Working in the creative field means you are an open target for criticism. Someone doesn’t like your photography work, they think you’re a bad writer, or your prices are unfair. And as freelancers, it can be hard not to take criticism—no matter how well meaning—personally.

I read this blog post on Forbes.com on how to deal with really tough criticism, written for people who are business leaders. While I’m not necessarily the target audience for this article, I did take away some good lessons that I’d like to share for the freelance set.

The first thing we need to consider is that criticism in inevitable. But if we keep our defenses up and get overly emotional about what our critics say, we aren’t doing ourselves any favors.

Here’s a recent example from my own life. I am the editor of a yearly wedding magazine. We took a big risk this year and changed the paper stock for our cover. Instead of a glossy cover, we went with matte. Some of us in the office loved it and some of us didn’t—so we took the opportunity to ask our advertisers, featured photographers, and other industry leaders what they thought.

It turns out, many other people didn’t like the matte cover, either, and they let us know on many different levels—from plugging their noses to smiling and offering heart felt advise. And while we were totally bummed that we took a risk that didn’t garner the results we wanted, we learned a lesson. We want to give people what they want—so next year, we’re going back to our glossy cover. Had we not asked, we may have decided otherwise.

Here are some tips from the article that I thought were useful. Continue Reading

Reporters at The Washington Post are now actively engaging their readers by posting comments in streams on the paper’s news stories online, something they’ve never done in the past. The paper switched to a new website platform called Echo, which has helped them grow their online community. Reader comments at the paper have shot up 142% since March, 2011.

This is new territory for many journalists. Never before have they been urged to take part in the conversations the public is having online about their stories. This type of involvement helps reporters fend off rumors, speculation, and flame wars, according to this article published on the Nieman Journalism Lab website. It also allows reporters to share more information, as well as prove that they, too, are real people.

For freelancers, this new trend at one of America’s largest newspapers just goes to show how important it is to engage with your community.

Show You Care

I try to comment on the blog posts I write for FreelanceSwitch—especially the posts that have gotten a lot of action from the readers. I really do appreciate the time people take to share their thoughts and opinions on my blog posts. Comments help me gauge a posts’ success and help me decide what to write about in the future. The best way for me to show the readers that I am paying attention, is to tell them so. Continue Reading

A recent story in The Australian caught my eye. The title of the piece is “Online magazine offers less than 2c a word to freelancers”. The name of the online magazine is Breathe Magazine Australia (BreatheMagazine.com) and it is scheduled to launch in April 2012.

The Australian journalists’ union, called Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has a recommended word rate of 93c a word (which is comparable to U.S. currency).  The MEAA criticized Breathe Magazine’s owner, Flujo, stating that “Employers must realize that journalists must be paid properly for their work.”

Flujo is looking for three full-time writers, and is asking journalists to agree to write a minimum of six 400-word articles throughout the course of a month in the hopes they are hired for the full time gig. A 400-word article, by Breathe Magazine’s pay rate, is $7.

Many established freelancers would scoff at that rate—and it’s unclear by this article if the full-time writer would be paid more than that once hired. Continue Reading

Was your New Year’s resolution to start your own freelancing business? We’re five weeks in—how is it going? I found this article on Freelance: UK that got me thinking about financial issues to consider before taking the big freelance leap. Here are some of their suggestions as well as some of mine. Continue Reading

I had never heard of the freelance-writing online marketplace Contently until I stumbled across this piece of info from the Wall Street Journal:

Freelance-writing marketplace Contently has raised a $2 million Series A round led by Lightbank. Co-founder Shane Snow said he started the company to help resolve some of the business challenges–such as securing a string of new assignments and getting paid in a timely manner–common to many freelance writers. —wsj.com

What does this mean, exactly? Well, it means that Lightbank, a Chicago-based company that help create and fund early stage entrepreneurs, has given a sizeable chunk of venture capital money to an online community that supports freelancers. Lightbank is run by two guys who were the first two angel investors in Groupon. Guess they know a good thing when they see it.

Kinda cool, huh?

I decided to check more into this Contently company and see what it was all about. Their manifesto states, in a nutshell, that they believe in high quality content that is created by experienced journalists and writers, not blather cranked out by content farms. Continue Reading

We’ve been talking a lot about engagement lately, so when I saw this post on Mashable about 10 easy customer engagement ideas I was intrigued.

Engagement with your clients doesn’t happen overnight or all at once. It is something that needs to be worked on consistently over time. Engaging your clients is a great way to keep them involved during the down time as well as offer them reasons to remember your great work.

Following are ideas to help you engage with you clients, which will improve that professional relationship and strengthen your freelance business. Continue Reading

I don’t really connect to Mark Cuban (the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks). But I do connect to his business rationale: the only thing you can control in your life is your own effort.

As freelancers, we don’t have anyone but ourselves to be accountable for. If I don’t roll out of bed until 10 am, I have no one to blame but myself. If I don’t make time to really look into what Google+ can do (or can’t do) for me, it’s my own fault.

When you work in an office environment, you have coworkers, bosses, and assistants to help you with your job. When you are a freelancer, you have to do everything from getting insurance to buying computer equipment, to calling clients who are late on their payments. It can be overwhelming at times, but when you worry about only pleasing yourself at the end of the day, it can be pretty great.

Below are some quotes from Mark Cuban’s new book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, that I found in an article on businessinsider.com and what I took away from them:

In sports, the only thing a player can truly control is effort. The same applies to business. The only thing any entrepreneur, salesperson or anyone in any position can control is their effort.

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It’s easy to think about doing good deeds during the holiday season, as giving (thanks and gifts) is pretty much society’s mantra from Thanksgiving to Christmas. But what about the rest of the year? Isn’t it good to be grateful in, say, March?

According to this recent article in Fortune, gratitude is good for business no matter the month.

As opposed to showing appreciation one day a year — at Thanksgiving or New Year’s or in an annual customer appreciation sale — some businesses are building it into their daily and weekly plans and policies. And they are seeing the benefits to this approach: Workers are often more engaged when they feel appreciated and customers are more likely to come back and give referrals.

“Gratitude motivates positive reciprocal behavior,” says Randy Raggio, a marketing professor at the University of Richmond. If a customer believes that a business has his best interests at heart, that customer is more inclined to develop a long-term relationship with the business.—Fortune

Here are some ideas on how freelancers can give thanks, no matter the time of year or season!

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Credit: meddygarnet on Flickr

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

“Sometimes You Have To Work Through Pain To Get To Happiness.”

Through a group of great writers that I’ve gotten to know, I “met” (virtually) Theo Pauline Nestor. I immediately wanted to read her book, How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed, because it’s a memoir of divorce — and one of my happiness-project resolutions is to Read memoirs of catastrophe.

14 Essential Utilities for Managing Your Freelance Design Business

While millions of people share the dream of working from home, very few understand its difficulties.

From online distractions to technical malfunctions, online entrepreneurs and freelancers face thousands of potential setbacks, each one threatening a decline in income or a pause in cash flow. We’re all familiar with this problem. Continue Reading

Objective. Photo by Army.mil.

Many freelancers may think that a resume is a thing of the past—something only used to get a corporate job. So if you’re done climbing the corporate ladder, why would you need a resume?

Two reasons: Resumes can help you get freelance gigs and they offer a quick profile so potential clients can assess you.

I know, I know: The last thing you probably want to focus on is a resume. But the truth is many freelancers need them to apply for gigs. And having an updated resume is always a plus for your website because it gives clients a little insight into where you’ve come from and what you have to offer at a quick glance. A lot of freelancers I know don’t think they need this document, or think they’re too artsy for a resume—but it does lend a professional tone to your overall brand. Creating a professional resume that follows the norms can be a huge advantage.

That said, I realize many freelancers don’t know the new rules of resume writing. And yes, there are some new tricks. So I’ve put together this three-part guide to help you compile a winning resume, even if you never intend on applying for another job again.

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People become freelancers for all sorts of reasons. Very few do it to get into business – that’s just a side effect. To be successful freelancers, we need to be savvy business people.

Understanding business takes work – some light reading, some heavy ploughing though your government’s forms and requirements, maybe some serious study, and keeping up with business news and events. Material for small businesses and entrepreneurs will be especially helpful.

Here is a reading list for you to pick and choose from: 40 Places Where Freelancers Can Learn More About Business. This list is a starting point. Please add to it in the comments.

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