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50+ Free Resources for Writers, Bloggers, And Other Freelancers

Posted December 6, 2009 in Business, Productivity 65 Comments »

words-writing-pencil Do you maintain a blog for your freelance business? Are you a freelance writer, blogger, or someone who writes regularly?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this article is for you. From organization, to finding ideas, to doing the research — there are dozens of free resources that can help you write better. In this post, we’ve found 50 that we think will be valuable to you.

Here are 50 free resources to help your writing or blogging efforts:

Types of Free Resources for Writers and Bloggers


We’ve found 50 different free resources for writers and bloggers. The resources listed here will help you:

  • Write or Blog
  • Research
  • Organize
  • Check your work
  • Illustrate your work
  • Find work
  • Get connected

Let’s start with resources to help you write or blog.

Resources to Help You Write or Blog

There are many free tools available online to help the freelance writer or blogger. The following list includes several of the best free writing and blogging tools that we’ve found:

  1. WordPress — Import this popular content management system to a private domain or host it directly on the wordpress.com site. (WordPress is also available as a mobile app.)
  2. Blogger — Provides a platform for creating and hosting blogs.
  3. Advanced Marketing Institute’s Headline Analyzer — Analyze headlines for intellectual, empathetic, or spiritual strength.
  4. Open Office Suite — Productivity suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, slideshow tool, graphic tool, and database.
  5. RoughDraft – Donationware word processor designed specifically for writers.
  6. Jarte – Tabbed word processor includes many advanced features such as dictionary and thesaurus lookup. (Includes WordWeb.)
  7. Zoho Writer — Part of the Zoho productivity suite which has a wide range of applications ranging from an email service (Zoho Mail) to conferencing software (Zoho Meeting).
  8. Google Docs — Allows you to create and share documents online.

Resources to Help You Research

There are many online resources to help freelance writers and bloggers. Here are just a few:

  1. Meriam-Webster Dictionary — Free online dictionary.
  2. Reference.com — Contains a full suite of reference tools including a dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and translator.
  3. Refdesk.com — Reference tool to help you access a wide variety of information.
  4. Word Web — A simple dictionary and thesaurus utility that you can download. (A more advanced version is available for a price.)
  5. InfoPlease.com — Another good way to locate data online.
  6. Encyclopedia.com — Search multiple online encyclopedias.
  7. Symbols.com — Describes the history and meaning of symbols.
  8. Library of Congress — Use the world’s largest library to discover what you need.
  9. History.com — Website for the popular History television channel contains a wide variety of historical information.

Resources to Help You Get Organized

There are many free resources to help writers and bloggers organize their thoughts, or their work. Here are a few:

  1. Bubble.us — Create and share mind maps online.
  2. FreeMind — Java-based mind mapping software.
  3. Remember the Milk — Mobile friendly to do list.
  4. ToDoist — Another mobile-friendly to do list utility.
  5. Evernote — Create virtual sticky notes that you can access when you need them.

Resources to Help You Check Your Work

Here are some free tools that writers and bloggers can use to check their work:

  1. Article Checker — Checks for duplicate online content.
  2. The Owl at Purdue — Contains many grammar and style resources.
  3. Elements of Style — Classic writing text, now available online.
  4. Graviax — Open source grammar checker.
  5. Word Count Plus — Free Firefox add on utility.
  6. Word Count Tracker — Online utility that not only counts words, it can count pages and posts too.
  7. Keyword Density Analyzer — Measure the keyword density of any website.
  8. Google Analytics — Register your website and learn about your traffic.
  9. Website.Grader — Type in your website URL and this site will tell you whether your website is effective. (The grader.com family of tools also includes tools to measure your effectiveness on Twitter, the effectiveness of your press release, and the effectiveness of your book marketing.)
  10. Textalyser — Provides a number of helpful statistics about your writing.
  11. Citation Machine — Allows you to properly cite your sources based on several popular style guides.

Resources to Illustrate Your Work

Freelance writers and bloggers often need images to illustrate their work. Here are some sources of royalty-free images. (Always read the license agreement associated with a particular image before using it.)

  1. Wikimedia Commons — Many images on Wikimedia Commons are available for reuse.
  2. Stock.xchng — Popular source of royalty-free images.
  3. Flickr — Many photos are available for reuse.
  4. Morguefile — Another source of free photos.

Resources to Help You Find Work

While there are many places to find writing or blogging jobs, online three of the best sites include:

  1. Freelance Writing Jobs — Posts new writing jobs daily Monday through Friday.
  2. About Freelance Writing — Posts writing jobs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
  3. AllFreelanceWriting — Has a job board for freelancers.

Social Media Resources

It’s important for freelance writers and bloggers to get connected. Social media is a great free way of doing that. Here are some of our favorite social media sites:

  1. Twitter — Networking in 140 characters or less.
  2. Facebook — Offers a great way to connect with friends and family as well as colleagues.
  3. LinkedIn — Professional networking. (There is a premium version that costs money.)

There are many other social media resources, of course, and most of them are free. You may find others that work well for your freelancing business.

Other Resources

Here are some other resources that you may find helpful:

  1. Timesheets Lite — Track your time. (There is a new version of this software that costs $32, but the older version is free.)
  2. PayPal — Receive money online.
  3. CutePDF — Create PDF files.
  4. 7Zip — Compress and archive or email files with this open source software.
  5. Freelance Switch Rates Calculator — Helpful in determining what rate you should charge clients.
  6. U.S. Copyright Office — Learn about copyright law.
  7. Legal Guide for Bloggers — Maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this guide discusses legal issues that bloggers may face.

Share Your Free Resources

We’ve shared 50 different free resources for freelance writers and bloggers. Now it’s your turn to share your favorite resources in the comments.

Image by jeanbaptisteparis


About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 19 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts


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65 Comments
  • User Gravatar
    Julian
    December 7th, 2009 at 12:08 am

    Great Post Laura. This one is definitely being placed in my personal freelance resource link section.

    A few additions I’d like to add are Resources I Use to Get Answers to General Questions. Comes in handy when seeking opinions about a particular topic or seeking advice/help outside my social circle..

    http://www.mahalo.com/answers/
    http://askville.amazon.com/Index.do
    http://funadvice.com/
    http://answers.yahoo.com/

  • User Gravatar
    Pip Jamieson
    December 7th, 2009 at 12:12 am

    Hi – I just launched a creative professional network called The Loop, http://www.theloop.com.au, which is a great resource for writers & freelancers to promote themselves online.

    If you are looking for work, want to promote yourself online or simply connect with others in the industry then its worth checking in out.

    You can create a FREE profile at http://www.theloop.com.au, clicking on “Create Your FREE Profile,” and following the simple step-by-step instructions.

    With some of the best Australian companies already signed up and searching through the profiles – including MTV Networks, Discovery Networks, Moon Communications, Like Minded Studios, CRC, The White Agency, Animal Logic, The Hyper Factory, Sixty40, Deepend and loads more – you might bag that dream job out of it!

    We only launched on Tuesday so all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

    Pip

  • User Gravatar
    BookWhirl.com
    December 7th, 2009 at 2:42 am

    Thank you for providing all these source sites. It’s impressive that i can find all that i need with just one post. This is very helpful to all writers who are looking for resources to reinforce their writing. Thanks a lot!

  • User Gravatar
    designfollow
    December 7th, 2009 at 4:00 am

    great list, Thank you very much.

  • User Gravatar
    Diar A.
    December 7th, 2009 at 4:23 am

    A bit overwhelmed with the number (50), but must be useful. Thank you :)

  • User Gravatar
    Harrison
    December 7th, 2009 at 7:21 am

    How did you compile such great collection of information ! I am amazed and impressed at this really.
    I cannot think I ever found anyone being so detailed and resource rich as your writing above. I recommend this to all and am forwarding the link to my entire circle to go through.
    I really appreciate the time and effort that you might have put it in getting it :)

  • User Gravatar
    SaiRam
    December 7th, 2009 at 9:22 am

    Thanks for a Very nice and very useful article….
    good collection. :)

  • User Gravatar
    Juliet
    December 7th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Hi

    Some websites for freelance work:

    Bid-job
    Contracted Work
    Elance
    Freelance Center
    Freelance Free
    Freelance Jobs
    Freelancer’s Outpost
    Guru
    iFreelance
    iFreelancer
    oDesk
    Outsource Today
    People Per Hour
    Project4Hire
    Total Freelance

    Information Technology Specific:

    City IT Jobs
    Code Jobs
    Developreneurs
    Freelance Central
    Freelance Web Programming
    PHP Freelancers
    Rentacoder
    Support Universe

  • User Gravatar
    Laura Spencer
    December 7th, 2009 at 10:53 am

    Thanks to everyone for sharing.

    I’m glad everyone is enjoying the post.

    Keep your resource ideas coming!

  • User Gravatar
    sriganesh
    December 7th, 2009 at 11:15 am

    wow wow… that make it thrice !! , really nice and very useful article. i really got amazed when i checked the email. i have to learn it. as a new blogger, this will sure help me.
    -=-=-=-=-=
    thanks for the article Laura :D

  • User Gravatar
    Gjergji Kokushta
    December 7th, 2009 at 11:36 am

    I would like to mention some of my favorite tools as freelancer (graphic & web design).

    - Curdbee (http://www.curdbee.com) Free and Paid Invoice Manager (Create, Edit, Send and Get Paid)

    - PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com), free powerfull PDF creator from any application;
    PDF Redirect free and paid (http://www.exp-systems.com), create PDF from any application – best feature you can merge
    you PDF files into one document.

    - RedMark (http://www.redmark.com/) collaboration web app for graphic designers and also for webdesigners when they build their mock-ups.

    These are very handy.

  • User Gravatar
    Jesaka Long
    December 7th, 2009 at 11:38 am

    This is a fantastic and well-researched list! I would also add under “Other Resources” bit.ly. It’s a url shortener that also offer strong tracking. I’ve found retweets on bit.ly tracking before they’ve shown up on Twitter.

  • User Gravatar
    Laura Spencer
    December 7th, 2009 at 11:52 am

    Thanks for all the resources!

    Jesaka, I like bit.ly too. I was thinking of devoting a separate article to it later on, but was not sure if there would be enough interest.

    Keep the ideas and resources coming!

  • User Gravatar
    Ed Martin
    December 7th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    I have started using Outright. It is a free web app for keeping track of expenses and income, and basic bookkeeping. http://outright.com.

  • User Gravatar
    Bryan - FreelanceVenue
    December 7th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    These are wonderful resources you’ve posted here. Some of them I use myself. I’ll look into the others.Thanks for sharing them!

  • User Gravatar
    Lexi Rodrigo
    December 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    Awesome list, Laura! I saw a number that I haven’t heard of yet. Will definitely check them out.

    Thanks for compiling this.

    Lexi

  • User Gravatar
    Nick Parsons
    December 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    Great list! Some of these were very basic, but I think that’s good because sometimes the easiest solutions are the first to be overlooked.

    I especially liked Evernote and the Legal Guide for Bloggers, which I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about already. Thanks, Laura!

  • User Gravatar
    GuideMeSingapore
    December 7th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    Great List. I also like Google Knol. I find its the fastest way to add any kind of article or blogpost and it seems google knol’s get added in search engines really quick without much effort.

  • User Gravatar
    Jennifer Escalona
    December 7th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    Wow! This is an excellent resource. I especially admire the “Resources that Can Help You Check Your Work” and I have been busily grading and analyzing my and my clients’ work since opening this post an hour ago. Thanks so much for the truly helpful post!

  • User Gravatar
    Laura Spencer
    December 7th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    Great feedback!

    Don’t forget to leave links to your own favorite resources.

  • User Gravatar
    Aaron
    December 7th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    This is one of my favorites for help with the “business” side of my freelance business:
    http://wbsonline.com/

  • User Gravatar
    WebTraffic
    December 7th, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    Great list. There are a lot of combined great resources to help you do pretty much everything. I have a website with web traffic tips if anyone is looking for extra ways to market their blog or website and get more visitors to it by doing all free methods. Check it out by clicking on my name. Awesome article though. These are all great ideas and resources for writers online.

  • User Gravatar
    Sérgio Jardim
    December 7th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    Another useful Mind Map software is Xmind – http://www.xmind.net.
    It has a free version too and it’s better than Freemind in my opinion.

  • User Gravatar
    Wisden Writers Pvt. Ltd.
    December 7th, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    Thats really nice post to share with the people who are just entering in writing field. We already have 100+ quality writers as our employees and working for more then 300+ clients globally. We are into web development and Content Development Service.
    Here is our portfolio :- http://www.wisdenwriters.com

  • User Gravatar
    Juan Carlos Pelayo Santos
    December 7th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

    Awesome! Thanks!

  • User Gravatar
    Samuel Neddha
    December 7th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

    +1 for curdbee (http://curdbee.com) invoicing app. A no-nonsense service and saves my time.

    Also Clicky (http://getclicky.com/) for real time stats.

  • User Gravatar
    Denver
    December 8th, 2009 at 12:48 am

    As Kokushta mentioned invoice manager is an essential tool for freelancers. As for the tools both CurdBee and Freshbooks are great!

  • User Gravatar
    Mike
    December 8th, 2009 at 5:02 am

    Thanks for this comprehensive list, I’ll be referring back to here myself, when I need to.

  • User Gravatar
    Any PDF Tools
    December 8th, 2009 at 6:23 am

    I read an article about earn money by doing some PDF conversion freelance job recently. Seems good, there are at least 2 conversion job on getafreelancer or odesk. Just buy a PDF to Word Converter, seems good, see if I can earn some extra money.

  • User Gravatar
    Nikhil
    December 8th, 2009 at 6:37 am

    Wow! thats a lot of resources.
    Thanks Laura…

  • User Gravatar
    Mark McCulloch
    December 8th, 2009 at 8:30 am

    Great quality blog you have and the information and resources you are giving away is absolutely tremendous, I will be visiting here regularly.

  • User Gravatar
    princE
    December 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm

    this is really helpful. thanks for this excellent article..

  • User Gravatar
    Barry Fenner
    December 8th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    This is very useful and helpful resources in internet marketing

    Thanks :)
    Barry

  • User Gravatar
    Barry Fenner
    December 8th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    Opps,,, sorry i forgot to tick
    Notify me of followup comments

    Thanks once agian:)

  • User Gravatar
    Paul @ Outright.com
    December 8th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    @Ed Martin thanks for the mention and I’m glad we’re playing a small part in your success! Let us know how else we can help freelancers.

    Laura, a fantastic list!! I love the mention of PayPal (okay, sure, because they’re a big partner of ours) but its accurate. Why manage money in a bank account, worry about handling checks, or even process credit cards when PayPal can do all of it for you.

  • User Gravatar
    mancai
    December 9th, 2009 at 12:53 am

    best resources… thanks

  • User Gravatar
    toputop
    December 9th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    Awesome post…Very useful information.

  • User Gravatar
    Singapore Company Formation
    December 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    Great list of resources, thanks and i like some of the links like the evernote and the articlechecker.com.

    very useful to my work.

  • User Gravatar
    George Passwater
    December 10th, 2009 at 1:47 am

    Great list Laura!

    There were a few that I didn’t know about and will be checking out very soon.

    Thanks.

  • User Gravatar
    Blog Profits Blueprint Free
    December 17th, 2009 at 1:03 am

    Now that’s an easy way to contribute. I’ll take this post as an example and not just the information stored in it. Blog Profits Long Live.

  • User Gravatar
    Karilee
    January 14th, 2010 at 7:08 am

    Excellent list, with a lot of well-loved tools on it. Some favorites that haven’t been mentioned here are:

    Irfanview, a free tool for cropping/resizing/manipulating images (be sure to get the program ,and the plugins)

    PDF Creator, a free tool for saving files in PDF format

    and of course my own free guide to creating a professional business website for under $10 using WordPress, which can be found on my Bootstrap Blogger site.

  • User Gravatar
    Health Care Disposables
    January 28th, 2010 at 7:41 am

    High Quality Health Care Disposables for low prices

  • User Gravatar
    Data Centers Canada
    February 18th, 2010 at 3:45 pm

    Wow! Lots of good information.

    Thank you – much appreciated.

  • User Gravatar
    rikvin
    February 24th, 2010 at 12:30 am

    thanks for links, almost all of them are very useful to us. Downloaded some of them and using them now

  • User Gravatar
    Jamesh
    February 25th, 2010 at 7:52 am

    This blog is really nice and informative. We are pleased to know this blog is really helping people.

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