Rockable Press is very proud to announce the launch of our newest book, LinkedIn and Lovin’ It!

Why a LinkedIn book? LinkedIn veteran and FreelanceSwitch writer Susan Johnston was encouraged to write a guide on LinkedIn after noticing something: “Although LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for freelancers and other creative professionals, I noticed that much of the information on LinkedIn is geared towards job-seekers. So, I decided to create my own guide specifically tailored to people who consult, freelance, or own a business.” In LinkedIn and Lovin’ It, Susan Johnston teaches you how to build a rock solid LinkedIn network that can be a constant source for recommendations and referrals. Advice includes:

• Setting up every aspect of your profile to bank on maximum response.
• Build your network to reach your next top client, employer, or partner.
• Build your profile to get your work in the spotlight.
• Do research on the competition & companies, find jobs, gather data.

Interested? Head over to the Rockable Press page to download a free 14 page sample! LinkedIn and Lovin’ It is available in three DRM-free ebook formats (epub, mobi, and pdf) for only $17. Join Rockable Press’s LinkedIn Group to get an additional voucher for $3 off!

We’ve had a few posts recently discussing the usefulness of networking sites like LinkedIn for freelancers: 5 Reasons to Use LinkedIn, Are You Getting Clients on LinkedIn? And over on Rockable Press’s own LinkedIn Group, we’ve had a fantastic discussion full of tips for freelancers looking to network. Read on for some of the tips from our readers!

Since I’m a FreelanceSwitch writer, I have to keep coming up with ideas for articles. Since LinkedIn is one of those places where you have to write in order to communicate, it’s a great generator of raw material. Say someone asks a question, I answer it, and I happen to think that my answer is pretty clever. (It’s one of those writer things. We all think that what we say is pretty clever.)

So, I take said clever answer, do the copy and paste thing, and there it is, the germ of another FreelanceSwitch article. Call it the LinkedIn Forced Writing Plan. (Martha Retallick)

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photo credit: smi23le on Flickr

We’ve talked before on FreelanceSwitch about ways to find new clients. In last year’s Freelancer’s Survey, a growing portion of freelancers indicated they’re finding more clients using social media. There’s a lot of choices to choose from: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. LinkedIn has always struck me as unusual that it specializes only in business and professional social connections. Combined with last year’s survey numbers, that got me curious: how many useful connections have you made on LinkedIn? Is LinkedIn a good resource for freelancers?

A few interesting statistics to get our discussion started!

• LinkedIn boasts 120 million members world wide. 950,00 members use the word “freelance” in their job title.
• Over 8.3 million LinkedIn members list themselves as “owner” of their current business.
• 482,000 list themselves as self-employed.
• 57,782 members list themselves as a contractor.

Do you find LinkedIn a good social media tool for freelancers? If so, do you have any good tips or success stories? Continue Reading

Last week’s open thread talked about the usefulness of formal education for freelancers. We got some interesting responses and had a great discussion! This week, I thought we’d look at another surprise statistic from the Global Freelancer’s Survey. We asked freelancers how many years they’d worked as a full-time employee before beginning their freelance career.

excerpt from "Freelance Confidential," Rockable Press

Of 3,285 responses, 543 had never worked for an employer before freelancing. That’s a large number of “native” freelancers!

We focus so much on readers who are “making the switch” to freelancing from the corporate environment–escaping the cubicle, becoming your own boss, etc. We are, after all, FreelanceSwitch. I had expected “I didn’t work as an employee before” to be a minor response. I thought the results were interesting so I dug a little deeper into it for the chapter in Freelance Confidential.

I compared the way survey responses differed between those who were former employees and those who began freelancing from the start of their career. Freelancers who started their career freelancing shared some interesting characteristics: Continue Reading

We’re very proud to announce the release of Freelance Confidential, Rockable Press’s newest book on freelancing. This book aims to provide the hard numbers on the biggest issues of freelancing and advice on how experienced freelancers can improve their business. More than just another single person’s view on freelancing, Freelance Confidential contains contributions from the Editor of FreelanceSwitch, Amanda Hackwith (that’s me!), a panel of expert entrepreneurs and freelancers, and YOU, the FreelanceSwitch community!

Last winter, we asked readers of FreelanceSwitch to contribute to a global survey on freelancing–over 3,200 of you responded! Get those statistics and you’ll learn the real numbers on the biggest questions which revealed some surprising new trends for the freelance industry. Did you know…?

• Fewer freelancers live in large urban cities than did three years ago. What are the benefits?
• New referrals from advertising and cold calling has dropped significantly. What’s the best new source?
• Freelancers with former experience as an employee report the highest level of satisfaction and happiness. Why is that?

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photo credit: sansreproache/flickr

Rockable Press recently shared some statistics from their up-coming freelancing book, Freelance Confidential, with their mailing list. The book includes results from the survey conducted here at FreelanceSwitch a few months ago that polled 3,200 freelancers on every aspect of their work. There were a lot of nifty facts about freelancing in there, but nothing generated more heated discussion more than this simple line:

44% of freelancers are self-taught and never received any university or technical college training in their field.

Some responses were shocked that the number was that high and saw it as a bad thing for the industry. Others thought it should be higher and that education adds little value for freelancers. I thought the responses were so strong that it would be great to open it up to a discussion for the FreelanceSwitch community. So tell us what you think!

• Does a freelancer need a college education or technical training to be successful?
• Is there a difference between self-taught freelancers and freelancers with formal training?
• What value does formal training or education add for freelancers?

What do you think? Continue Reading

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 flash design, Mac OS X development, print design, 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! Continue Reading

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 blog writing, Mac OS X development, app conversion, 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! Continue Reading

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 blog writing, design, illustration, 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! Continue Reading

This week Rockable Press launched its latest eBook, Get Going with Google AdWords by author Chandler Nguyen and we couldn’t be more excited!

This book is designed with the beginner in mind, introducing you to the world of Google AdWords. Once you start to get a handle on them, you’ll be bidding on keywords that will help push your site higher in the Google rankings — without all of the time it usually takes for that to happen organically.

Nguyen has put together an “easy to grasp” guide on what AdWords are, what using them can do to give your site that added exposure and how to get started using them right away.
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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 technical writing, senior web development, graphic & web design, WordPress development 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! Continue Reading

I hope you all have an amazing time with family and friends this holiday season. 2010 was truly an incredible year full of all sorts of growth and learning… and from the way things are lookin’, 2011 is gonna be even better! Thank you for reading FreelanceSwitch and being a part of our community. From our family to yours, “Here’s to a GREAT New Year!”
See our holiday wishes video from all of the Envato staff. Continue Reading

A few weeks back, in partnership with Adobe Catalyst Business, we held a contest to redesign a fictional pizza business website, currently in all it’s 90′s glory. We had a huge number of submissions, and it was an incredibly tough job for our staff to vote on a winner! There were so many great designs, I wanted to take the time to show off some of the runners up. It’s not often that you get to see more than two dozen different takes on the same concept from great designers.

To refresh your memory, here’s the original Mario’s Catering masterpiece…

How can you possibly improve on such brilliance? Read on to see some of the best of the FreelanceSwitch community’s ideas! Continue Reading