Photo by lexnger

Last week we asked you to tell us what you want from Freelancer Magazine and everybody came up with great ideas and suggestions! Sadly, we could only pick three of you. I know, I know, everyone’s really a winner no matter what my 5th grade Math teacher says. Anyway…

The Winners Are…

1. Jeff Star

2. John D.

3. Dan

All of you have been contacted and your books will be sent out shortly! For those of you who didn’t win, do not fret! We have more contests lined up for the near future!

Photo by Alexander Stubbs

Welcome to our new series of articles militantly titled Freelance Bootcamp! In this series we will take you through the entire process of becoming a full time freelancer. From finally ditching that 9 - 5 to getting down to the nitty gritty of income, personal productivity, and what to (really) expect out of all of this in the end. This is a start to finish process that is by no means sugar coated! If you’re really ready to become a serious freelancer then you’ve come to the right place! We hope this will give you a “cut the crap and get to the point” type of experience while covering all the important aspects of freelancing.

In this edition we ask the question “Are you really ready for full-time freelancing?.” If you’ve been day dreaming at your desk all day about joining the work-at-home generation while wondering what it would be like with that much freedom in your life then it’s time to get serious about it! No more wondering! We’re going to find out if you are really ready for full time freelancing…
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Photo by Titanas

Here at FreelancerMagazine, we’re trying to do more then general advice for our fellow freelancers. We’re trying to give you some tutorials, resources, and actual tools that you can use in “the field.” Wordpress is quite popular and getting more popular by the day! I myself work with wordpress on a daily basis and enjoy the experience as it provides a really simple but elegant way to publish content on the web. It can do a bit more then one might think with a little ingenuity and know-how. It has done everything from Marketplaces to a Twitter-Clone.

Here at FreelancerMagazine we can also be pretty lazy (I prefer to say busy). So instead of writing up a giant list of our own hacks, that are already out on the web somewhere, we compiled a list of other lists of hacks. Silly? maybe, Good idea? Definitely!
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Photo by Inferis

We’ve all made mistakes… some of us more than others! The point is to learn from these mistakes, reconfigure yourself and get back out there! Those on top of their game were once beginners and made all the same mistakes just like the rest of us. If you’re just starting out maybe we can help you avoid some of these and if not, no problem, experience is the greatest teacher!

On to the list!

#1 Not using contracts

Most beginning freelancers fail to utilize contracts due to the fact that they believe clients will shy away from them. This is (in my experience) untrue! Many clients appretiate the professionalism and will let out a sigh of relief once they see you are a legitimate businessman (or woman!). Once you go through that one bad experience with a client, you will of wished you had the contract to fall back upon!

Or maybe new freelancers just don’t know to construct one or what to include. If you have not constructed your contract template, sit down and make a list of everything you want your client to know. Set your boundaries, your pay rate, and limits. Be detailed but don’t overload the clients with useless information! Keep it to the point!

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Photo by Stewf

Whether you’re in the U.S. dealing with clients in some place like Russia, or in the U.K. dealing with clients in some place like the U.S., you’re going to have to work around scheduling at one point. Time zones can make it hard to reach your client or for your client to reach you at an optimal time. At other times you might run into problems when a foreign holiday arrives (what exactly is Sadé anyway??) that you, or your client, is un-aware of, and one of you isn’t going to be available. We’ll some free online applications and services have done their best for you to get around this problem! Check out the top 5 of these free online services any freelancer should be using:
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