If you are a freelance writer, you may have a multitude of ways in which you find work for yourself. If you do not have at least a couple of avenues that you can pursue to find work, you may be wondering why you are so bored and have nothing to do. I have been keeping busy, busy, busy with my two home based businesses lately and have not had to pause to find more work for quite a while. I do know that a time will come when it is time to go out into the universe (okay, mostly the universe of the internet) and round up some new clients or jobs to fill up my calendar.
Regular readers of this blog may already know that one of the ways that I find work is through Elance. I do not even have a paid account on there, and I find plenty of jobs to bid on. I don’t bid on just any jobs either, I am pretty picky when it comes to what I will bid on. I’m not picky because I want to be, I am picky because I have to be. The time that I have available to work each week is rather limited so I choose work that pays decently and that I can do fairly quickly. It also has to be interesting, because if I am interested in the work, I work much more efficiently and create better work than if I am not interested.
Today I came across another site where freelancers can bid on jobs. Guru.com looks and works a lot like Elance. In fact, in the time that I spent on the site today I was unable to find many differences between Guru and Elance. Both offer free and paid freelancer profiles, both offer job listings in writing and other areas like creative and web design, and both have what I consider to be the most important feature of any freelance bidding site – escrow. Escrow ensures that you get paid for the work that you do and I would highly caution freelancers from getting jobs through any site that does not guarantee payment through the use of an escrow system. It is worth noting, though, that the fees charged to freelancers with free accounts by Guru.com appear to be higher than the fees charged by Elance for freelancers with free accounts. The higher fees may be worth your while if you need another source for finding work. Are you busy enough? If not, why not consider a free membership on a freelance job finding site like Elance or Guru. You could find yourself very busy very soon.
Photo by wax115 on morguefile.com.