Category Archives: freelance jobs

client relationships, Freelance Forecast survey, freelance jobs, resources

Your opinion wanted for Freelance Forecast

What's in *your* freelancing future?
What's in *your* freelancing future?

The Freelance Forecast 2011 surveys are uploaded & ready for your opinions on best practices, motivations and expectations. As in past years, there are two different surveys:

If you are a freelancer who also uses freelancers, you’re welcome to take both surveys.

Now, can we ask you a favor? If each freelancer encourages *one* client to participate, it would make the client-side survey even more valuable. The goal of Freelance Forecast is to publish fresh data about the state of the market and to help understand the good, bad and ugly of relationships between creative freelancers and clients. The more participants, the better it is for everyone’s business.

The results will be published in January, and once again, all participants will be put into a drawing for a $100 gift card. Thanks in advance for participating and sharing the links through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email and wherever else freelancers and clients might lurk.

P.S. You can download results from 2009 and 2010 over here.

Photo by Ruxandra Moldoveanu.

freelance jobs, freelance money, travel

The Guaranteed Way to Become a Paid Travel Writer

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travel-writingThe one sure-fire, 100% guaranteed method to becoming a paid travel writer is to find demand first, and write second. It’s certainly possible to write first and then try to sell your writing, but it’s a whole lot harder. In this post, and future posts as well, I’ll make sure to share some recent paid travel-writing gigs I’ve found from around the web.

A quick warning – while all of these jobs are paying jobs, they are not exactly well-paying jobs. But, for someone interested in travel-writing, these are a great way to get your feet wet, build up your resume, and get paid at least some amount for your time.

All of these jobs are time-sensitive. If you come across this post and the jobs have already expired, do a search on the sites I’ve linked to for their recent job postings.

Destination Weddings Articles – eLance

35 Articles / 500 Words / $3 each – Freelancer

Article Writer – Odesk

Finally, if you’d still prefer to write first and then try to get paid, PhotoJBartlett.com has a great list of sites that actually pay and he includes many direct email addresses – 10 Travel Photography and Travel Writing Markets that Pay

P.S. Just a quick fun, old article from Matador – Four Ways To Sound Like A Jerk In Your Travel Writing (And How to Avoid Them)

Jason Demant is the founder of UnAnchor.com, a place to find detailed do-it-yourself travel itineraries for your next trip. For the latest on travel-writing you can follow him on Twitter @UnAnchor, or join the I Love Travel Writing Facebook group.

Photo Credit: Keith Chan

freelance jobs

It Ain’t Easy Bein’ a Freelancer

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By Amanda Smyth Connor

The life of a freelancer. Oh sure, it sounds glamorous. Make your own hours! Be your own boss! Work from home in your footy pajamas with the funny butt-flap!1113326_old_typewriter

In reality, the life of a freelancer is tough, can lack stability and can really cramp your lifestyle if you don’t plan accordingly. Before you quit your job, burn your business suits and throw caution to the wind, be aware of what you are in for.

Freelance writing isn’t just a career path that you jump into. It’s no good saying “hello world! I’m a freelancer now! Hire me!” It takes hard work and dedication, as with any job, but it also takes intense self-motivation, self-discipline and a TON of networking. Not to mention that you also need to be an incredibly reliable and consistently solid writer.

Freelance-Zone has loads of wonderful posts devoted to how to become a freelancer, how to break into the biz and how to get better assignments, but this post serves as a warning to any timid newbies out there considering making the jump. This is not a career choice that is to be taken lightly. I would recommend holding down that stable day job while making this transition and getting your feet wet in the field of freelancing before making any serious life-changing decisions. I would also recommend having an healthy savings account and/or a spouse/partner with a great salary. Freelancing is not for the faint of heart. Continue reading It Ain’t Easy Bein’ a Freelancer →

featured, freelance jobs, resources

How to Publish a Children’s Book

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by Erin Dalpini

BigDifBooksThink back to when you were five years old: coloring and make-believe filled up your days, naptime was a daily requirement rather than a luxury, and if you were anything like me, you probably listened to (and soon read) a lot of children’s stories. As a budding young writer, perhaps you even made up some of your own. And maybe, deep down, you’ve had this itch to write a children’s book, but never had the chance to publish due to fear of rejection, rejection or repeated rejection. (Ugh!)

Now there’s a way to realize that dream, thanks to BigDifBooks.com, an online publishing company that is changing the way kids’ books are published. Freelance-Zone caught up with Tom Watson, the founder of BigDifBooks, to find out what makes his company so special.

Freelance-Zone: What is BigDifBooks?

Tom Watson: We’re an online publisher of children’s books with two specific goals: we want to provide really inexpensive–sometimes even free–original stories for kids, and we want to provide writers a chance to share a children’s story without jumping through the hoops of the traditional publishing world. Continue reading How to Publish a Children’s Book →

freelance jobs, freelance money

Try This: Write a Greeting Card

Happy birthday! Although it’s more likely in this digital era that you’ll receive Facebook posts and texts acknowledging your day of birth rather than a hand-written greeting, the average American still receives more than 20 greeting cards each year, contributing to an industry that grosses an estimated $7.5 billion a year, according to the Greeting Card Association.

I venture that’s because there’s something special about giving or receiving the perfect birthday card. You know, the one that fits to a T the personality of the recipient, the birthday card you receive that makes you laugh out loud. But who writes those funny or sentimental messages? Who keeps them fresh?

OatmealStudiosLogoEnter Oatmeal Studios, a humorous greeting card company, and their pool of freelance writers and artists. Do you have what it takes to be a greeting card guru? Dawn Abraham, Editor at Oatmeal Studios tells all . . .

Freelance-Zone: Oatmeal Studios has been around for about 25 years. Can you tell writers a bit about the company?

Dawn Abraham: Actually, Oatmeal Studios has been around for more than 30 years. It started as a family-owned business with a few designs and grew into a large, alternative humorous card company with sales internationally.

FZ: How did you come to be involved with the company? 

DA: I started writing for Oatmeal in 1986 and because I lived nearby, it was a natural progression for me to start working in the company part-time as an assistant editor in 1987; I have been working here since then (with one break when my kids were little)…

Continue reading Try This: Write a Greeting Card →

advice, freelance jobs

6 Freelance Job Resources You Haven’t Thought Of

freelance newspaper jobs

by Joe Wallace

Looking for freelance gigs? You’ve probably been all over the map in search of more steady work, but there are a few places that haven’t been beaten to death by the scraper sites..though they probably will be after we publish this. Best advice? Keep your BEST job resources to yourself as long as possible to avoid the bandwagon syndrome.

That said, here are a few that haven’t been ruined by scraper sites yet…and some that NEVER will be due to the nature of the job sourcing:

Reddit Jobs is pricey for editors to list gigs on–300 a day for 30 days–so you won’t be troubled by a bunch of spammy ads from the usual places offering you three bucks a post or “revenue sharing”. At press time, the problem with Reddit Jobs for freelancers is that some fields are underrepresented, but that obviously changes depending on supply and demand.

Artisan Creative. The reason why Artisan won’t be scraped out of usefulness for a busy freelancer? They have a screening process for candidates. This isn’t an “all-comers” source of freelance jobs, it’s a situation where talent actually matters. Artisan is a creative staffing agency that places writers, coders, designers, and many other freelance specialties. The jobs are heavy-hitting, too. Major companies, household names. I have personal experience with Artisan Creative and am very happy with them.
Continue reading 6 Freelance Job Resources You Haven’t Thought Of →