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Freelance Tips - Freelance Writing, Freelance Jobs

"I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork."
Peter De Vries

Are you one of the few freelance writers who enjoys the admin side of the job? Do you like sending out invoices and filling in tax forms? Or are you one of those who leave everything until the last moment?

Whatever your approach to the paperwork side of freelance writing, I'd like to hear from you. What are your best tips to get the job done? How have you made admin easier for yourself? Share your ideas, link to blog posts you've written on the subject or recommend a tool that makes paperwork less of a chore.

I'm looking forward to your comments.

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Posted By: Sonya 1 - Category: management

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Zoho Writer: A Free Word Processor

February 23rd 2010 19:12

New freelancer writers can't afford to splash out lots of money on software, but using a powerful word processor is non-negotiable. Luckily, today writers don't have to buy apps like word processors anymore. They don't even need to install office applications on their machines - there are online applications that allow you to create and edit documents in your browser.

Zoho is a full online office suite with apps for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. There's also email, chat, a wiki, notes, a document management application and a whole suite of business apps - the invoicing application in particular might be worth a try. There are free versions of all Zoho products for individual use. The free version of Zoho Docs offers 1GB of storage space; the 5GB version is 3US$/month.

Zoho Writer is the word processor of this online office suite. It offers all the features you need to format a document. It is compatible with Word and Open Office documents and allows you to export your files as .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .swx, .odt, .html or .txt.

Zoho Writer has a few really useful features. It saves documents as versions, so if you need to revert to a previous version, you can do simply choose it in the history view. This view also allows you to compare two version with one another. You can post documents to your blog. If you collaborate with other people on a piece, you can share it with them. Instead of many people making changes in their local copies, you can find everybody's changes in your Zoho doc.

I find online word processing very useful. Not only can I access a file from any computer with an internet connection, online word processors are also a good way to back up your work.

I wrote this blog post with Zoho Writer. I haven't tried any of the other apps yet, so I can't say anything about them. I like Zoho Writer, though. The only down-side I could find is that Zoho doesn't support Safari. It works fine in Camino and Firefox, so it's no big deal.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Google Docs - Zoho Writer is better.

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Posted By: Sonya 1 - Category: freelance tips, management

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Ending the Experiment

October 17th 2008 12:07

After giving this some serious thought, I think I’m going to move on from this blog. Using orble.com was a fun experiment, but it didn’t provide the results I was hoping for. I’m happy to have participated in so many wonderful conversations, but that was really the only benefit to maintaining this blog.

I’ll still be posting the “Break the Block” tips daily, but they’ll be posted on my main blog (Jenn Hollowell: Working Writer) rather than here. I’ll also be posting the little informational snippets I’ve been presenting here over there. So, I hope you’ll all consider adjusting your bookmarks, subscriptions, and feed readers accordingly.

Trust me when I say this wasn’t an easy decision to make. I really need to pull in the reigns, though, and focus more on income producing activities. We all reach forks along way down our career paths, and this is mine.

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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Back on the Querying Track

September 29th 2008 15:37

I lost a job as of yesterday, so I’m back on the query trail. This was not a writing-related gig. It was a job I worked outside the home as a favor to someone special to me, but the “employer” of this person didn’t like that she wasn’t the actual person doing the job. I did all the same things as she did, but she’s been unable to do the job for various reasons. It’s been a secret (I’ve been working this job once per week for eleven months) and I guess they finally caught on to what was going on when they repeatedly saw my handwriting on the bills each month.

I couldn’t stand the job, so it’s kind of a good thing. The bad thing, though, is I need to find replacement for that income fast. That’s my goal this week. I know I can accomplish this goal, but it’s difficult to achieve during an already busy week.

I’ll be visiting my old haunts:
· Really Long Link
· http://www.journalismjobs.com
· http://www.mediabistro.com
· http://www.sunoasis.com
· http://www.poewar.com

I’m sure I’ll be visiting forums where paying gigs are listed as well. I’ve got my “Organized Writer’s Side-Tracked Planner” ready to set ablaze with query notes, leads, and place to follow-up. Something I just realized . . . which is kind of odd . . . I’m subscribed to a large number of newsletters and it just now occurred to me that I haven’t been receiving them for quite some time. Weird. I need to fix that right now! There’s leads in those newsletters!

How is your Monday going?

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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Would You Like to Be Quoted in My Book?

September 14th 2008 18:21

I'm writing The WonderDads Handbook for Raising a Girl Ages 0-10: A Month-by-Month Look at What to Expect, Developmental Tips, and Ideas For Activities. This book is going to be broken down into years, and then further broken down into months (bite-sized bits easily ingested by fly-by reader dads).

Here's what I'm looking for:
1: One or two sentences about your 0-10 year old daughter. Example for a three month old, "My daughter did not transition well from bassinet to crib until we started playing a CD with ocean sounds." That sort of thing.
2: A one or two paragraph "this is what I experienced with my [insert age] daughter during this [insert event, activity, or milestone]" type of description that I can pull quotes or other reference material from.

This book is a guide for dads, but it doesn't necessarily have to be quoted by dads or first-person stories from dads. It's meant to serve as a go-to guide when things come up that confuse, frustrate, or perplex dads while raising their daughters alone, or with a co-parent. Don’t get me wrong, though, if you’re a dad and want to contribute please do so!

Also, if you’re a daughter and would like to share some thoughts and memories (or advice) about your dad I would love to hear from you!

The publisher would like to see this completed (a finished product) in time for Christmas sales, so if you want to participate please send in your responses as soon as possible. You can reply directly to me at writerjennh [at] aol [dot] com. Please be sure to use “Dads book” or something similar to that in the subject line so my SPAM filter doesn’t eat it by mistake.

Anyone game?

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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September Goals Set!

September 2nd 2008 00:09

Okay, it’s official, I’ve set my goals for September AND I’ve posted them on this link:

[ Click here to read more ]

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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Taking Baby Steps

July 10th 2008 22:11

I'm taking baby steps back into career mode after what feels like an eternity since I've written anything of substance. So, please be patient with me along this journey. I've managed to reconnect with all the freelance gigs that mean a lot to me, so that's been a huge confidence booster.

Are you coming back slowly into career mode? What is the transition like for you? In the coming days, I'm going to be writing about how I went from "how am I going to handle working full-time while the kids are on summer vacation" mode to being able to set up a workable routine. I really didn't think I would be able to handle everything, but I'm thankful to have proven myself wrong

[ Click here to read more ]

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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Stay Tuned!!!

July 8th 2008 19:24

New posts are on their way - I'm sorry for being MIA for so long! If ther's omething specific you would like to see in this blog, feel free to post questions, comments, suggestions, and so on in the coment area. I'm looking forward to working with you all again!

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Posted By: Jenn Hollowell - Category: management

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Meet Sandy

November 29th 2007 07:02

Do you sometimes wish you had a personal assistant? Someone to send a quick e-mail to remind you of all the things you need to remember? Well, then it is time you met Sandy.

I met Sandy at the end of last week and thought I'd give her a go, just for fun. Now my only regret is that I haven't met Sandy earlier

[ Click here to read more ]

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Posted By: Sonya 1 - Category: management, miscellaneous

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