Projects + Freelance Skills + Bid = Income

A freelancer who selects lucrative freelance projects and a good skills match, on which to bid from the contract jobs list, will ensure success.

The "art" of freelancing is to find the right projects and sell skills for a realistic fee. Always ensure your bids are high enough to be taken seriously and never under-price your skills, freelance work and time.

There is plenty of excellent advice available to get you started doing freelance projects, for example, at Freelance Advisor where their excellent downloadable book - The Complete Guide to Help You Start Freelancing - New & Updated for 2010, Freelancing & Contracting the only way to work! - is well worth reading.

Develop a method of accurately estimating the work involved in contract jobs and the elapsed time that freelance projects may take, before you bid. Don't forget your "down" time, when you are unable to devote time to projects, and also holidays, weekends and even time off sick! You should always manage your buyer's expectations regarding the timescale of a project. That should also be reflected in your bid. Never confuse time working on freelance projects with elapsed time to delivery!

Ensure that your service buyer when contracting work with you, has agreed to escrow your freelance fees for both of your safety and peace of mind.  It is a great comfort knowing that the funds are available for you once you have delivered the contract job phase or project.

There are many useful and informative articles on the detail of freelancing and contract work at the British Computer Society Chartered Institute for IT - Freelancing as a Career.

Continuous and clear communication between freelancer and service buyers is one of the keys to success for the freelancer. Keep in touch with those buyers with whom you've previously worked on freelance projects. Ask them if they have any projects matching your skills on which you could bid. It's much easier to get contract jobs from buyers you know, rather than take your chances with a bid in the open freelancer marketplace.

A key question for any freelancer: Is Freelancing Right For You? The Harvard Business School have some advice in an article which helps you answer that question. Well worth a read!

A freelancer must test work incessantly. Don't release your freelance work to buyers until you have thoroughly tested it. When buyers have tested your deliverables and responded with a bug list, make the required changes and respond swiftly back to the buyer.

If a buyer asks for something which is out of scope of the specification of the freelance project, you, the freelancer, must say so. Similarly, if a buyer asks for something to be done in such a way which is not what you would consider the best way to do it, then again, you should say so and suggest your better alternative.

There is much more detailed information on this freelancer marketplace website - how to bid on contract jobs, managing your work on projects and hints and tips for freelancing - in the Guidelines area.