My True Experience in Making Money From Freelancing

Today's IT lifestyle drives many people to do freelancing as an other stream of money. Some people say working as a freelancer makes you free to work anytime and anywhere you want, you just need to be committed to submit your work in the range of particular time as negotiated with your clients. It sounds great, but in other words actually it also can be said  that freelancers are working without any limit, even much more than people who work from 9 to 5 in the office. I come across a lot of articles or blog posts that tell about earning money online through freelancing. Almost all articles that I found encourage the audience to give a try in freelancing. Before deciding if you want to join freelancing or not, I would like you to know some insights as follows to consider before joining in freelance life.

You work based on your passion

Everyone who runs freelancing is offering any services based on his/her passion. You are free to choose what field you want to work on. Working in areas that you love makes you feel less burdened. This is one of the advantages of freelancing. I bet there are many people who resign from their office because they are unsuitable with  the working areas.

 

Uncertainty Circumstance

Freelancers set their own goal, and there is uncertainty if the goal is achievable or vice versa. Freelancing is full of uncertainty, there is no guarantee if you will get a job next month or not. Your income is also very fluctuating. But there is always the possibility that your earning can be higher than what people get from working in a company or office with regular earnings. Some freelancers who have long term projects with clients prove that their earning is quite stable and higher than working as an employee in a company or office.  

Worldwide Competitors

Day by day more people do freelancing from all over the world. If you are one of them, you have to understand that being a freelancer means working with worldwide competitors. No geographic boundaries of competitors. You have to build your own strategies in struggling being a freelancer. You may be overwhelmed to compete with freelancers who offer their services at a low price. Especially from those who come from countries with a high conversion of dollars, they tend to offer the services at a very cheap price.

You are free to set the rate

You are free to set your own rate. So it is very fair about the money you earn from the clients because you control the rate. You can increase or decrease your rate as you want anytime. The  more projects you accomplish, clients will trust you more even if you set a higher rate.
 

My true experience

I have been starting my freelance activity since January 2020. I got no money from freelancing for one year, but I get a lot of lessons learned.  My biggest achievement is I have a blog which successfully monetizes with Google Adsense. I join some freelance platforms such as Upwork, Peopleperhour, Fiverr and Freelancer. I am so curious about freelance platforms, so I joined some. I didn't get any income from those platforms in my first year.

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I offer translation services from English to Indonesian or vice versa in all freelance platforms that I join. It is really hard to get a job in this field right now, since there are so many people offering the same services.  I get no job from any bid I did at those freelance platform. I keep struggling, and I start to think another strategy. I keep improving my strategy in selling services through freelance platforms.

From my freelance journey, I learned that a strong portfolio is the main weapon to get the targeted job. Then I start improving my profile in Upwork and Fiverr. Since it is very hard to get a job in translation field. Now I offer other services. I create my new gig on fiverr at december 2020, the gig is writing travel article about Bali, and writing article about traveling in Indonesia. Three days after both gigs published, I got a message from a buyer, she was from Australia. She asks me if I could write a travel article about Lombok. I am so happy getting this first order. I did my best, and delivered the work faster than the deadline.

Still on fiverr, a few days later, I got an order from the US. The buyer asked me to write a travel article about Bali. At the same time I got an order from South Korea for a kids song translation from English to Indonesian. I got two orders then. From December 2020 to Januari 2021 I got  $48 from fiverr after a 20% cut by fiverr. Not much right, that is the reality. But I keep trying, I am sure those who get a thousand dollars in a month also start everything from less dollars. If you curious about my fiverr gigs, check it here

 

That is my true experience in freelancing, it might help you to consider if you fit to freelancing or not. Good luck!

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