Credit: @Saigon on Flickr

As I sit here in the Melbourne Airport, it’s starting to dawn on me that I’ve been looking at travel and freelancing with decidedly rose-colored glasses.

Up to this point I have always thought that working while on the move was a relatively simple thing. With the world-wide penetration of wireless, moving throughout the world with your laptop should be a snap.

The reality is, it makes me want to chew glass.

Continue Reading

Photo Credit: bernat... on Flickr

Motivational posters have graced the offices of businesses throughout the world. They typically contain an inspiring word followed by text designed to grab you by the neck and shake you into action.

They make me sick every time I look at one. So here are a few de-motivational posters to abase and darken your freelance office with. Warning, humor lurks ahead.
Continue Reading

Well, this is it people. You’ve read Part 1 and Part 2 of our Crazy Comment Personality Guide. Although there is a heap more crazy on the Internet, this week we’re going to wrap up our tour of the crazy comment personality types you will most likely face on your blog.

Hopefully you have learned through these articles how to identify these special people and deal with them. Feel free to use your knowledge to root them out and step all over their dreams.

** Warning – this article may contain humor **
Continue Reading

Hopefully you were able to catch our previous introduction to crazy comment personality types. Last time, we covered the delights of First! Freddy and Angry Andrew.

As we move along into the second half of our list we will be introduced to two more delightful characters. This week: Grammar Gertie and Self-Promotion Sammy.

Writers and bloggers beware. Continue Reading

Nothing can bring so much joy and pain to the hearts of writers and bloggers like the Internet commenter. With our breath held we hover over the comment link and wage the internal battle of whether to click or not.

While good writers do not live and die by comment feedback, there are certainly times when we have wished that we never clicked that link.
Continue Reading

After spending over a decade in retail, rage is one thing I am very acquainted with. Like a warm blanket, rage was always there to snuggle up to after a particularly trying day of work.

Imagine my surprise when doctors reveled that rage can actually be harmful for you? Such a silly notion I thought. Not my good friend rage. He’s always taken such good care of me.
Continue Reading

Remember when you were a kid and your Uncle kept making a quarter disappear and then he pulled it out of your ear? Pretty annoying, huh?

Well, maybe it was cool the first time he did it, but after the 10th time you were probably thinking “Give me the dang quarter already!”

So here are a few business card tricks you can try out on clients to delight them or annoy them with your amazing slight of hand!
Continue Reading

Though the holiday season reminds us of many wonderful things, peace on Earth and good will seems shattered for most the minute family walks through the door. If not a visit, the annual phone call to grandmother is stressed by the repeat attempt to explain to her what it is you do for a living. At least you can tell her your phone battery is dying and you need to hang up, but even that brings an explanation as to why a phone needs a battery.

It’s based on love and concern. Keep saying that so you don’t unwrap a shotgun at the dinner table and scream, “JUST WHAT I WANTED!” Ho-BLAM-ho-BLAM-ho-BLAM!

You all know the problem; non-creatives who don’t understand how you can make a living creating, designing, developing web sites, coding or designing logos and such. Sure, old drunken Uncle “touchy” has always wanted you to do logos for his friend who owns Microsoft as a “favor to him” or to paint his company logo, consisting of a slug dressed as a sewer cleaner on the side of his panel truck, but does family understand what we do and why we love it? If they did, I wouldn’t be writing this therapeutic article and pounding on my keyboard as if I wanted to give the keys concussions. Continue Reading

Photo Credits: CBC

As freelancers we’re always on the lookout for some great advice. As for me, nothing beats the advice from a man known simply as Mr. Dressup.

Ernie Coombs, or Mr. Dressup as he was known to his closest friends, was an American turned Canadian who starred in a long running children’s show in Canada. During his 27 years on television he dispensed some valuable life lessons that I’ve incorporated throughout my freelance career.

Here are a few of them.
Continue Reading

There’s something about skinny white men prancing about that just screams “business acumen.” And if there was any band more white or more prancy than WHAM!, I haven’t found it yet.

So here is why everything I’ve learnt about freelancing can be attributed to WHAM!
Continue Reading

credit: TheGiantVermin/Flickr

Rocket fuel, cup o’ joe, brain juice, mud. Call it what you will, coffee has been the go to fuel for freelancers from around the world. Sheik Abd-al-Kadir may have said it best when he said “no one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness.” High-five Sheik!

But before you head out the door to your favorite café or run round the supermarket to pick up a can, there are a few things you should know about this liquid of the gods. Join us in our light-hearted look at a Freelancer’s Guide to Coffee – Part 1.
Continue Reading

Photo credit: baileyraeweaver/Flickr

Last month’s post, Are You Dating Your Client?, covered the stages of commitment from flirting to marriage. But the road to long-term freelance bliss is paved with clients who aren’t quite right, because, to paraphrase Greg Behrendt and his famous dating book, “they’re just not that into you.”

Maybe their boss is on their back about cutting costs. Or perhaps they’re not really sure what they need. Either way, it’s not you, it’s them. And if you don’t carefully manage him or break up with Mr. Wrong, then there’s a real possibility that you’ll end up with a broken heart. Or at least, shattered confidence and the sick feeling that you’ve just wasted your time.

Here’s our field guide to identifying and coping with these types of clients: Continue Reading