Elance is a good place to find work, if you’re willing to work über-cheap. Being an American with 4 children and a wife to support, I can’t afford to give away logo design for $25 a pop. I’m a huge believer in ‘you get what you pay for’, and I think that Elance kind of bore that out. I would bid, get rejected, and have to move on to the next thing. And usually, the folks would go with the guy that has 45,000 “gigs” landed, and he’s made just slightly over $30,000 for those finished gigs. His stuff would be clipart, bad fonts, and strange effects.

That’s just not what I’m about, and I would wager that’s really just not what most freelance designers are about. Or, at least, not what they WANT to do.

So – I’m going to take that $20 a month, buy extra coffee, and work on polishing my illustration skills late into the night. I’m going to take that few hours a week I’d spend perusing the “want ads” on Elance and use it to further my business, cultivate leads and take care of the paying clients I already have.

I think it’s a better investment.

Now – for you, intrepid reader: Are you spending money and time trying to land semi-paying gigs? Would that time and money be better spent doing something – anything – better? Examine your workflow and billables and compare those to what your dream freelance business is.

Does it match? Are you just spinning wheels, wasting time? Are you generating a legitimate return on investment from Elance, iFreelance, Guru, Odesk, etc? Or – are you just wasting time – hoping that you’ll land a great gig?

Sure, those great gigs might be out there, hidden in the weeds, on job bid sites, but from my (and other designers’) experience, 95%+ of the gigs that are out there on those sites are there for one reason: PEOPLE WANT CHEAP. They don’t necessarily want great design, and they sure as hell don’t want to pay for a real professional. They just want cheap.

I don’t want to work cheap. I want to work, mind you – and if you NEED one of these job sites to keep afloat, I certainly understand. But – unless used judiciously, such sites and projects accomplish only cheapening your work, making your time less than valuable, and makes your work and your career less than it should be.

Ask yourself if the return is worth the investment, and if that return is really a “return.” It might not be.

The other issue is that you can become associated with the cheap guy. They clipart guy. Is that what you want to be known for? Cheap work? I’d doubt it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d say that most freelance designers, illustrators and creative types didn’t step out of the 40-hour-a-week world to pursue sub-par, cheap stuff.

I wanted to produce better design for EVERYONE. I didn’t want cheap. I don’t want cheap – and my clients don’t either.

So – examine where you’re at, whether these job sites are worth it – and possibly most importantly – is it the type of work you want?

I want bigger and better. I’d wager you do too.

So long, Elance, it’s been real…

Sort of.

While I understand that money is an issue in a lot of situations, if a person upfront about the budget being the primary concern, I’ve discovered that 99% of the time I don’t want that job.

If a prospective client makes it plain that budget is #1, then that’s precisely what the main concern is going to be. Not the design. Not the process. Not the thought that goes into the work. Not you. The money will be the main concern and will always be the main concern. And that’s really not a great way to start a relationship.

I don’t want my work to be all about the money. I want to make money. I want to be paid what I’m worth – but I also want the design and the art and the craft to be at the heart of it. If the client is only concerned about the dough, all the esoteric stuff is out the window. And that’s no fun.

The other issue with this sort of client and project is that it often turns into a situation where you get locked into a low bid and you wind up working way, way too hard for the money you are getting. They’re concerned about the dollar. Not much else.

This might be a generalization, but I’ve found that my worst clients over the past 10 years have been the ones that come in needling for low-ball quotes and bids.

Don’t chase the low bids. Don’t bid on projects that say “money is tight” or “we’re a startup, so budget is low.” You might unearth a diamond of a client – but more often than not, you’re stuck holding a lump of coal.

Recently, I sat down and really considered the pros and cons of two of the heavy hitters – Guru.com and Elance.com. I’m only going to comment on the paid portion of the sites, since I think if you’re going to explore, you should go for a more premium package and be serious. You gotta spend money to make money, right?

First up, Elance:

• $9.95 per month, includes 20 “connects” which are essentially bids. You can purchase more for around .50¢ each. Some jobs actually cost more “connects,” and you can have your bid appear higher in lists by spending more connects.
• Reasonably slick interface.
• Skill tests – lets employers see that you’re actually skilled in what you say you’re skilled in. You get 10 free with a paid membership, and you can buy more.
• Not a huge number of projects for non-web designers. Only 426 as of this posting
• Stiff competition – 14k plus design candidates for such a limited number of jobs.
• Decent bid levels – most logo jobs are going for “less than $500,” which is generally higher than Guru’s bid levels. Just using this as an example. All the jobs are reasonably close.
• Kind of sucky portfolio. Clunky and kind of awkward to upload large numbers of files.
• Most professionals seem to charge a decent rate – not too many $5 an hours designers. That helps prop up the rates – which is good for everyone.
• Fairly robust mediation.
• Good escrow and payment systems.
• 6.75-8.75% for transaction processing.
• Decent communications systems for client/freelancer relations.

So, without further adieu, I give you another list of sites with jobs for freelance graphic designers:

37Signals: Cool listings – not a lot of them, but they pay pretty well. The competition is stiff, but that keeps the quality high.

SoloGig – again, not the biggest community, but the jobs are good and varied.

Aquent – Lots of jobs worldwide. Plus, it’s free – which is ALWAYS good.

SimplyHired this is sort of an odd bird. More of a search engine aggregating searches for freelance jobs. Nice!

Project4Hire – another reasonably small site, but with good jobs that pay fairly well.

JobPile – another aggregator. Lots of stuff, including some of the more high-end design sites.

So – that should keep you busy for 10 or 15 minutes, right?

But the fact remains that if you chase too many $100 projects, you will miss out on too many $1000 projects. If you sell your services cheaply, you will be in a hole – you’ll wind up too busy making money to make money.

Freelancing can be a feast-or-famine proposition, and weathering the famine will make you realize that you want the feast. One way to keep the feast going is to charge enough for what you do and pick up clients that will pay you what you’re worth. If your power bill is due, you need money – but will you take a $100 logo design job in order just to pay it, when you know you should be charging $500? I know the need for money NOW – but I also know that planning ahead will help you avoid having to take a million bad projects just to keep your head above water.

What I’ve done – and I challenge you to do, too, is sit down and write out a real monthly budget. Figure out your bills – and estimate high. Figure out how much you need for groceries and entertainment. Figure out your needs for salary (yeah – pay yourself) and how much you’d like to set aside for the future. Now – add it all up and and divide that by 22, which is the number of work days in a 4 week month, minus weekends.

That will give you a figure of what you need to bank each and every day. Now, the hard part is going out and finding the projects that will pay that every day. The more realistic approach is to find the total number and then build enough projects to fit into that amount. Then, every month – try to find projects to fill that amount or more.

A little forethought will keep you from scrambling to make ends meet, and it’ll keep you from having to kill yourself and your opportunities with too many little, unsatisfying jobs.

If you can make it all with one project that will take you 2 hours – go for it! Imagine how great it would be to meet your monthly nut and have all those extra hours left!

(yeah, I’m still trying to find out how that feels, too…)

I’ll outline a couple here, and when I get the rest of this little site actually done, I’ll have a page with many. I’ve done a lot of footwork on a lot of sites, and I’ve fallen flat on my face on some of them. Now, you can learn from my bumps and bruises.

By the way – I don’t make a penny from endorsing or slamming any of these.

First up – my favorite – Guru.com. Really nice system that’s not over-saturated like some of the big boys. They’ve got it broken down into nice categories like graphic design, illustration, web design, copy writing, etc, and they break those categories down even further, so you can really narrow your search and find the jobs that interest you or utilize your strong suits. It costs $75 per quarter to get 100 bids monthly (you can buy more – called BidPax if you run out) and the jobs are varied and from all over the world. I’ve worked for Swedes and for people 1 town over. There’s plenty of competition, but if you bid appropriately, you get lots of work – and repeat business, which is ALWAYS good. Billing protection, 1099 service, etc make this well worth the investment.

Secondly – one of the lesser-known and less traveled – iFreelance.com. At only $10 a month, it’s really affordable, and there are a fair few jobs. Not huge, but growing. You have to handle your billing outside the system (PayPal, anyone) so there’s not a lot of protection for either party – but a good contract system (I’ll eventually put some sample contracts on this site) will keep you in the swim.

More later – but really, get out and check out some of the lesser-traveled freelance job sites. The less traffic they have, the better your chances. Plus, it’s kind of nice to design bottled water packages for a manufacturer in Belize…