Here at FreelanceSwitch we like to write a LOT of content and sometimes it can be a bit hard to keep up. So in case you haven’t had a chance to read everything we’ve published over the last month, here is a Best of April (with a couple of May posts thrown in for good measure).

The month and the site kicked off with a post called A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Freelance Career. This was actually previously published on my personal blog and the resulting traffic was the inspiration to start FSw. If you haven’t seen it, then its worth reading as it is very comprehensive!

We also got into pricing your services with three posts by three different people on the subject! First I weighed in on Figuring out how much to charge, then Scott gave us a formula to make sure The Price is Right and finally Mathias looked at Hourly vs. Fixed Pricing

Cyan interviewed a very well known freelancer in Laith Bahrani – make of the Low Morale series in what has to be one of the best interviews I’ve ever read..

And on the topic of getting more work we looked at Harnessing Mailouts and a gigantic list of ideas to get more freelance work – a list we will be expanding out into articles every few days for the next 9 months!

So there you have it, the month that was. More freelance advice than you can shake a stick at!

You know a site’s made it when a woman in a bikini says it’s the bomb!

Since we launched FSw, we’ve had some great successes and the site has been mentioned on some big name sites like Digg, Reddit, Lifehacker and plenty of others. But all of these achievements have now officially been overshadowed.

You see today we found out that a site called BikiniZero has decided to feature FreelanceSwitch in one of its news items.

I’m not sure how many of you are, erm… familiar with BikiniZero, but it is a tech news program based on the premise that everything is more interesting when read by an attractive woman wearing an outfit usually reserved for the beach. So here’s to Katea – our new favourite journalist!

Hey guys, I’ve been wondering a lot lately about just what kind of freelancers we have reading FSw. I know there are plenty of professions represented, so I thought we’d have a quick poll!

So whatever kind of freelancer you are, it’s time to REPRESENT your profession!

Big Numbers

We’re approaching our first month anniversary and I thought I’d say a few words on how the site is going. We’ve been very excited to see the RSS subscriber-base for the site pass 4000 freelancers and in April the site received no less than 200,000 visits! That’s almost a quarter of a million freelancers! Holy Moly!

Jobs, jobs and more jobs

A week on since we launched the FSw Jobboard and it looks like its going to be a smashing success. There are already 200 people subscribed to the job feeds, loads more visiting the site, we’ve had about 20 jobs go through the board already and quite a few successfully filled!

A Growing Team

In the last week or so we’ve also started having our first new writers contributing, including the fabulously talented Robert Janelle hailing from fair Canada, and UK-born but US-based Scott Wills. We have plenty more contributors and articles lined up for the month of May, most just waiting for me to finish building the new column sections to the site (no rest for the wicked!)

Additionally we’re working on a system of occasional and continuous contributors to help systematize it all up. This will mean that at some point soon we’ll be opening up the site for one-off contributions to get a greater variety of voice on the site. As always Jack will be editing everything into super readable freelanceswitch goodness, Cyan running the show and me slaving over hot HTML code making the site pretty.

What can you expect in May?

First and foremost you’ll be seeing plenty more of the same great articles, lists and posts. But also our resource directory is coming to town, we’ve got a new wallpaper section, a cartoonist to make you laugh and forums so you can chat about whatever your heart desires, not just the latest blog post. Last but not least, as soon as we hit the 10,000 subscribers mark and feel confident that we’ll get a massive response then we’ll be launching the global freelancer survey.

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Of course this site doesn’t run on thin air and its with great pleasure that we’ll be introducing some sponsors to the site to pay all those bills and help expand things out. In the meantime I thought a little word of thanks is in order to FlashDen.net (our sister site) and ColourLovers who have both done a lot to help get FSw off the ground!

So in short, thank you all for your support and the many emails we’ve received – if we haven’t written back to them all yet, it’s only because we’ve been overwhelmed by the response, but you can be sure we appreciate all the kind words, thoughts and suggestions and will write back as soon as we can.

And in the meantime enjoy your weekends freelancers!

Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Just finished a tight deadline? Leo at Zen Habits shares his 12 Ways to Decompress After High Stress.
• If you’re a freelance web designer and you haven’t read Kevin Airgid’s ebook yet you’re seriously missing out. You can download the Web Designer’s Success Guide for FREE at his site.
• Tim at The Site Doctor has a great resource for those starting a new business. It goes into a lot of detail and can also be downloaded as a PDF.
• Cameron Moll farewells freelancing and shares his final lessons learned. Some great advice for freelancers to consider.

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Craig’s Content

And now readers, it is time for some light weekend reading. This week billionaire heiress and all around good time girl Paris Hilton is going to give us a few lessons on how to be a better freelancer…

Paris seems to know everyone …
Certainly everyone knows Paris

Number 1

It pays to network

You know the saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, well it certainly is true for freelancers where networking means getting gigs. Getting out there and meeting other people leads to connections, ‘friend of a friends’ and deals. Where often you have to work to get your foot in the door, or wait for a referral to land in your lap, networking instead is about taking control, meeting people, introducing yourself and always carrying a business card just in case.

There are many ways you can network, ranging from just going out a lot and meeting new people, to targeting industry events like conferences and tradeshows to going to local user groups. The most important thing is the volume of contacts you make. Although on first glance you would assume that going to an industry event would yield the most results, sometimes just going to a party can generate loads of new leads.

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Time for a roundup of useful links from across this beast we call the world wide web:

• Need to remind yourself how fabulous your freelancing life is? Check out The 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job at Steve Pavlina’s site. He discusses why freelancing is good for the intellect, skill set, bank account and soul. Steve Pavlina has some fantastic articles so spend some time poking around.
• Ben Stein at Yahoo Finance has some tips on How to Have a Business Conversation. If you’re after corporate clients and want to start networking this article will give you the basics.
• Programmer Jesse Skinner at The Future of The Web looked at his last eight months of freelancing and what he’s learned.
• Andy Budd shares his wisdom with the 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer.

If you have a useful link or article that you think FreelanceSwitch readers would be interested in, Send It In!

Hey folks, a quick announcement to let you know that FSw short sleeve and long sleeve t-shirts are now available. There are three designs to choose from, shown below. More designs will be coming soon, so if you have any suggestions for catchy slogans that embody everything freelance, write them in the comments!

Also these shirts are through CafePress so if you’ve ever ordered through them before you’ll have a good idea of what sizes and quality is like. I’ve just put in some orders for the team here, so stay tuned for disturbing photos of us wearing them.

For those of you who have been asking, these fabulous illustrations that we use here on the site are done by a very talented Malaysian illustrator who goes by the name MolotovCocktail and sells through iStockPhoto, see his Portfolio here

Image from iStockPhoto

A couple of days ago, I posted up about why it is important to take care of your internet persona. The response it turns out was polarized with some people agreeing wholeheartedly but many others giving an alternative viewpoint in both the comments and on other sites. So today I thought I would present the flip side of the coin, or as I like to say in my pseudo-gangster speak … Keepin’ it real!

One of the great things about working for yourself is that you DON’T need to wear a suit/toe the corporate line/blend in and all the other things that made us become freelancers, so why would you want to give that up? Indeed for the most part you may not need to. What might hold you back from getting a job, may not hold you back from getting a freelance client.

A Marketing Question

To add another question in, if it does hold you back from getting a client, is that a client you want to work with? And that is the key question that defines how you go about your business online. You see really this question is a marketing question, how do you present yourself … to potential clients, to your friends, to the world?

In real life you have the choice to compartmentalise the different facets of yourself to suit different day-day interactions – you’ll act one way in front of one person and a different way for a different person. When you go online all of a sudden everyone is potentially part of every conversation and you will consciously or subsconsciously make a choice about how you wish to be perceived. In making this choice it is important to be aware that it may affect the entire range of your life, not just your personal one.
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One of the neatest things to have happened in the last few days here on FreelanceSwitch has been the rapid translation of some of our posts into French and Spanish.

This makes us extremely happy because the more freelancers who profit from this site, the better!

So to throw this open, if anyone else would like to, please feel free to translate and post any of our FreelanceSwitch content, just put up a credit and link back to the site for your reader’s reference, and let us know so that we can place links on the appropriate posts for our non-English friends…

Enjoy! Appréciez! Disfruta!

Hello Freelancers!

On behalf of the team, I would like to welcome you all to the site. As many of you know this site only launched about two weeks ago and has grown very rapidly thanks to all your generous comments, votes, subscriptions and emails.

As you know our mission is to provide an essential resource and community for freelancers of all types in every location. To this end we have many things in store for you all. In the next few days we will be welcoming three new additions to the team: a programmer, a photographer and a writer, as well as launching a full resource directory and introducing podcasts to the site.

Over the coming months expect also to see interviews of freelancers in every profession, product reviews to help you find the best and brightest applications to streamline your workday and help to find more freelance work. In May we will also be starting the 2007 Global Freelance Survey to help compile data from around the world on rates and methods of work. And of course through it all we’ll be giving you all your daily freelance tips, news and opinion.

If you have feedback on the site, suggestions for what you’d like to see, or tips for articles and links you think would be worthwhile for other freelancers please do Contact Us.

Other than that, enjoy the site!