4 ms·
I freelanced full-time for a year and it's a very difficult way to support oneself. For every hour you bill, unless you have a very good thing going, you'll als
by ouch 17y ago
I freelanced full-time for a year and it's a very difficult way to support oneself. For every hour you bill, unless you have a very good thing going, you'll also spend an hour following leads and an hour dealing with organizational crap. It's really the worst of both worlds and I'm trying to kill off the business that formed over that year as best I can, without pissing off existing clients.
To get enough jobs to support yourself, you end up undercharging. And the business can't scale because most people you'd consider subcontracting to either charge astronomical rates or are god-awful: There's a surprising dearth of people who know their stuff.
- mattm 17y agoBut if you do this overseas you can easily support yourself. As for teaching English, the best thing is to just go to a country you are interested in and look for work once you are there. I taught English in China last year (along with doing freelance work) and this is how I did it. You could find work before going but this is actually riskier. They will most likely lock you into a year-long contract and there is a lot of bad schools that recruit this way because the candidates do not know any better. It's much better to move to a place and spend a month looking. That way you can talk with other teachers, see how the school looks and make sure it is not in the middle of nowhere. In many developing countries you can live well on $500 a month so freelancing is always an option for you again if teaching isn't for you.