Credit: FontShop on Flickr

I was recently asked to be a part of a panel of magazine editors to talk about how I like to receive queries from freelancers. There were nine magazines represented on this panel that ranged from having a press run of 12,000 to over 100,000. It included two nationally read publications, two regional magazines, one state-wide publication, as well as specific, niche publications dedicated to business, boating, and homes. I was pleasantly surprised that the query process was extraordinarily similar between us all.

I’m going to share with you the basic rules that all of us editors agreed on, in hopes your queries to the glossy mag of your choice doesn’t fall on deaf ears.

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Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in blog writing, design, illustration, and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now! Continue Reading

Every freelancer needs a source for clients. We rely on clients, nurture our relationships with them, and provide a quality of service that keeps then coming back. And we can never have enough of them! The Monster List of Freelance Job Sites has one purpose: to massively increase your source of potential clients and potential jobs.

This list, like Isaac Newton, stands on the shoulders of giants. The second edition of our Monster List of Freelance Job Sites has been valuable and much visited since April 2009. With over a hundred comments from our fantastic readers which has really added to its value. This list is a thorough update, removing dead links, adding new sites, and taking on board many of the suggestions from your comments.

We start the list with FreelanceSwitch’s own Job Board, which has categories for design, development, writing, illustration, Flash, and miscellaneous jobs, and at the time of writing contains a huge 220+ jobs. Jobs are hand-moderated by FreelanceSwitch staff and volunteers from our dedicated community of freelancers. You can see the available jobs with no strings attached, but to apply for jobs, you need to sign up, which costs just $7 a month. And you can advertise jobs at absolutely no cost.

Is this list now finished? I doubt it ever will be. Like the last list, it will become more valuable as you comment on which sites you found most helpful, inform us of sites that have been missed, and warn us when links stop working. And, best of all, get those jobs! Continue Reading

With the economy so unstable and a personal down-shift in the number of good-paying projects, I have begun to search for a full-time job, or at least a part-time job to fill in the financial gaps. My preparations for this search has included some deep thinking about my skills, assets, and what it is I really offer a client and how different that is from working in a company. Based upon my discussions with contractors, recruiters, and line managers, I’m finding that the current needs of organizations differ enormously from the work I’ve done for the past twenty years as a freelancer. For me, the shift from “one-stop-shop” web designer and marketing writer to some sort of singular role on a team within an organization that creates web sites is a paradigm shift.

This article is part therapy and part research about what we offer to our clients as freelancers and how that translates back into corporate life. Continue Reading

Our job board is something we take great pride in: every job is moderated and we filter out every posting that tries to take advantage of working freelancers. We’ve created an innovative and unusual business model for online job boards that has worked very well (and drawn its fair share of controversy and compliments), and we’ve helped many freelancers get their start or enhance their career through the opportunities the board affords.

So we’re incredibly pleased to see that our job board now has over 300 open jobs, which is a concurrent open job peak record for us, indicative not just of the growth in membership and job postings, but the quality of the service itself. More than ten jobs a day are coming in (as opposed to an average of five a day last time we measured), and that number is after we filter a stunning number of those who would take advantage of you (you don’t want to know how many of those there are!).

Of course, when we get excited over things like this we tend to give things away. We’ll give a one year subscription to two lucky commenters — bonus points on your scoreboard if you say something meaningful, too.

Image from iStockPhoto

Every freelancer needs clients. We rely on them, nurture our relationships with them, and provide a quality of service that keeps then coming back. And we can never have enough of them! The Monster List of Freelance Job Sites has one purpose: to massively increase your source of potential clients and potential jobs.

This list, like Isaac Newton, stands on the shoulders of giants. The original Monster List of Freelance Job Sites has been valuable and much visited since April 2007. Your hundreds of comments have greatly added to its value. This list is a thorough update, removing dead links, adding new sites, and taking on board many of the suggestions from your comments.

We start the list with FreelanceSwitch’s own Job Board, which has categories for design, development, writing, illustration, Flash, and miscellaneous jobs, and at the time of writing contains a huge 200 jobs. You can see the available jobs with no strings attached, but to apply for jobs, you need to sign up, which costs just $7 a month. And you can advertise jobs at absolutely no cost.

Is this list now finished? I doubt it ever will be. Like the last list, it will become more valuable as you comment on which sites you found most helpful, inform us of sites that have been missed, and warn us when links stop working. And, best of all, get those jobs!

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For me, the most remarkable aspect of being a freelancer is the power to decide what projects I’ll work on and which ones I won’t. If you’re reading this, chances are it is for you, too. Being in charge of exactly what fills each workday is a pinch-me privilege. It’s also a pressing responsibility.

As an employee, the Pointy-Haired Boss gives you a desk, a computer, a dress code, a time to show up at the office, a time to leave, and projects to work on in between. When you don’t have that any more, you realize it’s not that bad a deal. Not having to make those choices about what to work on every day makes life easier because you don’t have to think. When you’re a freelancer, you’ve got the decisions to make AND the work to do.

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Photo by netan.

I would never call myself a salesman. The word brings to mind a host of stereotypical, manipulative, sleazy jerks I’ve encountered who have very transparently tried to pad their wallets through coercive tricks. I have, however, worked some sales jobs over the years (reluctantly) and each provided lots of sales training, tips and tricks. Frankly I hated it, but when I left the world of sales to pursue a creative career I was surprised to find that my sales training comes into constant use when dealing with clients.

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Photo by Greencolander.

As an employer with over 30 staff at Interspire, most of the time when I need something done I can call on a staff member in the office and they will take care of it for me. However, sometimes I need the skills of an experienced freelancer for one-off jobs, such as writing a user guide or putting together a product overview video in Flash. In these situations I turn to freelancers on eLance, oDesk or Guru.com.

After posting a job ad, the responses start to come in within a few hours. 95% of the time the candidates have no idea how to reply to the job ad and will either send over:

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Photo by Raphael Goetter.

People often complain about freelancers being too competitive—but that’s not such a bad thing.

As a freelancer competing for jobs, you have to make it a point to stick out from the rest. And as long as you’re professional about things, there’s nothing wrong with maintaining an edge.

Here’s how to—and how not to do it!

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Photo by Paul Worthington.

Most freelancers—I’d say at least 80%—work in a creative field. And most freelancers—I’d say at least 100% (even those whose jobs aren’t really “creative”)—eventually run into some kind of creative block, whether it comes from burnout, or just getting bored of doing the same kind of work day after day.

Usually, this doesn’t mean that the designer or writer in question is no longer capable of doing their job: it just means they are having a damn near impossible time coming up with new, exciting ideas to feed their clients with.

If these blocks meant the inability to turn an idea into a product, most freelancers would be out of business once a year (or so, or less). But fortunately, that’s usually not the case, and so big disasters can be prevented with a little foresight and a little discipline.

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Photo by orangeacid.

How many of you have had jobs or freelance gigs which you billed for once a month? It often takes an act of financial yoga to balance your checkbook each month, right? Wouldn’t you say that being paid weekly or bi-weekly makes life more pleasant?

1. You’re more relaxed about when your next paycheck is coming.
2. You can take a few days off without worrying that you will not earn as much this month. You’ll be relaxed as a result. (See #1)
3. Being paid weekly makes it much easier to ensure that there’ll be enough funds when a bill is paid through automatic deductions from your bank account. You’ll be more relaxed. (See #1. Again.)

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