A list of 5 freelance discussion areas. Check out these freelancing forums to find out more about the business of freelancing and the skills it takes to be a freelancer. If you're serious about starting a career in freelancing, forums are a great place to get insight from people that are already in the business. You get real people talking about techniques they use, pricing, tools, contracts, getting paid, all the things you need to think about before jumping into the business.
talkfreelance
A very developed forum. There are over 14,000 members and over 400,000 posts. The forum is broken down into 6 sections: Information – general news and feedback, Marketplace – buy/sell and services offered/wanted, Design, Web Site Development, Management, Marketing, and Monetizing – a good place for a beginner freelancer to browse, and Community. I really enjoy browsing this forum – there is a lot of great information and it is one of the best designs I've seen.
agd – graphic design forum
All Graphic Design's forum. A lot of it is about design tools and concepts, but scroll down to the Conducting Business section to find some good business tips for freelancing. There are topics like Price Guidelines, Contracts, Freelance Jobs & Web Design Consulting. There is even a section called Portfolio Work for Students – it's a place where people with a small budget can hire students which helps the student grow their portfolio.
FreelanceSwitch Forums
FreelanceSwitch – pretty much everyone knows about them, but some don't realize they have a forum section. It's full of good information, tips and tricks, and all that good stuff. When you visit, it starts at the 'Discussions' page, but if you click on 'Categories' to the left of the character it's a little easier to browse.
HOW Forums
We know they offer up a graphic design magazine, but they also have a forum section on their site. There are some very good topics for freelancers – Business Talk and Career Advice are two that would help any freelancer or someone looking for a in-house/ agency job.
FreelanceGossip
A little slim on the amount of users and posts, but still some descent information about website marketing and other discussions.
