Job categories range from writing, management, legal, Information Technology, marketing, and more. The primary focus of these "Business to Business" (B2B) sites is to match your skills with companies who have projects for someone with your talents. Some charge for membership, some are free, and some take a percentage of each job that is awarded (usually from employer).

In beginning, you'll need to fill out an online profile that specifies your experience, skill level, and sometimes allows you to list examples of your work.

Let's take a closer look at a few of bigger freelance sites:

1) Guru: http://www.guru.com

This is probably most popular, likely due to their large advertising budget. You'll find their ads on all of more popular PC Mags and pasted every- where online.

Like most of these services, you must first create a profile that details who you are and what you do. The site currently claims over 320,00 members with over 7,000 job listings. They also offer a variety of backend services such as articles, and an ezine and other goodies that will help you run your business more efficiently.

2) eLance: http://www.elance.com

Linear income is directly proportional to number of hours expended (40 hrs. of pay for 40 hrs. of work). One of great advantages of residual income is that once things are set in motion, you continue making money from your initial efforts, while gaining time to devote to other things... such as generating more streams of residual income!

There are a variety of ways residual income can be earned. Following are some examples.

1) Transfer rights to a book you wrote, a software program you created, a gadget you invented, or a song you recorded, to a company that agrees to pay you a percentage of each copy of your work sold in future.

2) Become an actor and draw residual income from each of your movies, TV shows, or commercials, each time they run.

3) Let an oil company drill a well on your property in exchange for a percentage of revenue.

4) Purchase an office building or other real estate that earns you recurring income through lease or rental payments.

The above ways of earning residual income generally aren't that easy to implement. Following are some that are more attainable for average person:

5) Maintain a savings and investment program that pays you residual income in form of interest or dividends.

6) Market your own products and/or services that lend themselves to repeat sales.

I'm referring to products or services that are regularly used or consumed, and that must be purchased over and over again.

A product or service that you create only once, but sell over and over again, could also be categorized as a form of residual income (although continual effort may be required in marketing it).