[YuriNiyazov]

I am surprised at the negative responses you've received in the last ten minutes of posting this, it is very much against the spirit of what usually occurs.

1) The book that I've seen mentioned the most often in the area of negotiation is not actually directly on that topic. It is just a general book on "getting it your way" - Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people".

2) I am in NYC, there are local python-nyc and ruby-nyc user groups, and they get a decent amount of traffic with people asking for help on various projects, a lot full-time, but occasionally a part-time gig offer comes up. Research the equivalent in your area.

[xefyr]

Thanks Yuri! I appreciate your support, or at least constructive evaluation :)

I'm familiar with the book - I'll give it a go. As for my areas, mostly I'm finding people looking for full-time deals related to hadoop/hbase/lucene. Thanks for the reminder though, I'll look "harder".

[paraschopra]

You can also read "How to get Rich" by Dennis Felix

[anguslong]

+1 for Felix Dennis & How to Get Rich. Holds a permanent place of honor on my bed-stand. He shares his steps and missteps on his way to becoming a self-made bill-eee-on-air. Owes much of his success to negotiation. Fun read.