What’s Inside

In fairness, the book is full of common sense advice, including links to places to look for jobs, advice on getting those first writing gigs under your belt and much more.  There are a couple of pages each on some of the important issues for freelancers, including finding writing markets, removing roadblocks to writing, looking beyond magazine work, copyright, tax, setting prices and marketing.

Sample Contracts

The book also includes a few sample letters, contracts and agreements which will be useful for the new freelance writer. There are handy reminders of the key points in a column alongside each chapter, as well as prompts to make you consider the main issues, so there are multiple opportunities to get the information while reading.

Bonus Ebooks

However, I couldn’t help thinking that the author was asking a lot to expect you to part with $49 (reduced from $140) of your hard earned cash. For that price, you do get several bonus ebooks, which may provide additional value.  At the time of writing these were:

• Writing For Fast Cash
• Breaking into Freelancing
• A Fickle Muse
• Writer’s Bootcamp
• Goals and Deadlines

The Verdict

I think Ultimate Guide To A Successful Freelancing Career works as an introduction to the issues that freelancers face, but I’d want to see more detail on almost every area for it to justify its name. If you’re new to freelancing, then check it out. If you’re not, you may already know much of what’s inside.

Writers have to be rebels. We have to take the idea of normal and turn it on its head. We have to examine the status quo and the world that exists around us, analyze it, question it, and present it to our readers in ways that make them think and see and feel.

This is just what she tries to do with her blog:

I look at writing as a self-sustaining, necessary activity that leads to effects both good and bad, and at the things from which my creativity and writing derive, all the ingredients for that strange brew inside.

The blog looks at freelancing, marketing, publishing and creativity, with a few rants thrown in. There’s also an intriguing section on word porn, which is designed to delight those who love the written word, and which digs out ‘wicked, wonky words’ for our delectation.

Here are a few of the posts that have caught my eye on this fascinating blog:

Rant: Writers Aren’t That Desperate
Madonna and Freelancing: An ‘AHA’ Marketing Moment
Quitting And Freelancing: When The Brushoff Is Sorely Needed

Amy’s posts are interesting and make full use of the complexity and wonder of the English language, so they appeal on many levels. This blog is a great place for a fun read on freelancing.

• Will Content Kill the Web?

‘PLR content drives down the market value of web content. Why buy pricier work when nearly-free (and sometimes free) is right there for the taking?’

• Handling Your Perfectionism

‘One of the biggest problems perfectionists have is setting realistic goals. I never realized I set the bar too high for myself. Halfway through whatever I was working on achieving, when nothing went according to my vision, I would give up in frustration.’

• What a Camera Can Teach You About Customer Service

Sorry, you’ll just have to read this one. No excerpt would do it justice.

There is so much good stuff in there it’s hard to give you a flavour of it. The blog focuses on blogging, business, design and writing, and currently has a great series on fiction writing. Just to round out the list, here are some posts with great titles that made me stop and look:

• Bloggers That Fake It
• Don’t Be Efficient if You Want a Successful Business
• Knitters Never Comment!

Over the past year, posts from this blog, and its predecessor, have turned up regularly in my links roundups, which shows how consistently readable it is. If you haven’t done so, check it out.

Technorati Tags: writing,blogging,reviews

The site is called Freelance Writing Career (don’t you wish you’d snagged that domain name?) and it’s got a wealth of information about the business of writing, including a blog. There are pages on learning to write and becoming a writer, and much more, all from the perspective of a work at home dad.

This is a new blog, so there are only a few pages at the moment, but I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it.

Let’s start with a bit of show and tell. Some of the posts that caught my eye were:

• So How Did I Double My Subscribers in a Week?
• Want To Quit the Day Job But Can’t Afford To? Maybe You Can…
• A, B or C? Grading Potential Niches / Markets

The titles are self explanatory. This blog is a mine of information on making money online, promotion, business and blogging and her most famous series is the Twitter Guide. Although this is not a writing blog, I know that many of you, like me, are concerned about promoting yourselves. Caroline’s blog is bound to give you some ideas.

Technorati Tags: blogging,promotion,caroline middlebrook

One of Yvonne’s recent innovations has been her Weekend Writer’s Cafe spot. This is very popular with freelance writers around the world. When Yvonne does the weekly post, she includes some topics that we might like to discuss, but it’s an open forum for discussing all sorts of issues to do with writing, from advice on a book cover to making the most of social networks.  It’s very quickly become an essential part of my weekend routine and I subscribe to comments so I don’t miss anything.

What’s inside the blog? Here are three examples that I enjoyed:

• How to write good blog posts more quickly
• What a school French fiasco taught me about writing
• Fake testimonials and the ethics of freelance writing - check out the comments thread

Enjoy!

On the paid to review sites, what people want most of all is your opinion on a product or service. They want to know how you used it, what worked, what didn’t work and how you felt about it. They also want to know what you get.

What I learned from that experience gave me the blueprint for much of the web content writing I do today.

Read What I Learned From Writing Reviews and see if you agree with me.

It’s intended for first time authors and asks and answers writers’ questions on:

• the commissioning process
• choosing a publisher
• making money
• whether writers need agents
• writing a proposal
• contract negotiations
• working with publishers
• dealing with rejection

This book is clearly written and full of useful case studies. It is probably the best book on publishing I’ve read all year.

Read a more detailed review here or see it on Amazon.

For more on writing and publishing, check out the Inspired Author blog.