Dawdle (http://www.dawdle.com) depends on freelance contractors for all non-essential tasks. It's all about that warm fuzzy feeling.
So, OK, pay attention. I'm going to tell you how to get jobs.
1) IT'S NOT ABOUT PRICE. Seriously. If it was about price, I'd go to eLance.
2) Tell me your rates up front. Period. If http://www.flingmedia.com can, you can too. If you don't, I won't trust you. You have no idea how many prospects you lose by not doing this. If you don't do this, you depend on referrals. REFERRALS WHO WILL TELL THE CLIENT WHAT YOU COST.
3) Please, for the love of God, have your portfolio up on your site, and make the links be target=_blank.
4) Blog. Twitter. I will judge you by the quality of your posts and the number of followers. Deal with it. It's like SAT scores; you can be smart and get a shitty score, but you can't be dumb and get a high one.
5) Contribute to FOSS projects. It shows an ability to work with others under others' terms. Guess what? You work for my company and you're supplementing my employees' work. If you can't get along with others, you're useless to me.
I assure you, you can do dumb things and still have a lot of Twitter followers. For example, you have 400+ followers and advise people to use target="_blank."
Me for example don't like those target=_blank. For useless sites I often just use the back and forward buttons of my browser. Infact for going back I use backspace(FF). So it's pretty faster than closing tabs one by one and returning to your original tab.
Not downmodding, but I call bullshit on #2. Every project is different and not everyone charges by the hour. Also, I skimmed Fling's site and all they are basically saying is that they have a $5k minimum, which is pretty common. Although I admire the hell out of their Manifesto point #11. :)
So, OK, pay attention. I'm going to tell you how to get jobs.
1) IT'S NOT ABOUT PRICE. Seriously. If it was about price, I'd go to eLance.
2) Tell me your rates up front. Period. If http://www.flingmedia.com can, you can too. If you don't, I won't trust you. You have no idea how many prospects you lose by not doing this. If you don't do this, you depend on referrals. REFERRALS WHO WILL TELL THE CLIENT WHAT YOU COST.
3) Please, for the love of God, have your portfolio up on your site, and make the links be target=_blank.
4) Blog. Twitter. I will judge you by the quality of your posts and the number of followers. Deal with it. It's like SAT scores; you can be smart and get a shitty score, but you can't be dumb and get a high one.
5) Contribute to FOSS projects. It shows an ability to work with others under others' terms. Guess what? You work for my company and you're supplementing my employees' work. If you can't get along with others, you're useless to me.