I briefly looked at elance as a means to gauge what "markets" were hot for me to focus on. At the time (and it may still be the case) Wordpress was really takin

I briefly looked at elance as a means to gauge what "markets" were hot for me to focus on. At the time (and it may still be the case) Wordpress was really taking off. One of the things I noticed from the top paid developer there was that he seldom had to bid on anything. Based purely on his reputation and previous work he was able to land more work then he could probably handle while everyone else was competing with teams out of India who were low balling everything. I believe what mootothemax is advocating is that getting your foot into the door opens up a lot more possibilities than trying to out bid people who have a lot more experience. Sure $20 may not be much but often people who frequent these sites have much more work to offer and they are more likely to offer it to people they can depend on. Personally though I have found the best way to land gigs is to network. There are plenty of shops out there that have more work then they can handle and they are always looking for people to help ease the load.