Getting Started

Hi folks,

I am guessing there are a few of you out there looking to start a stay-at-home business. Contrary to what my parents told me, sometimes you _can_ learn from other people's experience. In this vein, I'll tell you how I started out, and hopefully it will help you as well.

My boyfriend (and domestic life partner) Gordon recently took a lucrative job at an online company. It pays great and he's really happy, but they moved us out to the boondocks, if you can believe it! The only employment options for me in this little tiny town are at hoity-toity tourist shops (we live near a ski resort), or the local grocery stores or pharmacies.

Coming from a news writing and editing background, these career opportunities appealed to me about as much as pouring concrete in 100-degree weather. I had to find a way to make some money, but it wasn't going to be selling nick-nacks or cleaning up a wet spill on aisle 5.

Gordon's mom has been freelancing for years, and she told me about Guru. It's a great service for professionals (me) and employers (you?) alike. People looking for work pay a fee, either for one month, three months or a year. With your membership, you have the ability to search guru's site and bid on projects.

Employers can post projects for free, and they get to read all about each professional who bids on their project so they can pick and choose from the very best.

So far, I've made two really great lasting relationships with employers on guru. I helped Rick Mavrovich launch his blog, which was a great experience! This was a very interesting project, and I learned a LOT about sustainable technology and things businesses are doing that actually help the environment.

Rick hired me to do research and edit some of the posts on ThereBlogging. Check out the acknowledgements page to see my name in print! While you're there, check out the blog as well. Rick writes about some really positive developments in environmental science, and it's a nice break from all the nay-saying that's been coming out of the green community for the past, oh let's say seven or eight years.

I've also been contributing off and on to Article Marketer, as they try to launch their new, totally revamped site. This link currently goes to the old site. For samples of my work, read the middle column. This is all stuff I rewrote from the original on the site, in an attempt to tell the customer more about what AM can do for THEM rather than talking about what AM can do itself. More relevant pieces I've written for them will be posted soon.

The best way I've found to get started freelancing online is to use guru and other resources like it -- like Monster and craigslist. And the most important thing is: Don't get frustrated!

If you bid on enough projects, eventually someone will respond, and if you get lucky like I have, those people will keep coming back to you for more work. I'm currently making about $600-$800 a month from my online efforts -- which doesn't make me a millionaire by any means, but it's nothing to scoff at either.

Good luck, and please post comments and questions as you have them.

Ciao for now!