Freelancefolder

What to Expect When You Finally Do Become a Freelancer

Posted October 31, 2011 in Lifestyle

Before you become a full-time freelancer, you tend to have a romanticized view of freelancing.

You imagine waking up at any time of the day, working blissfully in your pajamas, pumping iron at the gym in the middle of the day, and spending many happy hours with your family.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but freelancing isn’t exactly like that. Freelancing will change your life drastically, for better or worse. If you’re not prepared for these changes, you may find yourself regretting your decision to freelance.

Let me look into my crystal ball and show you what changes will happen in all the areas of your life.

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Open Thread: Have You Been Hired by Another Freelancer?

Posted October 30, 2011 in Managing Clients, Open Thread

Freelancers get to work for all different types of clients. There are good clients, bad clients, large clients, and small clients–to name just a few.

You name a type of business, and a freelancer has probably worked with them at some point. However, in this post I’d like to shift the focus a bit.

What I’ve been wondering is this:

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Two Great Reasons to Fire Your “Good” Clients

Posted October 28, 2011 in Managing Clients

This was a banner year for me as a freelance writer—it was the year I started firing clients. And not just the ones who were difficult, unreasonable, or downright rude. Severing those types of relationships should be a no-brainer if you’re going to maintain your sanity as a freelancer.

This year, I went one step further and found the courage to fire the ones who—although perfectly civil, reliable, and easy to work with—were simply not moving my career in the right direction.

In this post, I’ll explain why I took this drastic step.

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It’s Never Too Early to Think About Taxes

Posted October 27, 2011 in Accounting/Bookkeeping, How-To

While April 15 seems like an eternity from now, it never hurts to be on top of your tax game.

For the freelance writer, he or she should be focusing in on their tax information throughout the year, not just panicking the week before taxes are due. Often, freelancers come running to their tax person weeks or days before the April filing deadline with loads of notes, receipts and more. That’s when the fun (not really) begins.

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10 Great Conferencing Apps for Freelancers

Posted October 26, 2011 in Tools/Resources

Conferencing can be a great tool for freelancers. You can get on a conference call with a prospect to walk them through a proposal. (Whenever I do this, the prospect gets excited to work with me).

You can also use telephone or video conferencing to collaborate with clients and other outsourced staff on joint projects, such as a website, an article, or even a logo design. You can even set up training through a conferencing application.

Below are ten great conferencing apps for freelancers. Dozens of audio and video conferencing apps are available, but I’ve picked those that are either free or extremely affordable to make it easier for freelancers to use these tools.

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13 Office Productivity Software Suites for Freelancers and Others

Posted October 25, 2011 in Productivity, Tools/Resources

No matter what your freelancing specialty is, odds are that you can benefit from the use of an office productivity suite. In fact, you may already be using one.

What is an office productivity software suite? Simply put, it is a group of business-oriented software packages that are bundled together for distribution. The most common bundles include word processing and spreadsheet software, but other bundle configurations exist as well.

Office productivity suites used to cost businesses hundreds of dollars, but freelancers should be aware that many low cost and even free options are now available. In this list, I’ve included 13 of the most popular office productivity software suites.

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The Easy Way to Start Freelancing: Keep Things Simple

Posted October 24, 2011 in Getting Started

If you have been trying to launch a freelance career in any genre, you have probably felt the sting of an oversaturated market more than once. There are so many people out there vying for jobs, many of them lacking skill but snatched up because of their ridiculously low price. While the buyers who try this route often have to learn the hard way that this is the wrong road, it doesn’t help you in the meantime.

But being heard over the noise and standing out doesn’t have to mean you shout louder than the rest; that just adds to the clutter. Instead, you should take a minimalist approach, stripping the layers of bulk away and following a more simple blueprint toward success. I guarantee that if you make it a little easier, you will be better off.

You may be wondering how you can apply minimalist ideals to a freelance career. It is all about getting back to basics and ignoring the call of more complicated promotion and activity. This will reduce your legwork and let you focus on your real career.

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Don’t Hate Me Because I’m a Freelancer

Posted October 23, 2011 in Managing Clients, Marketing

The freelancing lifestyle, while flexible, involves a lot of hard work.

But despite all that hard work freelancers get a bad rap sometimes.

So much so, that some freelancers have actually stopped using the word “freelance” to describe themselves because they believe that it has negative connotations. Instead they use terms like consultant, independent professional, and creative entrepreneur.

In this post, I’ll take a look at five common misperceptions about freelancers, explain why they are wrong, and take a look at the reasons why the misperceptions persist.

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7 Cs of Effective Web Writing–a Checklist for Freelance Writers

Posted October 21, 2011 in How-To, Writing

Freelance writers are common, but a relatively small percentage of these freelancers really understand their job and responsibilities.

If truth be told, it may seem that anybody can write. This seems especially true for those with reasonable English comprehension (which is a given if English happens to be your first language).

And even if English is not your first language, chances are that you may still be pretty good at writing once you understand that it is the preferred business language all over the world. Don’t forget that English is also the language of TV shows, motion pictures, and an infinite supply of wonderful books and literature.

But, is writing really so easy that anybody who knows English can do it? To be honest, it is really easy if you think that the main purpose of web content is just to fill cyberspace. However, writing becomes quite a job if you understand how many purposes a simple page of text is really supposed to serve. The writing challenge applies to almost all forms of writing, including articles, blog posts, or sales pages. But this post focuses on content writing.

In this post, let’s take a look at the seven Cs of effective web writing.

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