Can I make a living working as a freelance Web Developer?

Can I make money renovating houses?

No - you have to be a plumber, an electrician, a painter, a tiler and a landscaper. Funny that - I just made $45,000 renovating a house and Im none of those!

He was asking in a general sense - I answered in a general sense.

You can apply as many fancy titles as you like - but the bottom line (again) in regards to his question is YES. You can make a living as a freelancer.

To suggest otherwise is absolutely incorrect. I know, because its what I do.

RJ

And my point a lot of people make the mistake of thinking all they have to do is web developing and people will flock to them for business. I am a web developer and have been for a government agency for 5 years and never once have I had to collect a debt, sell a web site, go door to door. All I do is things that web developers do.

Those other things that come in to play are not easy to do well. If you do them well i commend you, most people cannot. I have seen freelancers fail time and time again because they did not consider the ancillary things (which took up the majority of their time) even though they were skilled designers/web developers. And in my opinion that is one of the major things to consider when deciding to free lance, are you willing to spend the time it takes doing non-freelance related work in order to get the freelance business you will need to survive.

Is that so hard to understand?

Yes you can. I am 24 years old, recently graduated, degree in programming and I have been simply blown away by web/graphics potential. I have only been into the web for a year. I have a friend who brings in so much business he has to turn people away. Of couse I'm there to pick them up when I can. I think you must look locally, there is a lot out there if you do your homework. If your a self-starter and have the entrepreneurial mindset, you can accomplish a lot. What I did was I would try to target local companies that have old out-dated websites (preferrably horrible ones) and contact them for a redesign. They usually bite and if not, they have my card, which is a vital part of my freelance work. Failure is apart of anything.

I also did jobs for free to build up my portfolio in the beginning, I just asked to have a link back to my site. I think if you make people happy, give them a good site time in and time out, word of mouth will bring in new clients. 90% of my work comes from my customers referring me to people they know. I'm lucky to do the majority of my work from home. There are a lot of home based web jobs listed on my cities craigslist every week too. Just things to consider. Good Luck!

Yes!!
You Can.. If you have good stuff in web desgin and some research on net, You can to win!! Its open to all who are all having knowlege not depend age.
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M.Kumar
http://a2zindiajobs.blogspot.com

I think YES, it is possible. But you must get very good at it and have a niche in the industry to make a living off of it.

Just like selling avon...yes, you can potentially make a fair amount of profit doing it. *But* In order to do so you need considerable skill (both business and design/coding wise) as well as some way that sets you apart from all the others.

Originally Posted by jjmac And my point a lot of people make the mistake of thinking all they have to do is web developing and people will flock to them for business. I am a web developer and have been for a government agency for 5 years and never once have I had to collect a debt, sell a web site, go door to door. All I do is things that web developers do. Those other things that come in to play are not easy to do well. If you do them well i commend you, most people cannot. I have seen freelancers fail time and time again because they did not consider the ancillary things (which took up the majority of their time) even though they were skilled designers/web developers. And in my opinion that is one of the major things to consider when deciding to free lance, are you willing to spend the time it takes doing non-freelance related work in order to get the freelance business you will need to survive. Is that so hard to understand?

You make a good point. It's something I realized recently when I first began this whole system. You really have to work on getting your name out there. It takes time to build friendships and common bonds with folks to become as close to a household name as possible. I myself plan on going to a local design school once I'm done with high school and working as a freelance web designer/developer while maintaining some sort of steady job outside of the industry. It's always good to have something to fall back on.

I'm 23, and freelancing is my way of paying for college (w. my scholarships + financial aid, around 12gs/year). And I dont freelance near full time.

I have to say no, you cannot make a living as a freelance Web Developer.

jjmac is dead right - you have to many other things besides just develop. In fact, you will probably spend most of your time doing things that are not web development.

That's not to put you off, just an observation. Good luck.

It's never too late to get started. Good luck!