Bidding as a freelancer

I can't resist some of the bids I see on freelancing sites

[Habtom]

A few times I have seen some quite interesting freelance programming and copywriting jobs posted on different sites. I have done freelance jobs by meeting customers personally and I have posted a few data entry and image editing tasks online myself, though I have never made any bids online on someone else's projects.

If anybody has got any experience, what is the best way to handle freelance jobs online whether it is freelancing it to the others, or taking jobs from others?

Any hard learned lessons on freelancing of any kind?

[weeks]

The problem is always the same: People generally are looking for something free or near-free on these public bid sites. Stick with technical sites where people are more likely to know what they are talking about.

[Gibble]

I'm curious as well.