WordCount is taking a break this week while I’m on vacation, so I’m rerunning some of WordCount’s most popular posts ever on a variety of topics. Today: Career development for freelancers Freelancers’ strategies for prospering in bad times – Suggestions from established freelancers with a variety of backgrounds and business plans, including tips for maintaining […]
Don't let this freelance faux pas happen to you
Writers love to gripe about frustrating things editors do, like assign rush jobs then wait weeks to edit them, or require a certain source be included in a story then ignore a writer’s frantic phone calls when said source goes AWOL. But freelancers make their fair share of dumb mistakes too. A friendly editor recently […]
8 things freelancers absolutely, positively need to do before going on vacation
I leave for a much needed week’s vacation in four days. It’s easy to tell I’m wrapping up business before a getaway because (a) I’m writing like a mad person to make a deadline, (b) the office, house and car are disaster areas as I focus on getting work done before I leave, and (c) […]
Freelancers need to pursue grants, scholarships, fellowships
Flipping through the latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, I saw an ad for the annual Kaiser Media Fellowships in Health. Six of the nine journalists and documentary filmmakers who received this year’s awards were freelancers or independent film producers. That in and of itself is cause to stand up and cheer. It underscores […]
5 reasons to say 'yes' if a fellow freelancer asks you to coffee
It’s good to meet up with fellow freelancers every once in a while. I found myself thinking about this after meeting up with a writer who was in town on business this week and asked me to coffee. Normally I’m chained to my desk during business hours, but it’s summer, the sun’s shining, what’s wrong […]
Writers can SWOT their way through bad times
With the economy still sputtering and freelance writers complaining about clients taking longer and longer to pay their bills, it seems like a good time for a SWOT. SWOT is the name of a career assessment technique espoused by Grant Plowman, owner of Interactive Media Publishing, a digital media publishing company in southern Oregon. I […]