack your suitcases right now. All your life is in your hands!

"Ok, it sounds good" - your say. But how can I start? And where are the guarantees that everything will be ok and I'll not lose all money and time? Exactly about these points I'm going to tell you right now.

May be it seems you strange, but at the beginning you don't need to leave your main work in order to start your business. In our case we can easily combine these two things together. For this you need to have following things:

1. You wish to start to do something.
2. A few hours of free time.
3. Computer with Internet.

You exactly have all these things if you are reading these words.

In web there are special sites which have been created to unite the buyer and the provider in one place together.

Below I'll review the most popular sites of such kind. And now I'll tell you a few words about rules on these sites and about the strategy, which will allow you to achieve an excellent success in the shortest terms.

As a rule, on every site some kind of rate system exists. These systems are used to track rating of buyers and providers. You will receive zero rank after registration. After performing or providing a project you will be able to rate your provider or buyer. And he/she will be able to rate you too. The rank doesn't only show your qualification, but also tells about your responsibility, sociality and other important things. That's why, choosing the provider, the buyer usually takes into account his rating. And the rating of the buyer is also very important for the provider. If you will fail at least one project and receive low rating, than you may be sure that you'll have many difficulties in your future work. Possible, you'll need to start your work from scratch. So, be very attentive to your rating.

You can meet different kind of buyers on these sites. Some of them have no money and want the project to be done in the cheapest way. The others are ready to pay good money for the good quality of work. But they want real guarantees. But you are the beginner. And you have zero rating. And you can't give any guarantee. In this case it will be good for you to take small projects. After finishing which you will receive good reviews from your customers. This is exactly what we need now.

After receiving your first ratings, you can slightly increase the price for your services. It will be something greater than the price of your competitors who have zero rates. And lower than price of those who have the rate greater than yours. With such strategy you will always find your own customer. And you will improve your rating very quickly. After that you will be able to increase your price significantly.

And should always remember about your rating. It is very easy to lose it and it is very difficult to start your work from scratch. Especially if you have already received good projects with good prices and already seen good perspectives in the future.

There are few important rules in communication with your customers. You need to observe the rules and success will come quickly.

1. Take care of your customer. If you will think about him, he will also think about you. May be sure that it will increase your incomes.

2. Communication, communication and communication. Remember that you always start your work with the unknown person. And he has all reasons to be very careful with you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dishonest people in the Internet. And excellent communication will help you to create friendly and confident atmosphere. And in future you will be able to figure on other projects from this customer.

3. Self-descriptiveness of your bids. If you have already created similar project, always tell your customer about this. You need to ask some questions, which will show that you really have an experience in this area.

4. Don't place standard bids for all projects. This way can save time that you will spend on posting your bids. But it will never allow your bids to win.

Usually you can find few articles about freelance on such sites. You can find here a lot of interesting information for yourself. So, don't be lazy and take a look at these articles when you'll have some free time.

And the important point: palce in your profile as more details as possible. Usually you can describe your experience and refer to examples of your projects, provide more details about yourself. Buyers don't like to work deal with bidder if his profile is empty. This is good place to advertise yourself. So, complete your profile before bidding.

Site: Get a Freelancer. Location: http://getafreelancer.com/

Paid Features:

Gold membership

Cost: $12 in month.

This feature will give you some advantages. Most important of those are:

• Small icon will be displayed near your name. Your bid will be placed above bids of other developers who has no this feature.
• As a gold member you pay only monthly fees, no commissions on projects completed.
• Service Providers will be able to bid lower since they don't pay any commissions.

So, you'll receive real benefits when you won project with budget more than $120.

Commissions:

10% from budget of a project.

Impressions: this is my favourite site. Most of projects here has budget lower than $1.500. But from time to time you can find here proposals of full-time positions. Conclusion: This is good place to start your work. It is ideally suitable to receive initial experience.

Site: Rent a Coder. Location: http://rentacoder.com/

Paid Features:

Ability to make a test in some area. It will cost something near $25. It can help you to start your career on the site.

Commissions:

15% from budget of a project.

Impressions: There are a lot of competitors here. So, at the beginning you'll need to do work just for good rating. There are projects with different budget. lower than $100 and greater than $50.000. Conclusions: this is a good place to find customers and create strong relationships.

Site: Scriptlance. Location: http:/www.scriptlance.com

Paid features:

Certified membership

Cost: There is a one-time research fee of $10, plus $25 a month.

As a Certified Member, you will also save 50% on project commissions.

• Small icon will be displayed near your name. Your bid will be placed above bids of other developers who has no this feature.
• As a Certified Member, you will also save 50% on project commissions.

Commissions:

5% from budget of a project.

Impressions: most of projects are related to WEB-development. Mainly WEB-design and MySQL/PHP. There are a lot of projects with different budget. So, it is quite simple to start work and increase your rating rapidly. Conclusion: this is good place for WEB-developer. Especially for small team of developers with skilled designer.

Site: oDesk. Location: http://www.odesk.com/

This is quite interesting site. There is own testing system and some other pleasant features. So, try it. And may be it will become your main place of work.

Site: Elance. Location: http://www.elance.com/

Maybe this is the best place for finding large projects. Very often you can see projects with budget near $25.000 - $50.000. You can start your work here and then build a small team of qualified developers.

This article describes quite simple way to earn money in short terms. Before registration and starting your work, you need to spend some time thinking what exactly you want to receive from freelance. It can be main work or your hobby. Also it can be a chance to rise up your own company. So, just try it and you will receive your own experience and opinion in this area.

Good luck!