I’m officially in the middle of the silly season as baseball is days away from getting started. Client work takes precedence over the blog so I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I thought I’d make a quick post today with some brief thoughts I’ve had on a variety of subjects.

• I finally found a newsletter winner for the Single-Use License of Adii’s Premium News Theme for WordPress. I had a really great response to that contest so I definitely plan on running another one soon.
• Along with client work I’ve been spending a lot of time working on a new side project that, unfortunately, I don’t plan on discussing here in any great detail. It’s basically a brand new type of content management system I’ll be using internally to manage a network of sites my friend and I will be launching. Again, I’m dying to talk more about this but in the best interest of the project I’m going to remain silent.
• Thanks to this intense workload I’ve started to dip my feet into the outsourcing pool for some help. This is a topic I’ll definitely be writing about more in the future but probably in a more general sense. It’s been a really interesting experience so far and I’m looking forward to using outsourcing again very soon.

I’m writing this today as a word of warning and caution to anyone who is thinking about getting into the freelance web development game: you are not a special little flower.

The web development market is getting flooded with the explosion of overseas outsourcing and the avalanche of free reference materials. Now anyone with a text editor and a shared hosting account can get into the game and try and turn a buck. The job market is flooded with people that can most definitely work for cheaper and maybe even outperform you.

All Is Not Lost

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Even though the competition right now is as fierce as it has ever been there are steps you can take to set yourself above the rest and make a decent full-time or part-time living from freelance web development.

The days of getting freelance gigs from job boards is over for anyone in an English speaking country. You just can’t compete with the pricing that’s being offered from the Europeans and Asians. Thankfully, there are other ways to use your skills for profit that outsourced work isn’t as likely to interfere with.

Work Local

Most of the businesses in your local area haven’t even heard of the term outsourcing before. If they’re looking to get a project done and you’re fresh and new and looking to expand your portfolio this could be a perfect match. Just beware of long hours for low pay as local clients aren’t appreciative of current freelancing rates.

While this is a great method for anyone just starting out it’s not something I’d recommend to a veteran web developer. Local clients are usually pretty time intensive and people with larger client bases aren’t interested in the hassle.

Work Niche

This has been my own personal tactic for several years now. I found an industry that had a need for quality web development work (in my case, professional minor league sports) and built a quality product (in my case, a content management system) to match the need.

I stumbled into my own little niche mostly by accident but sometimes that’s the best way. If you do a job for someone and think there’s a broader market for the same businesses do some research and give it a shot. Once you become a known face in that market you’ll start seeing more work come in through referrals and word of mouth.

Work Passive

The easiest solution is to just not work at all! When you have down time between clients try and develop some projects that generate passive income. That’s what I’ve tried to do with Fore Score Golf Stats and all of the news aggregators that make up Jack’s Sports Report and so far things are going great. I’m generating money each month with sites that are basically hands-off propositions.

It’s A Big Garden Out There

Let’s put this lame plant metaphor to rest. Even if you are one of millions there’s still ample opportunity for you to succeed. Just remember to try and narrow your focus and worry about competing in small markets and not against small prices.

The jobs being outsourced aren’t jobs you would really want anyway. They’re being presented by people with big ideas and big demands that they can’t meet with their small budgets.

Chris Bibey wrote a post yesterday about avoiding scams at Digital Point. For those of you that don’t know, Digital Point is a very popular webmaster forum where people from all over come together to talk about websites, offer advice and try to fleece unsuspecting souls out of their money.

As I said in my comment on Chris’ post, Digital Point is “one of the dirtiest corners of the Internet.”

It’s also one of my favorite sites on the web.

Even though Digital Point is sort of a den of thieves there are some money making opportunities there. I spend a lot of time in the Buy, Sell or Trade section looking at sites for sale (all the time I was wasting doing this was actually the impetus for building Web Auctions Daily). There are also a lot of great opportunities to find freelancers to outsource your extra work to.

I’ve had some experience both buying and selling things on Digital Point so I’ve put together some tips for people looking to get their feet wet over there.

Buying

• First off, the old expression “buyer beware” applies triple-time at Digital Point. If you get scammed or ripped off you have no one to blame but yourself. There are systems in place to give scammers bad reviews but it’s by no means a fool proof system and it doesn’t get your money back.
• Avoid the “get rich quick” schemes and ebooks. The only people that get rich with those are the people selling them. Use your head here. If someone is really making $300 a day doing no work then why are they wasting their time trying to sell their secrets to you for $4.99?
• Do your research. This applies to buying sites, links or hiring freelancers. Make sure the traffic and AdSense stats are legit as well as the PageRank. This is especially true when buying links. Again, use your head, if someone is selling permanent PR 5 links for $5 it’s probably bogus. If you’re hiring a freelancer make sure to see their portfolio and work out payment before any work gets started.

Selling

• A lot of people post sites, templates, domains, etc. for sale by starting a brand new thread that quickly gets buried under the pile. One neat trick I’ve learned when I’m selling something is to search the particular section I’m thinking about posting in with the term “WTB” (that’s short for: Want To Buy) and see if anyone has asked in the past for something I’m offering. That’s a simple way to fish out potential buyers.
• Be prepared to be insulted. Everyone is guilty of overvaluing whatever it is they have. Your first offers on your sale will probably make you cringe. You can either ignore them or take them into consideration. You won’t get much love if you berate the person who made a low bid though so try and keep your cool.
• Chris touched on this in his post but if you’re a freelancer please, for the love of all that’s good, do not give work away for free. Anyone who wants sample work is just looking to get something for nothing. That’s how the scammers get you.

I’ve droned on long enough. The thing I want to stress is that with some common sense and due diligence you can get a lot out of Digital Point. Be smart and play it safe so you have a good chance of having a nice experience.

Since I’ve been doing more and more guest posts as of late I’ve been formulating questions in my mind about freelance writing. I thought it would be good to interview a well-established freelance writer to get some of answers to those questions. Chris Bibey was kind enough to take some time out of his day to lend me a hand and tell us a bit about his freelance writing career.

You had a pretty successful freelance writing career before you launched your blog, correct? Do you feel like your blog has helped your career? If so, in what way?

Yes, that is correct. Before I started my blog, I was already working as a freelance writer for a couple of years. With that being said, my blog helped me in two ways:

1. It allowed me to share my knowledge with others; which I take a lot of pride in.
2. My blog has brought in a few new clients which is always a good thing. While I do not actively pursue clients via my blog, I do receive inquiries from time to time.

What have been the downsides to maintaining the blog?

The main downside of maintaining my blog is the time that it takes. Although I only post once per day, I spend a lot of time making sure that the information is accurate and useful.

Would you recommend other writers that are starting their freelance careers, or even those who are firmly established, start their own blogs?

Yes, I would. I think that a blog is a great way to connect with other writers, as well as bring in some extra work if they so desire. It is not easy to update a freelance writing blog everyday of the week, but it is a lot of fun nonetheless.

What niches do you think are the hottest for freelance writers to get into
at the moment?

This is a tough question becausethere is work to be had across hundreds of niches. Personally, I focus on the topics that are of the most interest to me; not what is hot at the moment. My best advice for an aspiring freelance writer would be to focus on three topics that excite them; even if the markets are saturated. When you are passionate about your writing, you have a much better chance of success!

Are you seeing an increase in the number of job requests from web developers, affiliate marketers or other blog owners as of late?

As each month goes by, it seems as if I receive more requests for my writing services, partnerships, etc. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that my name is making its way around the blogosphere a bit more.

What are your thoughts on pay rates for those types of jobs? It seems that any rate you can offer can be beaten soundly by non-English speaking workers offering their services on job boards online. Does that increase in competition and, presumably, quality bother you?

You are 100 percent correct. There are a lot of non-English writers who will work for less than one cent per word. Obviously, it can be difficult to compete with them because of the descrepancy in price. By offering higher quality work, I can attract high level clients that are willing to pay the industry standard or more.

I do find it bothersome that so many poor quality writers are taking money from clients. The only way to put an end to it is for clients to stop shopping for content based on price, and instead focus on quality.

I know you’ve mentioned branching out your focus to other things besides freelance writing. How are those efforts coming along?

They are coming along quite nicely. At this time, I am working on several other projects including a freelance writing course, as well as a blog network that is growing by the month. For me, expanding my focus allows for increased income as well as a break from the freelance writing world.

Since I’m all about web development and WordPress lately let’s end on that. You’ve had a bad experience with a WordPress designer… Do you have any brief advice for anyone looking to hire a designer to rework their blog theme?

Sure do! When I hired a designer a few months back for a new theme, I made one major mistake: I did not ask for enough samples. I received maybe one, and figured that would be enough. Anybody who is going to hire a designer should get a solid feel for what they have accomplished in the past. One quality sample is not enough!

I want to thank Chris again for taking the time to answer my questions. His blog on freelance writing can be found at chrisblogging.com.

The folks at Entrecard recently launched a small store on their site. The store allows users to buy a handful of perks for their listing by using their saved up credits that they’ve earned. If it becomes popular it should prove to be an effective way to keep the number of oustanding credits in the system down.

This becomes really interesting to me with the announcement on the Entrecard blog that they’ll be offering six users the ability to sell their own products or services on the store. They use examples like selling t-shirts or design services for Entrecard credits. Anyone interested in having their idea listed in the store must write a post describing what they would offer (and for how much) and then write a comment on the Entrecard blog with a link to their idea post.

So What Will You Be Selling?

I don’t know for sure if I would ever want to get involved in the store by offering design or programming services. My interest in the Entrecard store has to do with the outsourcing options it would offer. If the folks at Entrecard choose user ideas that involve simple graphic design or writing services from users (that’s the most obvious idea for most users, I think) then I might be interested in exchanging my credits for work like that.

I mentioned this is my review of Entrecard but it’s ideas like this store that make Entrecard a fun and interesting diversion for web site owners. I continue to be a big fan of the service.

I have a guest post up on Collin LaHay’s Mixed Market Arts called Four Tips For Hiring Freelance Web Developers that some of you might be interested in reading.
This post is written from the other side of the fence that I usually stand on. The tips can also be useful for any web developers or designers looking to outsource some of their extra work but the main focus is on non-technical folks looking to hire freelancers.

I came across a nice post today about outsourcing graphic design work and, in particular, it mentions purchasing vector illustrations from sites like iStockphoto.

I’ve never had to go that route for client work but for side projects like Fore Score Golf Stats I managed to buy a lot of the graphics we used in the site design for under $15 USD. I went on iStockphoto looking for golf related images that had a look and feel I knew I couldn’t create on my own and came away pleasantly surprised. The amount of time I saved compared to the cost was so ridiculous it couldn’t possibly be beat.

If you’re on a budget (of time and/or money) and need some graphic work done fast and cheap don’t hesitate to think about shopping around any of the popular stock photography sites. A lot of them have more than just photos.