For the past year I've been single-mindedly focused on getting my game out the door. Now that I've done that, I'm taking an overdue pause to look at my finances and make some decisions. I'm not in a terribly bad place, I have no debt, a few sales have trickled in from the game which I'm only just starting to promote, and my savings account will keep me afloat at least until the new year. By slipping into debt I can continue on much longer, and if things really get desperate there's always the biggest of the bad ideas: "breaking into the 401k."

The consulting work I've done so far has been few and far between, mostly from word of mouth. I've just started looking for sources of consulting work and I don't like what I've seen so far. Rentacoder sounds like a great idea for college students who'll work for cheap, but I'm not very enthused about the bidding model and poorly scoped requirements. What are the best ways of finding consulting jobs in IT? My current idea is to make a list of everyone in the industry I can think of and start asking them if they know of any opportunities, but there has to be a better way.

Other options I've tossed around include going back to work for corporate america and saving up again, finding a part time job in IT (not likely), or just filing for an application at the local book store. At least with the latter there's no "regular crisis" overtime, and I'm not so drained I don't even want to look at a computer when I get home. The downside is I might not even make enough to pay my rent in this expensive area known as Stamford, Connecticut. BTW, I am expressing no regrets here. This is simply the point I'm at, and I'm looking at my options. I should have more intensely pursued consulting work six months ago, but that's the past.

If anyone can recommend good books or articles on the subject (in particular for consulting, which is the least offensive of these scenarios), I'd love to hear about them.

You are looking for a freelance IT business consultancy job. If I am right. Analyse the information needs and wishes of an organisation and submitting the right solution, followed by the design of the information system.

The best thing you can do is sending a mailing (fax, mail) to your niche. Tell about your consultancy services, your happy clients, etc. Also you can pick up the phone and call your niche. Also check if there are websites available which supports freelance IT consultants. You can ask those consultants about there experiences, niches etc. For instance I found a freelance network engineer through a IT study newsgroup. I was curious if he did well, because of the bad economic situation. And he told this year he didn't got one reply of his mailings of his niche, so no income. Last year (2002) he did well by the way.

Well, here in the UK we have Jobserve.com, and pimps to look after our contracting needs. In other words, contract recruitment agencies. Surely something like that exists where you are?

Cas :)

There are recruitment agencies in the US. I don't particularly like working with them, they have often misrepresented me to the client. In my experience, they're better for finding long-term employment than contract work. But I do appreciate the reminder. It's actually a question I can ask the people on "the list:" can you recommend any good employment agencies?

I'm not interested in working for a consulting company, because then I get the disadvantages of consulting with none of the benefits. I might as well then just get a full-time IT job with a local corporation. I'm mostly interested in doing remote work and occassional on-site meetings for small and medium sized businesses. I was hoping people could point me out to better B2B resource than rentacoder, or give some tips on how to best use that resource. I'm sure cold calling and mailings will turn up clients, although that's rather a long term payoff until you build up a sizable client list.

This is a classic funding problem I'm trying to broach. How is everyone else paying their rent? How many have eschewed the traditional land-a-corporate-job career path and how did you do it?

There's also www.itmoonlighter.com (http://www.itmoonlighter.com) which is similar to RentACoder. Not sure how much better it is, but it's probably worth checking out.

Has anyone here used RentACoder? The concept looks quite good, and I'm thinking of doing some work using it. Just curious to see if anyone has any experience with it. Cheers!

heh your in luck, i was on rentacoder when it first started (back when it was the do-my-homework site) :D

http://www.bitporters.net/BPNuke/admin/Portal/LinkClick.aspx?tabid=1&table=Links&field=ItemID&id=6&link=http%3a%2f%2fwww.rentacoder.com%2fRentACoder%2fSoftwareCoders%2fshowBioInfo.asp%3flngAuthorId%3d122233

theres my profile. Now the thing about starting off with lowbids is that you gotta get your rating up, also there are alot of buyers out there so sure you might take a hit on your first few contracts but once you get things going you can make more money.

honestly though, i think it would be smarter to pick up local contracts then put them out on rentacoder, then keep the difference of what they quoted:D

its tough though, while my upcoming game is under development im unsure if i will take on any new contracts, if it comes to that i think ill cook pizzas at the place next to my house:D

other ways of making money online though are www.snowcovered.com thats an online portal module market place, if u wanna learn ASP.net and the frameworks you can make some decent money off it, also theres the www.topcoder.com component competitions where u can make royalties.