freelance-zone.com

Sure, it was published in 2005, but I found this great article on international freelancing to be quite interesting indeed. Most fascinating was the idea of offering an employer a competitive edge by being able to submit work during “our” normal working hours that would arrive overseas in the middle of the night, waiting for the editor first thing in the morning.

Sure, not all freelance gigs require such timely delivery, but it is an interesting selling point, depending on what you are trying to pitch and where.

If you’ve never tried freelancing “across the pond”, it’s definitely full of potential, but there are a few things to keep in mind. Stay tuned for some posts that address this issue as Cath and I both have experience in this area. In the meantime, check out Inkwell Editorial for the article and others like in collected in a series covering international freelance issues.

The New York Observer reports Conde Nast making a five percent cut in budget AND staff across the board. The existence of at least one title, Men’s Vogue, is in doubt at press time, and freelancers were mentioned by name as one of the resources that could be cut to fit the bill. Five percent doesn’t sound like that much for an organization as large as Conde Nast until you read further and learn that the five percent cuts apply for EACH PUBLICATION, not an as-a-whole, company-wide reduction.

Combine that news with the parting shot the Christian Science Monitor fired this week when it was announced the venerable publication would stop printing hard copies of its daily edition in favor of web-only publication and you have some interesting times for freelancers ahead.

The breed of writer I call “newsstand freelancers” are going to suffer as the big-money titles start shaving their budgets, but any freelancer who knows how to market, diversify writing gigs, and look in unique places for new work shouldn’t have much to worry about at this point, at least not in my view.

The key to all this is reading the headlines and anticipating the next round of tough times. Take a close look at your current situation. Are you earning the bulk of your income from a single source. It’s time to start adding clients to protect yourself. Is your resume page outdated or in need of a new look that helps it look more “web 2.0″? Invest the time, you may need to use that page soon. Are you a new full-time freelancer? Solidify your existing relationships with clients and editors by turning your projects in early, being flexible as possible, and willing to take on short-notice gigs that are inconvenient to you but endear you to your editor.

The key to avoiding the lay-off axe, the budget cuts and the tough times is to make yourself as indispensible as possible. Ask yourself how you can do that with your current editors and get to it. You’ll find yourself in a much better position as a result. The tough times are here, but not for everyone. Where you stand depends greatly on how you seek new work, approach the editors and deliver the content.

CD Baby Owner Derek Sivers sold his company this summer for $22 million dollars. Sounds like a massive jackpot for Sivers, doesn’t it? Would it surprise you to learn he didn’t get the payday? He put the $22 million in a charitable trust designed to further music education.

That’s part of something Sivers referenced in his blog post from October 16th. It’s a bit of inspirational writing, but in context of Sivers selling his company–probably worth far more than the $22 million price tag–it speaks on a whole different level.

There’s a lot of talk on FZ, and all over the net, about six-figure freelancing, making money and earning your maximum potential, but when the day is over, the real questions remain. Why am I doing this? Did the 13 hours I put in yesterday put me closer to something meaningful?

I think one of the big traps we freelancers fall into–at least THIS freelancer– is getting on the work-eat-sleep treadmill and forgetting to stop and enjoy life. Sivers seems to have learned how to balance the joy of work, the rewards, and finding time to evaluate the meaning of it all. His website has nothing to with freelance writing, it’s aimed squarely at musicians, but it does speak volumes about the kind of independence and freedom we’re supposed to enjoy as creative types. Call it a reminder to stop and smell the roses, even if it’s just on a coffee break.

I used to write and talk in analogies…a LOT. Now, analogies feel like a pretty tired as a way of explaining things, but I’ll resort to one here because Dave Navarro’s Rock Your Day really does feel like a quad espresso injected directly into a vein.

This motivational site has a LOT going for it, and in particular Navarro’s willingness to buy and try books by other freelancers with sensational-sounding claims and try them out to see if they give the results they claim.  Check out The Freelance Smackdown and see what I mean. You will feel at least slightly more caffeinated just reading this blog, or I’ll eat my hat.

I found this site courtesy of Freelance Folder, where Navarro has a guest post called Three Uncomfortable Ways to Make More Money as a Freelancer. Nice work…

Jim Cramer is the guru responsible for Mad Money, the high-energy cable investment program. MSNBC quotes this pro-investment, pro-stock market man saying some radically different things than you’ve heard from Cramer’s books and programs. “I don’t care where stocks have been, I care where they’re going, and I don’t want people to get hurt in the market,” Cramer said in the MSNBC.com piece entitled, “Jim Cramer: Time To Get Out of the Stock Market”.

Cramer is reversing course in a major way, advising retreat from the stock market as a strategy for the first time ever–at least as far as I can tell. This economic chaos is leading to massive world uncertainty, layoffs, and an ever-shrinking bottom line for once-strong companies. In the 90s, it was the dot-coms who were the casualties of the bursting bubble…this time, it’s EVERYONE.

What does this mean for freelancers? (more…)

I read a great post just now by John Windsor on his Cultural Radar blog. Windsor made some observations about people who are so tied to their cell phones, PDA, e-mail, and instant messaging that a new phenomenon seems to be emerging. Techno-lonliness is what he calls that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world because you can’t or aren’t allowed to access your gadgets (mid-flight, for example).

What really got my gears turning was the reply by a reader discussing the expectations of people who employ you (freelance writers, take note). For some–myself included–it’s that expectation of an editor or client who assumes instant access to you any time they want.

This can be a dilemma for those of us who are at once serious workaholics, but also want to take time to enjoy life outside of the 15-inch screens that dominate our world.  Just today I caught myself contemplating the purchase of a Palm Treo so that I could stay on Skype while out to lunch and dinner…the better to communicate with those clamoring for my freelance attentions.

At some point, you have to draw the line and say “enough!” and I think that while my intentions are noble, the Palm Treo idea is a bad one, at least for now. Circumstances may dictate otherwise at a later date, but for now I am keeping my worlds seperate. Kudos to John Windsor for a great post, and for reminding me NOT to give in to all my workaholic urges.

William Gibson is one of the world’s most renown science fiction authors. For all intents and purposes, Gibson has transcended sci-fi into a genre of his own creation much in the same way the late, great John D. MacDonald grew his own action market with his Travis McGee series. Gibson doesn’t use a central character to drive his novels the way MacDonald did with the McGee books, but the analogy still holds–both Gibson and MacDonald’s writing possess one-of-a-kind qualities often imitated, but never equalled

Gibson is a great example of how a writer survives–he’s branched out plenty with articles for Wired, spoken word appearances (including the amazing Technodon Live album by Yellow Magic Orchestra) and film screenplay credits for his work including 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic.

He’s basically a legend in his field, but even Gibson can’t just plop out a manuscript and ship it off to a publisher–he goes through the same motions other writers do, albeit with a LOT more clout. Would you be surprised to learn William Gibson submitted a proposal for his most recent book, Spook Country? It’s true.

In addition to a great interview with Gibson at Amazon.com, the same page also features this link to Gibson’s proposal for the book, fascinating reading if you’re curious to know just what it takes to capture the attention of an editor. Granted, there is no cover letter–not that Gibson needs one–and you know he’s got the editor’s attention from the second the envelope hits the desk. That said, the proposal makes for worthy reading if you can’t seem to picture what that proposal–the first introduction to the book for your editor–is all about.

If you haven’t read Spook Country yet, beware, there are some spoilers in the proposal. What is most interesting for those who know the book is how differently the proposal looks compared to the final product. Cheers to Gibson and Amazon for giving us a tiny glimpse behind the scenes.

Advertising Age ran a piece this week called Newspaper Death Watch. I find it quite ironic that it appeared in the print version, but the content of this article amuses me even more. It’s true that the industry is getting its collective ass kicked by internet news, RSS, mobile phone content and other factors–ad revenues are down across the board and the revenues companies find online aren’t as satisfying as the rates for a print ad in WSJ at its peak.

A look beyond the headline of this Ad Age piece reveals a practice I have loathed from the beginning of my days as a writer–the desperately sensational headline which is directly contradicted by the content of the article. For starters, the Ad Age piece quotes Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California at Annenberg, who predicts the industry has twenty years left in it. Hardly a rallying call to throw in the towel. While there’s a major market correction going on in the print world, it is by no means time to call in the newsprint version of Doctor Kervorkian just yet. (more…)

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, offers great advice for musicians at his personal site. Most of his topics are aimed squarely at musicians, but I’ve found the benefit of his experience translates quite well into the world of freelance writing.

I’ve got two albums for sale on CD Baby, so I may be a bit biased–but his piece “Never Have a Limit on Your Income” has some great words of wisdom for writers. The major drawback to being a freelancer is that you are only one person and can only take on as much work as you are physically capable of handling in a day, a week, a month.

Seasoned writers know about the power of reprints to bring in what Derek Sivers calls “mailbox money”. Any additional income you don’t have to do additional work to get is an important source of income. New writers are at a serious disadvantage because they don’t have an archive of published clips they can submit as reprints, and the challenge of hanging on to your rights to sell them later can be daunting when you don’t understand the industry well. (We’ll cover THAT topic later).

Are reprints the only way to get mailbox money? Check out what Derek Sivers has to say and you’ll find some fascinating ideas. Not all of them are appropriate for freelance writing, but they can certainly inspire some notions of your own. He certainly has MY wheels turning this morning… 

WTF is a “clown company”? An easy answer if you’ve ever had to write for one. For those who haven’t yet– a clown company is one that has lofty aspirations, big ideas, but absolutely no idea about how to implement them. They usually go out and hire some college grad with little experience who will work on the cheap, let them flounder around for a while, then step in and ruin everything. OR they let the college grad set up some kind of woefully inefficient system and run the operation into the ground.

Some of these disasters-waiting-to-happen are dedicated to writing products, others need writers for PR, web copy, and other material. One thing clown companies do is hire freelance writers to try and keep their costs down. That’s good for us…for a while. The problem with working for a clown company is that eventually you’ll either get stiffed in the pay department, you’ll get paid very late on a consistent basis, you’ll be asked to do more and more unreasonable things for the same money you started with, or worst of all you’ll be given an attractive offer to work full-time, or you’ll get dropped in favor of someone who can work cheaper than you.

Why is the job offer the worst part of all? Read this list of danger signs you’re working for a clown company and all will become clear:

(more…)

This great blog got my attention today thanks to a fantastic list of links, resources and advice by Skellie called Your Home Office Library: 45+ Home Office Tips, Hacks and How-Tos. This piece is packed with info on setting up, organizing, and working at home. Anywired is a blog for anyone who wants to make money online, but in this case that phrase does NOT apply to “work at home” scams or other dodgy programs.

Skellie writes for freelancers, telecommuters, web business owners, anybody currently earning a buck with a net connection. I am seriously loving this blog. I get a lot of satisfaction from any blog that knows enough about the game to put “making money” and “finding work” in two separate categories. Cheers, Skellie–you’ve got new fans here. Anywired is tops with us.

If you want one good book on freelancing and you are just starting out, Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer by Jenna Glatzer is definitely it. Jenna walks through the query process, tells some juicy insider secrets and teaches those who are just starting out a ton about the business of writing. She has penned many an article including credits in Woman’s World, Woman’s Own, and Prevention. Glatzer is a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest and has written several books including an authorized biography of Celine Dion.

There is a lot of information out there for the new freelancer, but you have to dig around in writing forums, magazine articles and books to find it–and it’s very time consuming. It can be difficult at first to tell the good advice from the bad. Glatzer’s book is a good starter resource that can help answer those “newbie” questions all in one place. Jenna has eaned herself the moniker “The Writer’s Writer,” and one of her specialties is helping other writers learn the business. This book is the perfect example.

See Jenna Glatzer’s blog or take a look at her impressive list of titles at her official site