<prompt> Human: I got laid off in 08. The job market was shit then so I started looking into how to make some side money online.I found upwork.com formerly elance and mturk.com and realized people would pay me to transcribe. I made 15k that way over 4 months doing it from home. This is something I would definitely recommend to anyone because we can all type. And while it is slow at first, I eventually got to the point where I could type 1 hour of audio in 75 mins.I chose transcribing. But whats great about upwork is theres literally hundreds of things people are willing to pay someone to do. Whether thats grammar, editing, graphic design, website building, literally anything and everything. So think of what skills you have and search on upwork to see if people will pay for you to do it.Once youve found something someone will pay you for, the hard part is actually getting the gigs. There will definitely be other people trying to get the job too, and everyone submits an application with whats called a bid. Which you have to pay for, but they are cheap.Heres how you can increase your chances of landing your gigs. It will be slow at first, but as soon as you complete a couple you will get reviews and it will become much easier to land others.First things first, whatever thing you decide to do or focus on, look at the profiles of top workers freelancers in that space and try to make yours as similar and professional looking as possible. Theres good advice on YouTube so I recommend checking out some videos both when it comes to crafting your profile, and submitting proposals for gigs. However, you can do just fine by using others as an example or starting point.Next, you need to craft your proposal. This can seem daunting at first. But instead you can be smart about it. Create a separate account on upwork as a job lister and list your job for free. You may even be able to list your job w the same account. Find people who submitted and are the highest rated and craft your proposal after theirs. You should be able to list jobs for free still.Once you have your proposal, the next is getting jobs. It will be tough at first. But to get around this in the early stages I always told people I was willing to do it for a discounted rate of 30 or more if they would leave an honest review. After I did 5 of those and finally had some reviews, it then became much easier to get jobs.Another thing I would focus on is getting repeat business. When I sent the work to the job provider I would tell them if they are happy with the work I would be happy to continue to do any future work for them so they knew they would have quality they rely on and so they wouldnt have to go through the hassle of listing a job each time on upwork. They could just email me and Id get it done right away. Once I obtained their private email address, I would then take jobs outside of upwork and accept payment via PayPal and google and Amazon payments. I would also offer them discounts if they referred anyone. This encouraged people to send their friends my way, especially because I always focused on making it the best quality I could. Which, you should focus on quality too. Good work makes happy customers and happy customers makes more customers. PLEASE NOTE: UPWORK OBVIOUSLY DOESNT LIKE THIS SO DO NOT SAY UT ON THEIR SYSTEMS. BECAUSE IF YOU GO OUTSIDE UPWORK, THEY DONT GET PAID. EAD BE COY ABOUT IT. SAY YOURE HAVING TROUBLE SENDING THE FILE ON UPWORK OR THAT YOU WANT TO SEND THEM A THANK YOU EMAIL OR SOME OTHER REASON AND GET THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS.After a while, I was able to charge a premium for my work because I had so many reviews. I went from making 20hr of audio to 60-80 minimum depending on the job. Sometimes I even made 100 or more per an hour of audio. So while it does take a little elbow grease at first, consider it as an investment in yourself that will pay off a little down the road because youll be able to charge a premium for your work.Whatever you do, if you decide to take this route, DO NOT get involved with the people who promise to show you ways of making money online if you buy their book or whatever. Its 95 of the time a scam and they are very good at manipulating people to spend money they dont have.After a while you will have a consistent list of repeat customers, a strong profile with good reviews, and youll even be pulling in more work through bids. You can then hire people to work under you, or simply work as little or as much as you want.You could even take this formula and make a business out of it full time if you wanted. Thats up to you.But this is by far the easiest way you can make side income or even a full time income on the computer. I hope this helps! Im happy to answer any questions about running an online business or starting a freelance business. EDIT 1: There are other sites that job providers post. Freelancer is a good one. Wherever people are posting jobs thats a place you want to be. The same methodology applies! So absolutely dont hesitate to use more than one site. EDIT 2: Someone asked what jobs they could do if they arent good at programming. But upwork isnt limited to programming so here was my response: Theres so many options. I have barely any programming skills either. But I can still type. I can still edit videos. I can still create videos. I can still install Wordpress. And on upwork people will pay you for that its not limited to programming. I recommend searching by job category to get an idea of just how vast the list of jobs available are. If youre good at something, chances are someone is trying to get someone like you to do it for money.Write a list of things you can do. Even if you dont think youre good at them, as long as some other people might not know how to do itlike installing Wordpress or cropping a video, add it to the list. Then search for jobs like that on upwork to see which are viable.You can even get jobs proofreading. And we can all read!EDIT 3: Im off to bed but will continue answering questions in the morning. :EDIT 4: Transcription Is just what I chose to focus on. There are many other things you could do instead, and the same focus and methodology applies as above. Someone commented saying they made a full time business via upwork through voice acting. Someone else made money doing investment presentations. Theres tons of possibilities. Also keep in mind there will always be people trying to lowball. But they get what they pay for which is a ESL person who may not speak well or even do the work well. There are good jobs out there. Be sure to broaden your scope to other freelancing sites as well. For example I have friends on Fiverr who make 1k to 2k sales doing video animation with a software and it only takes them a day of work. Theres plenty of money to be made. EDIT 5: Theres a handful of skeptical people. Thats fine skepticism is good most of the time. Especially if someone is selling something. Im not selling anything though. Take a look at some of the people in the entrepreneur subreddit confirming what Ive written. Theres also some good advice too!  <response>: Something to note, Mturk through Amazon requires approval, so theres a chance you wont be accepted. Rev.com is another resource that offers services and are sourced to people, but it also requires approval and has an application process, and they only accept 12 of applicants. This is all to say be smart and dont be discouraged if a certain site doesnt work out first try. : 