My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [85]
If ever I start to lose the faith, I get up from my desk and get the heck out of the office. As I change from my “work pajamas” into clothes a person can actually wear in public, I remind myself that I’m lucky to have a job I like 95 percent of the time, which according to the sobering stats that business think tanks throw at us each year is more than most people can say. Then I dance around the living room awhile, take my dog out for a stroll, and catch dinner and a movie with a friend.
When I get to work the next morning, there might be a nice note in my inbox from a satisfied client or a check in my PO box. But if not, it won’t matter. What matters is that I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do since I was an eight-year-old in pigtails writing essays about Pocahontas and gluing together dioramas of dinosaurs—I’m making a living making stuff. You might even say I’m making tracks.
desert island freelance resources
These are a few of my favorite freelance things, from books to web communities to professional associations to artist retreats and back again. To keep this list under a thousand pages, I’ll do my best to limit it to industry-agnostic resources. If you want to zero in on resources specific to dog groomers or gardening consultants or any other freelance field, let your search engine do the walking.
GETCHER FREELANCE TIPS HERE
www.anti9to5guide.com. Color me shameless, but I couldn’t not mention my own blog on self-employment and alternative careers, could I?
www.creativepro.com. Mostly geared toward visual creatives, this site is exploding with all the usual web stuff: news, articles, reviews, blogs, et cetera.
http://freelancefolder.com and http://freelanceswitch.com. Two of the biggest freelancing blogs out there. I don’t always agree with each article, but I savor the variety of opinions and the wisdom of many of the seasoned pros who comment. Don’t miss the job listings and forums on FreelanceSwitch.
www.mediabistro.com. If you’re a media worker who has never heard of this site, time to pull your head out of the sand. On it, you’ll find news, interviews, blogs, tips, events, classes, forums, and probably about 250 other things I’m forgetting.
http://webworkerdaily.com. If you’re one of those people who love to read about tech tools and productivity tips for home-based workers, you will totally dig this site.
GET TO KNOW THE RIGHT PEOPLE
http://biznik.com. A social networking site with the tagline “Business networking that doesn’t suck”—how can you resist? The marketing articles and tips posted by members always keep me coming back for more.
www.freelancersunion.org. Not only does the Freelancers Union (free to join) offer health insurance in thirty-one states (at the time of this writing), meetup groups, and job listings, they’re advocating like crazy to land us better insurance, tax, and unemployment rights and laws.
www.the-efa.org. The Editorial Freelancers Association offers communication pros online classes, web resources ranging from pricing guidelines to sample contracts, access to job listings (for a nominal fee), health insurance in several states, and more.
www.gag.org. The Graphic Artists Guild advocates for the copyrights of visual creatives, offers contract assistance and job listings to members, and has a dozen chapters throughout the country that host workshops and schmoozefests.
There are scores of other trade-specific professional associations out there—American Federation of Musicians (www.afm.org), Association of Independents in Radio (www.airmedia.org), National Writers Union (www.nwu.org), Professional Photographers of America (www.ppa.com), Women in Film (www.wif.org), and on and on and on. These groups offer everything from contract advocacy