212 Pages of Expert
Freelancing Advice

Covering everything from getting started to expanding your business, How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer is the official FreelanceSwitch book. Written by Collis & Cyan Ta’eed – the founders of the site – it’s packed with new information, advice and insights not covered on the blog.

Purchase a PDF copy of the book online and pay via PayPal.

Purchase a paperback copy of the book, via Lulu.com

Sample Pages and Contents

You can view the first 15 pages of the book including the contents and some sample pages at the Lulu Book Preview.

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Copyright (c)2007, All Rights Reserved, Registered with Library of Congress, USA.

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Cara Williams’ post on the dangers of accepting credit card payments with PayPal struck a note with a lot of people. I thought it would be worth introducing some PayPal alternatives/back-up options, in addition to one tip that will do a lot to keep you safe: think of PayPal as a transit account, not a savings account.

Amounts over $150 can be transferred to your bank account free of charge, so wait until your account hits the tipping point, then empty it. Keep money in there a little longer if you know you’re going to buy something soon, but once the money is safely in the bank, PayPal no longer exercises any control over it.

And now, for your back-up plan:

Google Checkout — a popular PayPal alternative but only available to U.S. based freelancers at the moment.

Neteller — an oft-mentioned PayPal alternative.

Moneybookers — a money-transfer service targeting Europe.

iKobo — interesting and popular alternative where payment is delivered through a Visa pre-paid card.

If you’ve found a great PayPal alternative, let us know about it!

Bonus links:

Shane Pearlman is offering FSw readers exclusive invites to the beta version of Sproutwire, a content aggregating service for small business. Here’s your top secret invite. For those who want a little more information, Shane says: “We put together Sproutwire because we want good small business content vetted by people we trust (not the 10,000 angry teens on digg). We collect and post digestible reviews of small business content from the best blogs, newspapers, ebooks, presentation slides, journals, audio & video, newsletters, and anything else that we think will help you be better at what you do and live a happier life. Our goal is to keep it fresh, smart and personal.”

Bootstrapper shares fifty professional networks for freelancers (or, in other words, cool acronyms to put on your CV).

If you’ve been sidelined by all the talk of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, you might want a quick beginner’s guide to the book behind the phenomenon. Here’s a 43 Folders guide to help: getting started with GTD.

Freelance writers might like this calm-inducing advice on uncluttering your writing with self-imposed limitations.

And, finally, David Airey has assembled a mammoth list of 70 top-notch logo design resources.

When I came up with the headline for this article, I figured that many freelancers are so busy that they probably don’t have any time to organize their tax information before they hand it over to their accountants. We’re all so focused on our businesses—who has time to do nice for their accountant? You do, actually. And the payoffs could be big!

It really doesn’t take much to get things together to make things easier for your accountant, and perhaps save time. If you’re like me and you toss pay stubs and receipts into one large envelope during the year, you may want to break things up so your accountant can easily work through your taxes. This saves your accountant time, and it saves you money. Also, I don’t use anything fancy for invoicing (something I need to change, I suppose) but even organizing your Quicken files can be a huge help for the accountant, save you money, and offer more time for you to ask questions and help your business.

You’ll find that little things will make tax time much more manageable for you and your accountant. Here are some easy things you can do to get organized. Continue Reading

A few weeks ago we reviewed FreeAgent an application that handles your accounts & invoicing and noted that one major drawback was that it wasn’t for international freelancers. I got an email from the company today telling me that this is now changed and they have a new universal version which has a bunch of new features including choose your own currency and date formats, and a new website home at FreeAgentCentral.

And Ed the founder and CEO has offered a special discount to FSw readers:

We’d like to offer your readers to receive a 20% discount if they sign up for a free trial within the next 10 days (so expires after 23 Feb). Juse use the referral code ’13fsw9′ when they sign up.

If you’re interested in more apps for invoicing and accounts, check out our list of 7 Online Invoicing Apps for Freelancers.

OK I think it’s been a little too long since my last linkswitch, because my Delicious folder of links is pretty darn full, so without further delay, here are a whole heap of great sites to visit:

New Blogs!

Three new blogs popped up on my radar in the last couple of weeks, two freelancing blogs and one awesome logo blog:

• Profreelancing
• FreelanceSprout
• LogoDesignLove from the talented David Airey

A couple of links for Photographers

• 5 Tips to Get the Most out of Freelance Photography
• Interview with an NYC Creative
• Photopreneur – a really neat site about making money with photography

Neat Links for Developers

• Because open source is the bomb – 10 golden rules for running an open source project and 10 golden rules for starting with open source
• oDesk’s Oconomy – so you can see just how much money is being turned over every minute
• The 10 Most Marketable Web Development Skills – according to Read/Write/Web

And some for Designers

• ReviewBasics – which is a bit similar to ConceptShare. I’m planning writing these two services up properly soon, as they are pretty cool
• Elements of Typographic Style Online
• Typesites – a website gallery that takes a slightly different approach
• An old link, but a good one, Chris Pearson asks How Much Should a Design Cost?
• Check out Lumedia for some awesome photoshopping goodness. Kyle of Lumedia, has also written an awesome wood tutorial at PSDTUTS.
• 11 Ways to Get Exposure as a Web Designer at the fabulous VandelayDesign
• Neatorama’s Evolution of Tech Logos makes for an interesting read.
• Extensis Typecaster – Fonts find true love online – because even fonts celebrate Valentines Day

And a few more general ones

• 6 Reasons to Become Self Employed from Wisebread
• TutorialBlog has a couple of great resource posts – Time Tracking Tools and 20 Resources for Freelancers
• And a neat WordPress blog theme called Freelancr!

Finally one for the Writers

• How to Find and Secure Freelance Writing Clients by Chris Bibey, over at Entrepreneurs-Journey

There are millions of freelancers around the globe, but for most, freelancing is something done in isolation. What do other freelancers charge? Do they quote or estimate? How many hours a week do they bill? These and many other questions are what we set out to answer in the Global Freelancer Survey of 2007.

3700 people took part in the survey from 6 continents and 10 industries. The results revealed some interesting facts:

Do Freelancers Work More? And if they do, do they Earn More?

We asked freelancers how many hours a week they worked, and just how that compared to their work as regular employees. Additionally we asked them how their earnings compared to the ol’ nine to five, here’s what we found out:

It almost seems unsurprising that Australians are the most laid back of all freelancers in the world (it must be all the sun and sand we have here).

And just what are other freelancers charging?

Of course the question almost every freelancer will want answered is, just how much do other freelancers charge? In our complete report we’ve gone into a lot more detail of ranges, countries and even genders, but here’s perhaps the most sought after statistics, the average hourly rates according to industry:

Get the full 55 page report

We’ve emailed out the full report to everyone who took part in the survey. For everyone else, you can still get it via Rockable Press.

Why the charge? Close to 300 manhours of work went into hosting, compiling, analysing and reporting the survey. While it has been distributed freely to anyone who chose to participate, we are charging for the results to help pay for the rather large expense of putting it together. We thank you for your understanding.

Quick note to say, as of a few minutes ago, I have completed the last part of the survey. It’s now wrapped up in some nice PDF packaging. Weighing in at 55 pages of data and graphs, there’s all sorts of interesting stats in there like …

4 – The percentage of freelancers whose entire client list is made up of foreign business.

37 – The average number of hours a week Australian freelancers work, the least of any continent.

10 – The percentage of freelancers who have business insurance.

And there’s LOTS more where that came from. Expect the survey to be hitting the inboxes of the 4000-odd people who participated in about 24hrs. For those who didn’t participate, the results doc will be available for a small fee on the site, so don’t worry everybody will have a chance to get survey goodness!

A good business card design is an essential tool in any freelancer’s arsenal. When you’re at a function networking, meeting new clients, or your work comes up in a conversation, your card is the anchor to make sure the discussion doesn’t come to nothing.

It’s important to think about what your business card says about you, as well as what to put on your business card, and whether it passes the business card trash test. But of course as any designer knows, the most important thing is to make sure your business card looks smokin’ hot!

So courtesy of our inspiration gallery FaveUp, which has just passed 1000 items of inspiration, here are 18 smokin’ hot business card designs:


Continue Reading

Portfolio’s are so important to a freelancer, and we’ve had a few great articles on the ‘Switch covering them like Portfolio Zen and Build a Killer Online Portfolio. Recently Digital-Web Magazine asked me to write a piece on portfolios for their site and it’s been put up now on the site.

It’s called Creating the Perfect Portfolio and here’s a quick extract:

A web portfolio represents a wonderful marketing tool; whether you meet a lead and refer them to your site, or they simply find you through Google, your site needs to seal the deal and win you the job. To frame your portfolio to a freelance lead, once again you need to ask yourself: what does this type of person want to see?

… A typical lead may be uncertain—unless they have a referral, they are looking at you out of the blue. Moreover, they may not even be sure of what they need beyond a vague idea that they “need a website”. And, of course, just like those potential employers a business lead is short on time. So how do we address these concerns?

The article deals with both freelancers and career portfolios, and hopefully you all find it useful! Read the Article

Client relationships are perhaps the most important aspect of your business. Clients pay your bills, refer you to other potential clients, open up opportunities, and help your business grow. Your success in both the present and the future is directly tied to the amount of love and loyalty you get from your clients. So learn to treat these relationships with care, and consider these 5 ways to build amazing client karma:

1) Add Project Value (Even On Your Own Dollar)

Rarely do clients have the budget for you to get their project as “perfect” as it can be. Sometimes, they have to cut back on design elements, content, or back-end functionality. With that in mind, be willing to give a certain amount of extra value even after their budget ends. It doesn’t have to be a great amount, or even for every project, but allow yourself an hour or two beyond the project cutoff to get it just right. Most clients will notice and you’ll set yourself apart from the typical freelancer who doesn’t work one second past the budget.

2) Take Interest in Their Success (Without the Upsell)

Beware of the attitude that pits “your business” against “their business,” because simple economics shows that as their business grows, yours should as well. So if you have skills or know people that would boost your client’s project beyond what you’re contracted for, try helping them out. Furthermore, take time to understand what they’re trying to do and follow up on their success, seeing what you can do to help. Because let’s be honest — there will always be someone who can do parts of your job for less money. The problem is that such people only give the bare minimum. Build “caring consultancy” into your projects and your clients will see you as more of a partner than a contractor.

3) Thank Them (With More Than an Email)

Many freelancers feel that their clients have more complaints than compliments. However, this lack of appreciation goes both ways. I’ve spoken to many clients who wonder if their contractors hate them, and thus, such clients are more reticent to bring up tentative plans or potential ideas with these contractors. Instead, thank your clients with periodic thank-you cards (the written kind) and occasional gifts (and make sure the gifts are actually something cool — belt buckles and tee shirts, not mugs and pens). If your clients know that you appreciate them and the business they send, they’ll be more likely to think about you for new projects. People like helping out others who show them appreciation. Continue Reading

As a business-focused freelancer, how do you feel about the area of personal development? Have you found it useful in reaching for success in your freelancing business? Or do you switch off or cringe when you hear Tony Robbins’ gravelly voice start to speak?

If you’d asked me this as a hard-nosed strategy consultant 4 years ago, I’d have scoffed in your face. Ask me this today and you’ll likely get a very different response.

I understand why it provokes the response it sometimes does … the advice you read is usually centred around the notion that “you have special and unique talents that no-one else has and you can do anything you want”.

Fluffy clap trap? Quite possibly. Does it help you in your freelancing business? Not always.

There is one concept I read recently however that makes so much sense that every freelancer should read it and remember it… Continue Reading

Time for some linking goodness from around the web and we have an odd assortment of goodies today:

1. How to Put Your Business on Autopilot Whilst You Travel the World as a Web Worker – Lea Woodward’s been putting out some great articles over at Location Independent. Cyan and I are about to become location independent as we’re moving to Hong Kong to work from there for a few months, which I’m very excited about. Lea’s also recently launched a charitable project called the “Leave it Better” initiative which is pretty cool!
2. Anywired – Skellie’s new blog Anywired is off to a stellar start with over a thousand subscribers in just five days!. Along with Lea’s LocationIndependent blog, Anywired gives you the lowdown on taking your work overseas.
3. FunctionFox’s Resource Pile – FunctionFox is a time tracking and project management app who have shrewdly compiled an awesome set of resources and articles which looks super useful.
4. Remarkablogger – Michael Martine has recently put out a free ebook called How to Start a Business Blog which is a good read and at that price, very worth grabbing

Continue Reading