At freelancer.com you bid on writing assignments.  Knowing what to charge an hour might seem to make sense in developing a bid. And you’re encouraged to post on your profile that hourly amount. But how do you determine it? Every job is different, with each requiring new learning and often new research. You may want to charge less for interesting work, more for the stupefyingly dull. Does a project require travel? Interviews? Research pulling microfiche? How do you know how long these things will take? Not helping is the paucity of guidance by the job posters. What to do?

I think the better approach, rather than by simply guessing at the variables above, is to determine what you would like to get for the work. What do you need today? That’s how I would bid, not by the hour. With freelancer.com in mind, if I couldn’t get a certain minimum for a project then it would be better for me to write magazine query letters and work on my portfolio. What about my profile page? I put down $20 an hour. Not too expensive, not too cheap.  But it has nothing to do with how I would develop a bid. A last note. As yet I have not tried for any work from Freelancer.com. But I’ll share what I learn when I do.