Although I recently used Guru.com with success, I think your writing job search should begin with Craigslist (external link). I’m not sure why, and admittedly I wasn’t on the service very long, but out of my three inquiries in a week I got three responses. Previously, with the different freelance sites, I got only two responses to over three dozen proposals. Could it be that Craigslist is more local and not flooded with the entire world? I don’t know. But the freelance sites do attract an enormous amount of people, all seeking work they can do remotely. Which is something you can also do with Craigslist.
I live in West Sacramento, California, a medium sized city without many editing or writing jobs listed on Craigslist. As soon as I started looking over the San Francisco Bay area listings, however, things started to turn around. Many of the jobs insisted that people be in the local area. But many did not. It’s possible, I suppose, that I could have even enlarged my search for virtual work to the Los Angeles area. Who knows what might be there?
I would highly recommend Craigslist; it’s a free service and worth investigating. Yes, there are scam artists there, just like on the freelance sites. And some employers want to pay a penny a word. Ignore those just like you would anywhere. Oh, one last tip: work on your on-line portfolio, these days you have to have a web presence just like the company that will hire you. Good luck!
