Hi David,
Yes. I've had quite a few with varying degrees of success - although I must say, on the whole, they've been positive.
I gave Elance a go for a while but IMO it's a complete waste of time, bar a couple of exceptions. The jobs are all wayyy underpriced and it's all a bit ridiculous with Elance fees etc. Seriously, I don't know how writers on their survive - 10 x 500 words for $10 each? Crikey, how much work is involved in that? You're better off waitering/waitressing or something.
I then started a 'cold emailing' experiment to companies I searched for on google in various industries. While it probably helped that I speak a couple of languages other than English, it's not imperative that one does. And from that, I've had quiet a few jobs by word of (that particular client's) mouth.
And, as you say, with instant messaging there's no real need for face to face contact. It probably works out even better if you have a website (which I don't yet) but as 'Imaginewrite' talked about in another post here.
A couple of tips:
Research the company you're emailing and read up about them so you at least have some indication what they do. If all the info is in a foreign language, you can translate it on Babelfish (or whatever it's called) and while it's not that great, it will give you the gist of what they're on about.
Secondly, get the fee situation clear from the beginning and my advice is to get a portion up front if you're not sure about the company or person.
Gioff
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