Final Post - Closure for the Freelancer

As it turns out, freelancing has not been as productive as it has been made out to be.  From the jobs that I put in bids for, they all got rejected even though I was bidding as the cheapest competitor on the lists just to get a foot in the door.

I did have a close call with 1 of them where the person offering the work asked to see some designs of what I had in mind.  When I gave them a preview, they asked for a higher resolution version of the design so they could show their client.. however I declined as the resolution they were after would mean that they could just take my work without paying me for it.  In return of cause, they did not select me as the winning bid.

I did more searching and stumbled onto this highly inspirational blog being regularly updated with lots of handy information :

http://megaincomestream.com/

So, whilst I am going to leave this blog here with such an abrupt ending to it.  I will continue to write more blogs on other areas of interest focusing on life, technology, political interest and games.  Be sure to check out the new posts and thank you for following with me on this journey as short as it was.

Day 4 - The Pitfalls of Surveys

I will start this off by saying that I would strongly recommend anyone considering signing up for all of these survey websites to NOT use your own private email address.  I have been inundated with an alarming quantity of spam emails that have made my personal email address unusable.

The tricky thing with all of this is that most of these spam emails aren't even related to offering me more survey opportunities.  I've come to the decision that survey work is not the answer to an appropriate online career substitute or even a bit of money on the side.

If you were considering getting involved with surveys, then the one survey site that has been the most regular with survey opportunities out of all the ones I tried and signed up for would have to be : 

http://www.spidermetrix.com/

Hopefully this will alert those out there that have always wondered or thought that surveys were a viable option for a 2nd income source or alternative full time work.

As a side note, I'm still not having too much luck with the freelancer angle but will keep trying to see how results on a few bids I've made turn out.

Day 3 - Freelancing My Skills

Well I signed up for a website called Freelancer.com.  You can specify your location and all that amazing stuff on there and then start putting in bids for jobs.

It's free to use and if you have a website setup to showcase your skills and previous works, you will stand a better chance at getting a winning bid.  However so far, I have only been taken for a ride doing up a few graphic design logos.

It looks like there is a lot of tough and talented competition out there on the net, so I think that unless you enjoy putting your skills to the test benchmarking against the rest of the world on jobs, then you will not enjoy this method of income earning.

I am yet to get a winning bid on a job where I get any money from it, but I will keep trying to see how things unfold.  It's not the worst shot I've come across in my searching but as It's not earned a single dime yet and I've put in a full day's worth of work at designing logos non stop, I'm beginning to question how long it will take before I get a paid job.

Be very careful using this method as you will find a lot of people ask for sample proofs or ideas for things and when you send them to the person offering the job to look at, if they aren't protected works, you will not hear from the person offering the job to you again, it's pretty dog eat dog.

I'm thinking that I will give things a bit of time now and keep at the 2 methods I've been working on so I can give a more long term review on them.

Day 2 - The Survey Situation

I signed up for a fair few survey websites recently and so far absolutely none of them have sent through enough invitations to fill out surveys so I can earn at least $5.

The only ones that have sent me a few surveys all seem to have in their terms and conditions that they do not pay out till you earn an unobtainable quantity of money easily.  By this I am talking about $50 to $100... considering the average survey only pays $0.50 to $10 (if you are lucky and qualify for their specific criteria) and take no less than 1 hour to fill out properly.

I was doing a couple surveys that promised $5.00 but only ended up giving me $0.25 because I didn't qualify for the criteria.. and of cause I was only told this 10 minutes into the surveys!!

Some of them then only release the rewards in the form of gift vouchers for a select few businesses and stores.

I'll keep a close eye on the number of surveys I'm getting and do a follow up post to see if things have changed and if I've been able to earn any money with this. If some/any of these survey options start paying off, I'll place links to them in the follow up post.

I'm thinking that next I will look into the Freelance Work Opportunities. I work as a full time Graphic Designer outside of the wire so I'm sure I can earn some good cash doing a little moonlight-digital freelance work in cyberspace!

Day 1 - Search for Virtual Income

Today I begin the journey of searching for new and innovative ways to earn the virtual income to secure a slice of this vast and open digital world.

I decided that the best thing to do is to produce a blog tracking my journeys through the vast and dangerous fields of digital warfare.  The close calls and the small successes along the way should make for a very interesting read indeed.

One thing that's become very clear to me over my time working in the physical world is that everything I do requires some form of energy to achieve and nothing I do produces a reward greater than the effort that was required to achieve it.

However, you hear stories of this almost Newtonian Law being broken on a daily basis and the banners flashing up in your face claiming that you could find work at home and live in a fancy apartment over the top of some beautiful ocean... Well let's see if any of this is true!

So please, stay around and enjoy the entries, I'll try to keep them short so as to not create great walls of text that crush the morale of even the most talented scholars so it's a fun journey not just for myself but for each of you that read along with me.