Ok so I have been asked before on how to live off of freelancing. I'm a horrible teacher but will break down my take on it and the things I have learned.
First off though there are a plethora of rumors...you can find good work on sites filled with scams. Like craigslist....just had to put that out there....IT IS POSSIBLE.
STARTING OUTYour portfolio is where all you focus should begin since its your "hello there" to a client. From my experience your website does not need to be the flashiest thing around (unless web designing is your skill). Its help if it is retard proof. Alot ALOT ALOT of clients know next to nothing and hate to have to guess to navigate around to find exactly what pertains to them. So label sections accordingly or just send files that directly relate to their project and offer a link to the rest of your gallery.
Nudity in your PortfolioThats a double edge sword,I avoid it and if need be just send samples of that as attachments. I have lost consideration for gigs due to work like this being in my gallery when its not even nude.
Once your portfolio is ready...your ready to..
START HUNTINGLooking for gigs can be a long exhausting job...its the worst part of freelancing till you generate repeat business with referrals. Sites I get the most action from
craigslist.com
freelanced.com (pay site $7 bucks a month)
90% of my freelance income comes from craigslist.
My thoughts on pay sites..they are a iffy gamble. I tried freelanced on my own 3 month trial, figuring I should atleast get 1 gig by then. Pay sites have tons of gigs to offer for almost all styles and genres under the world of art.
There is no guess work or major hunting to do,these sites make it easy to find gigs with their data base setup.
Other sites like it(but I don't use)
Freelancer
Guru
Demand Studios
iFreelance
People Per Hour
Freelance Switch Jobs
freelancer
CraigslistBulk of my experience comes from here so most of my trial and error were due to this site.
I tried other sites like
www.craigslist.com www.kijiji.com www.backpage.combut slim to nothing there.
First off ...major thing most people do wrong...you only look in your city or town or the popular areas of your state.....don't be lazy. Check other states and hell even other continents. Though a great deal of the work I do find is in l.a. I do find good gems in other states (i snatch stuff from canada all the time). For those of you who speak different languages,check postings in your native country. You would be surprise at what you find or get.
2 sections on there where you can find gigs are art/media/design and creative under gigs
Now onto the meat and bone of issue
APPLYING TO GIGSThis is where my smart phone became my assistant. I made a prewritten statement saying who i am and where you can find my work and how to contact me. Saved it on my clipboard of my phone so I can quickly send to multiple gigs within minutes. I edit the statement for certain ads that have upfront questions etc etc. If i'm not lazy I normally send out about 25 within 2 to 3 days of jobs I can actually do. I normally get about 4 to 5 responses.
THINGS TO AVOID People offering no pay but credit and portfolio building.....thats what void is for.
Deferred payment,most don't offer you a contract for protection and even then you are really risking the fact you may never see a dime after your done.
% of kickstarter after funding is successful.....fuck that, most don't make it.
clients that try to pump you for information but don't ever give you a straight up answer on their project. They are basically shopping for info and you damn sure ain't getting paid to give it. If they hire you then start asking by all means be their google if you feel it will help.
Never ever ever ever take on a gig without either all upfront or a percentage of it. It is to build and establish trust between you AND the client. You will get burned many times by people this way or they will hold for ransom till make ridiculous changes to the original work.
Never send hi-res files if you haven't been paid in full. 72dpi with a annoying water mark is your best option. I even include that in my invoice "hi-res to be delivered once full payment is made".
Things to do ALWAYSIf the say in the ad they belong with a company or they leave there real email instead of the generated one... GOOGLE them!! It helps to see if they have a track record good or bad. You can find out quite a bit from doing a little digging and it may save you a headache later.
To add to that, if they give their full name then you really need to look them up. You don't want to find out you didn't bring you A+++ game when it was a hollywood bigshot you sent work to....like i did with
Anthony E. Zuiker (creator of all 3 CSI).
Set realistic deadlines...you know your life better then anyone. You know how long it should take you to complete something,but always leave room for oshit moments. Like getting sick,or hurt or fired ANYTHING!! add a extra day to the deadline you give. If you finish before it...it just makes you look badass and willing to please you client. If they ask for a crack head deadline that will force you to pull a alniter...then you charge extra for that.
Always finish the job..ALWAYS. Even if you have say sorry for taking to long or just not hitting their vision just right. Finish anyway,bad reviews can spread like wild fire. Plus its not right to do otherwise.
Doing Free sketch samplesNow the only time I do it is when they are for asking for something I don't have in my portfolio. Like cats, i can draw them but there isn't any to be found in my gallery so yes I will sketch one so you can see I know how.
Other wise I don't do the
"draw full rendered scene from my book"
"7 sample images or my characters"
none of that nonsense.
Thats all I can think of for now but if anyone has any questions ,feel free to ask.
and sorry for the long rant style.
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