Freelancefolder

Stress and the Freelance Writer

Posted April 29, 2011 in Lifestyle, Writing

Writing in itself is probably not a difficult job, except when it comes to writing for money (especially if you aren’t a celebrated writer who bags huge bucks for a couple of articles, or editorials). When you’re focused on small freelance writing jobs like writing articles, blog posts, or press releases, there are certain demands that you need to meet.

In fact, freelance writing requires immense focus, resilience, staying power, and verified facts. You can write without any stress or constraints whatsoever when you are writing for fun, but as soon as you take it up as a job and start writing for others, you’ll have certain deadlines to meet, demands to fulfill, and criticism to bear.

Freelance writing jobs are often well paid, but they can turn out to be a little too stressful for many freelancers. Why wouldn’t they be? A writer often has to meet certain goals both in terms of quality and quantity at the same time, and the stress can double up if you are required to do some creative writing every once in a while.

In this post, I list some common causes of writer’s stress (or distress). If you’ve been doing freelance writing for some time, you will be able to relate. In fact, if you are going through some of these stressful situations right now this post will help because when the mind is stressed it often fails to realize the reason why and you keep going in circles. I sincerely hope the post will help freelance writers out there, especially those who have just started and are now beginning to feel the heat.

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A Freelance Translator’s Start-up Guide

Posted April 28, 2011 in Getting Started, Translation

Knowledge of a foreign language continues to be a huge selling point when it comes to finding a job in an increasingly global market.

As it becomes more and more common for businesses to deal internationally, the need for someone to translate continues to increase.

Despite technological advances in automated translation, the outlook remains very positive for those wishing to pursue a career as a translator or interpreter. According to some news reports, translation is one of the best careers of recent years and demand is expected to increase.

In this post, I’ll share some tips for getting started in this lucrative freelancing field.

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How to Take a Vacation Without the Internet

Posted April 27, 2011 in Lifestyle

Even though we can work from anywhere and can dictate our own schedules, it’s not often that we allow ourselves to take non-working holidays, especially ones where we’ll be completely off the grid with no phone or internet access at all.

I never thought about this issue until about eight months ago when I got engaged. In another month, we’re going on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon, and I have no idea if I’ll even have a phone, much less internet access. But then again, do I really want to?

I don’t know about you guys, but it’s insanely difficult for me to stay away from the computer and work. Even when I’m not working on client work, I’m always checking emails, Twitter, Facebook, writing blogs or shopping online. This makes me wonder how I’m going to survive almost two weeks without the internet.

Is it possible? What will happen to my clients? What if I come home and there’s no business left? These are just some of the scary thoughts one might have after running a very successful and busy business for a few years.

I’ve done a lot of research and planning to make sure nothing goes wrong while I’m going and to make sure I still have a business left when I come back. Here’s how to take your vacation without any electronic devices tying you to the grid.
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10 Totally Imaginary Freelancing Tools We Wish Really Existed

Posted April 26, 2011 in Freelance Stories, Inspiration

You’ve been working hard all week at freelancing, and so have I. It’s time to have some fun!

If you’ve ever wished there was a tool to make freelancing easier, this post is for you.

We’ll take a humorous look at ten freelancing tools that don’t exist (as far as I know, LOL), but we wish did. At the end, I’ll also ask for your suggestions for new freelancing tools.

So, read on, and don’t forget to laugh.

Product developers, pay attention now! There could be a fortune in these ideas. ;)

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How to Use a Facebook Fan Page to Promote Your Freelance Business

Posted April 25, 2011 in Marketing, Social Media

Facebook, with more than 500 million active users, presents an excellent marketing opportunity for freelancers. Assuming your target clients are active Facebook users, you can easily find new prospects in this social network.

I dare say, if you can’t or won’t create your own freelancing website–even though it’s now cheaper and easier than ever–then a Facebook page is the next best thing.
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Open Thread: How Do You Handle Your Accounting Tasks?

Posted April 24, 2011 in Accounting/Bookkeeping, Open Thread

Accounting is a struggle for many freelancers. While most freelancers are an expert in their chosen field, many have little to no training in accounting.

Yet, proper accounting is a vital part of running a freelancing business. An accounting mistake can have serious consequences for a business. Good accounting practices can mean the difference between having a profitable business and losing money.

There could even be negative tax consequences for not keeping your bookkeeping records correctly.

I was discussing this topic recently on Twitter with fellow freelancers @SHurleyHall and @leslieajoy. Both agreed that they would love to know more about accounting.

Which causes me to wonder about our freelancing community here on Freelance Folder.

How do you handle your accounting tasks?

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A Freelancer’s Guide to Cloud Hosting Versus Geo Hosting

Posted April 22, 2011 in Programming, Tools/Resources

If you’re new to freelancing or are just beginning your online business, you probably started off or are still hosting websites on a shared hosting plan. This is a type of geo hosting that basically consists of renting space on a physical web server (which provides the means of putting your website(s) securely online) that resides in a certain geographic location from a hosting company.

But have you thought about what happens when your business grows and your websites’ traffic or storage needs become too much for that shared environment?

Traditionally, when you outgrew a shared server, you only had two choices to resolve the problems, moving to a virtual private server (VPS) or a dedicated server. But recently, the popularity of a third option, called cloud hosting, has been on the rise.

Here’s a guide to help you out with the shopping process of moving up from shared hosting.

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Are You Ready for These Freelancing Challenges?

Posted April 21, 2011 in Getting Started

“Freelancing!”

The immediate ideas that rush to mind are that you can be your own boss, you can have a flexible work schedule, and time for yourself.

Those are certainly some wonderful advantages to freelancing, but there are also some challenges.

If you’re thinking of becoming a freelancer, you’re probably excited about the advantages of freelancing, but have you thought of the challenges?

Freelancing comes wrapped with its own set of challenges, which every freelancer will face. Some of those challenges are mentioned in this post. Plus, at the end we’ll give those of you who are already freelancing a chance to share your challenges.
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How the Global Economy Has Changed How We Freelance

Posted April 20, 2011 in Marketing

Have you thought about how the global economy is affecting your freelancing business? If you haven’t, maybe you should.

While the most of us were working hard at building our expertise and our freelance businesses, something changed forever in the freelance marketplace during the last ten or fifteen years.

Fueled by technology, the freelance marketplace became a whole lot bigger (or the world became a lot smaller, however you choose to look at it).

We’re in a global economy, but many freelancers are still living (and working) as though we are not. In this post, we’ll discuss the rise of the global economy and explain how it affects your freelancing business.

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