Is there work out there for freelancers?

Question

Might as well ask this here.
Must be loads of people trying to make a living out of this,
in your opnion is there work out there for a freelance web designer
just now?
Word of mouth mainly?

Answer 1

Reading from news:macromedia.dreamweaver,
"rams30" <[email protected]> posted:
> Might as well ask this here.
>
> Must be loads of people trying to make a living out of
this, in
> your opnion is there work out there for a freelance web
designer
> just now?
>
> Word of mouth mainly?
I once built an e-commerce site for a friend. He paid me $100
a month, plus
7% profit from the site for over two years to pay for it, so
I made around
$2,500 on it, just not all at once. Plus I had maintenance to
do on the
site. Since I got an e-mail every time he sold something, I
saw that in one
year the site generated about $28,000 for him, and all he was
selling was
little teacup nightlights. He'd buy teacups, cut them in
half, and put
little light fixtures in them. I no longer make anything off
of it, though.
As for doing it nowadays, I don't know. *I* don't like the
idea of running
a business, then spending a bunch of time on a website only
to have the
client tell me that they've changed their mind and don't need
the site after
I've already built it. Then I'd be forced to either take the
loss of time,
or go into a legal battle to get paid. I'd have to draw up
contracts, hire
a lawyer, etc..., and it's just a bunch of crap I don't want
to deal with.
Now if I had some kind of partner who gets off on running the
business side
so I can stay in the back room and just fill orders for
websites to be
built, that would be fine.
I once even thought of starting just a service for personal
web pages for
maybe older people who are easy to please and who just might
want a small
page with a few updates every now and then to add
photographs. To run this
business, I'd get an account with one of those webspace
resellers so I can
sell, say, a 5-megabyte account for $6.95 a month with one
minor page update
per month, and $5.00 for each additional update. Page setup
would be $20
for one page. I'd create, in advance, a set of graphics for a
bunch of
different styles. I dunno. I'd need a LOT of accounts to be
able to make
any decent money off prices being so low, but since none of
the sites would
be anything that big, any updates that are needed I could
take care of in
probably 10-15 minutes, at most. I'd just need some kind of
billing
software that allows me to add items and prices, then just
drag the item
into the user's account so their credit card is billed
automatically each
month for the right amount, or I could mail out paper bills
and run into
possibly dealing with bad checks.
Damaeus