The sun is shining for more than 10 minutes a day, finally, and the heat is on. Summer is upon us, and we freelancers are surrounded by clients and colleagues with regular jobs who are busy planning their vacation time while we try to figure out how and if we can do the same.
A recent “One Big Happy” cartoon had the character Joe shooting a dart at what looks like the door to a laundry chute and saying “Bull’s eye!” A friend says, “There’s no target there!” and Joe’s little sister Ruthie (I never let anyone call me that, but you can see why I like the cartoon) responds: “Just wait, he hasn’t drawn it yet.”
The recent wild winter weather—my area’s first real blizzard since 1999, reawakening memories of the last really big one back in 1966—is making me realize how great it is to be able to work at home. It also has reminded Read more
One of the (many) challenges of freelancing is managing clients who expect us to be available at any and all times. The Internet—especially social media—and email, along with changing phone technology, are among the major culprits, but freelancers are often Read more
Ah, the end of the year. That wondrous time of snow, seasonal holidays, and … stress. Here are some ideas for freelance tech communicators to consider as the new year approaches. They’re based on thinking like a client rather than Read more
Being a freelance communicator is a challenge these days—well, it always has been, but the publishing is changing so much that it’s especially so now. One way of responding to the challenge is to get as much information as possible Read more
We see plenty of tips on how to find freelance tech writing and editing projects, but rarely examples of how not to get the job. We also see plenty of advice on how to be business-like enough to make a Read more
One of the biggest headaches in freelancing is the dreaded scope creep—when a project starts morphing into far more than you expected it to involve, and the client expects you to absorb the additional work at the same project fee, Read more
In one of many LinkedIn group posts that had me shaking my head over the lack of business sense of “colleagues,” someone recently said, “I found it very hard to get anyone to respond to my website for editing. How Read more
I don’t read as many blogs as perhaps I should, but one I do follow is Rich Adin’s An American Editor (http://americaneditor.wordpress.com/). Rich is a tough-talking lawyer-turned-editor who looks at freelance editing as a business rather than an art and Read more