Freelance work?

[6-heads lewis]

I've been trying to find a means of living that allows you to travel and easily find jobs, even working from your computer.

I was hoping someone with experience in a field like that can shed some light. The best ideas I came up with was photographer, chef, editor/writer/translator. Perhaps a job on a cruise ship.

Imagine a lifestyle where you have files sent to your computer to translate, you can live any work anywhere in the world, so long as you have internet access. That's freedom.

Any suggestions?

 

[nakedtwister]

I've been trying to find a means of living that allows you to travel and easily find jobs, even working from your computer.

I was hoping someone with experience in a field like that can shed some light. The best ideas I came up with was photographer, chef, editor/writer/translator. Perhaps a job on a cruise ship.

Imagine a lifestyle where you have files sent to your computer to translate, you can live any work anywhere in the world, so long as you have internet access. That's freedom.

Any suggestions?

Yeah this does sound pretty much off the chain.

I've heard being a freelance journalist is quite an interesting experience.

 

[backbreaker]

http://www.odesk.com
http://www.elance.com
http://www.getafreelancer.com
http://www.scriptlance.com
http://www.rentacoder.com
http://www.guru.com


need more?

 

[speakeasy]

I've been trying to find a means of living that allows you to travel and easily find jobs, even working from your computer.

I was hoping someone with experience in a field like that can shed some light. The best ideas I came up with was photographer, chef, editor/writer/translator. Perhaps a job on a cruise ship.

Imagine a lifestyle where you have files sent to your computer to translate, you can live any work anywhere in the world, so long as you have internet access. That's freedom.

Any suggestions?

It's probably a lot more work than it sounds like as you might be competing with people from India willing to do it for 1/5th the price. But there are people that make it work. I know I tried doing that when I took a 3 week trip to Asia earlier this year. When you're on the go and travelling, the last thing you want to be doing is busting out your computer and coding. I ended up not even doing any work because I was too busy enjoying kayaking, rock climbing and laying on the beach.

 

[backbreaker]

please don't talk about something you ovbiusly don't know jack **** about.

Trust me.. as a guy who used to hire 10-15 people to do freelance work at a time... if you can work on an american time zone, have a number you can be called at durning normal business hours and you can speak fluent English, you will NEVER be at a shortage of work.

EVER. Assuming you are compitent. You will take a small dip in pay.. you won't get $2,000 for building a simple ecommerce website like 5 years ago, but maybe 900 or so, for what...honestly 3 or 4 days worth of work, and most freelancers stack jobs on each other

go to elance and odesk and see how many posting say "american bidders only" or "please be able to speak fluent english" or "I need to be able to call you"

 

[6-heads lewis]

It's probably a lot more work than it sounds like as you might be competing with people from India willing to do it for 1/5th the price. But there are people that make it work. I know I tried doing that when I took a 3 week trip to Asia earlier this year. When you're on the go and travelling, the last thing you want to be doing is busting out your computer and coding. I ended up not even doing any work because I was too busy enjoying kayaking, rock climbing and laying on the beach.

lol, i wish i could have that 'problem', but its probably hard to enjoy kayaking when you haven't eaten in 3 days.

Thanks for all the links guys. I enrolled in a journalism program, but left after a year. Its not as glamorous as you might think, to me wasn't worth it. backbreaker, is all your hiring experience in the IT field, or have you hired freelancers for other tasks as well? how do you see the market in the future, I assume the competition will increase as computer competency increases, thus lowering the asking price?

My sister has a degree in languages, maybe a masters, she works as a translator, and has lived in Spain, New Mexico, Vancouver and Mexico. It's hard to get into apparently, and although your environment is beautiful, the majority of your time is spent in front of a computer, translating boring documents. And workload is inconsistent, at times you are overwhelmed and other times you are dry.

 

[speakeasy]

I've been trying to find a means of living that allows you to travel and easily find jobs, even working from your computer.

I was hoping someone with experience in a field like that can shed some light. The best ideas I came up with was photographer, chef, editor/writer/translator. Perhaps a job on a cruise ship.

Imagine a lifestyle where you have files sent to your computer to translate, you can live any work anywhere in the world, so long as you have internet access. That's freedom.

Any suggestions?

Forgot to mention, check out this book http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/

It's written by a guy that's doing exactly what you want. He calls it "lifestyle design." I've only read a couple chapters as of yet but so far it's pretty good.

 

[backbreaker]

lol, i wish i could have that 'problem', but its probably hard to enjoy kayaking when you haven't eaten in 3 days.

Thanks for all the links guys. I enrolled in a journalism program, but left after a year. Its not as glamorous as you might think, to me wasn't worth it. backbreaker, is all your hiring experience in the IT field, or have you hired freelancers for other tasks as well? how do you see the market in the future, I assume the competition will increase as computer competency increases, thus lowering the asking price?

My sister has a degree in languages, maybe a masters, she works as a translator, and has lived in Spain, New Mexico, Vancouver and Mexico. It's hard to get into apparently, and although your environment is beautiful, the majority of your time is spent in front of a computer, translating boring documents. And workload is inconsistent, at times you are overwhelmed and other times you are dry.

lol, you must not have visited any of the sites I gave you. just go to elance for a minute. Everything from IT to writing to accounting, to marketing to pc techs to translators.. pretty much the full run o the mill. it's usually cheaper to hire outside, plus no health insurance, nothing along thoose lines.. just do the work and get out. when I don't need you I dont' pay you.

I used a guy from elance that ended up for the most part because he was so good and cheap, our webmaster. we started off doing everything ourselves but as time wore on, all website maintence was done via elance. SEO was done via elance.we used to have ads in computer shopper magazine, they did all our ad work.

lol, everything besides the actual building of pc's, and cusotmer service 95% of hte time was done by someone on elance.

 

[backbreaker]

lol, and I promise you it's not a 4 hour work week. it isn't dream land. you don't drive a porsche to a beach 4 days a week, then have a guy waiting on the other end for his project to be done ever so patienly while you enjoy your '4 hour work week".

to be a good freelancer, 50% of your time is going to be putting in bids for jobs and answering questions. that can easily be 5-8 hours a day right there. elance posts about 100 jobs an hour. as soon as you get done asnwer questions, there are more jobs to bid on. a good problem, but a problem nevertheless

lol, try building an ecommece website in 4 hours and see where that gets ya. it took me 2 months to build our computer website. granted, it was extremely complex but still..2 months.

 

[The Kidd]

freelance advertising work is good too, be an art director or copywriter

 

[6-heads lewis]

lol, and I promise you it's not a 4 hour work week. it isn't dream land. you don't drive a porsche to a beach 4 days a week, then have a guy waiting on the other end for his project to be done ever so patienly while you enjoy your '4 hour work week".

to be a good freelancer, 50% of your time is going to be putting in bids for jobs and answering questions. that can easily be 5-8 hours a day right there. elance posts about 100 jobs an hour. as soon as you get done asnwer questions, there are more jobs to bid on. a good problem, but a problem nevertheless

lol, try building an ecommece website in 4 hours and see where that gets ya. it took me 2 months to build our computer website. granted, it was extremely complex but still..2 months.

I only opened each link to be honest, I probably should have explored furhter before asking, the front paeg led me to believe they were all IT. The translation part peaked my interest.

The 4-hour week does sound like a pipedream, lol, I was hoping for 25-35, in a country with low cost of living.

I really have no IT skills, in my opinion thats something you must have a knack for at a young age. Much like playing music or chess or sports or whatever, you COULD study intensely and be competent, but you'll never make it to the pro level, which requires child prodigies.

Thanks for the insight.

The Kidd, do you have experience in that field?

 

[speakeasy]

The 4-hour week does sound like a pipedream, lol, I was hoping for 25-35, in a country with low cost of living.

It's just the title of a book, not to be taken literally. The guy that wrote the book might have actually had 4 hours of work a week, but that doens't mean it's the case for everyone. His general point though is that it's possible to live well, and live a life that allows for freedom and travel using technology that allows you to work remotely from anywhere, and how to get people to value your productivity over your face to face presence, and it tells about how he went about the process.

lol, try building an ecommece website in 4 hours and see where that gets ya. it took me 2 months to build our computer website. granted, it was extremely complex but still..2 months.

The author wasn't building ecommerce websites. He began with an online nutritional supplements site that shipped product directly from a manufacturer.

 

[6-heads lewis]

speakeasy, I didnt mean to be insulting, I actually read reviews on the book and the concensus seems to be that it had new ideas, but is for the most part difficult to implement. Ive read a great pdf file titled 'Rich Jerk' that's extremely practical and simple in explaining how to make money online, I have yet to put it to use.