Life as a freelancer is really tough and easy at the same time. The word freelancer is often used in close connection with the word ‘freedom’ since they are closely linked. Though partially true, the life of a freelancer is definitely not all gay and full of merriment. Millions of people out there are deciding to quit the boredom and lethargy that come with a 9 to 5 job and are opting to work as a freelancer. When I took the decision myself, I had to garner a lot of courage and the initial days did not seem to be troubling at all. I had the choice of not working when I didn’t want to, working from anywhere I wanted to and more importantly to get to decide how much and what kind of work I want to take up as a freelancer.

Having said that, you must also know that what disturbed me and has a similar effect on any other freelancer are the times when I did not get work, the days when I kept pitching for one project after the other, but they were awarded to someone else. There were weeks when I had to curtail my grocery shopping since I wasn’t sure what kind of project I will be getting. On the other hand, I always knew that good work will be appreciated irrespective of whether you are a freelancer or a full time employee in an organization. It feels great to know that someone is hiring you because they know you will be doing the work, only because they have faith in your abilities and like what you do. This is the biggest reward for any freelancer.

There are certain features which identify the life of any freelancer and while freedom is one of the most discussed ones, there are others which contradict the concept of freedom of choice. When I started to work as a freelancer, I didn’t know that there would be no time boundaries. There aren’t any. The credibility of a freelancer is largely dependent on his or her ability to deliver on time and this is what made me very tense. Work as a freelancer meant not having any starting or ending time and even today I have to wait for client feedbacks and make changes whenever they want me to. This includes working on Sundays and public holidays too, if need be! A freelancer is also responsible for finding work on their own which means that the time which you won’t be spending on work might be spent after getting some. I worked out an easy way around this once I had a steady base of clients – I created a schedule for my work and told myself that a freelancer needs her free time too!

Risk is another major issue causing many sleepless nights to a freelancer but what good was ever achieved without it! Risk is likely to crop up more in terms of the financial side of your work as a freelancer. You might even have to do some charity during your initial days to prove your worth. Once you are confident about your skills, it is best to ask for an advance payment for your freelancer projects. Remember that a good client, who has no intentions of cheating you, will be willing to send it without much hassle. However, to prove your worth, a freelancer must indulge in constant marketing. I took every opportunity where I met strangers to talk about how I work as a freelancer.

In this regard, it is definitely important that you have a website or at least be very visible on the internet through social networking sites. Clients who are looking to hire a freelancer are almost always looking for them online these days. In fact, there are many websites which offer work opportunities to a freelancer and this does not include the writing and translation industry but also graphic designing, website designing, data analysis and much more. In fact, you might be surprised to know that certain finance companies and HR companies need a freelancer too! Get a business card printed and mention that you are a freelancer when handing it over. Most people are fascinated by the idea of freelancing even now and will remember it.

The biggest kick that I get everyday out of my life as a freelancer is how I am in control of everything. This also means that I am the one responsible for it all. Thus, on days when I am sick, I end up wishing for someone who would fill in for me. A freelancer is also in charge of his or her own development and this is what will determine whether or not you will have a sustainable base of clients. If you are a writer, you have to read and increase your stock of words and improve your writing skills. If you are freelancer in website designing, you have to be aware of the different software being launched and at the same time do research to find out about the latest trends in the industry. This is both an enticing and a stressful idea – there is no one to tell you what you are doing wrong expect maybe your clients who might just take the project away from you!

Connectivity is what keeps everything smooth for a freelancer. You must be available, even if not for work, for a chat or a feedback. You never know when a potential client is looking up your profile on a site and wondering whether or not to hire you! In order to make it big as a freelancer, you must divide your time but not be stressed if work intrudes into your free time. A successful freelancer always responds to phone calls and messages or at least gets back to them in time, checks email on a regular basis and replies to them. Don’t be shy of meeting new people and interacting with them about your freelancer work – anyone can be a potential client for a freelancer!

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The world has had tremendous growth in terms of technology. The introduction of the internet particularly has had a significant impact in socializing, business management, education, communication as well as improving the ability for a person to earn an honest income. Presently, the number of people engaging in online work is increasing. This is because the freelancing business has had a positive impact on the people who engage in it. Evidence shows that people are able to generate a stable income that is more than they would have in a normal and formal employment. Numerous organizations give individuals a proper platform to pursue their freelancing careers. The two most popular organizations are oDesk and Freelancer.com. In order to get a better picture on the best platform amongst the two, it is important to note their characteristics and compare their pros and cons.

The oDesk platform was first launched in the year 2003 to cater for the individuals who did not find satisfaction from their employment. The company sought to fill the global demand for a platform that would offer freelancers and outsourcing organizations a secure environment to interact. From its inception, oDesk was able to attract a freelance earning rate of nine hundred and twenty million dollars. This showed that the organizations is very successful in bringing together freelancers and outsources. further er, the company has quite good review concerning its service delivery strategy as well as payment process. One of the advantages of using this platform is its minimal fees of only ten percent of the total amount charged for any given task. The low fees is favorable to new comers and individuals who seek to start their careers. The profile system on oDesk is comprehensive therefore a person can write up all their qualifications. The higher one’s profile-ranks, the better his or her probability is to secure a task upon bidding. The system also provides for employment on an hourly basis and is flexible on the total cost or earnings per hour. Freelancers can negotiate with vendors freely. In addition, the platform also gives vendors the ability to keep track of the task awarded to various freelancers through screenshots, mos and keyboard activities. The organization also has a wide network incorporating freelancers and vendors thereby improving the chances of a new freelancer finding a suitable source of income.

Freelancer.com is also a global outsourcing platform founded in the year 2009. Since its inception, the company has been able to acquire a total of one hundred and fifty three million dollars in freelancers income. The company has had a near perfect expansion plan that has seen it acquire other platforms such as freelancer.de, Lime Exchange, and scriptlance.com. the expansion strategy allowed it to gain a good percentage of the freelancing market share. The organization currently has seven million one hundred thousand freelancers registered. Number of tasks posted is four million one hundred thousand. The huge number of freelancers shows that the company is a quality company. However, comparing the number of jobs posted and the number of freelancers registered shows that competition is very high. In terms of fees charged, the company takes a thirteen percent fee on all tasks completed.

Comparison

The oDesk platform gives new freelancers a better chance to launching a successful freelance career because of its low fees as compared to Freelancer.com. in addition, the competition at Freelancer.com is very high and this will make newcomers to have a very hard time in starting up. Recently, oDesk acquired Elance thus improving its network base and ensuring it is the market leader for now. The merger is favorable to both newcomers and veterans since it increases the number of tasks while reducing the competition. Therefore, oDesk is a better platform in terms of quality, payment and talent pool.

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Let’s look at what fascinates the today’s pseudo generation so much about Freelancing:

Foremost Factor: Money in the Bank

Call it the evolution of services like Skrill, freelance wire transfer, Payoneer or the old horse (PayPal), getting money directly in your account was never this quick and easy. Few steps with registration on one of this platforms and an approval for linking Bank and a premium service charge. That is it, you are ready to receive payments directly in your plastic cards while the client clicks on “Pay Freelancer” option. Though Payoneer is new but is quickly gathering users with fewer overhaul processes and payment flexibility. PayPal is only losing the race being stiff to increase its flawless services in small developing countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal. With a little less charge list than PayPal and other counterparts, Payoneer is getting a good response as well. This helps the freelancer to get complete value for the work.

A Whole new Species with Freelance Skills

While, IT people think, freelancing is only constrained to Development, Designing, Writing and Optimization jobs. There is this totally different type of companies demanding free to move photographers, interior renovators, automobile engineers and even mega-structure builders investing their rich talent to make a difference. The Photographers are invited to shoot in most impossible places of Nature. The Photographers alone can be hired for different purposes like Portfolio making, wildlife shoot, promotions shoots, journalism, product launch and much other minor to major projects. The interior innovators are most often called by bigger global hotel chains and mega-firms to make every corner inspiring and filled. The automobile engineers are kept hired for years, once started on a new idea or concept. Similar is the case with Builders, rather than inviting bids through tender notices. Stadiums, Amusement parks, Grandeurs all needs innovative ideas for cost-effectiveness and a freelancer sees the whole idea from outside giving a better big picture.

Freelance Tools to keep everything at track

If you read my article “10 Amazing Management Tools Freelancers Love To Have”, you would find numerous tools accustomed for a specific cushion to every small problem a freelancer faces. Whether you are an online marketer, get hold of Social oomph and Tweriod to make social media smoother. There are apps which help you to not get distracted by social push notifications while trying to write code or article. You can also make use of password storing and e-wallet managers like Mindmeister, Remember the milk, etc.

New Platforms means more opportunities

Times are gone, when the big 3 or 4 platforms was the only opportunity, a freelancer could get a client. With fresh ideas, the new platforms are developed keeping them completely integrated for handling a specific type of jobs. The purpose of developing these platforms is to provide a fully informative and resolute platform. This gives an opportunity to make more doors for Clients. Worknhire, designs99, SuperTasker and Frisklancer are some of the examples coming into existence in recent years.

The drastic changes have been deemed positive till now and is actually reducing the concentrated poverty issues within fewer capita nations. Alone within the USA, the unemployment percentage is decreased by 5.1% this year. But, the fairy tale to become a six-figure earner isn’t so easy. With increasing interest, competition increases and thus may leave the average talent apart. So, before opting for a freelancing career, make sure you think of full-time employment options also. Once you have a flow working right from your machine, the decision of becoming a full-time freelancer can become discrete and easy.

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Writers either travel around the world, to make a scoop of content or they stick to small corner of their home to write the entire world, everyone has its own style to frame the best. Let’s try to grab some facts and strategies in order to compete for projects linked due to a distinct writing type and niche.

Article Writing

I am not talking about promotional bizz, to write an article purely based on informative content needs rigorous research and a unique expression to put it precisely on the paper. Your words holds the magnetic power to keep the readers stick with it. So, the mantra is to keep everything against your eyes. Filter the information, which isn’t real, humane or related to topic. The client might ask you to stuff some focused words. But once you draft a grammatically correct and highly informative article, you don’t need to make him convince for what you have framed.

In fact, categories like Travel, Affiliate marketing, Food and Technical updates (Specific Platforms) can bring the harmony of opulent money (Remember those 6 figure earning bloggers?), if the impression is genuine and writing is boastful.

Promotional Content

For the Promotions, the understanding of Audience is must. To meet the targets, the business shelves want you to elicit customers by any means. So, writing a topic stuffed with high vocabulary and enticing adjectives, will not help the objective, until you are writing to help the customer and not fool them. Don’t start right away, if you think promotional blogs and content don’t need rigorous research, you are missing a crucial point. Only the features are never going to convince the customers to make a call. Watch your client’s drafted features and think about the real problems and applications it can resolve. Attach a feel while describing the problem, but never use pure emotional language.

Whether you are writing Reviews, Social Updates (SMO), Product Descriptions, classifieds or any promotional phase, the human language adds a difference as we are not dealing with bots. Keep it small, interesting and full of benefits related to their day-routine issues.

SEO Oriented Writing

The crawling bots have been made smarter than ever, since major updates in Bing and Google. So, don’t think about filling the internet with your links and becoming omnipresent. Just like, a bank check can’t be passed without manual approvals, the search engines are trying everything to make a genuine call for every optimization algorithm. So, bring the useful content on the front seat; ask your developers and marketers to collaborate and verify everything that Search engines ask for. Google is on its way to present every basic solution on the search page itself, rather than showing threads and links.

Academic or Technical Writing

Don’t worry, if you haven’t done it. But preparing reports for the institutional clients isn’t as hard as it sounds. Every vast to complex topic can be wikipied or be found at even better page. Your worry, is to segment the material, writing it in the demanded context of client and preparing better by giving your own personal touch. Preparing Documentation, Thesis, Annual Reports, Assignments, Assessments and many more perimeters can become tense, but the jobs are paid way more than other niches. A little extra time consumed can bring full hot pockets to you.

Never take Freelance Writing Jobs as a challenge but an opportunity to provide the honest and effective information and be a perfect example of “How to lead the others the right path”. Keep following for more useful tips or Feel free to Contact us for any writing query.

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Leverage of Android vs. the Cushion of iOS

On one side, there is accessibility, custom made options with the high flexibility of “rare to use” buttons and fixed algo security of Android. On the other hand, the numero-uno platform is with unparalleled security and seamless integrated atmosphere of iOS. Though, both have their own pros and cons, but Apple was winning the overall battle in terms of making valuable and high-performance apps till 2014, when the average bid price for an Android surprisingly became close to iOS, here is the reason

There are at least 1600 different Android devices built so far with unique configurations, hardware and booting ways. That’s why, they consume more of their time on testing and debugging the code rather than writing the original one. Advanced tools like AppMakr are equipped with numerous templates for unique niche apps. However, putting custom settings on and making costume changes can bring a substantial phase of development: Testing. For building an Android app, compatible with so many devices with no limitations and standardization of modules is a conjugative task.

iOS is a closed ergonomic platform saving thousands of testing sessions. The code builders try to keep distinction by making everything from scratch and that gives an app its credibility to perform and look way better than many of the Android devices version. But, the standardization of sharing is also its limitation to developing better performance and unique vertical apps.

Apple also provides its developers a self-proclaimed dedicated library to learn the development process from scratch but consumes more time. While, the Android platform is based on another open source kernel and develops its base through official forums, feedbacks, and reviews. While, the iOS environment is mainly build to bind security with technology, Android hosts the most innovative developers and coders and has influenced the world by its versatile, but vast library gathered through open discussions and sources.

When it comes to Real Market

Anyways, these resources become scarcely effective, once you are rugged into the development after working on 2-3 live projects. Once you become good at most of the stuff, you try to make money out of it and this is where both the platforms vary significantly.

TO build an iOS app, Apple officially charges £79 for an annual license of using their Official SDK and registering apps on AppleStore, which is almost one-fourth for an Android developer. The Android geeks are also allowed to sell their apps in different stores, which is not applicable in case of iOS. This gives the Android developers, the fidelity of making a wide range of business. But, if you see the prices set for an iOS app, people are willing to pay for every quality app and thus a developer gets full worth of its work. In Android, most of the solutions are likely to be found free and with this type of competition, you need something incredible to make it a challenge for others in the market.

Latest stats reveal that Android developers have become stalemates to Apple in terms of aggregate app business. The iOS developers never considered it a battle in terms of individual revenue till 2014, but knows the pros and cons of sticking to one platform only.

Where it will lead to

On one hand if we are getting bulk options for content marketing and SEO services, we are getting fewer resources of quality app developers on the other side. That’s why, the prize tags have gone up and the ones who are quality makers, have all fingers in gold. But, does this race has a checkered flag? Arihant Chatterjee, a freelance Appmaker on upwork, shares the seriousness of where it could lead. He explained “presumably, most of us are working freedomatically for serious money and not for the passion, for which we choose this auspicious career at first. But in the hunt, the inferiors are drilling the money in their pots, by making false commitments as independent developers and making a statement of disrespect in developer’s community.

A fool would try to conclude the better of both. As Windows and Amazon store not in the scene, its time to stick to these two majors for a fruitful career.

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