Freelance Writing and Article Investment

You’ve probably come across these familiar sites, but what exactly are they? Read more

Setting up the freelance writing pool

photo credit: Peter Hellberg
Sorry we haven’t been posting as frequently as before (from 3-5 a week down to 1-2), it’s just that we’ve been so busy working behind the scenes to get The Unjob writing service up and running. As you may know, the idea for The Unjob isn’t limited to a freelance writing website: The Unjob is a freelance writing consortium, as well! Read more

The ultimate Craigslist Writer launch center!

Tired of clicking through the different craigslist subdomains just to get to the writer sites? Using your laziness as an excuse not to checkout the new ad posts for writing gigs? Are too many clicks tiresome for your index finger? Read more

Why freelancers should Lifestream

photo credit: Samuel Mann

You may have come across the term, but if you haven’t yet, a Lifestream is a repository for all your social networking activity Read more

My four favorite sites for great writing gigs

photo credit: foundphotoslj

Freelancers don’t get paid regularly. This is a universal truth for any form of freelance opportunity, and as such it’s your duty to maintain a reliable cashflow to take care of your monthly needs. If you’ve previously worked in an office, you may have experienced receiving monthly compensation without even batting an eyelash simply becuase you’re an employee. In freelancing, it’s best to think of yourself as the head of your very own business with the administrative capacity to determine how much your “company” makes each month. Basically, if you don’t get any gigs, you’re broke. Read more

The trouble with SEO: future trends and the current crisis

photo credit: mattfoster

If you’ve been freelance writing for quite a while, chances are you’ve scoured the net for potential leads at sites like Craigslist, elance and oDesk. These are great sites that offer many writing opportunities for freelance and part time writers, usually dishing out a variety of topics ranging from quick short articles to writing a technical product manual. Read more

Why your 9 to 5 job is so last century

My grandma thinks I’m mucking around when, at three in the afternoon, I’m still in my pajamas gobbling up her lemon bars, sipping coffee, and telling her I’ve been working all day and need to take a break. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her that, “Yes, I do have a job and I’m not slacking around.” I’m tempted to add that I’m probably working longer hours than most people with traditional 9 to 5 jobs, but that would probably just aggravate her perplexity. (And anyway, by longer hours, I really mean watching videos in YouTube till 4 a.m.).

So I tell her about this wonderful thing called the Internet (well, she’s not so technologically-challenged; she actually uses Skype to talk to her ever-elusive prodigal son), and how I can work from anywhere so long as I have my laptop with me and I can connect to a Wi-Fi. I can work at home, in a park, in a café or restaurant, even a bar at night, or in the beach. The world is virtually my office. “But how do you work?? How do you get paid?” She persists. “Everything is connected now, lola. Everything can be transacted online. Everything I need for work is in my computer” She nods and thinks about this for awhile, shaking her head with how much the world has changed.

I, too, still shake my head once in a while with how much things have changed. I’m particularly awed by how different our minds work today, how it’s evolving with the advent of the internet, in the way we absorb information and link ideas–like a web or a map. If before, the emphasis was on linear, systematic, and standardized thinking (which was what traditional factory and office work required, as well as researching in the library), today, we are leaning to a more abstract kind of thinking, absorbing information from all directions, manipulating them until we form patterns and meaning, and creating ideas that lead to another idea, and another, and another, and further amalgamating and encapsulating, including connections with long past ideas, and so on and so forth, processing almost instantly, millions and millions of bits per second.

I think it’s so cool how we can absorb a myriad of information, interlink them, and try to put order in all the chaos without having to think of ourselves as insane in being able to synthesize seemingly unrelated ideas. Our brains are evolving and there are studies to prove it too! With it, our boring lives and stupid jobs and silly emotions will evolve too. Ooooh. It’s so new age. Here’s a study that suggests human brains are evolving.

Porn, toilet flushes, and the global economy: Adventures of a third world, underpaid freelance writer

It’s not really about the morality, the reason why I’m now adamant in turning down any porn-related writing jobs. I did try to write a sample article so that the client in question could determine if I fit the bill, if I can write blogs that were ‘dirty’ enough. It turned out that I had a limited vocabulary in that area and that I was too “literary” for their taste. Read more

Taking the Big Dive Part 3 - The Lean Months

photo credit: jamtea

Before leaving your day job to get a freelance career, you probably setup a financial safety net for yourself and your loved ones for the exciting (and often bumpy) road ahead. Whether you’ve built up a sizable nest egg to keep you going for a little over 6 months or you’ve substantially diversified and upgraded your investment portfolio, the truth is that there is a possibility of all that cash burning out in the future. Read more

Taking the Big Dive Part 2 - Getting Used to Your New Life

You know you’ve made a conscious decision to be free from the chains of an unsuitable work schedule when you wake up on your first day as a freelancer at your usual 7:00 AM. Instead of your tried and tested method of prodding yourself to get dressed in 30 minutes (e.g. suddenly jumping out of bed and taking a mad dash to the bathroom to wake you up enough to give yourself a hot shower), you suddenly remember that no, you don’t have to go through that insane morning ritual anymore. You sigh in total relief as you close your eyes again and drift off into lala-land after you’ve correctly set your alarm to a later and more comfortable time.

The first few days of freedom as a freelancer may be spent trying to break your normal office routine. You may find it confusing and even difficult to wake up late, have a late breakfast, and work on projects at odd hours compared to what you’ve been used to, but this is all normal; your body is beginning to adjust to your new work schedule and ethic, so just give it time to do so.

Working freelance isn’t an excuse to live without a schedule; in fact, you’ll probably have to be more disciplined when it comes to your workday because of all the enticing opportunities for distraction and leisure activities. If you’re a freelance writer, tons of these interruptions are available on the net, and are admittedly very VERY fun. As such, here are some tips to acclimatize to your new (and hopefully more productive and interesting) lifestyle:

1. Write down your ideal workday – before even plunging into freelance, you might want to describe your ideal workday, which of course involves you getting what you want while still being productive. Get a desk planner at the local office supply store that has blanks per hour so you could give yourself a rough draft of how your working day would be like (e.g. awaken at 9am, have coffee/breakfast and check mail, begin working at 11:00am until lunch, eat lunch, continue working until 5pm, meet up with Sally at the pub for drinks around 8, etc.)
The idea here is that you’re training yourself to stick to a pre-defined work hour schedule. Even though you could deviate an hour or two once in a while, it’s crucial to get into the habit of sticking to it early on in the freelance game, lest you become accustomed to a chaotic workday where you get more play done than work. Think about putting food on your table!

2. Set a “I’m Very Busy Regardless of Who You Are” hour – it’s alright to work lightly in the morning, especially if there aren’t any pending jobs to be submitted. However, you should have at least an hour of what I call the “IVBRWYA,” wherein you should be working on something such as future articles, creative writing, fancy graphic design, layout samples for your portfolio, etc. This ensures that even though you don’t have any work required of you, you don’t break the habit of practicing your craft daily. This is also that time of the day where you’re not allowed any form of distraction from friends, relatives, or your high maintenance salt-water tropical fish.

3. Set aside some time to blog everyday – Let’s face it: blogging is the next big thing in marketing. As a freelancer, it’s often easy to still look at yourself as an employee working at home, which shouldn’t be the case. As a freelancer, it’s your job to properly market your talent and creativity, close deals, and basically make things happen! You become your own business, and therefore freelancing requires some entrepreneurial skill. Make a blog for your freelance career, and you’re that much closer to learning the ropes of self-marketing.

Blogging is a personal way to market yourself in an accessible environment. Whether it be the publishing of your latest works of art or simply a retelling of how you came up with that great line of copy, blogging keeps you in touch with other freelancers and employers who are looking for people to take on their job queues. Signing up for social networking sites such as Facebook allows you to market yourself and your blog to a network defined by you through your contacts.

4. Figure out how to work around your hobby schedule – if you’re a musician and you constantly have late nights out playing with the band, you obviously cannot bring yourself to begin your workday at 6am. Setting a freelance work schedule is all about balancing your personal life, hobbies and interests with work. If you really have to do your activities late at night, figure out if your work schedule could start late and end late, but give enough leeway for your evening duties. The best part about freelancing, once you’ve learned proper time management, is you seem to have enough time for everything!

Scour the net for some schedule management seminars, articles and quick tips that’ll help you out in the initial run of your freelance career. If you’ve taken the dip into freelance and find yourself to lack in discipline regarding your work schedule, try to write it down on paper, stick it on a wall in front of your work space and try your best to adhere to it. An organized workday gives you more time to do the things you want to do.

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