QUESTION: How do get around the Catch 22 that you need jobs to have items for your portfolio, but you can’t win jobs without a portfolio?

I suggest you go to www.ehow.com and look at some of the articles there. Go to my page because a lot of the writing there is not done to ehow’s specifications and all my work goes through an editor before being published so you can be sure this is how they want to see their articles.

Anyway, look over how they are done and then write a few yourself.

Sign up for ehow while you are at it…the more you post there, the more revenue you get – it is peanuts but I make about $80 per month off those articles.

So, write a few articles and use those in your portfolio at Elance.

Look up some ebooks online or I can send you a couple and see if that is something you might like to work on.

I landed my first ebook job on elance with NOTHING in my portfolio and no experience in making ebooks. When you bid on something you are interested in, look to see what the high and low bid is and then bid the lowest. If you get hired and you do well, you won’t have to bid that low ever again.

Whether or not you are getting paid , create some work – articles, ebooks, blog entries, whatever your niche is – and put it in your portfolio.

Potential clients are more interested in seeing what you can do than what jobs you have already been awarded.