Best of Tuts+ in September
Each month, we bring together a selection of the best tutorials and articles from across the whole Tuts+ network. Whether you’d like to read the top posts from your favorite site, or would like to start learning something completely new, this is the best place to start!
Psdtuts+ — Photoshop Tutorials
Create Animal Textured Typography
In this tutorial we are going to create fun, realistic, animal textured, 3D typography in Photoshop using CS5′s Repousse tool. Let’s get started!
Create a Detailed User Interface for an iPad Application
In this tutorial we will show you how to design a detailed user interface for an audio-themed iPad application. We will design this application using a retina display resolution and will make use of Photoshop’s shape layers and layer styles. Let’s get started!
Build a Killer Online Portfolio in 9 Easy Steps
Every freelancer should have an online portfolio. You’ve got one, right? If not, skip to the last paragraph of this post. It’s written for you.
If you do have one, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You’re halfway there.
Building your portfolio is easy. The hard part is making it good. A killer portfolio does more than just showcase your work. It transforms visitors into clients. Best of all, it’s an automatic work generator.
In this post, I want to show you how to take your online portfolio to the next level. Continue Reading
Ask FreelanceSwitch: Clients with Bigger Problems
In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, we look at clients with underlying problems. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.
Review: One Simple Idea
A recent Freelance Freedom episode shows our hero driving around town, criticizing the design of business signs. It gets to the point where the wife has to put on music in order to silence him.
Our irritated freelancer has a lot in common with the people profiled in Stephen Key‘s new book, One Simple Idea. Although one might think of Key as an inventor, he’d rather use the term “product developer.”
Why? Because of the negative connotation that the word “inventor” has. Key notes that many people think of inventors as “hermit[s] with thick glasses, wild hair, and a pocket protector stuffed with pens.”
Ouch. That’s rough.
But since this is a book about licensing your ideas, it would be a good idea to make a good impression on the companies you’re pitching.
Now, you may have heard about what Key calls “the conventional method of bringing an idea to market.” It involves creating prototypes, getting patents, and building a company. Not the sort of thing that you became a freelancer in order to do.
Not to worry. You don’t have to.
Top 10 Note Taking Apps for Freelancers
A typical freelancer is an idea generating engine. New ideas spring up all the time. Suddenly, you may realize you have a perfect solution to a problem or get inspiration on the go.
To record your precious ideas there are handy note taking apps. These tools usually contain features like notes and web clippings. They instantly save content with small text overview. Thus, note making software helps to organize thoughts and boost freelancing productivity.
Let’s look at the top 10 notebook apps that can help bring order to your creative world. Many of these are open source, multi-platform, or cloud based apps.
1. A.nnotate
A.nnotate
A.nnotate is a web service that allows making text notes, adding sticky notes to documents like PDFs or images. It enables you to create snapshots of favorite websites. Besides, you can share your notes with your fellow workers. Thanks to A.nnotate web nature, you have freedom to make notes from PC or your mobile device. Initially, you set a free account; later on you may switch to a paid version.
How To Blow A Business Ghostwriting Assignment
Credit: flattop341 on Flickr
“Ghostwriting” business communications is a lucrative and satisfying writing niche that requires some special skills and the right mindset. I’ve had excellent projects writing presentations for CEOs of very large corporations, and writing trade and newsletter articles for one-person consulting shops.
What they have in common is that these projects go beyond contributing good writing — professional, grammatical, persuasive, interesting — to capturing the client’s voice. When people are familiar with a given CEO or consultant, for instance, hear those presentations or read those articles, the ghostwriter’s contribution should be transparent, leaving the client’s themes, values, and style clearly visible to the audience.
These opportunities often come along after you have already been writing for a client for a while, or as a referral from one of your new client’s colleagues. You have been recognized as a skilled and dependable writer, and the client asks if you could help them with a more personal message, whether that message is delivered to employees or investors or trainees or clients or the media.
If such an offer comes your way, recognize from the start that this is different from your previous writing projects, and make sure you don’t blow it!
Top Freelance Jobs from Job Board – Week 4, September
Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.
Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in Drupal Developer, Graphic Design, Website Management and more!
To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now!
Linkswitch #87, Use LinkedIn, Difficult Clients, Marketing Mix
5 Reasons for Freelancers to Use LinkedIn
Many of the freelancers I know stay active on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +, but they ignore one of the most powerful professional networks out there: LinkedIn. Maybe it’s because they think LinkedIn is for job-seekers. Maybe it’s because they like procrastinating by reading celebrity gossip or watching the viral video du jour on other social networks. Maybe it’s because they don’t know how to leverage their LinkedIn profile to land new clients (believe me, they can and you can too!). Whatever the reason, freelancers who aren’t on LinkedIn are missing out on opportunities to network, share useful content, and otherwise grow their business. Here are five reasons why you should use it.
Dealing With Difficult Clients
Clients come in all stripes. But difficult clients come in archetypes: The Naysayer, The Answer Man, The Linebacker, The Xenophobe. If you can recognize them, you’ll be better equipped to create a rewarding, lasting, and headache-free client relationship.
5 Tips to Improve Your Marketing Mix
It’s not about one marketing piece, it’s about the whole thing. To be effective, your business needs a presence both offline and online. It needs to use print and digital marketing tools. It needs both advertising (paid) and publicity (free). It’s the marketing mix that gets and keeps your company message “out there” in front of your target audience.
Video: Steve Jobs on How to live before you die
View engaging conference lectures, interesting how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.
This week we look at Steve Jobs on How to live before you die by Steve Jobs. In this video the CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar, urges us to pursue our dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself..
Cal Evans and the Education of Freelance Developers
It’s not uncommon to find educational conferences and seminars for most professions. But finding educational opportunities when you’re a freelancer can be a more difficult matter.
Cal Evans, the founder of Day Camp 4 Developers is looking to solve that problem — at least for developers.
The Importance of Educating Freelancers
Whether you’re a developer, an illustrator or some entirely different variety of freelancer, getting the right skill sets to grow your business can be tough. Even identifying those skills can be problematic: there are plenty of great schools turning out top-notch developers and other creatives. But very few teach anything in the way of how to mange the business side, even down to the basics of how to create an invoice. Continue Reading
Getting Your Book into Print
Credit: Kirstypargeter on Photodune
There was a time when getting one’s words into print and out to the reading public was time-consuming and expensive.
If you were going the conventional route and seeking publication with one of the major houses, you wouldn’t have been considered unless your project was submitted by a literary agent. Which meant that you’d have to find an agent first.
I’ve traveled this route myself – and I quickly found that the literary agency world has a hierarchy. Up at the top are the name-brand authors who write the bestsellers. Below them are the seasoned authors who may not have the name recognition of the superstars, but they can be counted on to produce books that sell.
Then there’s the third tier, which consists of everyone else – first-time authors, unknowns who aren’t first-timers, and that guy down the street, you know, the one who writes poetry on weekends. I found myself firmly in the third tier, which meant that my book project only got cursory attention from the agency I signed with.
So, what’s a resident of the not-so-exalted third tier to do? Well, if you’re bound and determined to get your book into print, consider publishing it yourself.
