Having spent over $90,000 on Elance over the past few years I consider myself somewhat of an authority on using this site as a customer (not provider) and what to look out for when hiring a freelance professional.
Elance is a site where you can hire a freelancer by the hour or by the project. Unless you can do everything yourself then you will find yourself needing help from time to time but your job may not have enough work for a full time employee (or you might not want to hire one). This is where sites such as Elance.com come in.
Here you can hire professionals from programmers to book editors, ghostwriters, grapic design, voiceover experts, virtual assistants and many other categories. I’ve even posted some pretty random stuff on there and had an expert in that category step forward.
I don’t have the room in this post to cover all my hiring tips and advice but do check out each providers feedback rating, amount of jobs done and portfolio. Most bids will come from India and Pakistan but don’t necessarily go for the cheapest because it could cost you more in the long run.
Also, avoid the cut-and-paste bids which are from providers and companies who clearly never took the time to read your job post in detail and are just hoping to get a response from somebody.
Have fun
Paul Browning