Musing--Freelancing?

Yesterday I got a phone call from my former academic advisor (for my MLS).  Somehow she was talking to someone who runs a museum/archive for one of the national parks and they need a website, can't hire a professional, and my name came up (lol!).  She called and left me a message asking how my job search is going, and if I would be willing to take a look at this particular client's website needs and how much I would charge.  I also keep getting emails from people I don't know either through my school listserv or saying "hey, I know (insert name here) and s/he said you might be able to give me advice on blogs/websites/digital collections".  It seems that librarians I know have recognized that I have an above average knowledge of these subjects relative to the field, and that I can also relate things in a language they understand.  It probably also doesn't hurt that I've been consulting for free--I did this for several classmates while they were building their capstone e-portfolios.  I'm also doing it for my brother now.  (Munchkin--I meant to tell you I met with my brother, we talked, and it went GREAT.  Your emotional intelligence astounds me, and your methods worked great despite my own social awkwardness.)

I'm kind of wondering if I should go freelance, at least until I either locate a "real" job or figure out if it's worth the time and effort.  Along this line, I started thinking about how Fuzzy (at one point) was talking about selling her business paperwork skills to crafters who may need help navigating these issues to run their businesses (I still think this is a fantastic idea).  I wonder if I could market my skills through our business and offer to build/manage/consult on client crafter websites?

Yes, I realize we still need to get our own website up and running.  At this point, it's mostly an issue of buying a domain name and figuring out if we want to host it separately.  This costs money, not a lot (maybe up to $15/yr on the domain and around $10/month on hosting), and I would be willing to front these costs for the business if my own financial outlook were slightly more certain.  I figure the website has been my arena, so it only makes sense that I would invest those startup costs and earn them back from online sales; that way if the website tanks due to my own ineptness, only my time/money investment, and not the business's, is lost.

I'm thinking this kind of "consulting" model could bring in more business for us by roping in crafters who already run their own sites.  Links between sites can really boost your search engine listing, so if we were to say "hey, we'll do some free consulting for you to improve your traffic and website navigability" in exchange for some friendly linking to each other's sites, everybody wins.

What does everyone think?

Alula