Here's some advice:
If you're an article buyer, you could use articles for your blog and sell them to say, AC 6+ months later to recoup part of the costs.
Above it was stated that you need proof of your skills, which is definitely true. Also try to impress with how verbose and well articulated your ads and samples are and as well be the same way in any communications with buyers.
You'll definitely want to work up to it, posting to AC and using your page as part of a portfolio and reference in your resume. Also try to bid low on some jobs that you would find easy but keep in mind the bid you make will have to be low even by AC's standards for 1200 words and also that it will take time to get your bids accepted, replied to, reviewed and finally accepted as a deliverable for the bidded job.
At the point where you've done 30 articles on AC and completed at least 5 jobs, but more likely 10 and have a portfolio built up and 5-20 unpublished samples all of which were done from scratch or perfect rewritings you can attempt to move onto elance. You will be paying a fee to participate and be able to bid on elance.com and you will also be trying to underbid others. Your best bet is to hit all 3 places concurrently, submitting to AC or a similiar service 1/4 of articles you have prewritten on popular topics that you'd use for samples and keep making more sample work. Pick a modest number (4-5$ per article) on elance and submit bids across the board after gauging current interests to make sure people are actually bidding lower than that if you can. On rentacoder.com do the same, and submit more bids only if you have some articles that could be used for a fraction of the jobs you submit bids for already done.
I can't stress enough how important it is to have proper references and to gauge a market before you start to bid on jobs. If you bid for many jobs and they all get accepted in the same time period to meet the deadline you might have to give up most of your profits outsourcing the work so don't get ahead of what you're fairly sure you can meet the number of bids that get accepted. On Elance this is easier, especially for larger jobs but on rentacoder there is steep competition for any job and bids go under what it's worth for a writer or coder to do the work in the UK, US, or Europe. Competition is steep but references and pacing your bids will pay off. A potential buyer may turn you down for any reason, reputation, cheaper labor, referral by another buyer for a specific writer and last but not least, a whim. I've had my bids turned down for no reason by people or accepted by others when there was little price difference and the others were more qualified. Charity can help!
My main concern for the near future is that I not underbid anyone and stick to my price, giving the best quality I can output. I've bid low before and then undercut a competitive bid to the same buyer on the same job and have been accepted. My tolerance for people that pay shit for work is nonexistant now because their deadlines are usually high, they profit a ton from it, they don't pay you what you deserve and last but not least because they're not paying you much they don't value you, alot of the time even as a human being when they're communicating with you. I fulfilled the exact criteria on low bidded jobs also to have someone attempt to demand more from me and stipulate more into the contracts without consulting me. Make sure that the Terms of Service state, on whatever platform you use that the buyer can't stipulate more without you agreeing to doing more, don't offer to do more for free, have the buyer create an additional job or many if they want a large amount of work and don't be suckered in by jobs that have an outline of the work required which is enough to fulfill any job and a statement under the outline that more specific details of the job and what it entails will follow after accepting the bid, as at that point you're contractually obligated and set up to potentially be screwed over with more work. Another thing I've encountered is that buyers will state that they require the articles be to exact specifications and that the specs will follow after the bid is accepted. A few buyers I've dealt with were incompetent and had 4-5 day deadlines and didn't get these specifics to me untila after 2 days and then wanted to negotiate me doing even more work on the project with additional specifics. I was saved by avoiding jobs like these as I'd experienced what it was like to get paid shit and spend 10 hours a day on one project for 3 days for 20 USD. Make sure they give you an exact idea of all work in advance unless it's a job for several months of work, that you keep the rights to your work in any form of use before you get paid and agree in contract before the bid is accepted to provide the work details immediately after the bid is accepted. You don't want to have what happened to me happen to you, get the work 2 days late, get paid shit, be caught offguard waiting with no reply to your correspondence and inquiries and have 2-3 days to work to complete your deadline in which you'll be working 8-10 hours a day for 2-3 days for 30$.
GL
l0cke
