Congratulations new freelancer. While this might not be the best time to join the ranks of independently employed writers, we realize you may not have had much of a choice.

But when it comes to how you conduct your freelance business, you do have lots of choices. Well, OK, maybe not as many choices as you used to, given that newspaper and magazine freelance budgets have dried up quicker than a mud puddle in August.

But there are choices, in the genre you pursue, the subjects you specialize in, the clients you work with, even how you get your work done.

So how to get started? I’ve compiled the following list of Freelance 101 helpful hints gleaned from 18 months of posts on this blog and 12+ years of  freelancing I’ve done for international wire services,  daily newspapers, geeky tech magazines and Web-based publishers. You’ll find information on writing basics, finding story ideas, working with editors, blogging and other resources.

Writing Basics

• 10 great places writers can find story ideas – Tune in to your surroundings and story ideas are everywhere.
• Prepping for the big one – A dozen ways to ace a VIP interview.
• Keeping sources on the subject – Get in, get the quote, get out.
• A few words about writing short – 500 words is the new 1,000.
• How to write fast. – Setting the timer is just the start.
• Why good writing is all about context – Putting in the why.
• When the words won’t come – Dealing with writer’s block.
• 7 steps to cutting a story that’s too long – Why let someone else hack away when you can easily trim that extra graph or two yourself.

Plugging In

• A writer’s guide to getting the most out of Twitter – After avoiding it forever, I finally caved – and boy, what a difference.
• Delicious and Google News Alerts – Web-based research tools even non-techies can understand.
• Top 10 Web tools for freelancers – Firefox, WordPress and more.
• HARO rescues writers stuck for sources – Crowdsourcing meets journalism.
• How to be a blog star – Take a class or teach yourself.
• The secret to my LinkedIn success – Hint: it’s not the number of connections, but who you’re connecting with.

The Business of the Freelance Business

• How to write queries that sell – Know who you’re pitching to, and other helpful hints.
• Just say no to assignments that aren’t a good fit – If they make you miserable, even well-paid jobs aren’t worth the money.
• Why freelance queries get rejected – It happens, even to the best of us.
• 10 ways to promote your freelance writing business – Writing’s just the beginning, you have to sell yourself.
• You may be desperate for work, just don’t act like it – Editors smell fear.
• Writing for free is not a business model – Giving it away ain’t gonna get you anything but poor.
• 13 warning signs a magazine may be in trouble – Checks slowing to a trickle? Uh oh.

In Their Own Words

• How to build the freelance writing career that you want – Words of wisdom for newcomers from long-time freelancer Gwen Moran.
• Sometimes all it takes is saying ‘I can do that.’ – Being in the right place at the right time is just the start – to get the good jobs, you have to ask for them.
• Going freelance in a down economy – Bad times didn’t stop former copywriter Susan Johnston from pursuing her dream to freelance full-time.
• One writer’s journey from print to online – Reporter Michelle Nicolosi got the online news bug back in the 1990s. Today she’s executive director of the now online-only SeattlePI.com.

But for freelancers, there’s a huge debate happening over the merits of writing for a content aggregator to advance your career, a debate that last week spilled onto the pages of this blog. First long-time freelancer Tim Beyers examined the reasons why a writer shouldn’t bother with content aggregators. Then Helium’s new writer outreach manager Barbara Whitlock countered with her own detailed explanation of  why freelancers would want to write for a content aggregator, Helium in particular.

I say if you’re a writer looking for experience, there’s a better way.

Instead of writing for an aggregator, find out what hyperlocal news sites have popped up in your area, introduce yourself and ask if there’s anything you can do to help.

In case you’re not familiar with them, hyperlocal news sites are blogs that focus on what’s happening in a specific area, be it a neighborhood, town or city. You might also know them as community news blogs or citizen journalist sites. Some examples: NewzJunky in Watertown, New York; Hop Town in Hopkinsville, Massachusetts, and NeighborsGo.com in Dallas.

If you work for a hyperlocal news organization you’ll probably start out making about as much as you would at a content aggregator – which is to say not much. But if you really are just starting out, you could use the opportunity to go out and do some man-on-the-street reporting,  and pick up other valuable experience.

If you don’t think there are hyperlocal or citizen journalists operating in your city you’re wrong, you just haven’t looked hard enough. Here in Portland, there are at least four, including Neighborhood Notes and OurPDX, more if you count sites that focus on niches like tech, books or cycling.

If there really aren’t hyperlocal sites where you live, start one. By teaching yourself everything you need to know to run a hyperlocal or community news site, you’re teaching yourself everything you need to know in 2009 and going into the future to get hired as a staff writer or make it as a freelancer, things like using a content management system (a fancy term for blogging or blog-like software), HTML, linking, how to write for a blog, how to write straight news, how to take pictures, video and audio, etc.

When it comes down to it, as long as you’re going to the time and trouble of learning the craft, why give the fruits of your labors to another business when you could maximize the benefit and profit for the enterprise that matters most – you.