I have learned this in last two days here at DP. Never start with low prices and then think of increasing them gradually. It would be better if you start with a market competitive price BUT dude your work should be of that level I will be working in this thing after I am free with my exams..
It takes a LONG time to get to the top, you must be creative and unique and usually the good money only comes from the big player and not small businesses and freelance sites. Build a portfolio and advertise on the local paper or shop windows, this can be relatively cheap and response rate is good and conversions are good since it's targeted traffic, once you build a portfolio. I would recommend you spend around 3 months honing your skills before you go live, there's ALOT to learn about photoshop. I recommend you buy photoshop for dummies if your just starting out (no offence) Hope this helped you and good luck This also applies to anybody else in his sitiuation
I would recommend getting a degree or diploma in graphic design, then work in the industry for 1 - 2 years. People will ask you for freelance work through print companies, clients etc. You are better off doing freelance work through real life situations then based starting from the internet only. People will be more willing to pay someone with pre press and corporate design skills, you will need proof of your skills before you would make any decent amount per hour. It is a who you know business.
I wanted a logo recently and used elance.com. Never used it before and was really impressed to it might be worth having a look there. Lots of competition though - I got 19 bids to design my logo in 2 days (over a weekend!) ranging from $50 to $300. It's nice being able to look through peoples portfolios. Matt
My gf is a graphic designer and she can't find stable work to save her life. Her portfolio is top notch. All she finds are contract gigs that pay very little. I keep telling her to learn web design, but she refuses because she thinks it is programming. In my opinion, those graphic designers who know XHTML, CSS, AJAX/JavaScript, some PHP, and Flash as well as making gorgeous templates based on web applications like WordPress, Joolma, or Drupal are the most successful.