My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [0]
Title Page
Dedication
Praise
Introduction
PART 1 - You fled the cube - now what ?
Chapter 1 - Business Plan To Go
A Cure for the Common Waffler
Do Try This at Home: Business Plan To Go
Chapter 2 - Forget Fuzzy Math
The Beauty of Bread-and-Butter Work
What’s My (Bottom) Line?
Fear and Loathing of Lost Wages (a.k.a., How to Know When It’s Time to Go)
Chapter 3 - Get a Room Already!
Mark Your Territory
Your Home Office Away from Home
Your Workplace or Mine?
Chapter 4 - Act Like a Professional
The Necessary Accoutrements
Sole Proprietor, LLC, Inc.—WTF?
Chapter 5 - Put Your Best Bunny-Slippered Foot Forward
Anatomy of a Digital Portfolio
Siteomatic: Website Design Made Simple
To Blog or Not to Blog?
Chapter 6 - Name Your Price
Balance the Budget
Pick a Number, Any Number . . .
Time Off for Good Behavior
Keep Up with the Joneses
PART 2 - Sell, Baby, Sell
Chapter 7 - Fill Your Dance Card
I’ve Got Friends in Freelance Places
Where the Clients Are
Freelance Job Sites—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Chapter 8 - Choose Clients Wisely, Grasshopper
The Hunt for Repeat Customers
Specialize or Starve!
Channel Your Inner Nancy Reagan (Just Say No!)
Do Try This at Home: Top Ten Client List
Chapter 9 - Sales Pitch 101
How to Make First Contact
The Fine Art of Following Up
How to Prod a Foot Dragger
What Doesn’t Make You Race Back to the Cube Makes You Stronger
Chapter 10 - The Check Is Not in the Mail
Paid Ways to Sneak Through a Client’s Back Door
Paid in Exposure: Slice of Heaven or Pie in the Face?
Chapter 11 - Let’s Make a Deal
Before You Do the Math, Do the Recon
Cozy Up to Your Calculator
Taxi Meter vs. Limousine Rates
The Trouble with Retainers
The Master Haggler
Chapter 12 - Get It in Writing
Your Contract or Mine?
No-Frills Contract Checklist
Own It! (a.k.a., When to Give Up Your Copyrights, and When to Clutch Them to ...
When Noncompete Clauses Attack
Never Assume Anything
PART 3 - Your So-Called Freelance Life
Chapter 13 - Care and Feeding of Your clients
Can You Hear Me Now?
Ditch the Diva Act
Leave Them Begging for More
Time Waits for No Freelancer (a.k.a., How to Blow a Deadline Gracefully)
Chapter 14 - The Client from Hell
PROBLEM: Your Check Is MIA
PROBLEM: Your Client Won’t Stop Monkeying with the Deadline
PROBLEM: Your Client Is a Bloodsucker
PROBLEM: Your Client Has Set You Up to Fail
Do Try This at Home: See If Your Clients Make the Grade
Chapter 15 - You’re so Money
Invoicing Is My Religion
Ebbs Are for Amateurs
Retire in Style
Insure Your Ass
Insure Your Business’s Ass
When the 9-to-5 Devil Comes Calling
Chapter 16 - Pay the Piper
Show Uncle Sam the Money
Anal Like Me: Why You Need to Track Your Business Expenses and How to ...
Can I Write It Off?
Chapter 17 - Fun with Time Management
Yes, Mistress! (How to Crack Your Own Whip)
Stupid Zen Tricks (Mind Games for Beginners)
Get Some Professional Help
Vacation, All I Ever Wanted
Step Away from the Computer!
Chapter 18 - Your Master Plan for World Domination
Give Yourself a Raise
Bride of the Son of Shameless Self-Promotion on Steroids
The Work You Really Want to Do
epilogue
desert island freelance resources
Acknowledgements
the author
Selected Titles from Seal Press
Copyright Page
For anyone who’s ever hit the snooze button
five times in a row on Monday morning.
To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.”
—Bette Davis
The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘check enclosed.’”
—Dorothy Parker
introduction
Eat, Pray, Quit
When I was twelve and writing in my diary about how much I hated my braces and loved Arthur Finkelstein, I fantasized about someday publishing the whole hot confessional mess. My book, The Bride Wore a Night Brace, would be acclaimed the world over.
Girls would write me sentimental notes about how I’d helped them learn to smile again, despite the ten pounds of hardware