Where do you find/advertise freelance work?

[Anonymous]

I am a writer/editor. DH is a designer. We both want to take on freelance work but don't know how to start.

[Anonymous]

Bump. I am curious about this too, OP.

[Anonymous]

Maybe start by volunteering your time to build up a free lance portfolio? Otherwise networking, contacts from former jobs, professional associations...do you have a Web site or other Internet presence to indicate your services?

[Anonymous]

Join some Professional network groups

[Anonymous]

Craigslist

[Anonymous]

I'm an editor/indexer. You need to network, join professional organizations and attend meetings, join the listservs and post insightful emails, and send out marketing emails to publishers or wherever you want to work with a link to your online presence. Do you have a website or online portfolio? If not, that's your first step. Marketing is tough at first but once you get a few clients, you'll have great references and won't have to market so intensively. I haven't sent out a marketing email in several years but am besieged by work these days from standing clients and from emails I sent out years ago that are just now bearing fruit.

[Anonymous]

Editor PP: How much do you charge?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Editor PP: How much do you charge?

My indexing rate varies -- $2 or $3/page for children's books, $3 - $4 for cookbooks/crafts, and $4 - $5 page for scholarly texts. If I had a background in math or science and could index those textbooks, I could charge more, but I have a social sciences/humanities background. It takes me about 3-4 days to do an index, depending on the type of book.

For editing, I usually charge $25 per hour (some people charge by the word, but I have an hourly charge, based on editing 8-10 pages/hour).

Right now I have two index projects -- one a music theory textbook and the other is a scholarly book about the Internet.

[Anonymous]

15:12, will you hire me ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15:12, will you hire me ?

I would love to! I have hired subcontractors for a couple of jobs when I've been overwhelmed, so it's a good question!

Seriously, though, you should join the Yahoo Group list serv (or any list serv) for the types of jobs you're interested in - there are indexers' groups, editors' groups for various fields and geographic areas - I see jobs posted on these all the time. D.C. has a very active group ("Publishing DC") and they have meet-ups as well, where you can network and hand out business cards.

Good luck!!