Outsource the Work You Cannot Handle on Elance – I Did!
I have about 350 stock photos in my portfolio and these photos make me between $20 and $75 per month on each of the various microstock photography websites that I have submitted them to. Taking these photos was not the hardest thing about profiting from them, in my mind the actual uploading, submitting and tagging with keywords was the hardest part. This process is tedious and time consuming. In fact, I usually dread this portion of microstock photography.
Although I had submitted most of my photos to the major microstock photography websites – there were a few “other” sites that I simply had not had the time to submit my images to. One of these websites is Fotolia. I have heard that people were making good money on Fotolia and I know my images would garner at least $30 to $40 a month – IF they were up on Fotolia. Yet, I never found the time to upload them and the months were just flying by.
It was last week that I realized that maybe it was time I hired some freelance help. After all, even if it costs me $50 to have a freelancer submit and tag all of my photos – I would gain most of that money back in a little over a month. I’d be trading off a one time charge of $50 in return for $30 to $40 in repeating monthly residual income. I knew, that will everything else going on in my life that I simply would never find the time to upload those photos on Fotolia.
So I did it – I signed up for Elance and I placed an ad in search of someone to upload my photos. I got back about twenty submissions all ranging from $2.50 per hour to $10 per hours. Most of the lower offers came from other countries and to be honest, the grammatical errors in the submissions alone made me think twice about hiring them for a job that required labeling photos with relevant English terminology. I chose an experienced provider who offered to complete the job for $5 per hour.
The provider that I chose has done an excellent job submitting my photos. With only 4 logged hours of work he submitted a good portion of my images. There were a few small spelling errors – but overall, I could see how valuable hiring a freelancer online really was. Having those images up on Fotolia will start paying off immediately for me. This made me start thinking of other ways I could use freelancers to get my current workload completed and profit while doing so.
Using Elance is like having the ability to hire the most qualified applicants at the most reasonable pay rates – all at the click of a mouse. If you too have jobs or tasks that you have been putting off, you may want to consider hiring a freelancer from Elance.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a way to make money online and take on some freelance work – Elance is perfect for you. Freelance writers, graphic designers, marketing experts, administrative support, lawyers and engineers are all available for hire on Elance. Whether you do work on Elance for some extra part time money or provide your services to others on a full time basis – Elance is a great resource no matter what field you are in.
If you have had good or bad experiences with Elance, please comment below. If you have found a way to increase your profitability by hiring Elance freelancers – please let us know about it!
You can visit elance’s website by clicking here: Elance
Let us know what you think about this review of elance, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…
Best regards,
Michael-John Wolfe
TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties
2 Comments to “Outsource the Work You Cannot Handle on Elance – I Did!”
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Hi MJ,
Detail oriented work is what I excel at the most! Currently, I’m working for a real estate agent, entering new contacts into a client database, while ensuring there are no duplicates. I’ve never considered offering my services on Elance. My biggest question is: How do I price my services competitively when submitting bids?
BTW, your blog is full of great ideas.
Hi Joel. I would think the best way is to sign up for elance and create an in-depth profile and start submitting for various jobs. You might want to start lower at first and get some work under your belt. This will give you a chance to gain some positive feedback from employers and build your credentials. Obviously, you don’t want to go too low and work your butt of for little reward. There is no way I can tell you exactly what to bid – it all depends on the project and the amount of time involved. I received bids ranging from $2.50/hour to $10/hour for the job that I posted – so there was a wide range. If you start working for elance, please come back to this posting and let all of us know some pointers for bidding on work! Good luck Joel!
MJ