Dear Readers,

To start the new year, we take the opportunity to introduce you to the different categories of specialist freelancers on Freelance-Market.

So we find out what freelancer categories are represented in France, where our new franchise has just started. Then we will show you how start-up consultants acquire government subsidies. We also report on how Google makes life difficult for copywriters and we speak about our cooperation with a university to analyse the peculiarities of the New Zealand marketplace. As the end we will share with you a joke about a freelance mediator who lets engineers drive forklifts.

As always, we wish you a productive and successful month. We hope that you enjoy reading this newsletter and that your business will thrive in 2012!

In the December newsletter, we asked our readers to support the Brazilian children's village "Bona Espero", which was hit by a devastating bushfire last year.

For years, the German-Italian couple Grattapaglia have been caring for the children who come from poor families. Often they are also orphans. The children's village "Bona Espero" is located in the Brazilian state of Goias, 230 km north of the Brazilian capital, Brasilia. The focus is on education and vocational training of children.

To support the children, you can still send your donations to our bank account with the following bank transfer description "Donation for Bona Espero".

The Google subsidiary Adwords has denied the placement of advertising from AustraliaFreelanceMarket.com.au which promotes the services of copywriters. According to Google Adwords, their internal policy does not permit advertising for so-called ghost writers. It appears that this policy aims to prevent students and academics from accessing the services of copywriters.

It is very difficult for us to understand Google's decision, as we only use terms like "writers" and "texters" in the rejected ads. Apparently, Google believes that the "writer-specialists" are mainly commissioned for ghost-writing.

Google's concerns are inconsistent with our own experience from hundreds of projects which we have introduced to our writers. - So far only two cases came to our attention where students tried to outsource their academic thesis to contractors. In both cases, the requests were rightfully rejected by the contractor. Please feel free to contact us if you have encountered any ghost-writing requests. In the meantime, we are working to convince Google that journalists, copywriters and "texters" are honorable professions.

Two months after its launch on 1 December our French franchisee has signed-up 75 contractors. Thus, www.Freelance-Market.fr now covers about 15 different contractor categories, from building professionals, consultants, office services, trainers, graphic designers, programmers and translators. Although the number of 75 freelancers is still small, our French colleagues already have helped several clients to find the right contractors at Freelance-Market France.

French speaking contractors are welcome to register free of charge at www.Freelance-Market.fr/inscription.

Besides Australia, Freelance-Market franchisees are currently operating in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, New Zealand and now France. Should you be interested to run a Freelance-Market franchise in a country or market segment, please find more information at www.Freelance-Market.com.

Freelance-Market currently collaborates with the Institute of Business Administration at the University of Stuttgart/Germany to produce two theses for the Bachelor of Science degree. The two scientific works analyse the contractor market environment in New Zealand.

Freelance-Market enables the two bachelor students to perform detailed analysis of our New Zealand branch Zealancer.nz. The focus is on the market-specific needs of contractors and buyers in NZ in contrast to other markets such as Australia. The results will help the team develop approaches to improve the user orientation. The common aim is not only to let the students benefit from hands-on work, but also to achieve a better user orientation.

Freelance-Market is looking forward to a successful cooperation with the University and the two Bachelor students.

Registered contractors are welcome to present their business and their services in a short article in this Freelance-Market-News. In this issue, we would like to introduce you to our business consultant no. 1017 who is listed at $90 per hour:
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"Start-ups are having most questions during the time between the founding decision and the registration of the business. Thanks to the active assistance of government funding instruments, a professional adviser is affordable for every founder. Part of my work as a start-up consultant is to ensure such funding.

At the end of my consulting work, I supply a detailed findings report, which deals extensively with the person and the project, including a concrete and detailed action plan that can be directly used as an implementation guide. I am happy to help you to start your successful business."
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The personnel department has hired too many engineers and now there are not enough work for them. At the same time the company suffers from a shortage of forklift drivers. Urgently needed material arrives late at the production machines hampering output. The worker's council tries to prevent any layoffs at all costs. Finally, both sides agree to engage a professional mediator. After extensive discussion and careful examination, the mediator solemnly announces his proposal for a compromise, which only consists of tightening the security for the operation of the forklifts. Both the worker's council as well as the employer are appalled about the mediator who apparently completely misunderstood the problem. "Not at all," says the mediator, "now everything is so complicated that only engineers with long professional experience can operate the forklifts".