A little help getting started

Hey all,

I'm a 16 year old web design and student. I've been making websites since I was 11 so that gives me 5 years of experience (roughly). I've gone from html table based websites to interactive php and css based websites and now I'd like to do some more with this. So far all the websites I've made were free of charge and merely to practice my skills however I'd like to try and do some freelance work and make a bit of money. It is quite obvious that this is the reason I'm posting here and I had some questions in relation to starting to provide freelance design services. I was hoping that you, the members of talkfreelance, with all the experience that you have, could give me some pointers on how to organize my time efficiently as I do not want my school work to suffer under the pressure of freelance work but I'd also appreciate pointers on the estimated sum I could ask for a fully worked out CMS site. Pointers on any other areas would ofcourse also be highly appreciated and I hope that you can help me. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely
- Mathew Edison

ps: My appologies if this is the wrong forum however it seemed most fitting to me.

I´m really sorry for this bump however I really would appreciate an answer to my question as I´m really not sure as to how one would handle starting a freelance webdesign service.

I have a number of freelancing tips on my blog, http://tips.justanotherportfolio.com

You may find this one of particular interest.

You seem very ambitious and that's good, I would start by showing some of your work somehow, do you have any hosting space to upload your work up? Also I would take sometime to price your work, so sit down and look at your designs and think about how much time and effort it took, and decide on the $$. If you make a beautiful CMS site you could charge +$100, if it's not so good then who knows. We can't decide a price on something without seeing it.

Do you plan to offer coding services, design services (as in, creating the aesthetic side of a website), or both?

Thanks for the replies, the blog was certainly helpful and your advice was a great as well Gatt. I'm planning on offering the design and development parts of projects however it's optional for the client. They can give me an existing design and i'll code it. I can make them just a design or I can make them both. I'm currently working on one freeware project which involves a written RPG fleet website. It's the first project which will appear on my portfolio (which is also coming) and I hope it'll give possible clients a good impression. I'm also going to take a moment to reflect on my designs and see what sum I can charge for the different services I'll offer. Thanks again for your help people and if anybody has any additional advice, anything would be highly appreciated!