Beginning Freelance Writers Tips

Many people are interested in freelance writing as a ‘side business’ or as a way to make extra income. However, to be a successful freelance writer, the person needs to be determined, dedicated, and driven to succeed in this competitive business. The following tips detail several of the ways many freelance writers get started and are able to build a successful business.

Network, Network, Network

As a freelance article writer, you will need to expand your list of contacts and have the ability to draw upon those contacts when needed.

Volunteer your Writing Talents

Most writers want to make money immediately upon deciding they want to have a freelance writing business.

Join a Non-Profit Organization

While many budding freelance writers may feel as if they are already stretched for time, joining a non-profit organization is a wonderful way to network and utilize your writing talents.

Note: Becoming a successful freelance writer takes hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

Finding Jobs as a Freelance Technical Writer

Technical writing may include any content of a technological, medical, or complex nature. Technical writing jobs can be hard to get if you have little or no experience. In order to successfully gain freelance technical writing jobs, you should have a scientific mind and be willing to conform to the standards of your client.

Here are few tips on how to make more money as a technical writer.

Learn the Basics of Technical Writing

Before you can create an outstanding portfolio or market yourself to companies as a technical writing intern, you need some grounding in the basics. Few students opt to get domain knowledge, such as in accounting or engineering, and then supplement that knowledge with writing skills.

Apply for technical writing projects

It is better to apply for technical writing projects even if you don’t have enough experience. As lots of companies are willing to hire technical writers for freelance projects with little or no experience whatsoever, you just need to have enough knowledge to write text which makes sense.

Work for Free

Nothing beats real experience, even if you don’t get paid for it. Consider joining the GNU Writing Movement or contributing your writing skills to OpenOffice.org, where you can write real technical documents for real software applications.

Joining the Society for Technical Communication

There are many benefits to joining the professional society. Some of these benefits include:

Networking with fellow technical communicators and potential employers

Career advice

Continuing education seminars and conferences

Access to the STC Job bank, which contains frequently updated job listings

Free Solid Project Management for Freelancers

No matter what the size of a business, every business requires a tool where the business has the ability to manage their workflow, collaborate with clients/customers and closely track the various milestones on their projects.

If you are a big company you can get your software custom built or buy expensive software, but what should you do if you are a freelancer with a limited budget? Well then you have to look for free tools.

Do you wonder where all of your time goes? As freelancers, in addition to design, we are also the sales team, the support team, the copywriter and the accountant all in one person.

This may seem kind of overwhelming if you don’t have a good project management system.

In this post we present you a list of reliable open source or free online Project Management tools.

jxProject

You can install jxProject on all of your computers at no cost. You’ll also be able to share your project plans with anyone that has access to the Internet, because everyone on the Internet can access and install jxProject.

Toggl

Toggl provide very easy time tracking and management. You can create tasks in fraction of a minute. This site is different from other sites because you can use it from website, from your computer’s desktop (supports Windows, Linux and Mac) and even from your iPhone. Just download the application and it is ready to use

Project Pier

ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through an intuitive web interface. It must be downloaded and installed on your own web server. ProjectPier will help your organization communicate, collaborate and get things done Its function is similar to commercial groupware/project management products, but allows the freedom and scalability of self-hosting.

Tick

Tick is one of the time tracking tools which I will be reviewing. It is web-based time tracking tool you can use it from any of your internet browser. Tick is very good site for is you just want to manage you time in simple fashion, because it considers time the most important part of business. It has very simplified user-interface having just 3 tabs which are Timecard, Projects, and Reporting. To get started have a look at the following sample image for creating client, project and tasks.

Cashboard

Using Cashboard you can do Time tracking, expenses, invoicing, estimates, and online payments. Cashboard is a complete package for you online business. It can be easily integrated with the Basecamp and number of other invoicing tools, it can keep you receivables and time sheets organized and maintained.

Clocking IT

ClockingIT is a free hosted application, keeping track of all yourtasks and the time you spend on them. Project Management,
Collaboration and 
Time Tracking.

yaTimer

yaTimer is non-web based application. It is download-able software which will run on you desktop. It is very easy to use and specifically designer to track time. You can place a small window in corner of your desktop which will remind you the task to be done.

After you are done with downloading and installing yaTimer, clicking to new task button following window will open, in this window you can fill the details about the task such as Task Name, Add Clients and Project, You can select whether you want Timer or Countdown ( if you chooses countdown option then the Countdown Options became active and you can customize then according to your need). You can add Play Sound which yaTimer software will play when time for the task ends. Then click on Create button to create the task or choose Click& Run Button if you want the task timer to start immediately!

ProjectStat.us

ProjectStat.u is a service that can help you easily manage your customers’ project info and allow your customers to see up-to-date project information at any time.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks establish a strong relation between tracking hours, project management and invoicing or we can say that FreshBook is a management tool. It has every feature required by a freelancer to work efficiently. It supports automated invoicing in any currency, collect online payments. You can also use FreshBooks on you iPhone which is most important thing nowadays!

After signing-up you will get bunch of tabs for navigation through the website, including invoices, time tracking, estimates, team and reports. As you topic is time management so we will review only functions related to time management.