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Once you’ve done time as a gun-for-hire, there’s no other work that feels quite the same. There’s always a voice in your head begging you to go back, no matter how rewarding your job is. Take a full-time job or a long-term contract, and everything that was so exciting about freelancing is gone. The risk of not making enough to make ends meet for the month is gone, but so is the excitement that goes with that sort of risk. The pressure of having to make sound business decisions is gone, but with that, you’re at the mercy of someone else’s decisions, no matter what you think about them.

You can find excitement of different kinds and a sense of accomplishment of a different kind after you leave the world of freelancing, but it’s never quite the same.

There’s no ‘best of both worlds’ between those two worlds, either. You’ve got to make a choice. You could argue that part time work or a long-term contract fits the bill, but they’re really just pale versions of either situation with the same pros and cons, not to mention problems of their own.

When you come out of full-time work after three years and go back to freelancing, it’s a bit of a shock. So much of it seems to come back naturally, but there’s a whole world of things you need to do each day that you’ve forgotten about. It’s definitely something that comes with a mandatory adjustment period.

If you find yourself in a situation where you’re returning to freelancing after a long break doing what your grandmother might call ‘a real job,’ this piece is for you. Here’s how to get back on your feet again in the world you left behind.

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One of the great problems of being a freelancer is the solitude. It’s difficult at times to sit in front of your keyboard and do what you’ve got to do without any human interaction. There’s no water cooler to talk around, no office gossip to catch up on and no one else to fill you in on what happened on last night’s episode of The Family Guy. The other issue is that renting a traditional office space is expensive, but without one, some clients may think that your business is unprofessional.

The solution to both problems is a coworking facility. The concept is pretty simple: Put together a group of people who all freelance, rent out a desk for a low price, put in shared facilities such as a conference room and receptionist, and you’re good to go. This keeps the costs down for renters, gives you a professional environment to meet clients and provides human interaction. It’s the best of all worlds, right?

For the most part, yes, there are many benefits to coworking. But just like Luke and the Force, there is also a dark side to coworking, which is something you should be aware of before entering into any agreement. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the good and the bad components of coworking.
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By now, thousands of freelancers tweet, growing their brand and connecting with others 140 characters at a time. It’s an important tool for promoting your freelance business. And one of the most powerful aspects of promotion on Twitter is to get retweeted (or RT in Twitterspeak).

It’s the Twitter equivalent of forwarding an email or sharing a link you enjoyed in Facebook. RTs benefit freelancers by helping them spread content, grow their followers, and position themselves as experts. So, how can you help ensure that your tweets get retweeted and (hopefully) go viral? Follow these tips.

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When collections are an absolute hassle, it’s nice to know that there’s an alternative — you can use a collection agency. It’s not a perfect option, but it can be better than spending all of your time chasing after a client for an unpaid invoice. And, since collections is all such agencies really do, they often have resources at their disposal that the average freelancer can’t match.

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It surprises most people when they find out that I am double majoring in Graphic Design and Marketing. They understand it is a great pairing, and that they can go hand in hand, but when they hear “marketing” they think my course is tailored to just marketing. It isn’t.

Being a business student, I had to take courses in all the other concentrations my university offered, such as accounting, management, and finance. While some of my fellow business students feel that learning about these subjects may not pertain to them and the field they plan to go into, I feel different. I have learned quite a few things in my business classes that I also use in my freelancing. What are some of those lessons?

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Lately, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the future of freelancing.

I’ve been a freelancer writer for thirty years and I just can’t get the same rates that I used to — where’s the future in freelancing?

Are these awful bid sites really the future of freelancing?

There seems to be new freelancers every day. Is more competition the future of freelancing?

While I’m not a psychic or a soothsayer, I can see the future of freelancing. That’s because the future of freelancing doesn’t change — it is what we make it.

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As a freelancer, it’s incredibly tempting to do everything as cheaply as you can — especially when you’re first starting out. That can include just running client payments and business expenses through your personal checking account, rather than taking the time to get a business checking account.

Even if you’re only freelancing part-time, though, I’d encourage you to open a business checking account and get serious about separating your personal finances from your business finances.

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Collections — even the mention of that word puts a sad look on any freelancer’s face. We’ve all wound up with a client who simply failed to pay up. The simple truth is that we’ll probably see more down the road, as well.

There’s no set signals that we can look for that will tell us if a given client will pay or not. There are certainly plenty of jerks out there, but there are also plenty of people who just find that their own cash flow didn’t work out the way they expected. You’ve got to be willing to act on the problem, either way, rather than sitting around hoping that they’ll cut you a check some day. Here are concrete options that you can take.

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Retirement is a topic that freelancers shy away from. Bring it up with your fellow freelancers and you’ll probably hear at least one person proudly proclaim that they plan to work until the day that they die.

There’s a certain sense among many of us that we actually enjoy what we do. Since we don’t have a boss to drive us crazy, why would we want to ever retire?

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not a value in planning for retirement. The simple fact is that none of us know what’s in store for the future and having a little money set aside will make it easier to take a break from freelancing to play with the grand kiddies.

You can also get some benefits in the here and now from saving for retirement — like a break on your taxes. Why hand a bigger chunk of your income to the IRS than you have to?

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You work hard on your assignment, turn it in, and do the required (ugh) revisions. You happily send in your invoice — and wait…and wait…and wait.

Your check is late! You have a mortgage to pay and you were relying on that check. Now what?

Late checks are a fact of life for freelancers. Most of the time, the clients aren’t being malicious — they just do things slowly. But that doesn’t help you when you have bills to pay. Here are some ways to get that check moving towards your mailbox. Continue Reading

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There’s a point in every business when having a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) becomes necessary. Your taxes get too complicated for the local tax preparer, you need to start thinking about saving for retirement and you generally need to make sure that you’re bringing in enough money to grow, at least a little. For freelancers, however, identifying that point can be tough.

A part-time freelancer with a day job almost never needs a CPA. Even someone who has been freelancing full-time for a while may not need a CPA. And if you don’t need a CPA yet, that’s fine — why pay for an accountant’s services when all you really need is some help from a tax preparer? Continue Reading

Every so often, I see a freelancer offer up her services free as part of a giveaway. Maybe it’s as part of a sale to drum up business, maybe it’s part of a contest to benefit a non-profit — no matter what, though, I always take a closer look. More often than not, I find that I don’t see a clear benefit to the freelancer making the offer.

There are times when offering free services makes sense. But it’s a question to consider very carefully: time that you spend working for free for a client is time that you could spend on a paying project or marketing yourself so that you can land your next big project. Free services also put you in danger of training a potential client that your time isn’t worth your going rate. There’s a fine line between a giveaway that help you and one that can set you back. Continue Reading